Aaron Schneider bets high on 'Get Low'

TORONTO — There are a thousand short stories behind "Get Low," which is premiering tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival. Here's one -- the filmmaker is Aaron Schneider, who happens to have won an Oscar for writing and directing a short film, though most people here, even the savvy industry types who pack this festival, don't know much about him -- yet.

Here's the film's story -- "Get Low" is an old Southern tale that attracted a very classy cast in Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray and Lucas Black. Set in the 1930s, Felix Bush (Duvall), a Tennessee recluse, is near the end of his days. As a young man, he had disappeared into the hills trailing myths of murder and mayhem behind him. Now after 40 years he's come down to town with a wad of cash and a plan to stage a funeral before he dies -- how else to know what folks will say about him?

Here's another -- Bill Murray said yes, but not until the very, very last moment.

Producer Dean Zanuck, of the legendary Hollywood Zanucks, had managed to cold-call his way into getting Murray's attorney to part with a super-secret P.O. box number in upstate New York that Murray might or might not check. And so they sent off a synopsis of "Get Low."

Silence. Then a call, he might be interested. They shipped off the script. Silence. More silence.

"One day, Bill called Dean, talked baseball, golf, then said, 'This is a really good script. Give me the number of the director and I'll call and introduce myself,' " Schneider says.

For six weeks, Schneider ate, worked and slept with the phone by his side. Murray never called. Time was running out. If they didn't start filming, they'd lose the locations, which had been locked, the other cast, also locked, and possibly the entire film.

"I sat down and it took me three or four days, but I wrote Bill a letter, I basically put my heart on the page and sent it off to that P.O. box having no idea if he would check it, if he was even there."

Silence.

"Two weeks later, I was landing in Georgia to go make the movie, when I turned on my phone, there was a text from Dean that said Bill Murray got your letter . . . he's in."

Murray, by now, is more myth than man around Hollywood, and part of that is that he makes his own travel arrangements. So the filmmakers told him what day and what time to show up and then prayed.