How A Utopian Society Broke Out In Song & Dance: Mona Fastvold On The Making Of ‘The Testament Of Ann Lee’ – Crew Call Podcast
This holiday season, Amanda Seyfried is double the force to be reckon with as an unhinged wealthy housewife in Lionsgate’s box office success The Housemaid and in Mona Fastvold‘s period epic The Testament of Ann Lee about the iconoclastic, provocative founder of the Shaker movement.
Fastvold joins us on today’s Crew Call to chat about what brought her to Ann Lee; it was while she was doing research on her other 1800s-set drama, The World to Come (Ann Lee being set in the 1700s). The filmmaker’s curiosity piqued on the subject of a religious female crusader at a time when many were immigrating to America for spiritual freedom. Similar to the 3x-Oscar winning The Brutalist, which Fastvold co-wrote and was nominated for as a producer in Best Picture with her partner Brady Corbet, The Testament of Ann Lee, was made for a thrifty net $10M; the duo knowing how to make ambitious cinema at an efficient price in an overpriced motion picture and streaming era. For alas, Ann Lee isn’t your run-of-the-mill biopic. It’s punctuated with radical musical numbers and dance sequences, not quite seen before on the big screen.
Fastvold tells us how she came to the decision to flip this period pic on its head into a seductive dance epic, part of that inspiration coming from her background in movement.
“I said to Brady, I think it’s a musical-and-movement-based project. Brady said, ‘It’s a musical, that’s what it is.’” Fastvold tells Crew Call, “So quite early on in the writing process, I realized, I just had to embrace that they lived their life like they were in a musical.”
Fastvold worked with choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall after finishing the script to bring the yesteryear dance moves to life.
The movie, which Searchlight purchased following its Venice Film Festival premiere for mid-to-high seven figures, recently opened in four theaters in 70MM in LA and NYC this past weekend posting a $111K 4-day opening. Weekend shows at the Landmark Sunset Theatres in LA had two pre-receptions and live performances which included Rowlson-Hall presenting a bespoke 13-minute performance with ten dancers and three original performers from the film, all wearing their costumes from the movie. The movie expands on Jan. 16 to other cities.
Seyfried received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) for her portrayal of Ann Lee. The film was also nominated for the Gotham Awards, and the Critics Choice (Seyfried for Best Actress and Daniel Blumberg’s “Clothed by the Sun” in Best Song) and Film Independent Spirit Awards (Best Editing).
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