Seven Years in Tibet (1997)

Seven Years in Tibet

Seven Years in Tibet, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud from Becky Johnston's adaptation of Heinrich Harrer's memoir, was released by TriStar Pictures in October 1997. Brad Pitt plays Harrer, the Austrian climber interned by the British in India at the outbreak of the Second World War, who escapes with Peter Aufschnaiter, played by David Thewlis, crosses into Tibet and becomes a tutor to the young 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa. A wristwatch is a plot object twice over: it is bartered for food at a border bazaar, and returned as a gift years later. (IMDb)

Watches

Omega (unidentified model)

Worn by Brad Pitt as Heinrich Harrer. This is a documented case of an actor's own choice overriding the production's. Montres de Luxe records a gold Omega chronograph on Pitt. (Montres de Luxe) The fuller account comes from James M. Dowling, the vintage dealer who supplied the film's watches through prop master Jimmy Chow: the intended "hero watch," Harrer's gift from his father, was first specified as an 18k Rolex ref. 4500 two-dial Oyster chronograph, which Dowling warned was made roughly fifteen years after the climb it was supposed to commemorate; when the producers demanded duplicates of every watch for continuity, that plan collapsed and two silver Mk1 cushion Oysters were supplied instead, gold-plated with enamel dials. Dowling watched the finished film and found Pitt wearing a gold Omega he had admired on a crew member's wrist, having decided the cushion Oyster was not, in Dowling's report of it, butch enough. (TimeZone, posted by James M. Dowling, 12 April 1998) Neither source names a model or reference for the Omega, and no frame resolves one, so the brand is as far as the evidence reaches. The Rolex that was hired and never used is production history, not an appearance.

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