Hello, I’m Malcolm Washington, the co-writer and director of “The Piano Lesson.” So this scene right here is the climax of the movie. So all spoilers forward. Within the movie, Berniece, performed by Danielle Deadwyler, she has an advanced relationship with the piano and has been afraid to play it as a result of, in her phrases, she doesn’t wish to wake the spirits up that the piano conjures. Her brother, Boy Willie, who’s been making an attempt to promote the piano the entire film, is having a battle to the loss of life with a ghost upstairs as he has to confront a form of non secular reckoning occurring inside himself. So this second, Danielle’s Berniece decides that she should confront this factor and lay fingers and play the piano for the primary time. This was a sequence that we spent a variety of time speaking about in taking pictures it after which the reducing course of. We’ve got all of our themes converge right here. The thought of shadow and lightweight, of reality and secrets and techniques, and confronting the deepest components of ourself to get by. And transcend. Name on ‘em, Berniece, name on ‘em. I like what Danielle does right here. She simply goes some place else, actually. And I feel in the event you discuss to her now about this sequence, she wouldn’t even keep in mind taking pictures it. This right here. We wished to inform a narrative of Black non secular follow in America. So, in our non secular follow, there’s these two completely different traditions, the Black Southern Christian custom and roots from West African non secular follow. And we interact with each of them right here in acknowledging the iconography of some West African non secular follow in Berniece’s white gown. The thought you can name in your ancestors and that there’s a boundaryless relationship between the residing and the lifeless. So right here she’s conjuring the spirits of her ancestors, chanting their names. “I would like you to assist me, I would like you to assist me, I would like you to assist me Mama Berniece, I would like you to assist me.” Declaring their identities and discovering energy in it. In order this scene builds, you’ll see the reducing rhythm intensifies, the lighting intensifies as she conjures these spirits in an try to exorcise this ghost. Avery is there representing our Christian non secular follow as nicely. And he opens the portal to all of this. At this second within the sound, you’ll begin to hear the rumble of the home, the drums of Africa are available, adopted by a choir voices representing our ancestors and the sweetness that they carry with them. This complete movie, there’s been a haunting round and the haunting was scary at factors. However right here we see that it’s highly effective in magnificence. I at all times like this picture right here as a result of it’s a household portrait of types. I used to be taking a look at, there’s a Japanese photographer known as Masahisa Fukase, and he did this household portrait collection that basically impressed the frames right here of the household. And after they are available, she’s in a position to lastly exorcise this ghost and clear the trauma of this household previous as all of them lay fingers on her and the flame ignites. Peace is restored. The famiy’s linked to one another and to the ancestors earlier than them. And there’s magnificence there.
