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00:00Joining us now are the director of Marlee Matlin, Not Alone Anymore, Shoshana Stern and producer
00:13Justine Nagin. Thank you so much for being with us. Yeah, thank you so much for having us.
00:18Happy to be here. Shoshana, you've known Marlee for really a very long time, which I think would
00:23be so helpful in exploring in such an intimate fashion her story. And we see you on the couch
00:32together. You're very comfortable together. How much of a comfort factor was that for you?
00:39I have known her for a very long time. I have. But I have known her like before she actually knew me.
00:49Like many other deaf people in the world, just in general, Marlee was the first person that I saw
00:55myself in. And I was seven years old. And so I feel like I watched like all the interviews that she was
01:04ever in to a point to where I could tell our archivists and our editors, hey, I want these
01:09certain moments that you see in the film. I had remembered everything down to what her hair had
01:15looked like, what her shirt had looked like. And I also remembered the feelings that I had
01:23experienced, like the looks in her eyes during her interviews, her discomfort. Whenever she was
01:33being interviewed by someone who was living outside of her lived experience, just that type of
01:38responsibility that people have, the thoughts that they have to go through, thinking, oh, this isn't my
01:44native language. How much of my experience am I having to explain to this interviewer? And how much
01:52of the weight of what the person doesn't know that I'm carrying or putting on me to carry?
01:59I knew that that was something I didn't want to have in this film with her. And so I made sure that
02:06when I addressed Marlee about how we were going to be having these conversations in the film,
02:12that it would be just that. They would be just conversations. It wouldn't be an interview.
02:17I wanted to be able to give Marlee autonomy and consent to really lead the conversation where she
02:28wanted it to go and to have that sense of safety on set. And I was there with her, you know, on the
02:36couch, again, with that title, Not Alone Anymore. It was both of us there. I'm feeling what she's feeling.
02:41And so that was the vision behind the couch.
02:46And Justine, from your point of view, how critical it was to have a deaf director on this project,
02:53because we see how rare it is for any deaf person, be it in a narrative fiction film or documentary,
03:00to have the opportunity to direct. But it's pretty crucial for this project.
03:03Yeah, I mean, we were very fortunate that to have Shoshana on this film in so many ways. But we were
03:10also that decision was made before the project came to us. So Marlee, when American Masters had the
03:16idea to make the film and went to Marlee, Marlee made the condition and it was the right one that
03:22I'll only do it if it's a deaf director. And she put Shoshana Stern forward because of the strength of
03:27Shoshana's past work and her brilliance. And I think her empathy and her strength as a writer,
03:34that she knew that she was ready to take the leap into directing.
03:37And we see another point of connection, Shoshana, where you had played the role of Sarah,
03:45that of course won the Oscar for Marlee Matlin. So, you know, there's so many intersections in your
03:51lives that allow you to really understand her. Definitely. Definitely. My daughter right now is
03:58studying that famous TED talk about the danger of a single story. There is a danger in having just a
04:05single story. Stories are a reflection of time and place, the ones that they're created in.
04:13And now it's been, what, 45 years, I think, since that story first came about. And there are other
04:25stories with deaf characters that have come to light, but really haven't come out into the public
04:31eye or public knowledge like A Children of a Lesser God. And I remember how I felt every night after
04:38playing Sarah on stage. It was something that I had talked about in the film with two other actresses
04:45who had played Sarah. The importance of having storytelling and what perspectives we are telling
04:53stories from. And so that is a really important layer in our film. And for either Shoshana or Justine,
05:02maybe you could comment on opening the lens of the film, if you will, so that hearing people,
05:08I think, can much better understand the deaf experience, but that also the deaf stars who were
05:17interviewed, Troy Kotzer, Lauren Redloff, for instance, and of course, Marlee herself can feel
05:25comfortable and really be themselves. I, yeah, really jumped into the deep end with this film.
05:32I was sent off for our first shoot for the film, probably a couple of weeks after I had gotten the
05:39job. Because Marlee had accomplished another first, she had become the first deaf person to direct an
05:46episode of network TV. And I think she might've been the deaf person, the first deaf person to get into
05:51the DGA as well. I was really sent off to shoot her in that moment of hers. And I remember on the way
05:58there on the airplane thinking, you know, it really didn't hit me before that the form of documentary
06:06as we know it is really rooted in sound. Because for a long time, documentaries have been made by
06:15hearing people, about hearing people, for hearing people. And so it was almost like, you know, what I
06:22had seen for such a long time in all documentaries, I was thinking, oh, I'm going to have to do it that
06:28way. But it wasn't until the first shoot that I got sent on that I was realizing, wow, we have to do
06:36things differently. We can't just use the default, the default form that we know, we're going to kind
06:46of have to flip the tables and reframe and reinvent form as we know it for this story. And what is a
06:52visual documentary going to look like? And I didn't feel like I could really do Marlee's story justice
06:59if I didn't allow people in the audience who don't share her lived experience to like walk in her
07:05shoes. Like people needed to know what it felt like to rely on captions to understand people.
07:11And so we developed with the help of Justine and our wonderful producing team at Actual Films,
07:19this new approach to documentary filmmaking. What you see some of that we had earpieces for hearing
07:25people whenever they were being interviewed. An interpreter is leaving the room to voice outside
07:30of the room. And so we're making sure that we had fourth cameras when we were on set and the fourth
07:38camera was always rolling to be able to capture what it was look like, what it was going to look
07:42like if we dropped the, dropped the curtain for the audience saying, hey, audience, we're making a film
07:47and this is how we did it. And so just these really cool ways that we implemented to be able to introduce
07:55the audience into this new form of documentary that we created.
07:59I totally want to come back to that later, that kind of iterative process that got us there.
08:04But in the meantime, I just want to quickly, you know, Matt, you asked about the goal of having hearing
08:11people understand more of the deaf perspective. And for me, it really comes to the dinner,
08:15the dinner scene, which from the beginning when we were in Chicago shooting, Shoshana knew what she wanted
08:21to do in that scene. And so from the beginning with our crew and thinking about on set and, you know,
08:29it was, we were trying to do something new. It was hard in the moment. We wanted to be really respectful
08:35to Marley and her family, but we also really wanted to use it to make these, some of these larger points.
08:40So shooting it in the field. And then I just want to also give a huge shout out to Bonnie Wilde at
08:46Skywalker, who in the sound mix with our editor, Sarah Newins and our lead producer, Robin Kopp and
08:52Shoshana and the team really immersed at Skywalker. And we got a grant from Dolby to make it very
08:58immersive and to elevate really what that experience ended up being, which I think, you know, sticks with a lot
09:06of people and is, I think, really memorable on a lot of levels and was not easy to pull off.
09:13That Verite scene is really quite powerful. The family scene, we really do get a sense of what is
09:19it like for Marley? What must it have been like for her as a child, certainly growing up? And then
09:26in the interview scenes with Shoshana and Marley, we see the boom mic there. And there's no score.
09:37There is sound. There's ambient sound. And that, too, really is very evocative. I don't think we've
09:45been allowed in on that. The hearing audience to, again, to appreciate the world and the communication
09:54that exists between deaf people or between hearing and deaf people.
09:59And as a hearing person, you, in the theaters, you watch people and you can sense them. It takes a
10:05minute to settle in because it really is a very evocative, different experience. And you, not only is
10:13the beauty of the language and the visual elements of it and the sounds of it, do they come through,
10:20but also just, again, challenging norms. And from the beginning, Shoshana said, I don't want people
10:26to be voiced. I want them. I want the ASL to be primary. Absolutely. And the film is so
10:34extraordinary in so many ways, I think, that some of it is just how open Marley is about her life,
10:42speaking about her drug issues as a young woman. And, of course, her very complicated and abusive
10:49relationship with William Hurt. Shoshana, what was it like for you to explore that area? And I guess
10:55that you know going in, partly because Marley had written her memoir, that she is an open book. She
11:00is willing to talk about this. Yeah. Again, I really wanted to give her autonomy with her story to be
11:09able to speak about that on her own terms. And I also really wanted to explain where it all comes from.
11:19What it all points back to. Because three out of four deaf women will experience domestic violence in
11:26their lifetime. And it really is because we do have lack of access to words. It's not about lack
11:34of access to sound or hearing. It's about lack of access to words. And that's why it is so important
11:42that we have the soundscape of the film. We are putting people in Marley's shoes and she's searching
11:50for words. She's having to work really hard. Maybe she's getting one word here, one word there, but
11:54there's still so much missing in what she's able to acquire. And so when something really traumatic
12:00happens to you, how do you really have the words and vocabulary to describe yourself and explain what
12:09had actually happened? And I really don't think that she realized that until we had that conversation
12:18on the couch in the film, because I shared an experience that I had being a survivor as well
12:26and from a different generation. And we, you know, I've already experienced the Me Too movement
12:35and we have this new understanding. We have this new vocabulary now that wasn't present when Marley
12:42was growing up and when she was brave enough to come out with her book. And that's why I included
12:47that footage in the film. It's really interesting to look at it now to see what the focus was back
12:54then when she was going through her interviews. Oh, absolutely. And I'm really touched by the title of the
13:04film, not alone anymore. And we talked earlier a little bit about also the sense of Shoshana and
13:11Marley being together. That's one respect in which they're not alone anymore. But I must say Marley's
13:19generosity in wanting Troy Kotzer to win and like desperately wanting him to win the Oscar for
13:25Coda. I think there's a lot of actors who might think, no, I want to be it forever. I think she
13:33truly hungered for that. Right. There's this strange focus that still happens even to today
13:43that our society has on being the first. And, you know, that value that we've placed on it for such a
13:54long time, it hasn't really decreased at all and lost its value yet. And that is a big theme of the film.
14:02What does it actually mean to be the first? And really, it does mean to be alone.
14:07And to be alone for so long over time through all these changes, I think to be human is to crave
14:18other people. You crave partnership. We're pack animals. And we do want to communicate. We do want
14:25to be understood. And you can't have that if you're alone. And you're right. That's, that's what I was
14:34wanting people to take from the film is like Marley was thrilled. She wasn't gatekeeping anymore. And she
14:41really wanted and yet deeply cared about Troy winning. And so I think we should question as a society, why are we
14:49still applauding the first in anything? I think that's very true. And also we hear that the sign,
14:57the ASL sign for first is similar to only. And again, that evokes also this alone.
15:04Yeah, the alone and lonely. Yeah.
15:07Which is not a wonderful place to be.
15:10No. And, you know, it separates you from your own community, too, when that happens. To be the first
15:17means that you beat who? You beat your own community. You beat your own people. And so then
15:21it gets turned into from a celebration to then a competition.
15:26Yeah, absolutely. That's the, you know, there are many actors, hearing actors, say Marlon Brando,
15:33Josie Scott, who have been ambivalent, shall we say, about that competitive nature of certainly in the
15:39context of the Academy Awards. At Sundance, I got to ask Shoshana whether she thought Marley
15:45Matlin had been able to exercise a full range of her talents. I do see her in many roles. There's
15:51the wonderful sequence about Seinfeld that is quite cherished by people we see her directing.
15:58But I'd love to ask you that, Justine. Do you feel like Marley has been given,
16:04had the opportunity to express her talents fully?
16:09I mean, I think her ova is really impressive. And I love the montage in the film where you get to see
16:14it. But no, I mean, I think that there's a lot more that she could be doing and should be doing. And
16:18I think one of our hopes after making this film is to unlock more opportunities for her and for other
16:25deaf performers. Because really, you know, opportunities should be boundless. And I think it's, it's both,
16:33both her being deaf, and I think also for women of a certain age, it gets, schools get harder.
16:39And so I think it's important to just remind people of her, her amazing talent.
16:44It is an amazing talent. And we see it recognized very early on by Henry Winkler. I love that part of
16:52the film.
16:52It's so good.
16:53Oh, it's so wonderful.
16:55Every time he comes out, I chuckle. So good.
16:58Yeah. And I'm sure Shoshana, you were like, because you throw Henry in there early in the film,
17:04and I'm sure there are people like, why is Henry Winkler coming up in this documentary?
17:13Yeah, a little teaser.
17:15Yes, exactly. That's the word for a teaser, I think. Well, I think this conversation is a way,
17:22a teaser for larger conversation to be had about the film, about the deaf experience, about the
17:29limitations of hearing people to understand the experience of anyone else, hearing from other
17:36backgrounds, communities. So it's, it's a profound and moving film, if you'll allow me to insert my
17:42own opinion into it. But I want to thank you both, the director of Marlee Matlin, Not Alone Anymore,
17:48Shoshana Stern, and the producer, Justine Nagin, for joining us on For the Love of Docs.
17:53Thank you so much.
17:55Oh, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much, Matt.
17:58Thank you. We're going to be back next week with another film in our virtual series,
18:02For the Love of Docs. So we hope you will join us.
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