David Lowery’s A Ghost Story is a beautiful, small-scale film packed with brilliant framing and cinematography. A Ghost Story follows a couple simply named C, the husband, and M, the wife. Fairly early on in the film, C dies, leaving M completely broken. Now dead, C is presented as a ghost simply clothed in a child-like bedsheet costume. The use of the simple, white ghost costume allowed Lowery and his director of photography, Andrew Droz Palermo, to use lighting in extremely eye-catching and beautiful ways. Throughout the film’s runtime, loneliness and grief are explored. One way that these feelings are conveyed is through the use of framing. The second is the duration.
The way a shot is framed can convey a wide range of emotions. Whether it is a close-up shot to convey how terrified a character is in a horror film, a wide shot to convey the scope of the action going on in a war film, or a medium shot capturing a couple in a drama, the way in which subjects are captured are keys to conveying the story of the film. Enter Lowery’s A Ghost Story. Throughout the film, C is captured in medium and wide shots. Since this film relies heavily on visual storytelling, it was extremely critical that C as well as M were shot and framed so well. The scene in question that particularly stands out closes the first act. The now-famous pie-eating scene by Rooney Mara’s M.
This scene is regarded by many as the oddest and most interesting shot in the entire film. It’s a four and a half-minute, unbroken shot of M eating a pie on the kitchen floor. From a technical perspective, it’s beautiful. It’s a completely uncut, raw scene of M breaking down while eating a pie. M is presented in the foreground on the left-hand side of the shot. C is also present, looming in the foreground of the shot on the right-hand side. The duration of the shot is also extremely brilliant. The decision to linger on a subject for a full minute straight is enough to make the viewer notice. Lingering on the shot for over four and a half minutes is something else entirely. It shows how dedicated Lowery is to visual storytelling. It makes the viewer feel just as uncomfortable and lonely as M. From a story perspective, the scene is simply heartbreaking. We’re presented with a heartbroken wife, mourning the loss of her husband. She thinks that he is completely gone. However, it’s even more depressing to see C right there in the background simply watching, unable to reach or connect with her. The presentation of C in this scene and throughout the film makes the viewer question his own mortality and place in the world entirely.
For a film that has such a little amount of dialogue, A Ghost Story relied heavily on the director, David Lowery, and the director of photography, Andrew Droz Palermo, to execute beautiful, visually-captivating shots. They delivered extremely well, to say the least. Throughout the film and especially in the scene highlighted previously, Lowery did an excellent job conveying a sense of loneliness through shots in the film. The nearly depression-inducing shots on C alone in the world, wandering alone are simply beautiful. The use of extremely long duration of shots throughout the film also did an excellent job making the viewer feel as uncomfortable and lonely as the characters in the film.
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