Take Shelter

Few days ago I`ve been watching the movie "Take Shelter" from Jeff Nicholson.

The story about, Curtis, a housefather which one day start having dreams about a big storm coming.
During the following days he start to have daydreams and visions about strange flying flocks of birds, storms and lightning in the sky.
Those vision wont` go away to the point he will start to consider himself mental.
He will start building a shelter for himself and his family, wile all the people around him are worrying about his mental health.
Curtis will face his fears and concerns and with him we are carried into shifting many times around the idea of him being either a nut or a prophet.
I found the photography simply amazing in his pureness, and the slow peace of the movie helps us entering Curtis world.

IMO Definitely a must see!

Here is the link to the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5U4TtYpKIc

Hope you`ll enjoy
 
Intothefield said:
Few days ago I`ve been watching the movie "Take Shelter" from Jeff Nicholson.

The story about, Curtis, a housefather which one day start having dreams about a big storm coming.
During the following days he start to have daydreams and visions about strange flying flocks of birds, storms and lightning in the sky.
Those vision wont` go away to the point he will start to consider himself mental.
He will start building a shelter for himself and his family, wile all the people around him are worrying about his mental health.
Curtis will face his fears and concerns and with him we are carried into shifting many times around the idea of him being either a nut or a prophet.
I found the photography simply amazing in his pureness, and the slow peace of the movie helps us entering Curtis world.

IMO Definitely a must see!

Here is the link to the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5U4TtYpKIc

Hope you`ll enjoy

I do agree, I saw this film too, beautifully realised, with sensitive meanings from where I am. I could look at it another time soon, because it deserves it by exploring our own fears and how they can work for or against us.

I trully recommend it and hope you will enjoy it too. The end is 'surprising' !
 
Watched this one recently, and yeah it's pretty good!

Portrays social and familial reactions to the sharing of 'weird' dreams and general high strangeness quite well. I.e the matrix. In a practical sense it shows you how limited and restrictive society is, bunch of rules forced upon us to shut our eyes over objectivity.

Curtis is acted real well and the dynamics of the family are realistic OSIT.

The 'ending' is definitely interesting! Recommended! :)
 
I just found this movie yesterday and bought it, didnt have the time to see it, but definitely I´ll do tonight. ;D
 
I watched this recently too and would also recommend it. The issues of the main character Curtis are sensitively portrayed and the reactions of those around him, family, neighbours, 'friends' etc are interesting. Alot of it is mirrored in my own life, coming to terms with 'high strangeness', extreme weather dreams and sense of wanting to protect my loved ones, based on knowledge of earth changes etc (SOTT rocks!!).

Better to be prepared - for what may be - than not be I feel :)

I loved the ending - so well filmed!!! :)
 
I found this interview with the film's director, Jeff Nichols, which I found quite interesting. He was trying to express his anxiety through the story and it's characters. It reminded me somewhat of a Gabor Mate video, where he talked about the importance of our environment. Our bodies are the 'environment' for all our repressed emotions - as within, so without; as I understand it anyway. The main character, Curtis, is wracked with his fearful visions - but still acts on his intuition essentially to protect his loved ones against a 'fear' he does not understand. Yet he trusts in the process, as it were, despite the ridicule of those around him and his own self-doubts.


SCOPE: In the film, both of these anxieties as you refer to them—the free-floating kind, the personal kind—seem to be simultaneously metaphorical and organic.

NICHOLS: The key reason for this may be because I’m struck by images that somehow stick and don’t go away. In Shotgun Stories, I had an image of a man with shotgun pellets in his back. I don’t know where that came from. For Take Shelter, I had an image of a man standing over an open storm shelter. As I was working through those issues about anxiety, I was also working out this image. I grew up in Arkansas, and if the sky was clear on Wednesday, they would test the storm sirens. We grew up with a sense that things could get dangerous quickly with storms blowing through. If you think about the storms fully, they’re a form of nature. I don’t think of character as protagonists and antagonists. Nature is the best kind of villain since it has no malice, it simply is. That to me is far more terrifying, and ties in to that free-floating anxiety of things you have no control over. Storms seemed to me like a perfect way of visually expressing fears. Besides, I’m a sucker for clouds and it seemed like an interesting way to go visually.

http://cinema-scope.com/cinema-scope-magazine/interviews-take-shelter-jeff-nichols-age-of-anxiety/


Also, the form of shelter - a shipping container is mentioned here:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,34694.msg491073.html#msg491073
 
Anam Cara said:
I found this interview with the film's director, Jeff Nichols, which I found quite interesting. He was trying to express his anxiety through the story and it's characters. It reminded me somewhat of a Gabor Mate video, where he talked about the importance of our environment. Our bodies are the 'environment' for all our repressed emotions - as within, so without; as I understand it anyway. The main character, Curtis, is wracked with his fearful visions - but still acts on his intuition essentially to protect his loved ones against a 'fear' he does not understand. Yet he trusts in the process, as it were, despite the ridicule of those around him and his own self-doubts.


SCOPE: In the film, both of these anxieties as you refer to them—the free-floating kind, the personal kind—seem to be simultaneously metaphorical and organic.

NICHOLS: The key reason for this may be because I’m struck by images that somehow stick and don’t go away. In Shotgun Stories, I had an image of a man with shotgun pellets in his back. I don’t know where that came from. For Take Shelter, I had an image of a man standing over an open storm shelter. As I was working through those issues about anxiety, I was also working out this image. I grew up in Arkansas, and if the sky was clear on Wednesday, they would test the storm sirens. We grew up with a sense that things could get dangerous quickly with storms blowing through. If you think about the storms fully, they’re a form of nature. I don’t think of character as protagonists and antagonists. Nature is the best kind of villain since it has no malice, it simply is. That to me is far more terrifying, and ties in to that free-floating anxiety of things you have no control over. Storms seemed to me like a perfect way of visually expressing fears. Besides, I’m a sucker for clouds and it seemed like an interesting way to go visually.

http://cinema-scope.com/cinema-scope-magazine/interviews-take-shelter-jeff-nichols-age-of-anxiety/


Also, the form of shelter - a shipping container is mentioned here:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,34694.msg491073.html#msg491073

Thank you Anam Cara for the input, giving me the will to show it again after several months for my first time.
And I think you could be right about what Gabé says about our environment. It defines us more than what we could expect. Ideas do not come from anywhere...

And I would say that our external environment, or epigenetic, has a big impact (positive and/or negative - depends of how it is understood - both are necessary for balancing I guess) on our internal environment, aka the "Field", or our immunizing system. Without even talk about genetic...
 
And I would say that our external environment, or epigenetic, has a big impact (positive and/or negative - depends of how it is understood - both are necessary for balancing I guess) on our internal environment, aka the "Field", or our immunizing system. Without even talk about genetic...


Yes MK Scarlett, I think you could be right about that. I have only started reading 'When the body says no', but feel that this film may be relevant in highlighting some of the mind/body connections. I watched it again last night and saw a lot more than after I first viewed it. For instance, the fact that Curtis aged 10, was abandoned by his mother, who was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (in her early 30's) - and how he began to have his terrifying visions and associated physical pains at a similar age - perhaps having suppressed the fear that he may have inherited that form of mental illness also?

Anyway, even from the observations of the various relationships; and the instinctive need to build a shelter, to protect his loved ones from a threat that may or may not be there - it is a powerful film I feel, with many potential lessons. fwiw. :)

Below are more comments from the director.



Anxiety is born out of having something to lose.

When I began writing TAKE SHELTER in the summer of 2008, I was in the middle of my first year of marriage. Although both my career and personal life were on a positive track, I had a nagging feeling that the world at large was heading for harder times. This free-floating anxiety was part economic, part just growing up, but it mainly came from the fact that I finally had things in my life that I didn't want to lose. All of these feelings filtered directly into the characters of this film.

TAKE SHELTER follows Curtis LaForche, a working class husband and father, as he deals with the panic that arises from a series of terrifying dreams. For Curtis, these dreams are either harbingers of a supernatural storm, or early symptoms of something he's feared his entire life. Curtis' strongest, most immediate reaction is to protect his family, his wife Samantha and their six-year-old daughter Hannah. The question for Curtis becomes, what is he protecting them from, the storm or himself?

I wrote TAKE SHELTER because I believed there was a feeling out in the world that was palpable. It was an anxiety that was very real in my life, and I had the notion it was very real in the lives of other Americans as well as other people around the world. This film was a way for me to talk about that fear and that anxiety. I hope there is an answer to this feeling by the end of the film. I believe there is, and it's the reason that this wonderful group of people came together to help me make TAKE SHELTER.

-Jeff Nichols

http://www.sonyclassics.com/takeshelter/main.html#director
 
I also watched this movie quite awhile ago now. Thinking back it was probably because of this thread. What a good movie, and the lead actor does a such a great job. It was almost mesmerizing for me watching him, and this whole movie. I have seen him in other films that are remarkable in some ways as well. One that was sort of interesting was called My son my son what have ye done. It was only interesting because it was a true story. Makes a person wonder.
 
I liked very much this movie and I will see it again, after reading your comments. I like it because it is the story of one man who is "aware" of something, something he tries to understand, a pulse, inside him and outside him also. Everything is talking to him: his dreams and nightmares, the weather, the nature, the silence, and specially his solitude. He is the only one who feels that something is happening. So he is a very interesting character.
 
I saw this movie for the first time in 2012 I believe, and I remember it impacting me. I watched it again last year in October or November I believe.

Anam Cara said:
The issues of the main character Curtis are sensitively portrayed and the reactions of those around him, family, neighbours, 'friends' etc are interesting. Alot of it is mirrored in my own life, coming to terms with 'high strangeness', extreme weather dreams and sense of wanting to protect my loved ones, based on knowledge of earth changes etc (SOTT rocks!!) .

I agree, I thought the actor Michael Shannon carried off this role very well, pretty powerful and convincing performance. Especially in the way the actor conveyed the character's sense of anxiety and self-doubt at something felt but not completely tangible. I find it has also been mirroring my life in ways, similar to what you mentioned above Anam Cara, and in other ways-much more now than in 2012 when I originally watched it.

Also, read the article of the interview with director Jeff Nichols-was an interesting read. Thanks for posting the link.
 
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