{"id":1691,"date":"2010-09-03T09:08:55","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T17:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2010-09-03T09:08:55","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T17:08:55","slug":"get-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2010\/09\/get-low\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessing a Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When I get around to creating my list of the most spiritually significant films of 2010, Get Low<\/em> will certainly be included and will most likely top the list.\u00a0 My review of one of the best films you\u2019re likely to see this year after the jump.<\/p>\n

Get Low<\/em><\/a> tells the story of Felix Bush (Robert Duvall<\/a>), an old hermit who has built a cabin in the woods and shut himself off from the world for over 40 years.\u00a0 It is clear that a tragic event from his past haunts him but neither the audience nor the folks who live around Felix know exactly what it is until the end of the film.\u00a0 Stories and rumors pass among the townspeople\u2026some say he killed a man, others imply that he harmed women and children as they warn him to stay away from them when he rarely wanders into town.\u00a0 One day, Felix decides that he wants to be present (alive) at his funeral and sets about planning it.\u00a0 What he really wants is an end-of-life party in which everyone who has a story about him is invited to tell it and which will conclude with him telling his own story after\u00a0 all these years.\u00a0 When Felix visits Rev. Gus Horton (Gerald McRaney<\/a>) to request his services, Rev. Horton refuses, but Buddy (Lucas Black<\/a>), a funeral director, overhears his plan and rushes to tell his colleague\/boss, Frank Quinn (Bill Murray<\/a>).\u00a0 Quinn Funeral Home is a struggling business, and Frank laments that people around the town aren\u2019t dying fast enough\u2026at least not like the folks in Chicago, for example, who know how to die quickly and in a variety of ways.\u00a0 The film follows Frank and Buddy\u2019s work with Felix to plan his unusual funeral.\u00a0 Along the way, Felix announces via radio broadcast that he will raffle off his cabin and surrounding timber after his death.\u00a0 Tickets are only $5, and the money pours in.\u00a0 As the film progresses, we learn bits and pieces about Felix\u2019s life through reflections from his close friends, Rev. Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs<\/a>) and Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek<\/a>), however, the filmmakers withhold the truth until Felix shares it with everyone at his funeral.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) has got some confessin' to do.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The strength of Get Low<\/em> is in its casting, perhaps one of the best examples of how crucial this aspect of filmmaking really is.\u00a0 Duvall gives one of the best performances of his stellar career and should surely be considered for an Oscar nomination in a few months.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that he\u2019s getting better with age\u2026he\u2019s had performances that have been just as good\u2026but rather his age, it seems, gives him the necessary experience to play this role.\u00a0 His final confession is one of the more heart-wrenching scenes you\u2019re likely to see in the movies this year.\u00a0 Murray, on the other hand, gives the film some levity with subtle comic relief.\u00a0 The brilliance of his character and his acting is that we\u2019re never quite sure whether he genuinely cares about Felix\u2019s wishes or if he will simply run off with the money as soon as the funeral is over.\u00a0 Black does a fine job of conveying a young funeral worker who is torn between a genuine respect and concern for an elderly man\u2019s wishes and guarding against any exploitation that might take place.\u00a0 Cobbs and Spacek are simply perfect in their somewhat minor but crucial roles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
We're a little unsure of Frank Quinn (Bill Murray).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course all of these performances benefit from some fantastic writing.\u00a0 The film strings us along and keeps our interest as we, like everyone else, desire to know what happened to Felix or what he did that has caused him to shut himself off from the world.\u00a0 As I mentioned before, we learn bits and pieces along the way, but even in these snippets of information, there is much room for debate about what really happened until Felix tells his story.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m certainly not going to reveal much about that story here, however, it was a tragedy with deep moral and emotional implications.\u00a0 People kept telling Felix that he needs to ask God for forgiveness.\u00a0 This notion of asking God\/Jesus for forgiveness for actions that harmed other people is one of the film\u2019s central spiritual\/theological\/religious themes.\u00a0 Get Low<\/em> seems to suggest that our first concern in the path of forgiveness and reconciliation should be with those whom we have harmed directly.\u00a0 It suggests that we might only fully be reconciled to God after we have made peace with our neighbors.\u00a0 Felix reflects on all the people who have told him to ask Jesus for forgiveness and says gruffly, \u201cI never did nothin\u2019 to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the process, Get Low<\/em>, as Rev. Jackson says at Felix\u2019s funeral, reveals that good and evil are often closely intertwined.\u00a0 They\u2019re not nearly as black-and-white as most of the townspeople\u2019s rumors suggest.\u00a0 Felix might be guilty of creating a tragic situation that requires confession, but he is also a man of immense talent and depth.\u00a0 As Mattie says of Felix, \u201cHe just kept goin\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 Felix built, by hand, the beautiful chapel in which Rev. Jackson ministers, and he also fashions his own, simple casket that sharply contrasts with the impersonal, factory-made, silk-lined boxes that occupy Quinn\u2019s Funeral Home.<\/p>\n

Get Low<\/em>, like Big Fish<\/em><\/a> (2003), focuses on the importance of telling our story and the occasional necessity of helping others tell theirs.\u00a0 The rumors and lies about Felix, along with his friends\u2019 genuine concern for him, ask us whether we can ever really know anyone or not.\u00a0 Felix has kept his story bottled up inside him for over forty years\u2026he has imprisoned it, much like he has imprisoned himself.\u00a0 As such, Felix\u2019s first funeral is a transformation from a burdened life into a liberated one that results from storytelling.\u00a0 This first funeral is one for a broken spirit.<\/p>\n

The film also calls into question our relationship to time and how we live our lives in the face of tragedy and loss.\u00a0 In one scene, Felix talks to Mattie about days gone by and their lives now.\u00a0 Mattie\u00a0 says that it seems as if all her old friends are dying off and that she\u2019s just waiting for her name to be called.\u00a0 Felix tells her that we\u2019re never really waiting\u2026we\u2019re always moving forward, even when we are standing or sitting still.\u00a0 The world moves under as and, as a result, we move along with it.\u00a0 Their discussion reminded me of an exchange in Waiting for Godot<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Vladimir:\u00a0 That passed the time.<\/p>\n

Estragon:\u00a0 It would have passed in any case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Time and life moves on around us.\u00a0 It has passed Felix by and is currently running away from Mattie.\u00a0 While this might ordinarily be a trite sentiment, the gravity of Felix\u2019s situation reminds us that how we choose to pass that time matters.<\/p>\n

In the end, Get Low<\/em> gives the lie to the conservative, evangelical Christian notion that nothing good comes out of Hollywood.\u00a0 Here, we have what could easily be termed a Christian film, but this film doesn\u2019t need nor specifically want that label (as Duvall has said in interviews about it).\u00a0 Yet it contains more truth than a host of recent, specifically Christian-produced films could ever hope to convey.<\/p>\n

Get Low<\/em> (100 mins) is rated PG-13 for some thematic material and brief violent content and, unfortunately, has a relatively limited release.\u00a0 Buy, don\u2019t rent, this when it releases on DVD.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I get around to creating my list of the most spiritually significant films of 2010, Get Low will certainly be included and will most likely top the list.\u00a0 My review of one of the best films you\u2019re likely to see this year after the jump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":1692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"yoast_head":"\nConfessing a Story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I get around to creating my list of the most spiritually significant films of 2010, Get Low will certainly be included and will most likely top the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2010\/09\/get-low\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Confessing a Story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I get around to creating my list of the most spiritually significant films of 2010, Get Low will certainly be included and will most likely top the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2010\/09\/get-low\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pop Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-03T17:08:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"J. 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