by Leaddog » Sat Feb 01, 2020 3:03 pm
Actually, not terribly hard to figure out when it was Martin and when it was Willem Dafoe when you remember that Willem Dafoe is 64 yrs old and had never driven a dog team before meeting Martin on the set. Thus, pretty much any scene in which the dog team is moving at more than a trot likely has Martin actually driving the sled. And although Dafoe did a decent job of learning how to drive a sled, he didn't get enough practice to really move smoothly with the sled so if you watch closely, you can see two different styles: one that is somewhat stiff (Dafoe) and one that is smooth and looks like he's been doing it for nearly 4 decades (Buser).
The scenery was pretty amazing, but in many instances it wasn't terribly accurate if you are familiar with far western Alaska. But there was accuracy where it counted - the first time I watched it and heard the ice booming as Seppala starts across Norton Sound on the way to Shaktoolik, I got goose bumps. If you've never heard that before, it is totally spooky - even more so when you learn what it means: when the Norton Sound ice starts to break up, it goes out FAST. I recall playing a round of minigolf on it in Nome during one of the Iditarod finishes one evening, and when I woke up the following morning, there was nothing but seawater as far as the eye could see.