The screaming match between Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in the Netflix movie Marriage Story is being used to frighten wolves in the US – yes, really.
The Oscar-nominated Noah Baumbach movie came out in 2019 and follows the messy divorce between Charlie and Nicole Barber, with one particular scene – a shouting showdown between the two of them – regularly making the social media rounds.
In case you need your memory jogging – Adam Driver punches the wall in a rage.
Little did we know, however, that soon Scar Jo’s tears would transcend art and be implemented by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to scare off wolves who had been killing cattle and, further, tame livestock.
‘I need the wolves to respond and know that, hey, humans are bad,’ USDA Oregon district supervisor Paul Wolf told the Wall Street Journal about the utterly wild strategy.
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The sounds of the fictional fight are deployed via loudspeakers attached to drones across the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon after 11 cows were killed over a 20-day period – with officials already seeing results.
The emotionally gut-wrenching scene is mixed in with a variety of other sounds, such as fireworks, gunshots, and even playing songs like AC/DC’s Thunderstruck and Five Finger Death Punch’s tune Blue on Black.
According to the official website, the USDA’s purpose is to ‘provide leadership on food, agriculture, nutrition, and other issues based on public policy, available science, and effective management.’
No doubt, this is one of the more unconventional methods they have rolled out as part of the practice of ‘wolf hazing’.
Since grey wolves are an endangered species, the drones provide a hands-off way to deter the deadly creatures without physically harming them.
(No comment on the emotional impact of hearing the tearjerking scene.)
The Jurassic World: Rebirth star reacted to the fight scene for Vanity Fair, calling the quips swapped between Nicole and Charlie ‘so brutal’.
‘Noah had such a specific idea of how he wanted to shoot this and then he had edited it in his mind. It’s interesting even now watching it I am paying more attention to what shots he chose.
‘It’s such an interesting composition this fight scene. So carefully constructed.’
Reflecting more on what the experience was like shooting the iconic scene, she explained that they were ‘just in the truth of what they were doing’ and it was shot over several days because the re-did the scene ‘so many times’.
‘We probably had the fight in its entirety 40 times, maybe more, like 50 times – more than that even when I think about it.’
Marriage Story is available to stream on Netflix.
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