Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee is redefining the movie musical
In a Q interview, the director talks about the process of making the film and working with Amanda Seyfried
When Mona Fastvold started doing research on Ann Lee, the charismatic religious leader who brought the Shaker sect from England to the American colonies in the 18th century, she saw something in the story that most people probably wouldn’t: its cinematic potential.
Fastvold’s buzzy new movie, The Testament of Ann Lee, is a musical unlike any other you’ve seen before. Co-written with her partner Brady Corbet (the director behind the Oscar-winning film The Brutalist), the film seamlessly glides between dialogue and song to depict the way the Shakers worshipped through ecstatic song and dance.
The founding leader of the Shakers, commonly referred to as Mother Ann, sought to establish a utopian society, preaching social equality regardless of gender or race, as well as celibacy, pacifism and communal living. Her followers believed she was the female embodiment of Christ, representing the feminine aspect of a dual-natured God.
“There's a lot of interesting female characters who have not gotten their place in history that they deserve,” Fastvold tells Q guest host Talia Schlanger in an interview. “No one knew about Ann Lee. No one knew her story, or very few, at least, did…. The more I read about her the more radical I thought she was.”
In the film, Amanda Seyfried stars as Lee in a performance that’s being called a career best. Fastvold warned the actor up front that she wouldn’t be paid much, she’d have to work very hard and it would be an overall uncomfortable experience.
“I also said it's going to be one of the most rewarding experiences in your life, I'm sure, because this is a great role,” she says. “You want someone to be 110 per cent willing to go on this journey with you. If not, it's not going to work…. With Amanda, even though I know she was scared and anxious about this, she still just really needed to go there, she wanted to go there and she felt that connection to this role.”
Though Seyfried is a trained vocalist, Fastvold’s film isn’t a traditional movie musical like Mamma Mia!, in which characters suddenly burst into song and dance. The music in The Testament of Ann Lee is more rugged and fluid, woven into the fabric of the film, which can be quite graphic and intense.
In one unflinching montage sequence, Lee is shown giving birth four times and losing all four babies. The scene choreographs her trauma and subsequent grief, alternating between agony and ecstatic, desperate song.
“When [Amanda] first started singing, it was really pretty and perfect, but it just wasn't right at all,” Fastvold says. “We were really just kind of trying to make it not sound pretty anymore and to just sing from a place of imperfection…. How she got there in the end was by … not caring anymore what she sounds like, and stop judging her voice and just sing.”
The Testament of Ann Lee is in theatres now. Listen to the full interview with Fastvold to hear more about the process of making the movie.
The full interview with Mona Fastvold is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Mona Fastvold produced by Vanessa Nigro.