Get Low: Movie Synopsis & Response

Hi there everybody,

I've decided to branch out again today. I will be taking a look at a movie, in this case, what I liked about it. I wanted to bring up this film because it "grabbed" me early on, and it is about coming to grips with a life ending. The movie I would like to talk about today is Get Low. This sounds like the name of a Lil' John song, but it is a reference to being buried, to getting low in the ground. It came out a year and a half ago, in mid-2010. It stars Robert Duvall as Felix, a misunderstood recluse, Bill Murray as Frank, a funeral director from out of town, Lucas Black as his associate, Buddy, and Sissy Spacek as Mattie, a former girlfriend of Felix.

This film comes from an incident that happened in rural Tennessee, back in 1938. The movie is set in an unnamed town in the backwoods of Tennessee, around the same time (though a specific year is never mentioned). In the opening scene, a gang of kids is wandering around on Felix's property, and flee in terror when a shotgun sounds. This is Felix Bush's life. He lives exclusively on his backwoods property, rarely visiting the local town. Everyone tells stories about him, since no one knows what his story really is. He knows that he doesn't have much time left on Earth, and there is something he needs to share before his time is up

So he entertains the idea of holding a pre-death funeral for himself, as in Tuesdays With Morrie. This, however, is decidedly a less cheery affair. This is where Frank Quinn comes in. Frank is a local funeral director who has moved into town from Chicago. He isn't behind this idea at first, but Felix pushes him to help him plan it. The point of this is to hear the stories everyone in town is telling about him, and get his own story out while he can. Pretty soon, people from all over begin agreeing to attend the "living funeral."

Soon, Felix beings getting cold feet, when Mattie emerges. He insists that Frank contact a nearby minister and ask him to attend. However, the minister refuses, unless Felix "tells the truth." This is where we realize there is some deep dark secret, something so awful the minister refuses to face Felix again. Now, I will have to give away some of the surprise of Felix's secret, here. I don't want to, because I'd rather you see it, but I will tell you here, in a way that won't give the whole thing away.

At the end, people end up turning out, en masse, for Felix's "funeral party." The minister had been coaxed into attending, after all, by Frank. Mattie also turned out to see the spectacle. Now the time had come for Felix's big revelation. He took the stage, and told the reason that he had been on his property for decades. He revealed that he had an affair with Mattie's sister. He had planned to run away with her, but one night, 40 years earlier (around 1900), he got in an altercation with her and her husband, a fire got started in her house, and he escaped the burning house, while the woman and her husband burned to death.

Felix had felt to blame all that time. He had exiled himself because he was afraid to face that. What strikes me is that this is actually a very common story. People hide from their flaws or past wrongs all the time. We hide in all sorts of ways. We cut ourselves off from people, we are not truthful, we present false images to others. Felix had this thing weighing on his conscience, and he had had no way of addressing the wrong. He was going to die, so now he had to do it. This was the challenge of this movie. People like to see struggles in movies, and this one was a profound spiritual struggle.

Now, onto some of the parts of the movie that I liked. As I said at the top, it "grabbed" me from the beginning. What got me about it was the people in it. I believed in the characters I saw. There was something about this place and these people that seemed unforced, like it came easily. Now, Robert Duvall has a presence in his roles. It seems to me that it takes about 20 to 25 years for an actor on screen to obtain this presence. His chemistry with Bill Murray and the others made the tension really work. You knew there was this crazy hermit element to him, but he also showed enough of his

A technical aspect of the production that worked was the dialect everybody in this film used. That might seem bizarre, but having learned the distinctions between the dialects of various sub-regions, it caught my attention here. They didn't ham the typical "Southern" accents. The characters used just as much of the Tennessee dialect (since dialect varies in different areas of the South. I will explain these distinctions in a later post) as someone living there would.

Robert Duvall and Bill Murray in Get Low. Note the surrounding details of the period setting.

Aside from how they communicated, the period aspect was done just enough. The volume of old items and materials used was, to me, just the right amount. What I mean by this is that some movies really put forward the exact dates, which sometimes helps, but it also pins the story down as applying more to that time and place. They took the right amount of care to include rooms, recording equipment, cars, etc., from that late 30's-early 40's era, but they included few, if any, references to the time, the way many other movies do. In this way, the movie became a more universal test of coming to terms with a life ending.


The pacing of the story was both good and bad. At the beginning, the interactions between Duvall and the others grabbed my attention, and I never got disengaged from it. Toward the middle of it, the details, and the purposes for the scenes got more obscure. For a while in the middle of the movie, I was worried that I was going to get disengaged.


However, I wanted the movie to work by that point. You know that disengaged feeling, where your mind drifts to "What am I gonna do later?" That's what I am referring to here. Since I believe in the characters and the setting, I was willing to cut it some slack. By the end, it ended up paying off.


Then there was the meaning, that I referred to earlier. Fundamentally, this is a story about fixing a big problem, righting a wrong. Not just a wrong, the wrong. This was the big one, the one that speaks to what people avoid. We live our whole lives trying to avoid facing our shames, our wrongs, our defeats. When Felix decided to hold this funeral for himself, hear the stories people were telling about him, then say what his "big secret" was, that was an act of raw courage.


Having faced this, Felix's life was at peace. A life at peace is a good that people, from people with their whole lives in front of them to those on their deathbeds, seek, but is closer than they think. The reason my Grandmother's passing wasn't as sad for me was because I knew she had had a full and complete life. She had had about as good a life as anyone could ask for. With regards to Fuzz, the jury is still out on whether she could have had "more" in her life. I do know, however, that she lived with no regrets, no shame, no lasting pain that made her hide from the world. Looking back now, that was what made this story stand out.

Well, thanks for reading this "review." I don't know whether this should be called a review, or a synopsis, or what have you. I'll probably figure out a good name for it soon. This is the first of my posts on movies and plays I have encountered that I want to share, and frame, and discuss with you. I look forward to doing more of that.

See ya, and keep wondering, Folks!

Impressions and Storytelling

Hi there,

Well, today, we're going to branch out in "the arts." Because this blog is not just about my visual art, although that is a huge staple of it. This blog is about visual art, performance, discussions of process, meaning, and even music, on occasion. My brother is the musical one of the family, so I mostly borrow his music, but I will borrow, and look at, these, on occasion.

My subject today is doing impressions of people. This is part of my exploration of performance and character at large. The embedded video above comes from an Inside the Actors' Studio interview with Kevin Spacey. One of my favorite movies when I was in my teen years were LA Confidential and Glengarry Glenross. So I grew up following a lot of Spacey's work, and I was amazed when I fould this video.

For some reason, I really admire people who are able to do these impressions really well. My older brother is one such influence. For a long time, I have done impersonations with him, often in a casual or joking way, paying attention to the surface-level details. It is only recently that I have begun to understand this impression style as a legitimate craft on its own. So let me share with you some of what I have learned about doing impressions.

First, you can do impressions, vocally, physically, or both, of all sorts of people. The most-sought-after candidates for this are actors, celebrity figures, media spokes people, and political figures. Christopher Walken is usually first among choices for impersonation. Some of my personal favorites are Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Clinton. People with heavy accents or very distinct vocal characteristics are easier to imitate. If a subject has a more neutral voice, it is much trickier, but if you know what to look for, it is possible.

I used to think that I didn't have an accent. I thought that people from Southern California didn't have any accent. I knew we tend to talk vaguely like Midwesterners, since that is where many early Californians came from. However, even if you do not have an accent that jumps out at people, you still have a distinct way of speaking and using language. I learned in a voice class I just took that it has to do with the way you pronounce verb and consonant sounds. If you are impersonating someone with a distinct accent, pronouncing these sounds without exagerration can really change your body chemistry, putting you in the frame of mind for the "character."

Anyway, the person you choose to imitate don't have to be well-known. You can do one of someone you know well, like a family member, close friend, or someone else. When you do, however, you might take a different tone with them, since you have to talk to them again. Here, it helps to joke affectionately about them, as I do. One of the people I enjoy riffing on is my uncle from back east, for example.

Voice acting professional Jim Ward shows some tricks of his trade.

Another level to this is the physicality of the subject person. Besides getting their voice down, what are their ticks? First off, what sorts of phrases or verbal habits do they have? This is what the above voice actor, Jim Ward, a well-known impressionist, picks up on above. He takes a subtle, defining characteristic of each of his subjects' delivery, such as Al Gore's sighs, or Woody Allen's nasal, twitchy tone, or Jack Nicholson's intense forehead involvement (I've learned that it's harder to incorporate this for us younger imitators), or Bill Clinton's using the "curled index finger" pointing to drive a message home. Then he puts the emphasis on that point, exaggerating it, and building from that mannerism. Now, sometimes, said mannerism could be a physical tick, or some word or phrase the person habitually says.

For instance, the uncle that I just mentioned, at every time where our family sits down to dinner with him, has us do this thing where he asks us all "What's the most embarassing thing you've ever done without telling anyone, starting with you?" He's got this low, grumbly voice, and invariably, whenever he does this at the dinner table, it is to someone across the table, so he will not have to participate.

There are also little phrases people fall back on. On this blog, I always open with "Hi there," and sign off with "keep wondering, folks." For instance, the current president, Barack Obama, at the beginning of nearly every thought, will say "look," or "let me be clear." These are good things to start off with. Then, if they have a tone that they usually take, such as hurried, or agitated, or that of the know-it-all, using that would give some weight to it.

This goes back to something the late, great George Carlin said in his autobiography, "The important thing in [doing an impression] is not just their voice, how they say things, but what the person would say." This is a staple of playing character types. Representing what your subject would say, or how they would say it, would be an interesting character study. I am fascinated by looking at people as characters. To show them openly and honestly, even if making fun of them, is the best way to do it. This does a service for your truth, and theirs.

This element of the truth is what separates just a casual, exaggerated impersonation from something that really looks and sounds like the person you're imitating. I like to talk like the person, but consider what they would say. This is where the storytelling comes in. You are telling a micro-story of what this person acts like, sounds like, and is like.

This is the same purpose behind acting. What are actors but storytellers. Their job is to tell the story of the person they play. They must tell the truth of the person's actions, speech and life. Being an actor, I have discovered, is a great job for people who love people-watching. I like people-watching, even though I have times when I get tired, mentally, and emotionally, from it. You can even get tired doing something you love.

Well, this is the first post of mine in the field of performing, formally or informally, a story. I have stories, large and small, that I like to tell when I draw, and when I do these impressions. My hope is that even though these stories are sometimes ficticious, they are not, in any way, false. I hope, when I tell a story, that it will be true, sometimes to fact, but always to life.

Anyway, what do you think? Do you have a story, book, film, play, or routine, that you really believed in? Did anything make you go, "Hey, that is really true?" Let me know, in the comment box below. See ya, and keep wondering, folks!

This Blog Has Been Occupied!

Hi There!

Well, this one took me longer to do than I thought. I thought I could get it done by yesterday evening, and put this post up last night. However, my family persuaded me to tear myself away from drawing this, and looking back, I think that was probably a good idea. One thing I have to realize, and you probably do, too, is that taking breaks and taking time to do things can be helpful.

When I take time away from doing a task, and then come back to it, I do better and think of ways around that I hadn't thought of before I took the break. So even though I lost some time, I think it was worth paying that small price. I think the challenging thing to do is to find the right balance between getting things done within a small window of time, but not lose your sanity while trying to do so.

Now, as promised, my post on the Occupy the Rose Bowl Parade. My brother and I went up there. We didn't arrived in time to march in the event itself (The parade took off at about 8 in the morning, and the protest followed the tail-end of the parade), but we were there for a rally in front of Pasadena City Hall. There were speeches and songs. Honestly, we were there to take it in. I just wanted to see who was present at the rally. Thankfully, even at the late stage we caught it at, the rally was well-attended (there were at least 200 there when we arrived, then it thinned out). Even KCAL 9 News was doing a story on it.

I published the video in the previous post. Told ya it would come in handy, didn't I? Again, I tried like hell to find a way to embed it in this post, but alas, that was the only way. Anyway, if you watch their coverage, you'll notice that the woman doing the report was the exact same one in this picture taken by me.




So, the key to the meaning of this picture is, why did I include these people? During the concert, the musician, a woman wearing a skimask as she was singing and playing the guitar, as seen below, was asking people to step up to the adjoining mic and sing out their frustrations, troubles, hopes and goals as members of "the 99%," as they call it.




While all this was going on, I could not help but notice that police had been assembling nearby, en masse, using ATV's, heavy trucks, patty wagons, even armored black vehicles that looked like small tanks. Many of the cops were from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Counterterrorism unit, and some of them were wearing what appeared to be bulletproof vests or flak jackets. As I said, some of this was occurring directly adjacent to our rally, making me think the cops might be ready, at a moment's notice, for some rumble to go down. This was because I had heard many reports of police units getting generous with their force on said occupy protestors.

Here is some photographic evidence of the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street's participants.





Here, you see the cops in full riot gear, ready to stomp ass. The one guy on the left, there, seems to be slapping the nightstick in his hand, as if to say, "you have to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?" These pictures were provided by photojournalist Zach Roberts, who described in vivid and graphic detail his arrest at the 3-month anniversary rally in Lower Manhattan. Between all of these stories, that was my main concern, going into all this, that the cops would get very brutal. Below is another photo, taken, again by Mr. Roberts, from his holding cell.



Thankfully, nothing of this sort happened, either in the parade itself, or at the susequent rally in the shadow of Pasadena City Hall. However, their presence put this inspiration in my mind. What if the cops had joined us? After all, the police are public employees, who are themselves being squeezed by budget cuts nationwide. In some cities, such as Camden, New Jersey, police forces are being cut altogether. Can you imagine how much it would suck to live in a locale with little or no police protection? Violent crime is a big problem in Camden and other cities where this is happening, and this will spell disaster for those communities.

This economic discontent has been boiling for all of last year, 2011. The catchphrase "We Are the 99%" is similar to an online mobilization, The Other 98%, which began in 2010. In response to all of Washington's dealmaking on tax cuts, a group calling itself US Uncut was formed in early 2011. When "Tea Party" Governors in Wisconsin, and then Ohio, tried to remove public unions' right to collectively bargain with employers, people began marching in the streets last Winter and Spring.

The most interesting thing I found in these protests was this. When the Police and Fire Unions there were put in the deal, firefighters and cops began joining the marches. When I learned of it, I found it very intriguing and heartwarming.






Now, this is Rachel Maddow reporting this, so she's got her very clear point of view on this. What I found most interesting of this is that here, the people usually thought of as the protestors' opponents were actually with the protests here. Why? Because this was not about some divisive political back-and-forth. Now, protesting is about more than just idealism and rabblerousing. This is about all of us in our society.


Here are the realities. You have probably heard some of these stats. The top 1% of earners have had their share of income go up significantly over the last 30 years. Here, I think this graph will help explain.


You see that there is a distinct "u"-shaped curve to this graph. You can also clearly see that it begins climbing sharply in 1980. The two apexes seen on the u-curve are in 1928 and 2007, both years, wait for it, right before, that's right, the economy went into a 500-mile-per-hour nosedive. Coincidence? Now, let's look at this graph.


This graph is a vivid illustration of the statistics I was first introduced to six years ago. Back then, around the end of 2005, beginning of 2006, there were about 38 million people in this country with below-poverty wages. I remember hearing that this meant that about 1 in 8 people here lived in poverty. As of 2009, according to the above graph, the number climbed to over 43 million, and is now over 1 in 7.

These numbers, however, hide the condition of each of these peoples' lives. Behind each of these 43.6 is someone trying to get by. Trying, with less and less success, to build a full, satisfying, meaningful life for themselves. Interestingly, the young are most likely to be poor, now. Millions of children now live in poverty. Shockingly, some barely have enough food just to keep them alive, in the United States. Add to all this the pressure of trying to get or keep one, or two, or three jobs, care for a family, and the pressure, hardship, and often pain, is unimaginable.

The basic needs of people are food, water and shelter. I would add medicine to the list. However, what is scary is that people are having more trouble getting, in some cases, even the most basic of those met. This is a painful reality that those in power, in politics or business, don't seem to get. To them, it seems to exist as an anomaly, that they encounter sometimes, but never confront on a constant basis.

What causes all this hardship and pain, is what I wanted to speak to in this drawing. Here, I recorded my thought of an event of unprecedented unity. Here, the Counterterrorism officer, in full flak-jacket, riot apparel, is sharing some of his hardships, and struggles, being part of the downtrodden. He is coming together with the stigmatized protestors, both parties realizing that for all their differences in their lives, many parts of their lives bond them, as well. One of the speakers was saying "We are 1," and I thought "including all the cops over there."

This speaks to a deep longing of mine. I would love to see the people of this world be more unified with each other. Now, I have grown and matured, I know that this will not come easily. For this to happen, some overhaul of our lives must happen. who knows what form this will take? Might be positive, might be negative. I didn't draw this as an endorsement of Occupy Wall Street. I support them to the extent that I support any political movement these days.

What this speaks to is the surface of what is going on, but also its transcendence. I may generally side with the left, but I also have come to realize that beyond right or left, there is some sense of unity, of connection, people can have with their world, and with each other. Conveying this was my main hope with this drawing.

Well, this entry certainly went longer than I expected it to. I never know when I sit down to blog. Sometimes I do a light, short post, other times, it's a big, landmark piece, like it is here. I mean, I knew this would be a big one, but I didn't know it would be this long and involved. Thanks for bearing with me, and I hope you found this reading worthwhile. I'll have some more good things ahead for you soon.

See ya and, keep wondering, folks!