53rd San Francisco International Film Festival 22 April - 6 May 2010
FILMS/
GET LOW
Tributes
USA, 2009, 102 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Fri, Apr 30 / 7:30 / Castro / AWAR30C
CREDITS
- dir
-
Aaron Schneider
- prod
-
Dean Zanuck, David Gundlach
- scr
-
Chris Provenzano, C. Gaby Mitchell
- cam
-
David Boyd
- editor
-
Aaron Schneider
- mus
-
Jan A.P. Kaczamarek
- cast
-
Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black, Gerald McRaney, Bill Cobbs
- source
-
Sony Pictures Classics, 550 Madison Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022. EMAIL: sony_classics@spe.sony.com.
Three legendary Hollywood iconoclasts—Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek—anchor this Depression-era Southern-flavored tale of a Tennessee backwoods outcast who decides to throw his own funeral—while still alive. For over four decades the wily, much-feared hermit Felix Bush (Duvall) has been living alone in the wilds guarding his privacy with a few well-placed “No Damn Trespassing” signs and, when those don’t work, a few better-placed shotgun blasts. One day, however, he hops on his mule and heads back into town, looking for a preacher to help him “get low,” or down to the business of getting buried. The catch? He’d like to be alive, so he can hear what people have to say. A well-oiled funeral director (Murray) sees an opportunity to help an old man out (or to make money), even going so far as to sell raffle tickets to the “big event,” with the winner getting the hermit’s land—once, of course, he’s really dead. Between funerals and other parties, Felix also must attend to some matters of his past, specifically his relationship to an old flame (Spacek). Shot in Georgia and rich with Southern myths and culture, Get Low combines gorgeous lensing and impeccable attention to period detail with a witty script by C. Gaby Mitchell and Mad Men’s Chris Provenzano. Sly, warm and comfortable in taking its own sweet time, the film benefits most of all from its fabulous cast, with Duvall shining spectacularly.
Presented with support from Arlene Inch.
