Themes: Haunted By the Past, Death in the Family, Small-Town Life
Main Cast: Paul Giamatti, Michelle Williams, Michael Pitt, Rusty Schwimmer, Robert Wisdom
Release Year: 2005
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
Plot
A man channels his feelings through an obsession with wild birds in this independent drama based on a novel by Harry Crews. Fortysomething George Gattling (Paul Giamatti) is an emotionally stunted man who makes his living doing auto upholstery and lives with his sister, Precious (Rusty Schwimmer), and her autistic son, Fred (Michael Pitt). Though George has an on-and-off relationship with Betty (Michelle Williams), a constantly stoned young woman just edging out of her teens, one of the few ways in which his deeper feelings come to the surface is his interest in falcons. George loves to capture and train the birds, even if he isn't especially good at it and has lost nearly all the falcons he's tried to keep. When Fred dies in a drowning accident, his family is devastated, but George is incapable of expressing his grief. One day, George finds a striking red-tailed hawk, and he immediately becomes obsessed with the bird. As George struggles to keep the magnificent hawk in captivity and keep it safe while training it to obey his commands, he's finally able to connect with the sense of loss that has haunted him since Fred's passing. The Hawk Is Dying received its premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
George is the owner of the University Custom Auto Shop and the disgruntled patriarch of his family: his divorced sister, Precious, and her 20-year-old autistic son, Fred. He's also the unwitting case study of a "life-gone-wrong" for Betty, a young psychology student who works in the auto shop.
George seeks salvation in hawks. He dreams of capturing and training the noble birds of prey. It is an ancient art that requires precision (you only have a few days to succeed) and extremes (only through practically killing yourself and the bird are you brought together). It is the obsession he shares with Fred. In the quiet pre-dawn tracking of the birds, George Gattling feels like a man temporarily freed from the absurdity of civilized life.
After several years of failed attempts, George and Fred capture the most magnificent bird they have ever seen—the red-tailed hawk. That night, Fred dies in a freak accident, drowning in his water bed. Grief-stricken, George sees his only chance to survive tied together with this bird. He becomes determined to tame her — meaning that he will not eat or sleep, nor will she, until it's all over. At his weakest moment, he locks himself into a battle of wills with the only creature on earth that would rather die than succumb.
To the rest of the world, it appears George has gone mad; the closer he gets to achieving success, the crazier his family thinks he's become. Betty is the only one who realizes that George must take himself to the bottom to truly be saved. She watches as George is released into a world where the senses are awakened and emotions are unchecked—a world where one can see and feel the "blood of things."
The Hawk
The hawk that George captures in the story is a Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). This is a common species in Florida. The bird used in the film is actually an African species in the same genus, Buteo augur, known as the Jackal Buzzard or African Auger Hawk. The hawk in the film was trained by Tony Suffredini of the company Avian Entertainment.
