David Lowery knows that youre probably going to laugh at the sheet. He did too, a little bit, when he first saw it. So did Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. Its a natural reaction, he says. You dont have to fight it. Get it out of your system. Or dont. There were days on the set of A Ghost Story, Lowerys experimental mood-piece-of-a-movie, where the 36-year-old director would look up and find himself face to face with an adult under a large white cloth with two black eyeholes, expecting to be told what to do, and even he would feel the urge to snicker.
And on other days, hed see a man who, only a handful of months later, would be up onstage accepting an Oscar but who, at that moment, looked like he was waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive, and then Lowery had to stifle the urge to cry. If I was making this movie with just friends, and not famous actors, maybe I would have felt less pressure, he says, sitting in a conference room in A24s New York office. But Ive got Casey Affleck walking around wearing a sheet, and I dont want him to look foolish. So, you know He trails off for a second, looking forlorn.
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What was supposed to be something that would take 10 days ended up being the most challenging thing Ive ever done, Lowery adds. And because of all of the things going on under the hood, it also ended up being the single most personal thing Ive ever done as well.
Its a testament to the directors vision that A Ghost Story not only gets past the absurdity factor of watching an Academy Award-winning star resemble a toddlers drawing of a spooky specter; it actually succeeds in making this sight one of the most sorrowful, poignant and moving visuals you will see in a movie theater this year, or possibly any year. A largely free-form mediation on mourning that begins with a car accident the one that shuffles a musician named C (Affleck) off this mortal coil and turns his girlfriend M (Rooney Mara) into a grief-stricken wreck and eventually incorporates real-time binge-eating, Blade Runner-esque dystopias and Will Oldham rhapsodizing about the apocalypse into its mix, Lowerys extraordinary work is nothing if not ambitious. But its the way he uses the ridicule-courting sight of the dead observing a living world go on without them that gives the film its power to break your heart.
He texted me: I wanna make a movie this summer, very small crew. Youll be a ghost under a sheet for most of it. Ill
explain later. I said, Im in.'
Casey Affleck
Its an image that Ive loved, thats amused me and confounded me for ages, Lowery admits. Because its simple, yet theres undeniably something very haunting about it. And its actually something Ive wanted to put in a movie for a long time. He points to several examples of how artists have used sheet-ghosts in intriguing, disturbing and downright subversive ways, from Patrick Daughters music video for Department of Eagles No One Does It Like You to the 2010 Spanish movie Finisterrae, which he found inspiring because of how they took this childlike thing out of the context of Halloween or, you know, a Charlie Brown special and found meaning in it. Lowery borrowed the visual for an animated short hed done as a sort of exercise back in 2011, and kept the idea of using it for something bigger on the backburner while his career as a writer, editor, cinematographer and director began to take off.
Then, deep into post-production on his 2016 live-action reimagining of Disneys Petes Dragon, Lowery began to get restless. It wasnt like he was bored working on a large, FX-filled studio film Quite the opposite, in fact; I loved doing Dragon, hes quick to point out. But hed been on the project for close to three years, and felt the need to get back on set: I just wanted to make another movie, something off the cuff. He recalled an argument that he and his wife had regarding whether to move from Los Angeles to Texas. Then the image of the man under the sheet came back. Everything just sort of congealed, or maybe combusted, right then, he says. Lowery sat down and wrote a 10-page script about a couple, a death and a spirit tied to a particular house. The next day, he expanded it to 30 pages. I have no idea what this is, he told his producing partners. But I think we should make it in the Lone Star State over the summer.
And partially because he liked the idea of returning to the same place hed shot his 2013 breakthrough movie Aint Them Bodies Saints,
Lowery sent what hed written to one of that films stars, Rooney Mara.
I wish you could see that script, she says. It read like this
incredible short story. But it was scary, because you immediately
thought, This is beautiful but how can you translate that beauty
into a movie? Is it even a movie at all? Then we talked, and he just
said, Look, it shouldnt take long, well do it in Texas and were
going to do this in secret. Were not telling anybody about this in case
it doesnt work. And I thought, Ok, this is beginning to sound more
and more exciting.
The next person Lowery reached out to was Maras Saints costar, Casey Affleck. It was a text, I think hold on, let me find it real quick, the actor says, calling in from Los Angeles. He begins to read over the phone: I wanna make a movie this summer, very small crew. Would love for you to be in it. Youll be a ghost under a sheet for most of it. Ill explain later.' Affleck laughs. I naturally texted him back immediately and said, Im in.'
We told our agents we were just doing a short, Lowery says. We kept it under wraps so that no one would pay attention to us. I didnt want it hitting the trades that the three of us were down in Texas making some mysterious movie. I didnt want anyone to have expectations or ask questions. Asked why, the filmmaker replies, Because I wanted to give us the chance to fail. And at first, I felt like there was an extremely high probability of that happening. He recounts days on set when Affleck, stuck in what was actually an elaborate costume (Theres this sort of dress that you put on underneath it, to make it move the right way when youre walking like the underpinnings of something youd wear in the 1800s, Mara says, laughing) would bump into walls and nearly trip over the bottom of his flowing ghost-sheet. Youve got Rooney pouring her heart out, he says, and then theres this dumb ghost behind her, and you think He puts his head in his hands, moaning.
Lowery would silently pray that his producers would pull the plug, feeling like he had summoned A-list actors and a loyal crew to work on something that was too high concept for its own good. I was prepared to bury it; because wed told nobody about it, I had that safety net. Everyone else could see that there was something there, however, and encouraged the director to keep everything going. After a few tweaks noticeably ixnaying the idea to do everything as a sequence of one-shot-only scenes Lowery said that flashes of the feeling he was going for begin to penetrate a crushing sense of self-doubt. Just when Id think this isnt working, Id film something that hit exactly the right note, he says. The early scenes of Casey and Rooney talking in bed together, before the car accident those worked immediately. The pie scene was another example. I knew there was something there even as we were doing it.
Yes, the pie scene the long sequence in A Ghost Story in which, still emotionally frayed over her beloveds death, M proceeds to consume an entire pie onscreen. And then, after C has silently observed her gorge, she rushes to the bathroom and gets violently ill, all in real time. Yeah, that was most definitely in the script he sent, Mara says. And it was one of the things that was most exciting to me about the film, to be honest. Because the way it was written, I knew itd be one long scene and that it would be tough. But it was such an interesting way to portray grief. According to Mara, they only did two takes Because theres only so much pie one human being can eat in a single sitting and, as numerousInternet articleshavebreathlessly crowed over the last week, it was the very first time shed ever tried the delicacy. Ive never been a big dessert fan, and I have no desire to ever eat another one again, she says, cracking up. Im a person of extremes all of nothing!
It wasnt until Lowery had begun editing everything together, he admits, that he realized that what hed shot especially the out-there sequences that make up the films mindblowing back half, which takes on the concept of time itself was more than just the sum of its parts. The fact that it does have this cumulative power, that it actually adds up to something quite unique, the director says. It surprised me. Because Id been thinking of it as this series of scenes wed done, and then the first time I sat down to watch the finished film, I He halts, then throws his hands up. I just started watching something that Id made with complete and utter objectivity. Thats never happened before. Not only that, but I found it working on me in a way that I had completely not anticipated. At all.
Still, he wasnt sure that he wanted A Ghost Story out in the world Lowery had asked the Sundance Film Festival for an extension in case he was able to finish before their final submissions were culled down, then decided he wasnt going to submit it at all. Then his agent saw a rough cut, and per Lowery, said, Dude, stop being an idiot. He convinced me to just send it in. Thank God he did. After the movies premiere last January, you could practically dissect the fest into before- and after-Ghost time frames between someone smirking at the idea of that Casey-Affleck-wears-a-ghost-sheet movie and that same person, damp eyes widened, exclaiming You have to see that Casey-Affleck-in-a-sheet movie stat!
Look, Im a very cynical person, Mara says, so it was easy to fall into the trap of Ha ha, what the hell is this? It had the potential to go wrong. But when someone makes something with as much sincerity as David did, thats not cheesy or clichd its hard to feel cynical about it. Almost everyone has lost someone they loved, or thought about death. And he somehow made this movie that allows you to think about these things in a totally different way from those somber dead-husband dramas where its one heavy scene after another. Its weird and funny and contemplative and whimsical. And I like the idea that someone you love is beside you, watching, even after theyve gone.
As for Lowery, hes happy that people have been connecting to this odd little thing hes made, even if hes slightly at a loss to explain why Ghost has struck such a chord with festival audiences leading up to its release. Im still figuring out my reaction to it, honestly, he admits. But I can say both making it and seeing it has helped me come to terms with a few
existential crises that Ive experienced in my own life. The idea of mortality, where we fit in the universe everyone thinks about these things.
And in some way, this movie taps into those common fears and worries
and comforts that we go through as we grapple with those questions.
And the man beneath the sheet? It was the best experience Ive ever had making a movie, Affleck says. It totally changed the way I think about my life, crafting a performance and what actors do. Everyone should make a movie in which theyre under a sheet at least once in their career.
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