In Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) finds purpose and destiny in the Shakers, a religious movement defined by physical movement in spiritual prayer and, thanks to Lee’s own vision, abstinence from sex. As Lee travels with her followers from England to the United States, her own faith is constantly tested by those who see her as a dangerous heretic who must be stopped.
Awards Buzz spoke with composer Daniel Blumberg about coming off his Oscar win for the music from The Brutalist and collaborating immediately with that film’s co-writer Fastvold on this wildly ambitious project. He acknowledged his youthful encounters with Jewish music and how that helped him to dream up how the origins of Shaker music might have sounded:
“I’m Jewish, and when I was young at synagogue, I always liked these prayers called nigguns, they’re these wordless, improvised prayers, where you sing ‘la la la la.’ Some of them are really beautiful. When I read this script, one of the things I was drawn to was the formation of the Shakers when they were first getting together, what that would have sounded like, because it was before they had organized with building their settlements and before they had established this hymn book. I was thinking of these improvising singers that I know and had gone to watch in London, like Filmington and Maggie Nichols. Maggie Nichols ended up being in the film, she’s an amazing singer. So if you go and see her live, she’ll just improvise with her voice, doing a range of things, like making sounds. It’s all improvised. I imagined that could be what it sounded like when they started praying before they’d written all their songs.”
Watch the video above to hear about working with choreography and actors to create a truly dizzying and hypnotic musical experience that isn’t easily forgotten.
The Testament of Ann Lee opens in select theaters on December 25th.
