{"id":634686,"date":"2024-09-08T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/malcolm-washington-on-surprising-his-mom-with-the-piano-lesson-tribute\/"},"modified":"2024-09-08T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T12:45:00","slug":"malcolm-washington-on-surprising-his-mom-with-the-piano-lesson-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/malcolm-washington-on-surprising-his-mom-with-the-piano-lesson-tribute\/","title":{"rendered":"#Malcolm Washington on Surprising His Mom With \u2018The Piano Lesson\u2019 Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \u201cIt\u2019s all a little overwhelming. When you make something that\u2019s so personal to you, it feels like you\u2019re just making it for yourself or for your people. But then you\u2019re reminded that this will exist in the world,\u201d says Malcolm Washington of his feature directorial debut, The Piano Lesson<\/em>. The adaptation of the August Wilson play of the same name screened at the Telluride Film Festival before bowing in front of its biggest audience to date at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).<\/p>\n

\n In 2020, Washington, an alum of the American Film Institute\u2019s storied Directing program, was on the lookout for his first feature, writing original screenplays, when he first read Wilson\u2019s work. Part family melodrama and part ghost story, The Piano Lesson<\/em> centers on the Charles family, whose members congregate to argue over a precious family heirloom, a hand-carved piano that depicts generations of the family. <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was wanting to make a movie for a long time, and when I got to The Piano Lesson<\/em>, it wasn\u2019t even that I was seeking it out. But when I read it, with where I was in my life, it jumped out to me,\u201d he says, \u201cYou have to think about the decisions that your great-great-grandmother made to put you in this position. Go sit and think about that! This movie coming out is a representation of a long process of me wrestling and engaging with the stories of my ancestors.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n As the son of Pauletta and Denzel Washington, Malcolm isn\u2019t the first member of his family to adapt Wilson. Denzel directed an adaptation of Wilson\u2019s Fences<\/em> for the screen in 2016 and later produced an adaptation of Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom<\/em> for Netflix. <\/p>\n

\n In preparation for The Piano Lesson<\/em>, which he co-wrote with Virgil Williams, Washington immersed himself in the history and culture of the 1930s, the setting of the play. He also talked to the living relatives of Wilson, who died in 2005 at the age of 60. Outside inspirations ranged from the films of Andrei Tarkovsky to the paintings of Kerry James Marshall. <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was trying to convince people to do the movie. I went to Sam Jackson\u2019s house, and I brought this huge deck of images and stories and things I\u2019ve collected of what I thought the movie could be. There\u2019s a section where I talk about the first time I see Kerry James Marshall\u2019s Invisible Man series<\/a>,\u201d remembers Washington. The paintings are rendered in a dark color palette that requires the viewer to get close to the work in order to see the actual image. \u201cI was talking to Mr. Jackson about it, of seeing that painting for the first time, how it was a big influence, and how I wanted to app<\/a>roach this work, where you might have an expectation but when you lean in, it reveals itself.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n To Washington, The Piano Lesson <\/em>was similar: It\u2019s a story that audiences can pull more from the more they examine it. <\/p>\n

\n The pitch worked and Jackson signed on to star, along with a main ensemble that includes Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Corey Hawkins, Danielle Deadwyler and John David Washington. <\/p>\n

\n Much of the cast was already intimately familiar with the playwright\u2019s . In order to identify The Piano Lesson cast\u2019s ties to the original Wilson stage play and his extended oeuvre, a flow chart is probably in order. \u201cSam Jackson and Mr. Potts are like our patriarchs. They\u2019re like the stewards of August Wilson. They\u2019re O.G. Wilsonians,\u201d says Washington. Jackson understudied in the first Broadway staging of the play after originating the work at Yale Repertory Theatre in 1987. Only a year before filming, John David and Fisher made their respective Broadway debuts in a 2022 revival of the play that also starred Jackson and Potts. <\/p>\n

\n Washington\u2019s older brother, John David, plays the bombastic Boy Willie, who is in favor of selling the piano in order to fund his dream of owning a farm. Of working with his brother, the director says, \u201cWhen you get an opportunity to make a movie, you go, \u2018OK, let me throw all the best stuff I have at this.\u2019 I was like, \u2018OK, I\u2019m not going to be cute and like wait a couple years.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Bro, I\u2019m making a movie, are you down?\u2019 He\u2019s somebody that has seen my work and knows me as an artist before anybody else did.\u201d John David, who has worked with directors that include Christopher Nolan and David O. Russell, happily took the role. <\/p>\n

\n Production was in Georgia, with interiors, most notably the family living room that houses the titular piano, built on soundstages. For exteriors, filming moved to Canton, Georgia, where production designer David Bomba built out a Pittsburgh street corner according to the research that he and Washington did while walking around Wilson\u2019s old neighborhood. <\/p>\n

\n Many filmmakers who adapt stage plays for the screen talk about the necessity of breaking out of the confined space that the original worked occupied, moving beyond singular and static sets. Washington looked to his performers to help his film feel expansive. <\/p>\n

\n Washington quotes a filmmaking hero of his, Paul Thomas Anderson: \u201cHe said something one time where he\u2019s like, \u2018You know, everybody talks about set pieces.\u2019 He\u2019s like, \u2018The best set piece is a great actor,\u2019 \u201d says Washington. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that a huge set piece can do that\u2019s the same as watching a 10-page Samuel L. Jackson monologue.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n At the end of The Piano Lesson <\/em>\u2014 once the demons, both literal and metaphorical, have been exorcised and the family has come to terms with the past and present \u2014 the screen cuts to black and a small title card appears with the words \u201cfor mama.\u201d The director\u2019s mother, Pauletta, plays Mama Ola in the film, the onscreen mother of Deadwyler\u2019s Bernice and John David Washington\u2019s Boy Willie. <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think about Bernice as a mother, her relationship with her mother, the power that mothers hold over all of us, and the hope that they that they impart on the next generation,\u201d says Malcolm Washington. <\/p>\n

\n As for the title card, he says, \u201cWe had to fight for that card, and once we got it, we set up this screening in New York for the cast and crew. Erykah Badu [who plays a singer in the film] is next to my mom and my mom is already weeping because the end of the movie really touched her. I was like, \u2018Mom, you gotta look! Look at the screen!\u2019 Then she sees it and she falls in my lap and we just held each other.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n Talking about his mother, the filmmaker is reminded of conversations he had with Costanza Romero, Wilson\u2019s widow. Remembers Washington: \u201cMiss Constanza would talk about how when he was working on his work, he\u2019d look back and say, \u2018I hope my mom would be proud of this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s all a little overwhelming. When you make something that\u2019s so personal to you, it feels like you\u2019re just making it for yourself or for your people. But then you\u2019re reminded that this will exist in the world,\u201d says Malcolm Washington of his feature directorial debut, The Piano Lesson. The adaptation of the August Wilson…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":634687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Piano-Lesson-1.jpg?w=1065&h=600&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[24874,10141,151704,27143,151665,151679],"class_list":["post-634686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-denzel-washington","tag-john-david-washington","tag-malcolm-washington","tag-tiff","tag-tiff-2024","tag-toronto-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}