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Film 969: The Place Beyond the Pines

Trivia: Much of the filming for this movie was done on location in Schenectady, New York. The title comes from the name of the city of Schenectady, which is the Mohawk word for "beyond the pine plains."

According to Ryan Gosling, all his bank robbery scenes were done in one take.

According to director Derek Cianfrance, he met with Ryan Gosling at his agent's home in 2007 while working on Blue Valentine. He asked Ryan Gosling (paraphrased), "You've done so much already, what is there in life you haven't done that you want to do?" Ryan Gosling responded that he has always wanted to rob a bank. "What has kept you from robbing a bank?" Being arrested. "And how would you go about robbing a bank?" Ryan Gosling described robbing a bank on a motorcycle because it is fast and agile, and the helmet would conceal his identity, then stashing the motorcycle in the back of a truck because the police would be looking for the motorcycle. Derek Cianfrance responded that he was actually writing a screenplay about a bank robber in exactly that way, and he felt that Ryan Gosling was meant to play this role.

Director Derek Cianfrance claims that he would not have made the movie without Bradley Cooper cast as Avery Cross. In fact, he drove 5 hours to Toronto to meet with Cooper in person to convince him to take the role. Cianfrance says he did write the role for Cooper - "a guy who's paraded around as a hero but inside feels corrupted."

In the opening track shot scene, several assistant directors actually appear on the fairground wearing Dr. Seuss hats. They were instructed to distract the extras into not looking at the camera and at a shirtless Ryan Gosling walking into the a circus tent. The shot was conceived by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt who wanted to have it as a way to teach the audience watching the movie.

Two months before filming, Andrij Parekh, who shot Blue Valentine, refused to do the film largely because of the Globe of Death stunt in the opening. According to Derek Cianfrance, Parekh spoke to him on the phone saying he refused to do the film because he had dream that he would be killed during filming. This nearly became a reality though as during the filming of the stunt, cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was nearly killed but was instead knocked unconscious when a motorcycle landed on top of him despite wearing heavy protection gear and helmet after filming the second take of the stunt inside the cage.

Derek Cianfrance shot 22 takes of Ryan Gosling performing the stunt of speeding the motorcycle past the intersection before 36 cars crashed into one another. Cianfrance originally wanted a stunt double to do it but could not hide the stuntman. He also noted that for each take until Gosling finally got it right, he chewed his shirt in nervousness until there was a hole in it by the time the stunt was over.

Robin tells Luke "If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder." In many scenes, Luke is seen wearing a T-Shirt with artwork from the Metallica album, "Ride the Lightning."