Take Shelter (2011)
Directed by Jeff Nichols
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.
21 connections found
View:
21 films that influenced Take Shelter
What critics say influenced Take Shelter
Like Carol White , the central, unglued character of Todd Haynes s Safe (1995) who is allergic to the 20th century, blue-collar worker Curtis is haunted by one of the looming terrors of the 21st: financial ruin.
The drama of Take Shelter resembles Todd Haynes' Safe in its real-world fear and paranoia, but it's warmer, more poignant and more suspenseful than that 1995 psychodrama.
This film bothers me in the same way the Todd Haynes film "Safe" bothers me, or the way Lodge Kerrigan's work bothers me.
The obvious comparison to Take Shelter is Todd Haynes’s Safe, in which a woman (Julianne Moore) is slowly dying from modern life.
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
It is one of the most captivating and overwhelming portrayals of mental illness in a domestic setting since John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence in 1974.
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
Advertisement
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
I think master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock would have approved of Take Shelter, especially with its visual allusions to The Birds and its beautifully ironic finale (which will likely polarize audiences).
There is a bit of “The Shining” with his nightmares, especially when Samantha enters them.
He’s terrific, but it’s a little like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” – we know things are going to get bad right from the start.
Casting Shannon as a guy who might be going insane is like casting Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining; ie it doesn’t seem like The Overlook has to do too much to bring Mr. Torrance over to the crazy side.
That movie was produced by Nichols' very successful North Carolina School of the Arts classmate, director David Gordon Green ("George Washington," "Pineapple Express"), but it never received a Memphis theatrical screening, so "Take Shelter" may represent an introduction to Nichols for most local moviegoers.
That movie was produced by Nichols' very successful North Carolina School of the Arts classmate, director David Gordon Green ("George Washington," "Pineapple Express"), but it never received a Memphis theatrical screening, so "Take Shelter" may represent an introduction to Nichols for most local moviegoers.
Advertisement
Nichols' storytelling relies on a mounting atmosphere of slow-burn intensity and an attention to people rather than plot points, his sensibilities lying next to, for example, Steven Spielberg's in 1977's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
He did it again for Werner Herzog in the decidedly weird 2009 drama " My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? " He earned a 2009 Oscar nomination for doing it in Sam Mendes' " Revolutionary Road ."
Michael Shannon (2010's " The Runaways ") is exceptionally committed to the role of Curtis, the same way he disappeared into his Oscar-nominated turn in 2008's " Revolutionary Road ."
Shannon's peripheral character John Givings, somebody's crazy son, stole the movie from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in the space of one key scene in Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road.
Shannon, an Oscar nominee as a troubled genius in "Revolutionary Road," has finally found a role that marries his brute intensity to a tender humility.
Shannon is known for playing mentally unstable individuals, has been since his indescribable turn in "Bug" (adapted from his own stage play), his Oscar nomination for "Revolutionary Road" and more recently for his role as a self-flagellating FBI zealot in "Boardwalk Empire."
The intense Shannon, who stole the show from Leonardo DiCaprio (and received an Oscar nomination) in “Revolutionary Road’’ is perfectly cast as the troubled hero.