|
|
|
|
|
The Story
Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
Curtis LaForche lives in a small Ohio town with his wife Samantha and six-year-old daughter Hannah, who is deaf. Curtis makes a modest living as a crew chief for a sand-mining company. Samantha is a stay-at-home mother and part-time seamstress who supplements their income by selling handmade wares at the flea market each weekend. Money is tight, and navigating Hannah's healthcare and special needs education is a constant struggle. Despite that, Curtis and Samantha are very much in love and their family is a happy one.
Then Curtis begins having terrifying dreams about an encroaching, apocalyptic storm. He chooses to keep the disturbance to himself, channeling his anxiety into the obsessive building of a storm shelter in their backyard. His seemingly inexplicable behavior concerns and confounds Samantha, and provokes intolerance among co-workers, friends and neighbors. But the resulting strain on his marriage and tension within the community doesn't compare to Curtis' private fear of what his dreams may truly signify.
Faced with the proposition that his disturbing visions signal disaster of one kind or another, Curtis confides in Samantha, testing the power of their bond against the highest possible stakes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Director's Statement
Anxiety is born out of having something to lose.
When I began writing Take Shelter in the summer of 2008, I was in the middle of my first year of marriage. Although both my career and personal life were on a positive track, I had a nagging feeling that the world at large was heading for harder times. This free-floating anxiety was part economic, part just growing up, but it mainly came from the fact that I finally had things in my life that I didn't want to lose. All of these feelings filtered directly into the characters of this film.
Take Shelter follows Curtis LaForche, a working class husband and father, as he deals with the panic that arises from a series of terrifying dreams. For Curtis, these dreams are either harbingers of a supernatural storm, or early symptoms of something he's feared his entire life. Curtis' strongest, most immediate reaction is to protect his family, his wife Samantha and their six-year-old daughter Hannah. The question for Curtis becomes, what is he protecting them from, the storm or himself?
I wrote Take Shelter because I believed there was a feeling out in the world that was palpable. It was an anxiety that was very real in my life, and I had the notion it was very real in the lives of other Americans as well as other people around the world. This film was a way for me to talk about that fear and that anxiety. I hope there is an answer to this feeling by the end of the film. I believe there is, and it's the reason that this wonderful group of people came together to help me make Take Shelter.
-- Jeff Nichols
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
JEFF NICHOLS, writer and director of Take Shelter, made his feature film debut as the writer and director of Shotgun Stories, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007, and was released theatrically in the United States in March 2008. It was nominated for a 2008 Independent Spirit Award, won the Grand Jury Prize for New American Cinema at the Seattle International Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Austin Film Festival, and won the FIPRESCI International Jury Prize at the 2007 Viennale. Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) and David Edelstein (New York Magazine/NPR) included Shotgun Stories in their lists for Best Films of 2008. Additionally, Nichols directed the music video for Spoon's "Don't You Evah." The video, shot on location in Tokyo and produced by Wired Magazine, was named one of the top 10 viral videos of 2007 by Entertainment Weekly. Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Nichols is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking, and a current resident of Austin, Texas. He will next direct Mud, an original screenplay set on the Mississippi River, with Sarah Green and Aaron Ryder producing.
Back Home
|
|
|
|
|
|
