Blog 9. Take Shelter. (US, 2011. Director: Jeff Nichols)
Here is the pertinent information for Take Shelter.
Well, that was crazy. In a good way. Clark and I were both happy how involved you all got into this movie, and happy to see you pulling for Curtis. The last fifteen minutes of this are incredibly intense and gripping. The ending is thoroughly ambiguous, something we should be used to be now. Great movie. We think.
Here is the New York Times review of the film—please read it. Here is the New Yorker review—please read it too.
1. What did you think of the film? Like? Dislike? Why? What about it particularly struck you, stayed with you—a scene, a moment, an image? And why?
2. The apocalypse that Curtis sees coming—it's there and not necessarily in the clouds and storms and birds. What other apocalypse can we see coming—or present—in the film? Or apocalypses plural? And how do they fit our understanding or definition of the apocalpyspe?
3. Curtis—hero? Madman? Prophet? One of those—a couple of those—all of those? Something else? Does your view of Curtis change through the film? How do you feel about or see him by the end?
4. The ending of the film. Discuss. Look at it again here.
200 words. You should have plenty to write about.
Take a look at the trailer. See you all tomorrow.
Well, that was crazy. In a good way. Clark and I were both happy how involved you all got into this movie, and happy to see you pulling for Curtis. The last fifteen minutes of this are incredibly intense and gripping. The ending is thoroughly ambiguous, something we should be used to be now. Great movie. We think.
Here is the New York Times review of the film—please read it. Here is the New Yorker review—please read it too.
1. What did you think of the film? Like? Dislike? Why? What about it particularly struck you, stayed with you—a scene, a moment, an image? And why?
2. The apocalypse that Curtis sees coming—it's there and not necessarily in the clouds and storms and birds. What other apocalypse can we see coming—or present—in the film? Or apocalypses plural? And how do they fit our understanding or definition of the apocalpyspe?
3. Curtis—hero? Madman? Prophet? One of those—a couple of those—all of those? Something else? Does your view of Curtis change through the film? How do you feel about or see him by the end?
4. The ending of the film. Discuss. Look at it again here.
200 words. You should have plenty to write about.
Take a look at the trailer. See you all tomorrow.
I have mixed feelings about this movie. I couldn't stand watching his relationship with his family and the people he loved deteriorate. Also how he became hated by his friend and a bit by his wife because they didn't understand what he was going through. His breakdown was too hard for me to watch. I did like how it all tied in to him being correct in the end. I thought that the beach scene was the best part of the movie. We see that for some reason the apocalypse drives the animals crazy displayed in the scenes with the birds and the dog. In his dreams everyone he loved would attack him so that shows that the storm will take a toll on his life. Apocalypse means the end of our kind so that could come in many different ways but all we know is that it will be bad. The dreams don't necessarily mean that those things will happen. I think Curtis is in the same position that Noah was in when he was building the arc from the Bible, He was given these dreams whether he wanted them or not but in the end he made the proper preparations. My idea of Curtis is shaped by the way he treats his helpless daughter. He seems to care for her even as he is going crazy so I think he's a good father.
ReplyDeleteThis film irritated me so much. But I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. The pacing seemed a bit slow and had a lot of redundancy except when it came to Curtis. It really showed how everyone was still living their normal lives while he is going through a major change. I thought the scene where he first met the counselor and proceeded to tell her what he believes his diagnosis is. Curtis really put in the research about his condition which shows how afraid he is of it. After we meet his mother we find out just what it is he is afraid of becoming.
ReplyDeleteThis is a confusing question but if I had to take a guess, I'd say that Curtis is facing his own, inner apocalypse. A loose definition of apocalypse can be chaos. Curtis is beginning to descend into insanity because of the strange nightmares he's been having. His behavior changes and it begins to affect those around him, causing his life to fall apart piece by piece. In a since his world has been deserted being that people are leaving, or being kicked out, of it; whether voluntarily or involuntarily.
I don't think we can label Curtis as any of these being that his actions doesn't have the biggest effect on the world. However he could be considered a type of hero for his family. His persistency and belief in himself that these dreams are premonitions fuels him to continue building out the storm shelter which eventually saves their lives. He has to go through very hard times because of this but the ends justified the means, in a sense. When the movie started off I was on Curtis's side and wishing him good health and fortune. When I saw his life begin to fall apart, I felt sorry for him and wanted so badly for things to get better. However over the course of the movie, I began to grow impatient and irritated with Curtis. He kept refusing to tell his wife the truth about what was happening to him. He left her in the dark until he hadn't any choice but to tell her. If he would have told her early in the film, it's possible things wouldn't have ended up as bad as they did. Samantha is the real hero, if we had to choose one. She stuck with Curtis in his absolute lowest moments. She helped to calm him down and didn't leave when she easily could have done so. Samantha didn't immediately label Curtis as psychotic and was determined to help him through his troubles.
The end of the film had a nice twist. The first storm came around and I was happy thinking Curtis's premonitions were correct. Then it turned out to be a regular storm and my heart fell for him. The very end was a beautiful scene despite the incoming danger. The daughter signing "storm" was beautiful and iconic to the movie. At that moment I was happy to see that this family that had stayed together through thick and thin would survive.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the film. The depictions within the film were entirely realistic. From the Sunday dinners to the decimating mines, the depictions are reflective of American life. Watching the film, I was impressed on the commentary made about society. Nichols didn't shy away from the imperfect facets of life: whether it be inconsistent healthcare or income, marriage or family life, sickness or health. He choose hard topics to express...topics that for many Americans hits close to home. As a result, I respect him for what he choose to represent; he could have chosen to produce a film that depicted American wealth and the high life, but instead his depiction of middle class Americans and the struggles within will garner a different type of audience. He choose not to make a feel good, all flowers and puppies film to make a point and in my opinion, he achieved that. I was struck by the forgiveness and perceptiveness displayed by Samantha in the storm shelter scene (the one where they are waiting out the tornado). Samantha could have chosen the easy way out, to blame Curtis for the destruction and unhappiness he insinuated upon their lives. Instead, her choice to forgive speaks miles about her disposition. Her insistence that he had to be the one to open the storm shelter door showcases her understanding that he has to be the one to fight his own demons. She can help him, but in the end, it is a personal struggle.
ReplyDeleteAs Kyle alludes to above, the word apocalypse, though most commonly thought of as the end of the world, doesn't always signify the end. While the film does conform with the prevailing definition of the end of the world (depicted within the last scene), it also works to introduce a different apocalypse: the apocalypse of life and the effect it has on marriage and family. Innately, life is an apocalypse; destruction is inevitable yet at the same time, it doesn't necessarily indicate horrifying events and images. As we have mentioned in class, destruction comes with healing; at its truest form, destruction constitutes rebirth. Rebirth, whether it be a new nation or something as simple as the renewal of hope. Most of the time though, this destruction within life manifests itself at the expense of the individual. Curtis’s choice to take out his misery on Samantha is a testament to this concept: as humans, we tend to take out our frustration on those we love the most. While this is counterproductive, it is understandable.
Initially, I both loved and hated Curtis. The unrequited love he poured onto Hannah attested to his position as a faithful father. I sympathize with Curtis, but I can't condone the way he treats Samantha and Hannah in his time of misery. He is undoubtedly going through hell, but as I mention above, he is hurting those he needs and loves most. I don't necessarily think that Curtis can be placed into any of the boxes you provide above. In my opinion, Curtis is a victim--a victim of his environment and of his society. He isn't living to be a hero, a prophet or a madman, but instead living to protect his family--to get from one day to the next. Curtis is protecting his family the only way he knows how. He tirelessly advocates for his family, for their safety and for this he can't be faulted. He is trying to seek refuge in the very life he is destroying (mining). And what's ironic is his belief that the land he has worked to destroy will in the end protect him.
While the end is with no doubt heartbreaking, it's almost bittersweet. While their death is timely and inevitable, the ending provides closure for Curtis and healing for Samantha and Hannah. And there is something to be said for closure and healing. Curtis and his family will die with their souls unburdened and instead with love and compassion.
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ReplyDelete1. This film was the raw truth. It didn't over-simplify or dumb down the emotions that Curtis dealt with. This movie was difficult to watch, because you could see both Curtis and his thoughts and see the frustration of his family and friends. I remember when Samantha asked Curtis what was bothering him. I could tell how much everyone was waiting for him to just explain himself, but he didn't until later. We felt the horror that Curtis developed and reacted to, and this was terrifying. But, we also understood how unstable the rest of his family thought that he was. This was a really sickening position to have to be in. It was hard to continue to watch the movie when Curtis has the dream/ moment where he thinks that his wife is going to hurt him. Curtis flinches when she touches him, and she immediately guessed why. It was really hard to watch Samantha have to live with the idea that Curtis believed she was trying to harm him. But, later in the movie, there is the scene where she asks him if that moment had impacted their relationship, and he said that it wouldn't. This really showed that even though it felt like he wasn't caring about his family, he really loved them and was trying to survive. Another scene that was like this was when they were in the tornado shelter, and Samantha told Curtis to let them out. He wants her to do it, but she tells him that he has to do it himself. The moment really pained me, because I could feel how broken and traumatized their family was. Samantha and Hannah stayed with him, and Curtis didn't want to leave them. Even though her husband is literally only living in his fear, she wants him to feel safe. He can do this by convincing himself that everything is ok, and if he can't do this, then by opening the doors to the storm shelter, he will be forced to see that the world didn't end. Another scene that struck me was when the clouds moved in and another dream began. He didn't run back to his house, or try to do anything. What really stayed with me was that Hannah did this too. She would always watch the storm, and this connects her with her father. She even signed "storm" to him at the end, which was a pretty monumental position for her. Due to her hearing impairment, I felt that Hannah wasn't given a voice or an opportunity to say her opinions. She had to watch her father and mother disagree and watch their world end, and was usually only told that it was fine. Hannah didn't ever ask a question, and this was so hard to watch. The innocence that is present in children was ripped from her, but she couldn't try to prevent this. That is why when she signed that there was a storm to her father, I was very upset. She could obviously tell that something was wrong, but no one explained what happened.
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Delete2. I think the apocalypses in the movie were the physical and mental impairments of the characters. As I said in class, this movie really brought me back to seventh grade. We read the script of The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, and it totally reminds me of the film. In the script, the electricity went out on Maple Street. Over time, each character blamed the people that they had lived by of being an alien. Their disagreement became really severe, and the characters were destroying each other. At the end, aliens are talking with each other. They tell another alien that they were the ones to cut off the power and cause the war on the street, even though they didn't directly harm anyone. Curtis also seemed to act the way that the characters in The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street did. He thought that a storm was going to destroy their world, and it led to his mental struggles. It only took a simple dream to completely derail his life and destroy himself. His daughter was also struggling. She wasn't able to hear the disagreements between her mother and father, and they didn't explain why her father was acting strangely to her. Her parents didn't ever actually carry on a conversation with her. They loved her, but she didn't get to say anything about how she felt. Children notice what adults miss, and Hannah picked up a lot more than what her parents told her. Also, I believe that Hannah wasn't born with a hearing impairment. She didn't know a lot of ASL, and her parents also weren't used to her hearing loss. Her father said that he still took off his boots when he came home and she was asleep, and her mother still whispered around her. I'm curious about if this relates to how she acted and how she was always aware of what was going on. Both Hannah and her father were traumatized by what they had no way of controlling, and I believe that was the apocalypse. Curtis, Samantha, and Hannah each had to face their mental and physical horrors.
3. I believe that Curtis is just the same as all of the other characters in movies about a post-apocalypse. He has to choose what he wants to believe. We see his dreams and the moments of an apocalyptic world, but we can't really understand how he feels. I believe that we can kind of be in his position by viewing the film. I was always questioning what was going on in the movie, and hoping that they would be fine. Curtis was also feeling similar to this, because he had to choose what the differences are between mental illness and visions. At the end of the movie, we don't even know if he really had a mental illness, or if the visions were true. Throughout the film, I was able to understand what Curtis felt. I didn't agree with what he did, but I can imagine how terrified he must have been. Because we were the only person who could see his dreams and visions, I was able to really get a perspective that other characters couldn't get.
4. The ending was very important for different reasons. It's terrible that the minute he was able to relax and get away from the storm shelter, all of his visions came true. I was talking about this with my mom, and we were saying how ironic this situation turned out to be. He had worked so hard to build them a safe place, but the minute that they leave, the apocalypse begins to occur. As I said before, it was really monumental that Hannah was the one who saw the clouds. It was really important to me, because Hannah wasn't able to say anything before that. She is aware of how important the storm is, even though her parents had never explained this to her before. In the end though, I still don't want to accept what happened. He tried so hard, and they were finally content. But I think that we are supposed to be devastated that this is how the movie ended. Most of the other movies had hopeful endings, but this one really accepted what the apocalypse could be like.
1) “Take Shelter” is a very good movie, but I can only say this after completing it and seeing the awesome ending. While watching, I felt like I was traumatizing myself for no reason at all, but you can't start a movie and not finish it! The scene that has stuck with me is that of Samantha looking at the knife on the kitchen counter, about to stab Curtis with it in his hallucination. She looked terrifying, dripping wet, half dead, and murderous. This shows the personal aspect of Curtis’s schizophrenia; even his wife was out to get him. This made him flinch even when she touched his hand, which seemed to be the point in which Samantha became really worried about him (not to mention the scene where Curtis has internal bleeding and is coughing up blood because he is so scared and pulled into his dream/hallucination).
ReplyDelete2) Curtis experiences an internal apocalypse; his world is ending both mentally and physically. He can't live a normal life anymore because he must constantly fear what is there or not there waiting for him around the corner. He experiences a revelation, being that he is both insane and the only sane person on earth. He hallucinates, but he is the only one prepared for the storm (even though he was at Myrtle Beach when the storm began).
3) I don't really know how to describe Curtis. I feel that any descriptor would be too vague, and there would always be room for argument about why he is not one thing, but something else. He may just be a combination of everything. Most of his decisions were dictated by his mental illness, not directly Curtis. He is not a hero because he refused to acknowledge that he needed help and was not brave enough to admit it even to his wife. He is not a madman because I think that the only way to describe him as one would be due to my lack of better words. He is not mad, his mental illness just makes him appear to be so. I guess now that I think about it, Curtis is pretty prophetic. I am not sure if I would label his dreams “hallucinations” or “visions,” and this is what makes the movie so scary. There is almost no differentiation between the two and reality. In the beginning of the movie, I thought that Curtis was going to end up killing someone, and I found his character to be annoying, but by the end, I was rooting for him. I sympathized with him, and he almost got redemption by being right the whole time about a storm coming, except for the fact that he was at MYRTLE BEACH!!!
4) Anyways, I think the ending of the film is really well thought out, and is a great closing scene for the movie. I appreciate that the makers of the movie did not show what happened to Curtis and his family when the storm finally made it onto land, because I'm pretty sure they would die, and then I would hate his psychiatrist and wife even more for taking him away from his shelter.
This film was great. I thought that the acting was very good, especially Curtis's character, and the story was interesting. What made me like this movie so much was how it left the viewer questioning what was really happening. We first question which scenes are real and which are not, and it was initially hard to differentiate Curtis's dreams from reality. We then get an explanation that we think answers the question (Curtis's mental illness), but the last scene contradicts that, since the storm finally does happen. Another thing that I loved about this movie was how it showed the effects that Curtis's delusions had in his family. There is the obvious financial aspect of it, since he spent $6,000 on a tornado shelter, but his mental illness had a greater affect on his relationships with his wife and daughter.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused by this question, but I will say that the apocalypse that Curtis faces throughout this movie is the destruction of his life and relationships. Curtis's mental illness destroys almost everything. His job, his money, his friendship with Dewart, and his marriage. Curtis destroys his own world out of fear that the world will end. This is a bit different than the definition of "apocalypse" that we talked about in class. Usually "apocalypse" is the destruction of all of humanity, but in this case it is the destruction of one person. Curtis faces a personal apocalypse as everything that is close to him gets destroyed.
Curtis is definitely mentally ill, and the only reason why he believed in the apocalypse was because of his schizophrenia. I also don't think that Curtis is a hero, since there is not much in the movie to indicate that. Deciding whether or not Curtis is a prophet is a much harder decision. Curtis did have visions of the future and warned everybody about the storm. His dreams were extremely accurate to what the apocalypse would be (the oil rain, tornadoes, lightning), but his delusions can be discarded as a result of his mental illness. I don't think that there is a clear answer, and either interpretation works. I didn't really see Curtis differently at the end of the film. I feel like I should like him more, since he did predict the apocalypse, but I don't know if he actually predicted it or if it was a coincidence.
1. I liked this film a lot. It's so different from other movies in the sense that it makes you question what is reality from what is real life, and it plays tricks in your mind. Many times where he was dreaming, I was scared because it seemed so real. He is just a regular guy with an average family and that is what makes it so terrifying to watch. The one scene that I found was the most striking to me was the town get together. He got so upset and confused he flipped a table over in front of his scared daughter.
ReplyDelete2.I saw the revealing of his wife's love for him. The amount of sacrifices that Samantha was willing to make for Cutis' well being and mental health was incredible. Samantha has a very interesting character in the sense that she is a kind of hero because she helps Curtis, but in a sense she was also super opinionated in the fact that there wasn't going to be a storm when really there is. Another revelation I noticed was how fast Curtis' friend was to turn on him.
3.I see Curtis fitting into all those roles, but none of them at the same time. He is a hero almost to everyone because he warns them about the storms. He is concerned about others. Is he mad? I'm not sure. The whole movie I thought he was going crazy but at the end it was real. I don't really think I would call him a prophet because although he is telling the future it seems as though he was t in his right mind though the whole movie even though he could tell the future.
4. I'd say the ending of the movie took me by surprise. I was just thinking that the good guy was on medication and was feeling so much better. Curtis was even spending time with his kid. It seemed like everything was back to normal when this storm comes, once again making me second guess what was true.
1. Sorry John and Clark, but I really didn’t like Take Shelter. I found it INCREDIBLY slow and just not entertaining. You can call me uncultured and not a critical thinker and what not, but I don’t enjoy movies where so much of the content revolves around the mental state of the character. Also, I felt like this movie left a lot of loose ends and questions waiting to be asked, with the men in Curtis’s dreams, the opinion of the townsfolk after the storm, and the coming tidal wave and foreshadowed end of the world. I feel like it would have just been better for the filmmakers to start the movie where Curtis finished the shelter and go from there. Honestly, the apocalypse would have been a much better story.
ReplyDelete2. Well we do see some premonitions of the apocalypse in Curtis’s dreams, but nothing substantial in the real world. So it’s almost like and “I told you so” moment for Curtis when the tidal wave is about to occur. But obviously this is a much more natural apocalypse than the other movies, with global warming being the primary cause but humans not doing anything like in Snowpiercer when the chemicals are released into the environment. Also, this is the one movie where we never see the results of the apocalypse, which makes it unique.
3. I wouldn’t say he’s a hero, maybe a prophet, and definitely a character we’re supposed to sympathize with. He goes from being a hardworking family man with some bad dreams to someone whose dreams and premonitions have lead him to take radical steps to try to ensure the safety of his family, even though he’s costing them quite a lot of money.
4. Why can’t we see more of it? Why can’t that be the movie? As I said earlier, I feel like that’s just the start of a more widely focused story that could include and focus on the effects of the ensuing apocalypse on not just Curtis and his family and the rest of the Ohioans, but the nation and the world as a whole. What would be the response? The aftermath? How much of an apocalypse would the apocalypse be? I wish the movie had answered those questions instead of raising them.
For the most part, I liked this movie; however, I think it is one of those movies that you don't truly appreciate until the end, and even then, will never watch again. The moment that really sticks with me is the scene where Curtis is holding his daughter while watching the swarm of birds when suddenly, they all swoop down, soar back up, and start dropping dead out of the sky. Everything about that scene is incredibly eerie to me and portrayed the mood of the movie perfectly; the foreshadowing of disaster. In general, 'Take Shelter' totally creeped me out, but it also had some important messages. Curtis was a psychotic; there is no question about that. However, he did predict the future. Nevertheless, what I think really makes Curtis crazy is the crossing of reality and nightmare. He doesn't know what will happen in the future, but he knows what it MAY contain, which is the catch. Humans are not most scared of what we know or don't know, because those things are in general, are preventable. What we are terrified of is what we MIGHT NOT know. That twinge of doubt and uncertainty drives us crazy, because it is human nature to want to know everything with certainty -- Curtis is certainly no exception. One apocalypse that is shown in this movie is the neglect of sanity in the attempt to preserve the things we love. Curtis was so afraid of losing his family that he almost destroyed his relationships with them in order to save them. As humans, we want to keep what we have, and this movie reveals that obsession. Even though he was insane and made several harsh and unacceptably rash decisions, I was rooting for Curtis and his storm shelter the entire time, because this class is called 'Apocalypse Now', so doom is kind of implied. Speaking of rather unfortunate endings, the every last scene seriously pissed me off. Curtis lost his mind, respect (from others), and relationships to build a storm shelter that in the end, would prove useless, because the stupid (okay, not stupid) psychiatrist told him to go to the beach. Curtis was overly prepared, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he ended up losing everything for nothing, which is what humans most fear: failure at one's own expense.
ReplyDeleteThe moment that struck me the most in the film is when Curtis's wife tells him that it wouldn't change anything if she opened the shelter door, but he must do it himself. This feels very true of mental illness; our culture leads us to believe that other people can change us and that we can take medication, but the hardest part of mental illness is the individual's own battle to recovery and understanding. The film shows how mental illness can push people to go to great lengths to attempt to feel any kind of security against their own minds. If we are defining the apocalypse as a new knowledge, then Curtis's mental illness brings his apocalypse. He consistently seeks out treatment and consistently tries to cope with his hallucinations. His wife also learns how to better understand and cooperate with her husbands new behavior. Curtis isolates himself throughout the movie because his community just can't understand what he is going through, The significance of the last scene is to show that he isn't alone in battling his illness anymore and that the entire family can stand together through the recovery. I think Curtis is a hero for his valiant effort to educate and treat himself on what's happening, but the storm/mental illness is the antagonist. His wife is a true hero; she looks pastO her fear to continue to try and understand Cutis's actions. Their friends may seem bad for judging Curtis, but they really just don't understand what he is going through. Personally, I always felt sympathetic to him because it's very clear he's only acting to feel secure from his illness.
ReplyDeleteI loved it - one of my favorites so far. The pacing was fantastic, and the moments of imagined terror were both extreme and comfortingly unreal, making his paranoia both believable and frightening. I definitely knew that a real storm was coming, though - the movie would have fallen flat without that ending, I think. I loved that it skirted around physical survival and focused much more on the social aspects of impending disaster - not so much the apocalypse, but the time leading up to it. It was a very interesting take on the apocalypse genre. As for a scene, I’m going to have to split between the fight between Curtis and Dewart, and the end scene. Curtis, paranoid though he is, is gentle in how he goes about keeping himself and his family safe, and when he has a dream about his best friend mauling him with a pickax he requests that Dewart be moved. No fight, no warning. Knowing about his dreams, we’re sympathetic to Curtis’s fear, but Dewart feels betrayed and attacks him. “We were friends!” If they were really that close, why would Dewart physically attack and publicly humiliate Curtis? Along with the oddly silent and isolated atmosphere in the room, this to me heralds Curtis’s later dreams of people turning on each other. The ending scene was visually fantastic, and the dull reactions to the storm were what really drove it home to me. No one screamed or ran, and rather took a moment to register what this meant, grounding themselves in the new reality. It was powerful.
ReplyDeleteThe storm was only the first of Curtis’s dreams - the second was the dog. If we go off the assumption that he dreamed correctly, and that they follow the order in which he dreamed them, then animals are next. After all, we already saw the flock of birds fly directly at them only to keel over dead. Storms first, animals second, people third, and after that - loss of gravity? With strangers trying to take his child, rattling the door to his home, everything in the room suddenly juts upwards - have the laws of physics abandoned us along with nature and humanity? Even his wife begins to look at him with hesitant violence in his final dream, robbing him of even his family. This seems an attack on every possible facet of existence. Is reality falling apart?
He was a family man. He wanted to keep them safe - he wasn’t good about communicating it though, and began undermining his own role when he took the dog, took out a loan on the home, and lost his job in a desperate bid to keep them safe. I think he’s a bit of all three of those things - hero, madman and prophet. He wasn’t a very “heroic” hero, but he wanted his family to be safe, and he worked to make that happen. Madman? I’d say yes, because he believed a feeling of impending doom before he believed reason - I mean, he was right, but leading up to that point he was working off of dreams and instincts. Prophet? I don’t think that something so specific as two tornadoes and oily rain could both be dreamed about and happen in reality without at least a little bit of clairvoyance involved. At first I was afraid that Curtis would devolve into violence, trapping his family in the shelter to keep them safe from the “rain,” but he trusted his wife and worked to stay sane, and when it turned out he was right, they accepted that and prepared to move on. I liked Curtis throughout the film, but liked him even more at the end because of how much he worked not only to keep his family safe, but to be a good father and a good husband. Curtis is a good person.
Like I said before, I LOVED it. The storm, as Nicole said, provides closure - that chapter is ended: Curtis was right all along - but now what? The vague nature of this apocalypse invites many questions, and as such is compelling. Is it at all possible that they’ll survive long enough to watch the rest of the world die? If gravity ends up losing meaning, is there any possible future at all? Is it better to die at the beginning, if the end is inevitable?
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ReplyDelete1-2. I agree with Addie; I believe the major turning point of "Take Shelter" is when Samantha challenges Curtis to open the shelter door. Throughout the film, Curtis bears the burden of intense anxiety, yet instead of reaching out to his friends and family for support he rejects them; this precipitates his decline into utter misery. His anxiety prevents him from trusting others. Yet in the storm shelter, just for a bit, he places trust in Samantha and Hannah. Instead of listening to his base instincts even though he knows he is mentally ill, like he did throughout the majority of the film, he listens. While a small action, for me this scene engendered hope for Curtis' future. Furthermore, I believe the film offers hope that the wider societal anxiety characterized by the film can also be overcome; if we stand together and trust each other, we can start to work towards a better future instead of turning against each other. Everyone in the film is crippled with anxiety just like Curtis -- it might just be about health insurance, a loan, the economy, or even climate change. In a major way, the storms are symbolic; they represent the fear engendered by a post-Recession America, by an America concerned with a changing environment-- think about the oil falling from the sky, representing Deepwater Horizon, and the birds dying, clear evidence of an imminent ecological collapse. Curtis and the film's other characters continue on with life as they have always, but there is a clear air of hopelessness in the air -- a feeling what they have is temporary, and it will eventually be taken away. Because the storms are merely symbols, in a sense the apocalypse is merely mental; Curtis and his entire community are slowly losing hope but they still have a good life -- they can go to church, they can still have jobs or take trips to the beach. The outer edifice of American society, so to speak, is intact. The American falsehood is omnipresent. Yet to the extent that the storms are not symbols, the apocalypse here is not mental. The environment is slowly crumbling around them, as represented by the oil and birds falling from the sky. The economy is dying, their town is dying, and religion is dying as they are besieged by insurmountable economic and cultural forces. The apocalypse is real, and its coming for all of us -- unless we stick together like Curtis and Samantha.
ReplyDelete3. Neither really. If I had to pick a hero, I think I would concur with Addie again; Samantha seems the most likely candidate, because she is responsible for his action in the major turning point of the movie -- when he opens the door to the shelter. He's not really a prophet because the apocalypse isn't real, even though there are clear horrors on the horizon for this community. He's also not really a madman, because to an extent the apocalypse is real.
4. It doesn't matter if the ending is real or not; I think the point of the ending is that he and his family both see the same thing. It doesn't matter if its a dream or not; either way it shows that he and his family have overcome his illness and established trust. If its in a dream, it shows that he can overcome his illness and start placing trust in his family -- because now his family is on his side. If its real, the important thing is still that he and his family see the same thing -- they still aren't crippled by distrust. I believe that is the ultimate point of this film. In modern America, even though the American edifice stands strong its collapse is imminent -- and we as family, as friends, as community and as Americans must stand together instead of devolving into our worst selves.
You mentioned in the prompt of this blog that people in the class got really involved during the movie, so there was probably a more exciting energy in the room. I watched this at home with my dad, and we both agreed by the end of the movie that it was one of the most boring movies we had ever watched. Although the plot was exciting, each frame seemed like it was occurring in slow motion. I felt like the characters were in a constant slow-motion lull, especially when they were in the storm shelter. I do think that this was an intentional choice by the director, but the slow pace of the movie made watching it really difficult. The scene where Curtis went crazy at "oyster and fries" event stood in stark contrast to the rest of the film because of it's energy level and pace, so I enjoyed it. I also want to give credit to the phenomenal actors and casting.
ReplyDeleteFor Curtis, the apocalypse is his entire life. The worst part is that since he thinks he's crazy, even going so far as self-diagnosing, he feels that there's nothing he can do to salvage all of his relationships and money. I feel like the New Yorker article brought up the excellent point that this movie shows how the prospect of losing everything constantly looms on the horizon for middle and lower-class America. I also agree with Emma's point that we can see all of his relationships slowly crumble, and it starts with the animals. In films, I feel like the human-to-animal relationship usually represents a more simple and primate version of human-to-human relationships. We see Curtis exile the dog from the house near the beginning of the movie, but by the end he is practically exiling the outside world when his family is inside the storm shelter.
As soon as I found out that Curtis' mom had Schizophrenia, I made the assumption that he had inherited it, too. I would never have guessed that a life threatening storm would come like he professed. So because the storms actually occurred, I can't seem to find a simple answer for this question. I don't think he's a madman, mostly because he wants to protect his family and himself by taking the initiative to seek medical help. The movie is blurry about what is reality and what is not, which leads the audience to question whether Curtis is mentally ill or he has reached the realm of science-fiction.
When I clicked on the youtube link for the end of the movie, I couldn't help but scroll down to the comments to see what people were saying about the ambiguity. I was very surprised, at first, to see most people thought the end meant an immediate death for the family. I just felt like death was an unacceptable way to end a film where there was never really hope at all for Curtis' mental health. But after coming to the personal conclusion that the storm was indeed real (because the daughter and wife actively recognize the storm's existence and they show signs of fear), I realized that there is no way that they could have outrun the tsunami. I guess this is the most realistic interpretation of the apocalypse that we have seen so far, because there is no hope for survival. Acceptance is the only resolution.
1) I definitely liked this movie. Pretty close to the beginning, you can tell this movie is just going to build up to one big moment at the end. The buildup was really suspenseful and they shot the ending really well, so it was a good movie overall.
ReplyDelete2) You can't help but ask after the movie, “What would've happened if the big storm never came?” By the time the storm came, he had already lost his job, money, ability to work, and somehow didn't manage to completely ruin his marriage as well. His life (his productive life at least) was over. So I agree with others in that he was experiencing his own apocalypse, the apocalypse of his own life.
3) I'd choose all of those. He's definitely a prophet because he accurately predicted the nature and magnitude of the storm. Hero because he’s the only one to give his family the chance to live. I'd even say madman, too. Ultimately, his visions came as a price. He lost so much of his normal life, and damaged other things like his marriage and his friend’s lives. It was driving him insane. So I'd say he's a madman.
4) That was the best ending of any movie I've ever seen. No exaggeration. I actually felt a connection to Curtis and wanted him to win. But that says something about the fact that I preferred that this one guy win, over the survival of the rest of the human race. I preferred that Curtis was right, but that's comes at the cost of a storm wiping out humans. What about us makes us want Curtis to win.