For a long time, Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin has been waiting for her story to be told by someone within the Deaf community. Her wish was granted with this year’s Sundance premiere of Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, a documentary directed by Shoshannah Stern, who is also deaf.
When Matlin was first approached by American Masters, a PBS television series that has produced films about iconic artists and cultural figures such as Charlie Chaplin and Billie Holiday, the network had already chosen a director from outside the Deaf community. But Matlin wanted a deaf female director to tell her life story, and she already had someone in mind: Stern, an actress and writer who Matlin met while guest starring together on The Division in 2003.
“[Despite] knowing that Shoshannah hadn’t directed before, I didn’t think she would have a problem, because all the years that I’ve had a chance to observe her, quietly behind the scenes, I knew that she had a directorial spirit within her,” Matlin signs to The Progressive through her interpreter, Jack Jason. “I’m glad that American Masters and PBS agreed to my suggestion because, in all honesty, I don’t think that we would have done this the right way without her.”
Not Alone Anymore paints an emotional portrait of Matlin’s acting career and personal life, tracing a line from Matlin’s historic 1987 Oscar win for Children of a Lesser God to 2022’s CODA, which featured a predominantly deaf cast and received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Troy Kotsur, who was awarded Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his work in CODA, was the first deaf actor to receive an Academy Award since Matlin’s win thirty-five years prior. In those intervening years, Matlin faced scrutiny from some deaf people for speaking while presenting at the 1988 Academy Awards, and eventually opened up about being abused by William Hurt on the set of Children of a Lesser God.
The Progressive spoke with Matlin and Stern, who signed through her interpreter, Karri Aiken, about developing a new visual language to authentically tell Matlin’s story, the evolution of conversations surrounding closed captioning in film, and how Matlin has navigated isolation within the Deaf community. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: It was really interesting that the film itself is largely silent and doesn’t use a lot of interpreters. Shoshannah, how did you approach the visual style with inclusivity in mind? And how did you collaborate with Marlee to bring that to life?
Shoshannah Stern: I think Marlee’s been tired of having her story be told by someone who lives outside of her experience. I’ve been able to experience a lot of what she’s also experienced, including having sit-down interviews with someone who lives outside my experience. I’ve always been having to think, “OK, where is the interpreter going to sit?” I have to monitor the interpreter, make sure they’re picking the right words, and say, “Wait, I meant another word.” So then I have to switch over to English, even though American Sign Language (ASL) and English are very different, and some things in ASL have no translation. So in my mind, I’m already having to translate for myself before I even say it. All of that is the invisible weight that deaf people carry—that invisible load, which is really exhausting.
I didn’t realize until I said yes to working on this project that documentaries are sound-based, because for so long they’ve been made by hearing people about hearing people for hearing audiences. I had always accepted that as a deaf person, and then realized, “Wow, I have this really exciting opportunity to push form and documentary as much as I possibly can.”
I knew I didn’t want voiceover. I wanted Marlee to feel comfortable expressing herself as she is, and then we would worry about translation later. I knew that captions were going to be a big part of the movie because they’re a big part of her story. What better way to show how important captions are than to make sure that captions become another important layer of the story? That’s just how Marlee and I have always had to watch movies—around a tall person’s head. I wanted to really make sure that this could be an immersive sensory experience for everyone, to be able to see the world differently. And I think that’s why people watch movies in general.
Marlee Matlin: It’s interesting that some folks complain about captions. They’ll say it’s very distracting, or, “Why do I want to read a movie while I’m watching a movie? Why do I want to read ahead of what they’re saying?” And I get it, legitimately. But when sound is something that goes off, because they’re taking sound for granted, they realize captions are very important. In this particular scenario, we want people to get a taste of what we experience in life.
Stern: And sign language is so beautiful. It’s not a silent language—it’s not quiet at all.
Matlin: At all!
Stern: So when we have voiceover, I feel like we’re missing the sounds that sign language has within its language. I grew up in a deaf family, I went to deaf parties, and they’re so loud. Marlee herself says in the film, “It’s not silent in here!”
Matlin: Our hands are loud. Our hands convey loudness.
Q: Marlee, you’ve been outspoken about the importance of captions from the beginning of your career. A few years ago, you walked out of a Sundance screening of Magazine Dreams that didn’t provide captions. This documentary premiered at Sundance earlier this year, so I’m curious if film organizations and festivals have become more open to feedback? Or do you think there’s still a way to go toward inclusivity?
Matlin: It was my first experience being a juror, ready to watch, and when I saw the captioning wasn’t working, my heart sank and I thought to myself, “What am I supposed to do? Should I say time out to everyone, stop the movie? Or just kind of go with the flow?” But as it turned out, the two jurors beside me beat me to the punch because they saw into my device, grabbed me out, and said, “We’re going.” They understood where I was coming from and knew it wasn’t right for me to be able to sit there and not have captions, because I couldn’t do my job.
Yes, it did cause some confusion and chaos with people at the film festival; they were very, very apologetic. At the same time, it was a matter of producers and directors who subsequently had other films not projected with open captions. A lot of them had captions in their digital presentations, but they didn’t want to do it because they felt it would somehow ruin the viewing experience. I am very proud to say that as a governor of the Motion Picture Academy, we have worked to get the rules stated in the submission of films for Oscar consideration, that they have to be captioned. Otherwise, the Academy will not take the film for consideration. It would be great if film festivals could follow the same rule.
Stern: Captions are a really exciting opportunity. You can make your captions exactly what you want them to be, and they can elevate your story. There’s so much potential for it to become this really exciting other way to show what your film is and what it’s about . . . . It can move your story forward in so many different ways. You can use words in creative ways. I just wish that other people saw that as an opportunity as well and not an obstacle.
Q: When talking about inclusivity, we’re often focused on the future. But in this film, you also bring up the importance of making older films more accessible. Marlee, you had that experience with The Wizard of Oz when you finally were able to understand what the characters were saying. Why was that important to include?
Matlin: Films aren’t just for hearing people. Whether you’re talking about new or old films, we’re talking about all people as it should be. We enjoy films just as much as anybody else, so why should it be that you deprive us of the opportunity to watch a film or TV show, old or new? I’ll never forget that moment where I first saw The Wizard of Oz with captions and learned the characters had names. I mean, I saw it hundreds of times without captions, but now I understood because of what the captions did and said.
When films started to slowly add captions on VHS, I would go to Blockbuster and collect seven or eight films, and I would watch them all day because they had captions. Finally, it was time for me to catch up and get involved and join the entertainment world. I was waiting for that invitation for the longest time.
Q: Marlee, you’ve been very open about how you felt excluded from the Deaf community after you presented Best Actor in 1988 and spoke out loud for the second half of your speech after initially signing. How has your relationship to the Deaf community changed over the years up until the CODA win? Do you still struggle with that isolation?
Matlin: That’s an interesting question because no one asked that kind of question before the documentary, and I appreciate that. As a result of growing older, now as a mother of four and grandmother of one, I’ve learned to navigate through people’s reactions. A great number of people in the Deaf community still have that issue with holding a grudge, if you want to put it that way, and I think they’ll never forget what I did. But when they watch the documentary, they’ll understand, and I hope those attitudes from a certain portion of the Deaf community will change, that whatever anger and resentment they carried for me over the years was not justified.
But I can’t necessarily blame them because they were taught by the system to feel this way toward me, so I need to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ve had some people approach me after seeing the film and apologize. And I just smile, give them a hug, because the documentary gave them the answer they were looking for.
Stern: The media really did shift to make sure that Marlee became an outlet for other feelings that deaf people had, and for so long about being excluded. A lot of that anger was repressed, and then it got shifted into this outlet, which was Marlee, and then taken out on her.
It’s so interesting because a lot of deaf people have come up to talk to me after this film and it’s a different conversation. I’ve seen a lot of people go up to Marlee, apologize to her, and when people come up to me, they said, “That’s what happened?” They just remembered it completely differently, thinking Marlee spoke the whole time during the Oscars. No, she did sign! She didn’t use her voice the first half of it, and then she only voiced the nominee names, and deaf people say, “We got mad because of that?” And that’s it.
It really was such a simple thing and they couldn’t believe they got so mad about it, but it was the way the media really handed out the megaphone saying, “You guys, she spoke! Look how horrible she was,” rather than talking about why it happened and the decision she made. All the questions she had gotten from reporters, asking, “Marlee, do you think you’ll ever work again as a deaf person?” The media was just able to move on without any accountability at all. Marlee had to take all of the accountability for that.
Q: Now that the film is playing in theaters, is there anything else you want to add?
Stern: I hope [the film] shows that who tells stories is important. Even if you haven’t seen your experience represented before, you can still push things. You can. You don’t have to feel limited by how people have seen things so far.