First impressions of Ghostlight
Kelly O'Sullivan's film about grief, reconciliation, and community theater deserves major acting awards. See it on a big screen with a crowd so you can cheer with them when the credits roll.
My high school English teacher raised eyebrows during my senior year when he started inviting students to his apartment in the evenings.
Today, I can imagine that such behavior might be concerning in view of how frequently we read headlines about abuse. But in this case, the teacher’s intentions could not have been more honorable: He saw in some of us a curiosity about art that our fleeting classroom sessions could not sufficiently address, and he opened his home, which was designed with the austerity and grace of an elegant art gallery for fine photography, so that groups of us could sit comfortably in a circle, take on roles in famous plays, and read them aloud together in their entirety. Somewhere between five and a dozen students showed up each time, and we kept on meeting during the summer after my class graduated. It was an exciting way to discover that we could preserve what we loved most about our school experience even as we moved on toward new experiences.
I distinctly remember sessions where we were moved by King Lear and Death of a Salesman. We also watched Akira Kurosawa’s Ran together (in order to discover how a text like King Lear might be inventively re-interpreted in a new context). That’s where I first saw films like Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, as well as what would be become my all-time favorite film: Wings of Desire. I even remember watching U2: Rattle and Hum with this group and discussing the difference between powerful art and purposeful art.
The fact that Dead Poets Society opened in theaters that very summer to widespread critical acclaim and popularity seemed like a profound endorsement of our own not-so-secret club.
Those gatherings were among the most formative experiences of my life. They demonstrated for me what was possible if a person prioritized engagement with art in community. They showed me a way of living I hadn’t seen before. And the discoveries I made there, the epiphanies I experienced, made me fall in love with learning and growing through the cultivation of an empathetic imagination. What’s more, some of my most lasting and rewarding friendships took root there are flourishing still today. And I’ve tried to offer the same gift to friends and students ever since. I will always be grateful to that teacher for bearing up under the suspicions and rumors of fearful and presumptuous parents in order to show us paths into more enlightening and rewarding ways of living life and practicing faith.
This kind of experience is all too rare in our culture, and as a result too many people are content to target arts programs as frivolous (or dangerous) when cuts need to be made. (Just this week, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida vetoed all grants for arts programs in Florida — plunging a knife into one of that state’s vital organs.) And yet, rare as that experience is, it’s common enough — and important enough — that we occasionally see a movie set on inspiring others to seek it out.
This year, one of those movies is Ghostlight.
In Ghostlight, a grizzled and grouchy Dan (Keith Kupferer) — a husband, a father, a construction worker — reaches the limits of his patience in all three roles that he plays. Pressures at work are high and constant. Money is tight. And, most painful of all, he, his wife Sharon (Tara Mallen, the real-life spouse of Kupferer), and his self-destructively brash daughter Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer, who is, yes, Keith and Tara’s actual daughter) are grieving a family tragedy. All it might take is for a driver to honk at Dan in the wrong moment, and he’ll explode in a way that his whole family will regret.
And if Dan explodes, somebody could get hurt. He’s a grizzled, broad-shouldered, James-Gandolfini type; I wouldn’t want him grabbing me by the lapels, slamming me against a wall, and roaring in my face.
What can save Dan from the repressed grief and rage that’s consuming him? Taking on a fourth role.
That is to say, a theatrical role.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Give Me Some Light to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.