How It Goes

Here's what we do. We watch The Age of Innocence. Happily, Boris saves us from becoming too wrapped up in the plot by producing noxious...never mind. We have this conversation:

M: "When is this?"
F: "The 1890s, I think."
M: "Can't be. Look at the phone."
F: "The phone was around!"
M: "No!"

[consult teh interwebs: Bell publicly demonstrated his phone in 1876, but no one can tell us when most people had one or when you could call New York from Chicago, as the young Ted Archer does.]

M: "Ok, what about those cars? That's not 1890s."
F: "Yeah, but look at the hemlines. Not the teens!"
M: "But the cars!"
F: "But the costumes!"

[consult teh interwebs: Cars were developed in Europe by men like Benz as early as the 1860s, so it's possible. But they don't look like those cars. An IMDB message board suggests that they might be French cars from the 1900s, but then what about those hemlines??]

[consult teh interwebs again: Some sources say that Newland Archer goes to Paris with Ted 25 or 26 years after Ellen leaves New York. That was about 1873, so 26 years later would be...1899! But Ted says he's sailing on the RMS Mauretania, which first sailed in...1906! Good heavens.]

M: "Well, it's Scorsese."
F: "Yeah."
M: "Maybe he was just not that accurate."
F: "Yeah, maybe it was more about the story."
M: "Just how accurate was Gangs of New York?"
F: "Uh....not at all. Not in the least."

End scene.