Famous actors star in a tale of an old man’s search for forgiveness

What happens when a man goes decades without forgiveness? On Friday, July 30, Get Low, in an unusual and Oscar-worthy movie, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray, and Lucas Black, give one answer. Get Low opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. By Aug. 27, it will be a national release. Based on a true event, Get Low is the story of Felix Bush (Duvall), a man facing death, secrets, and people he’s hurt, it is said in the press release.

While general audiences will see a mystery, Christian audiences will also see the great themes of sin and tragedy, secrets and self-imprisonment, grace and forgiveness.

The real Felix “Bush” Breazelale was a hermit in the 1930s that staged his own funeral party. Georgia pastor Scott Seeke heard the old family story from his wife’s grandfather. Seeke wrote the story and passed it to his longtime friend, screenwriter Chris Provenzano, of the acclaimed Mad Men series.

“No one knows what motivated the real Felix other than his simple statement that he wanted to know what people would say,” Seeke said. “There were rumors he’d killed a man. We started there to ask why an old man would want to stage his own funeral.” Provenzano and BLOOD DIAMOND screenwriter C. Gaby Mitchell polished Get Low, now a highly anticipated film from Academy Award-winning director Aaron Schneider.

In Get Low, Duvall plays Bush as a hard and selfish man seeking some kind of forgiveness but on his terms. In the same breath, he yearns for grace and rejects it.

“The story touches a universal chord,” said Director Aaron Schneider, an Oscar winner for his short film, TWO SOLDIERS. “The only meaningful way to live ultimately is to engage with the world and accept the love and forgiveness offered to you.”

Duvall, a film legend, began his film career with Horton Foote’s screenplay of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Duvall was drawn to the writing—likening it to Foote’s—and to the lead character.

“Felix is an original and full of human complexity,” Duvall said. “He has been maybe not such a great guy at various points in his life but now he’s moved to ask for certain forgiveness at the end.”

One of the few personal remarks from the real Felix was that shut down over a woman he wanted but could never have. In Get Low, that woman is known to widow Maddie Darrow, played by Sissy Spacek, winner of the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of another Southern woman, Loretta Lynn in COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER.

“My character is the emotional center of the film,” she said. “There’s a lot of unrequited love here with both Maddie and Felix.”

Get Low also stars Academy Award-nominee Bill Murray, along with Lucas Black, Gerald McRaney, and Bill Cobbs.

Shot on location in Georgia, this Sony Pictures Classic releases in select theaters on July 30 before rolling out nationally. Positive buzz began early in top film festivals—Sundance, South by Southwest, Tribeca, San Francisco, and more.

Get Low will intrigue Christians, non-Christians, and any thinking person . . . in this portrait of one man’s struggle to come to terms with his past, with forgiveness offered, and a life spent attempting to pay his own way.

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TAGS: USA Get Low Robert Duvall Sissy Spacek Bill Murray Lucas Black Felix Bush funeral party Aaron Schneider

[08/03/2010]

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