A Ghost Story: The Music

Already shortly after publishing my last post, I got the feeling that my review of "A Ghost Story" didn't really do the movie any justice. So I want to use this post now to write some more about the music. As I already wrote in the post about the movie, the music is composed by Daniel Hart.

Daniel Hart was born to musician parents in 1976 in Emporia, Kansas in America. So it probably comes as no surprise that they gave him a violin when he was 3 years old and he never let go since, as he said so himself. He came to composing film music for friends and providing the music for their little projects first.

When he's not composing film music, he plays and sings in his band: Dark Rooms. The song “I Get Overwhelmed“ from the band is used in the movie. Contrary to other movies it is not just the title song or something, but the man of the couple is a musician and the woman listens to the song after he died. Elements from that song can be heard in the other tracks of the soundtrack.

The soundtrack is mostly calm and much like the movie as a whole reduced to the essential. I personally feel that the soundtrack is a good one to listen to in passing when you work on something (like I am now, writing this post) and don't want to do that in complete silence or when you want to calm down and get some rest.

I should also mention that Kesha wrote the song “Last One“ performed by Stereo Jane. Kesha is briefly seen in the “party“ scene in the movie, too.

Here is an incomplete list of the tracks from the soundtrack album, if you want to check it out for free:

AGhost Story (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Not included is track no. 9 of the album, “Sciunt se Esse Mortui“ and no. 10, Kesha's/Stereo Jane's “Last One“.)

Often times for the trailer music from other movies is used of from music groups. In the trailer for „A Ghost Story“ however you can hear parts from „I Get Overwhelmed“. Check it out:

trailer in English and trailer in German.

I think, because the movie is rather quiet and with very little dialogue, the music as a whole and “I Get Overwhelmed“ comes to the fore more. If you don't just want to listen, but also see Dark Rooms performing “I Get Overwhelmed“, I found this

IDKSessions Video

for you.

M&M: A Ghost Story

The title seems fairly straight forward in regards to what the story is about, a typical ghost story, but "A Ghost Story" from the year 2017 is far from that. David Lowery wrote the story and also directed the movie.

The story is about a young couple (Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck) living in a small house. The woman would like to move out, but the man doesn't. He likes the history of the house, he tells her. She tells him that when she was young and had to move a lot, she would write something on a small piece of paper and hide it in a crack in the wall of the house so that she'd have something waiting for her, in case she'd come back again. Shortly before they actually do move out, the man dies in a car accident. The woman sees the dead man one last time in the hospital and finally covers him completely with the sheet. After she's gone, the body under the sheet starts to move. He turned into a ghost. He walks around the hospital covered under the sheet and goes back to the house, which he seems unable to leave.

He watches his mourning partner. It's somewhat funny and yet sad, to see the ghost with his sheet, when he's standing in a room or sitting, barely moving or not moving at all. When the ghost is looking out of a window one day, he sees another ghost in the neighbour house also looking out of the window. They have a short talk.

After some time the woman finds a new partner and moves out. One of the few moments in the movie when something scary and typically poltergeist-like happens, when the ghost gets mad (or is it jealous?). Normally we'd be scared in movie moments like that. Here the scene is more bitter sweet. Just like she told her partner before, she leaves a small piece of paper with something written on it in a crack of the house.

A mother moves in with her two children. They celebrate Christmas. But they can't cope with the ghost and after another tamper tantrum of the ghost, during with plates fly and hit the wall, the family moves out again.

Eventually the house gets steamrolled over. The “neighbour ghost” is ready to go. Only "our" ghost stays and is still there when the small house is replaced by a skyscraper with office rooms. After the ghost desperately throws himself off the building, he finds himself in the 19th century. A family of settlers wants to build a house. The girl of the family writes on a small piece of paper and puts it on the ground, placing a stone on top of it. The family is killed by Native Americans. The ghost stays with the family and watches as the body of the girl turns to just bones.

You need to watch the movie yourself to find out whether the ghost finds his peace and how the movie ends. A movie with the title "A Ghost Story" is certainly one people who don't like horror movies would avoid at first. But I can most warmly recommend it to everyone. The movie is not at all a scary movie and the two poltergeist-like moments are already mentioned above. It doesn't get scarier than that. On the contrary the movie impressed me with how calm it is, not least with very little dialogue, long scenes without cuts or camera movement and a very beautiful score by Daniel Hart. Also the movie has a 1.33 : 1 ratio, not the typical 2.35 : 1. That means black mattes left and right of the screen. Also the edges are round, which gives the movie its very own atmosphere.

I came upon this movie only a while ago, when I read the title somewhere on the internet in a list of movies. Certainly I will check out other movies by David Lowery soon, since I really liked "A Ghost Story".

["Ain't Them Bodies Saints" is another movie by David Lowery, again starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck and yes, Daniel Hart provided the score to that one as well. Haven't seen that one yet though. I might (re)view it soon though.]