A GHOST STORY
US, 2017, 90 minutes, Colour.
Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara.
Directed by David Lowery.
Here is, definitely, a film to test audience responses and loyalties.
A ghost story is usually about spectres and hauntings and there is something of that here, including a book called A Haunted House, falling to the floor and audiences glimpsing some descriptions. But, this is not really that kind of film. And for those expecting it, with some excitement and horror to boot, they will be very disappointed and may well not last the distance (or even the first half hour).
A ghost story can also be a story about a ghost. And, on the surface, this is what that film is.
However, writer-director, David Lowery, seems to have been over-dosing on some of Terence Mallik’s films, especially The Tree of Life, and is more interested in a cosmic exploration of the universe, of history, of time and relativity, of the meaning of life, than in providing any chills.
The basic situation is set up very slowly, a musical composer, Casey Affleck, and his wife, Rooney Mara, packing up and perhaps moving from their house. A clue is given when there is a very long sequence showing Rooney Mara carrying a chest out of the house, along a long the path, across the grass, to put it with other stuff from the house. Then, almost immediately, a scene showing the husband dead in front of the car, the windscreen smashed.
The husband is the ghost. One wonders why the decision was made to have him appear in the conventional, somewhat comic, disguise of a sheet (he arises from his hospital gurney) with two holes for eyes. For many it will be too reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, Casper the friendly ghost as well as the mask for the villain of the Scream series. For most of the film this ghostly apparition lurks around the house – seeing a similar spectre with a sheet of floral design in a house opposite, waiting for someone to arrive.
The big test for an audience’s patience and attention is the wife coming in, being given a gift of a pie by a friendly neighbour and her beginning to eat it, sit on the floor, and continue to eat it, continue eating, more eating (giving inquisitive audiences time to wonder what kind of pie it is and for how long Rooney Mara had not been eating so that she could devour the pie in this very long single take).
At this stage, audiences will realise that they are being asked to be quiet, calm, reflective, contemplative – and many will not be willing.
Then, suddenly, the ghost observes different people in the house, a Hispanic mother with her children disturbed by of some poltergeist activity when the ghost angrily destroys crockery. Then there is a party with a character sitting at a table, speaking a monologue, speculating on the meaning of life, on the meaning of the universe, on human destiny… Quite a long speech which reassures the remaining audience that this is speculation about the meaning of the cosmos and existence.
The theme of the film is the ghostly presence for the future – with the demolition of the house, the building of a huge plant on the site, and the futuristic glance at a Cosmopolis in the vein of Blade Runner. But there is a ghostly presence in the past, going back to the site, a pioneer family with a wagon, the remnants of an attack by the Indians.
And back to where the couple started, moving in, his compositions, the piano, … the differences and the difficulties.
It would seem that this is a kind of cosmic purgatorial experience for the ghost.
1. The title, expectations? Different expectations? The serious tone? The narrative? The pace?
2. The settings, the variety of the musical score and instruments? The piano and the composition? The home, interiors and exteriors, later, home occupied, demolished?
3. The vision of the future? The vision of the past?
4. The situation, the marriage, the man and the woman, life together, the compositions, his intensity, her response, growing distant? The suddenness of his death? Her grief, his being in the hospital, rising from the gurney, the sheet? The attempt to re-connect?
5. The director’s decision about the sheet, reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, of Casper, of the ghost mask in Scream series? The sheet, the holes for the eyes? The ghost standing round, sitting, listening – and the outburst with the crockery?
6. The director’s decision about the pace, editing, the very long takes, the wife listening to the music, the man at the computer can posing, carrying out the chest, the eating of the pie?
7. The wife sad, the audience seeing her go in and out of the house, the neighbour with the pie, the long take of the eating the pie? The ghost watching?
8. The move into the future, the Hispanic family, the mother, the children, their playing, the meal, the poltergeist effect of the breaking of the crockery? The emotions of the ghost?
9. The party, the range of types, drinking, discussion change of pace?
10. The speaker, his monologue, confidence and sure, his questions, life, meaning, purpose, death, the cosmos and creation – and leading to theistic questions and considerations? The effect of this on the audience, for reflection, for contemplation?
11. The future, the demolishing of the house, ghost watching, the building of the huge plant, the building of this the buildout of the city, the futuristic Cosmopolis?
12. Going back into the past, the site, the settlor measuring out the land, American history, pioneers, the family, the horse and cart, the children playing, the Indians and the spectre of death, skeletons, corruption?
13. The ghost returning to the house, his continued chipping at the wood? Watching the past, composing, the wife listening, remembering, the bump on the piano?
14. The ghost, satisfied, leaving and the collapse of the sheet?
15. The circularity of time, relative?
16. The ghost, ghostly life, death and being dead, the purgatorial journey?
