Why 'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore' is far from a 'traditional' celebrity doc

In her documentary astir the groundbreaking Deaf histrion Marlee Matlin, manager Shoshannah Stern realized that dependable was everything. “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore” is an intimate relationship of the performer and activist’s triumphs and struggles, which see her 1987 Oscar triumph arsenic pb histrion successful “Children of a Lesser God,” a archetypal for a Deaf actor. (She besides holds the grounds for youngest idiosyncratic to triumph successful the category, astatine 21.) Approaching the task arsenic a Deaf histrion herself, Stern recovered innovative ways to assistance viewers link with Matlin’s cognition of the dependable astir her.

“Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, this is simply a personage doc, precise traditional.’ But past dilatory the movie does shift,” Stern says via her interpreter, Karri Aiken, connected a caller video call. “You’re realizing that you bash spot things much from Marlee’s perspective.”

Most obviously, Stern presents her conversations with Matlin — the women curled up other each different connected a cozy sofa — wholly successful American Sign Language, utilizing captions alternatively than a verbal interpreter oregon voice-over, which allowed for much close translation. “Sometimes, interpreters don’t get everything close successful the moment,” Stern says. The soundtrack captures the subtle smack of lips moving and the flutter of expressive hands moving done air, arsenic good arsenic extraneous dependable similar the hum of a pitchy passing overhead. On a regular set, the interrogation would intermission during the distraction. But Stern felt nary need. “I wanted this to beryllium an immersive acquisition for assemblage members.”

That thought besides applied to the plan and usage of captions passim the film, which begins with witty wordplay during the rubric sequence.

“For a agelong time, captions person been made by proceeding people,” says Stern, who collaborated with d/Deaf/hard-of-hearing creator and filmmaker Alison O’Daniel, whose 2023 documentary “The Tuba Thieves” reimagined closed captioning arsenic a descriptive playground. “People ever consciousness similar it’s a load to adhd captions … [but] it’s a spot wherever you tin heighten a film.” The creativity underscores Matlin’s advocacy earlier Congress, whose transition of the 1990 Television Decoder Circuitry Act mandated closed-captioning exertion for televisions sold successful the United States.

Among different details, the captions tin popular up anyplace successful the framework and are adjacent coded to acceptable the property of the idiosyncratic speaking. “We were trying to usage definite colors to conscionable peoples’ aura,” Stern says.

Stern, left, and Matlin photographed earlier this twelvemonth astatine the Los Angeles Times Studio astatine the Sundance Film Festival.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

To plunge viewers into Matlin’s world, the filmmaker worked intimately with dependable decorator Bonnie Wild to exemplify the often confusing sonic free-for-all that Deaf radical tin acquisition done proceeding immunodeficiency (which some Matlin and Stern use). The country is simply a household meal successful which mean household noises — the scrapes, plunks and clatter — and code are pitched astatine irregular volumes and deficiency directional focus. At 1 point, Matlin’s member Marc takes a infinitesimal to construe a treatment she struggles to portion together.

“As hearing-aid users we tin ‘read lips,’ but due to the fact that we ‘read lips,’ radical presume that I recognize everything that’s being said,” Stern explains. “Really, there’s a immense magnitude of enactment connected our extremity to drawback 1 word. I’m like: noise, noise, noise, oh, word. I tin drawback 1 word, but past I person to fig retired what were the noises that I missed, and past effort to enactment them each together.”

Wild, who works arsenic a supervising dependable exertion astatine Skywalker Sound, borrowed a proceeding assistance from the parent of a person to get an idea. “I was taken aback by however the precocious extremity is truthful boosted,” she says. “Things don’t person the aforesaid extent of field. When my person was tying her shoelaces down me, it was conscionable truthful loud. Things spatially were being thrown. It was disorienting.” Thanks to a Dolby Creator Lab Grant, Stern was capable to enactment with Wild to signifier a purposefully incoherent soundscape, utilizing Dolby Atmos to fling sounds each around.

“A batch of times arsenic a Deaf idiosyncratic successful existent life, you’re exhausted trying to spell to an lawsuit similar that. Everything becomes truthful muddy, sound-wise,” Stern says. “A batch of times we springiness up trying to recognize sound. That’s what we tried to represent successful that scene.”

Perhaps astir resonant was different infinitesimal successful the film, changeable during an interrogation portion the task was inactive successful development. The country finds Matlin speechmaking a caption from a workplace publicity inactive for “Lesser God.” It alludes to her being “sensually mislaid successful her ain soundless world.” The camera tracks her reaction. “She’s shocked and past she’s laughing. And she says, ‘It’s not soundless successful here,’” and she’s pointing to her brain. I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, yes,’” says Stern, who knew past that she had her thesis for the film. “I travel from the 4th procreation of being successful a Deaf household and our Deaf household is truthful large always.”