Brandon Teena, like any troubled young man, finds comfort in getting up and getting out of town. However, unlike a typical young man, Brandon Teena is anatomically a woman. Boys Don't Cry is the fascinating true story of a sexual identity crisis and its unusual moments of both great happiness and unparalleled tragedy.
Director Kimberly Peirce, who spent 5 years researching the true story behind the film, strove to make each scene both interesting and powerful. The scene in which Brandon is pulled by the pickup truck (bumper skiing) was meant to pay homage to the car chicken scene in Rebel Without A Cause. The entire sequence actually took six hours to shoot and the attractive dark blue lighting behind brandon exists as an accident due to the swiftly rising sun. To make matters worse, the crew had to continually move their equipment because of a rainstorm that occurred the previous night, and the terrain was reduced to mud. Finally, with the interference of electrical wiring that ran above the field in which the scene took place, it was nearly impossible to get sound without the equipment and the already present wiring coming into conflict. All of that aside, the finished product is an example of beautiful cinematography and the film as whole is a masterpiece.
