A Ghost Story is a 2017 American supernatural drama film written and directed by David Lowery. It stars Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Will Oldham, Sonia Acevedo, Rob Zabrecky, and Liz Franke. Affleck plays a man who becomes a ghost and remains in the house he shares with his wife (Mara).
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017, and was released by A24 on July 7, 2017.
Video A Ghost Story
Plot
A musician lives with his wife in a small house in Dallas, Texas. She wants to move, but he does not. One night, they hear a bang on their piano but cannot find the cause.
The husband is killed in a car accident in front of their house. At the hospital, his wife views his body and covers it with a sheet. The man awakens as a ghost covered in the sheet, and wanders through the hospital, invisible. He comes to a door of light, but turns away, and it closes. He returns to his house and watches his wife grieve as time passes. He sees another sheeted ghost inside the house next door; wordlessly, the ghost tells him that she is waiting for someone, but cannot remember who.
When the wife comes home with a man and kisses him, the ghost hurls books from the shelf and turns lights on and off. The wife listens to a song written by her husband. She decides to move out; before she leaves, she writes a note and hides it in a gap in a wall. The ghost picks at the wall but cannot retrieve the note.
A family moves in. The ghost watches them eat dinner, play piano, and celebrate Christmas. The children are bothered by his presence, and the family moves out after he hurls plates from the kitchen cabinet in anger. The second ghost continues to wait next door. At a party thrown by the next occupants, the ghost listens to a man describe his theories about how people try to create a legacy, but everything is ultimately destroyed. The partygoers notice the lights flicker.
The house becomes abandoned and derelict. As the ghost manages to remove a piece of the wall concealing the note, bulldozers level it and the house next door. The second ghost says she no longer thinks the person she is waiting for is coming, and vanishes.
The man's ghost watches as a skyscraper is built on the land. On the roof, he views a futuristic cityscape. He jumps from the edge and is transported to the 19th century, where a family of settlers are building a house. He watches as the family's young daughter writes a note and hides it under a rock. After the family is killed by Native Americans, the ghost watches the daughter decay into the grass.
Decades later, the ghost watches as his past self and wife move into the house. They argue about moving out. After the man tells his wife that he is ready to move out, the ghost sits at the piano, striking the keys and causing the noise that wakes the couple. As the wife moves out, the ghost sees his earlier ghost watching her leave. He manages to retrieve the note from the wall, reads it, and vanishes.
Maps A Ghost Story
Cast
- Casey Affleck as C
- Rooney Mara as M
- Will Oldham as Prognosticator
- Sonia Acevedo as Maria
- Rob Zabrecky as Pioneer Man
- Liz Franke as Linda
- Grover Coulson as Man in Wheelchair
- Kenneisha Thompson as Doctor
- Barlow Jacobs as Gentleman Caller
- McColm Sephas Jr. as Little Boy
- Kesha as Spirit Girl
Production
Development
During the spring of 2016, David Lowery began to write the screenplay for the film. He was scheduled for production after completing post-production on Pete's Dragon, his Disney live action film. Prior to this Lowery had wanted to "for a while" make a film featuring a man in a simple rudimentary ghost costume, telling Comingsoon.net, "I just loved that image. I love taking something that is understood to be funny or charming or sweet or naive and instilling it with some degree of gravity." Finally, the chance to use such a plot device came when he and his wife got in an argument about moving back to Texas. Lowery began to write down the argument "thinking about my own attachment to physical spaces." Combining both ideas he came up with the basic concept for the movie fairly quickly. Lowery also used the film to work through what he termed "An existential crisis" brought on by reading an article about the possibility of a catastrophic earthquake. Lowery said, "I was not feeling optimistic about the future of mankind. I felt the world was on its way to ending. The film became my way of dealing with those issues."
The project was officially announced in November 2016, confirming Mara and Affleck had been cast in the film. It was later revealed Kesha would appear in the film.
Affleck's costume was more difficult to deal with than Lowery was prepared for. At first the team attempted to simply use a normal bed sheet. They soon found that even a king-sized sheet would not fully cover a grown adult male. The final costume required Affleck to wear other garments in addition to the normal fabric. The team also found they had to resort to some "puppeteering" to keep the eyes in place. Beyond the practical constraints of the costume, Lowery also found the simple costume impeded on Affleck's ability to act, noting "every unique physical trait as a human being was pronounced and exaggerated by this sheet over his head." This did not give Lowery the results he wanted. Lowery eventually solved this problem by reducing the amount of movement so that "it became a matter of patience and posture and moving very specifically, slowly and rigidly." Some shots of the ghost, specifically those done during pickups or reshoots, do not use Affleck at all, instead replacing him with the film's art director, David Pink, who was found to have a similar build.
Filming
Principal photography began in June 2016. A majority of the film is set within a single house, which was chosen by Lowery because it closely resembled the first house he lived in with his wife. As the house was about to be demolished, the film crew were allowed to use it for free. The project was shot in secret as they did not know how the final product would turn out. Lowery chose to shoot the film in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, partially because he thought it was thematically appropriate for the film. "It's about someone basically trapped in a box for eternity," he stated, "and I felt the claustrophobia of that situation could be amplified by the boxiness of the aspect ratio."
Music
Daniel Hart composed the score for the film as another collaboration with David Lowery. It was released by Milan Records on July 7, 2017.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017. Prior to the festival, A24 acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film. It was released on July 7, 2017.
Box office
The film grossed $104,030 from four theaters in its opening weekend for an average per-location gross of $26,008, finishing 26th at the box office.
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 231 reviews, with a weighted average of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A Ghost Story deftly manages its ambitious themes through an inventive, artful, and ultimately poignant exploration of love and loss." On Metacritic, which assigns an average rating to reviews, the film holds a score of 84 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Peter Debruge of Variety gave the film a positive review, writing: "While Lowery's actual method of delivery may not be scary, it's sure to haunt those who open themselves up to the experience." David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review, writing: "A poetic meditation on time, memory and spiritual connection that is utterly true to its title." Eric Kohn for IndieWire gave the film an 'A' rating, calling it "an extraordinary mood piece that amounts to [Lowery's] best movie yet." Gary Thomposon of the Philadelphia Inquirer gave the film two and a half stars out of four and writing: "The movie is trippy and almost willfully opaque -- all I can say for sure is I left A Ghost Story feeling full."
Accolades
On September 9, 2017, the film won three awards at the 43rd Deauville American Film Festival - the Revelation prize, the Critics Prize and the Jury Prize. David Lowery was also nominated for the Grand Special Prize, although he didn't win.
On October 14, 2017, the film won two awards at the Catalonian International Film Festival; Best photography and the Carnet Jove Jury.
At the Fantasia Film Festival the film won the Camera Lucida Award.
References
External links
- A Ghost Story at Rotten Tomatoes
- A Ghost Story at Metacritic
- A Ghost Story on IMDb
- Official Website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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