TAKE SHELTER/MELANCHOLIA

This is my version of how the two trailers for Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)...and Melancholia ( Lars Von Trier) can be screened as one....I edited them after seeing Take Shelter.... both films with similar themes for paranoid Americans and the wider world ,sounding and looking unified.


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TAKE  SHELTER REVIEW

(Tim Francis)

This is a 2011 drama/thriller written and directed by Jeff Nichols.

Starring Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain and Shea Whigham.

The storyline is simply portrayed with Curtis, (Michael Shannon ) a protective and caring family man, experiencing bad dreams and what may or not be, hallucinations. He eventually assumes he is suffering from a mental illness and sets about building an expensive storm shelter at the back of his house to protect his wife and deaf daughter, from an impending typhoon-type catastrophe. This causes problems with his wife and working colleagues and is fired from his job for using equipment without permission. Resulting in the financial and emotional meltdown of his family.. Samantha ,his wife (Jessica Chastain)  and Hannah (Tova Stewart , deaf also in real life)…and his friend Dewart (Shea Whigham).

 The tension etched by the soundtrack and eerie visuals lead us through this  part horror/art-movie in an unsettling way. The viewer is rooting for Curtis to share his paranoia and apocalyptic visions with someone.. There is always a lot going on behind his eyes in a slow methodical mental anxiety conveying the fear of some impending doom.. This slow-burn parable of a film guards it’s mysteries  in a way that unleashes the  metaphorical cultural fall-out of America’s financial collapse ,in equal measure with a sense of widespread fear that is gripping the world’s consciousness. The dire appeal of  Nichol’s second feature  ( a disciple of the Terrence Malick school ) is not the disturbing , portrait of one man’s descent into madness, but the palpable sense of danger from a sense of not knowing exactly what it is and sharing the dread.  Trading on Americas biggest vice….Fear…The current anxieties  about climate change and financial collapse and the End Times of the Mayan calendar angst will surely result in a series of low-budget ,deep ,.paranoid movies. …Of which this reviewer has many works-in-progress…………THERE’S A STORM-A-COMINGGGGGGGGGGGGGG…….

TAKE SHELTER

TAKE  SHELTER REVIEW

(Tim Francis) Jan 2012

This is a 2011 drama/thriller written and directed by Jeff Nichols.

Starring Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain and Shea Whigham.

The storyline is simply portrayed with Curtis, (Michael Shannon ) a protective and caring family man, experiencing bad dreams and what may or not be, hallucinations. He eventually assumes he is suffering from a mental illness and sets about building an expensive storm shelter at the back of his house to protect his wife and deaf daughter, from an impending typhoon-type catastrophe. This causes problems with his wife and working colleagues and is fired from his job for using equipment without permission. Resulting in the financial and emotional meltdown of his family.. Samantha ,his wife (Jessica Chastain)  and Hannah (Tova Stewart , deaf also in real life).

 The tension etched by the soundtrack and eerie visuals lead us through this  part horror/art-movie in an unsettling way. The viewer is rooting for Curtis to share his paranoia and apocalyptic visions with someone.. There is always a lot going on behind his eyes in a slow methodical mental anxiety conveying the fear of some impending doom.. This slow-burn parable of a film guards it’s mysteries  in a way that unleashes the  metaphorical cultural fall-out of America’s financial collapse ,in equal measure with a sense of widespread fear that is gripping the world’s consciousness. The dire appeal of  Nichol’s second feature  ( a disciple of the Terrence Malick school ) is not the disturbing , portrait of one man’s descent into madness, but the palpable sense of danger from a sense of not knowing exactly what it is and sharing the dread.  Trading on Americas biggest vice….Fear…The current anxieties  about climate change and financial collapse and the End Times of the Mayan calendar angst will surely result in a series of low-budget ,deep ,.paranoid movies. …Of which this reviewer has many works-in-progress…………THERE’S A STORM-A-COMINGGGGGGGGGGGGGG…….

Psycho

Hitchcock, A.(1960) Psycho   is one of the most well loved films in the history of cinema. It stars Janet leigh who plays Marion Crane, a woman who after a series of events envolving a lot of money, hides in a motel owned by the Bates, a family consisting of Norman Bates and his mother. After a argument between the family, Norman tells Marion that the only way to escape the private trap of her mother would to be to take responsibility of the money she had stolen.

The most notible moment of Voyerism would be when Norman watches Marion undress through a peephole, quite similar to Michael Douglass watching Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Both male characters are getting increasingly obsessed with the females of there respective films.

It is interesting to note the overall 'mastermind' of the household being Norman's Mother. She does not like Marion staying with them, and would hate for Norman to be involved with this woman.It is very cleverly laid out that the audience has the Mother's pressence felt throughout the scene.

Single White Female

Heres the full movie of a classic thriller a review of this unbelievable art work will follow .

Schroeder, B.(1992) Single White Female

More voyeuristic images...posted by Tim Francis

American Beauty

Mendes, S (1999) American Beauty...makes us active viewers by exploiting our voyeurism nature...Sam Mendes directs this movie in such a way that we are not shamed to be the voyeurs ...and the repeated use of a video camera througout validates the obsession with a need to project an image and that someone is always watching.

Blue Velvet

Lynch, D. (1986 ) Blue Velvet ...is about peeking behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a world of sex, voyeurism, sadism and madness.