The movie took place in 1974, as a radio played Richard Nixon's resignation announcement during one scene.
Joan Allen was asked about her nude scene: "I told Campbell that I didn't think I'd be able to do that. And he was set up with the body double and then I told him to be prepared, that I probably would do it. So I ended up doing it. It was scheduled later into the shoot and after I had been in New Mexico for about a month I thought, "Oh I understand naked gardening now." Then I did in my penthouse in New York. In New York I was kind of like "I don't understand naked gardening with rattlesnakes and tarantulas." It didn't seem smart to me. But it was easier to do because it was not a sexual scene. I wouldn't be able to do a nude sex scene. Campbell said it would be very discreet; it'll be behind things. But you know you have to do it because the IRS agent gets blown out of the water seeing this woman just standing there, naked. It was difficult, but I'm glad that ultimately I did do it."
Joan Allen and Sam Elliott appeared in The Contender (2000).
The book they were reading from in the movie is: "Two Years Before the Mast" - a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834...