For David Lowery, filming “A Ghost Story” in the 1.33:1 Academy Ratio was thematically appropriate for a film about a ghost being trapped in a space for eternity and the claustrophobia of that situation is amplified by the shape of the frame, like a proscenium that you view the film through.
Far from a scary movie, it is an immensely profound and poignant representation of Love, Loss and the process of Grief. It explores our attachment to certain spaces and the pure silence of mere existence, a stillness so poetic and daring making it one of the most original films ever made.
Starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, David Lowery reunites the cast of his 2013 film “Aint Them Bodies Saints”. They play an unnamed couple who are in a disagreement regarding their plans to stay or leave their home.
“Time takes a long time to pass” said the director in the Q&A after the preview at the British Film Institute (BFI).
The ability to manipulate time puts the medium of film above most other art forms.
While watching A Ghost Story, you start to notice his obsession with time and space and the passage of it, utilizing it through his narrative process in audacious ways. He was also influenced by the extremely cinematic photographs of Gregory Crewdson whose intimate creations of American domestic homes became a main point of reference. It is a film so inventively silent and infinite that it mirrors the melancholia of reality, a quietness so beautiful in the best way possible.
* All images screenshot from A24’s official trailer of A Ghost Story.