Director Aaron Schneider’s first film was an adaptation of William Faulkner’s World War II short story “Two Soldiers.”
It won the Oscar for best live- action short in 2004.
His second film as a director and feature debut, the charming period fable “Get Low,” stars Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek. That cast is the sort of trifecta of genius a filmmaker would be blessed to have after a long career.
But at the beginning?
Though this sounds like the Peoria, Ill.-native should be picking Powerball numbers, please don’t call him lucky.
“A lot of people do go ‘Dude, how did you get these actors? You’re so lucky,’ ” he says over breakfast at a downtown Denver hotel.
“You know what, I’m grateful, but we busted our butts coming up with a project that would be worthy of these people. I think they’re just as happy to be involved with it as we were to have them.”
Schneider’s “we” includes writers Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell and, more vitally, producer Dean Zanuck. The scion of the renowned Hollywood family offered Schneider the job.
Since its premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the beguiling fable — based oddly enough on a real event — has traveled quite well, winning acting accolades for Duvall and Murray and an audience award for Schneider. It opens today in Denver.
Duvall portrays Felix Bush, a codger with a mysterious past. His hermit ways have fueled years of rumor. Now he wants to arrange his funeral. Only, he wants to be there, to hear what folk say about him.
It’s an uncomfortable request. Even so, undertaker and possible huckster Frank Quinn (Murray) is all too happy to arrange. His honorable assistant Buddy (Lucas Black) is a little less sure, a little more caring. Spacek portrays Mattie Darrow, who knows a fair share of Felix’s secrets, but not all of them.
For all his success, if you expect Schneider to spin one of those origin tales young directors so often do about picking up a camera in utero, you’re out of, ahem, luck.
It’s not an unreasonable assumption, mind you. It’s just not how Schneider arrived at the idea he could make movies.
His route involved a stint at Iowa State University in Ames studying mechanical engineering, a beachside chat with Billy Crystal and the stalwart support of parents Beverly and Delwin.
“Two years into school, I disliked the curriculum. I wasn’t having any fun,” he recalls. “Not that school is supposed to be fun. But I realized this is what it was going to be like.”
So Schneider called his parents and told them he wanted to do something else.
“I said I want to do special effects. I want to do Millennium Falcon (Han Solo’s ride in “Star Wars”) against green screens. I want to build models.”
This declaration of intent was greeted with parental support and followed by a family vacation to Florida’s Sanibel Island.
“Billy Crystal and his family where down there that summer at the time I was having this career crisis and my mom said, ‘Why don’t you go talk to him and ask him how to get into special effects.’ “
The comedian suggested film school. “Cut to a semester later,” says Schneider.
He left for the University of Southern California, alma mater of George Lucas, the guy behind that Millennium Falcon thing. He left his college friends behind. He had his grandmother’s Ford Granada shipped out to L.A. to, he says, “drive among all the BMWs at USC.”
He was drawn to cinematography. His resume includes “Kiss the Girls” and “Simon Birch,” and an Emmy nomination for the television series “Murder One.”
Then came “Two Soldiers.” He’d seen “Saving Private Ryan” with his dad, thought he could show his skills by adapting a war tale and found Faulkner’s short story in a collection at the library.
And there’s something a bit Faulknerian about “Get Low.” With its hints of stubbornness around demise, it suggests “As I Lay Dying.”
“Get Low” is a lovely summer respite of a movie. It’s sure, as they say, to play well in Schneider’s hometown.
Of course, this is not the first time the Peoria native has heard that old saw.
“It’s the first thing people think of. Even I’ve used it,” he says with a smile.
“Apparently it will on Aug. 27.”
