"God's Own Country" is what Yorkshire calls itself. And while I might quibble with them (coming from Durham, the next county north) the moors are bleakly gorgeous (just not as bleakly gorgeous as Durham's).
I do not want to sound as though I am well, actually-ing your comment; I appreciate you making sure that I catch the nuance. I did know that about Yorkshire and I do think it's intended to be read skeptically-ironically at first. A lot of the early scenes go toward establishing that whatever the region calls itself or however it looks to anyone else, to Johnny it's a cold, damp, slogging place where he's trapped and there's nothing of beauty in it for him. Shots are aggressively close-framed, downcast and tunnel-visioned. You get a lot of wet grass and mud and not a lot of skies. The hillsides always seem to be shouldering in. Even wider views look like something you can't get out of, can't see beyond. The cinematography only starts to ease up, open up, when Johnny begins to perceive the land as Gheorghe does, cherishing it, not shutting it out. And then it's not some sudden blaze of tourist postcards, it's still this sharp, strange, bracken-boned country full of winds and rain-clouds, but it is country that is loved and that changes how we are meant to see it. Till then, through Johnny's eyes, it's just something to endure.
Definitely an ethnic slur, as is the reaction to it. Attitudes to gypsies are pretty ugly in this country, and they're a lot worse in Romania.
It's considered a slur here, too. Not formally as far as I can tell, but Romani Americans have been as clear as Gheorghe about not wanting to be called that. The original wording of that line was "if it were not recognized by Lee's screenplay as an ethnic slur," but I thought that was clunky and substituted the current form, which maybe I should not have.
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Thank you!
"God's Own Country" is what Yorkshire calls itself. And while I might quibble with them (coming from Durham, the next county north) the moors are bleakly gorgeous (just not as bleakly gorgeous as Durham's).
I do not want to sound as though I am well, actually-ing your comment; I appreciate you making sure that I catch the nuance. I did know that about Yorkshire and I do think it's intended to be read skeptically-ironically at first. A lot of the early scenes go toward establishing that whatever the region calls itself or however it looks to anyone else, to Johnny it's a cold, damp, slogging place where he's trapped and there's nothing of beauty in it for him. Shots are aggressively close-framed, downcast and tunnel-visioned. You get a lot of wet grass and mud and not a lot of skies. The hillsides always seem to be shouldering in. Even wider views look like something you can't get out of, can't see beyond. The cinematography only starts to ease up, open up, when Johnny begins to perceive the land as Gheorghe does, cherishing it, not shutting it out. And then it's not some sudden blaze of tourist postcards, it's still this sharp, strange, bracken-boned country full of winds and rain-clouds, but it is country that is loved and that changes how we are meant to see it. Till then, through Johnny's eyes, it's just something to endure.
Definitely an ethnic slur, as is the reaction to it. Attitudes to gypsies are pretty ugly in this country, and they're a lot worse in Romania.
It's considered a slur here, too. Not formally as far as I can tell, but Romani Americans have been as clear as Gheorghe about not wanting to be called that. The original wording of that line was "if it were not recognized by Lee's screenplay as an ethnic slur," but I thought that was clunky and substituted the current form, which maybe I should not have.