Back to selection
“Meredith Understood That I Needed the Freedom to Create My Own Interpretation of Her Work and Life”: Billy Shebar on his Berlinale-Premiering Meredith Monk Doc, Monk in Pieces
Monk in Pieces (Courtesy 110th Street Films) Billy Shebar’s Monk in Pieces stars Meredith Monk, an artist so singular as to be unclassifiable. (A collage of Zoom-interviewed academics who expound on the titular composer-singer-director-choreographer – and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations – is like watching proverbial blind men describing an elephant.) A progenitor of what we now call “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance,” Monk began her career in the downtown NYC art scene of the ’60s and ’70s — a time and place not all that kind to female boundary busters. (Indeed, New York Times reviews ranged from scathing to the downright patronizing.) Then again, who cares what stuffy elites like Clive Barnes think when none other than Monk contemporary Philip Glass declares, “She, among all of us, was – and still is – the uniquely gifted one.”
Divided into discrete sections, the film makes ample use of Monk’s own vast archive and of the octogenarian herself, still working in the same Tribeca loft she’s had for over half a century. It also includes notable talking heads (literally in the case of David Byrne). And yet despite this familiar structure, there’s a compelling dissonance between the audio and visual that renders Monk in Pieces nearly experimental. It’s a creative choice that deftly reflects Monk’s own approach to her iconoclastic art, forcing us to listen with a different ear, to look closer not away.
A few days prior to the Berlinale premiere of Monk in Pieces (February 18th in the Panorama Dokumente section), Filmmaker caught up with the doc’s Emmy-nominated director-writer-producer and founder of 110th Street Films.
Filmmaker: I’m guessing the fact that your wife (and co-producer) Katie Geissinger began working with Meredith back in 1989 when she joined the cast of Atlas had something to do with Meredith trusting you with her story. But was she always onboard with the project, or did it take some convincing?
Shebar: Meredith didn’t hesitate to say yes to the project three years ago, but we did work hard to create the conditions for her to feel comfortable. After years of being misunderstood and mischaracterized by writers and filmmakers she’s understandably cautious. Being the subject of any documentary is a huge leap of faith, even with someone she’s known for so many years.
Filmmaker: Can you talk a bit about the doc’s aesthetics? Your choice to craft a mosaic that mirrors the structure of Monk’s own work is such smart filmmaking.
Shebar: Thanks! I like formal challenges, and that decision was made very early on. The mosaic approach is one of the things I love about Meredith’s music theater works and films.
It can be quite difficult without the throughline of a linear narrative. Each piece has to work on its own but also in relation to the whole, with enough thematic connections to keep you engaged. I came across a great description of the mosaic approach in a 1976 review of Meredith’s opera Quarry: “Nothing seems to cause anything else, but events gather power from other events until a small snowball has acquired the force of an avalanche…” That’s something to aspire to as a filmmaker.
Filmmaker: What was the editing process like? It seems rather daunting to be working with such an incredibly vast and rich archive.
Shebar: It was a bit daunting. When I started working on the film, Meredith’s organization, the House Foundation for the Arts, was just beginning to organize and digitize their huge archive. We discovered some 16mm film reels in their deep storage; and I found some gems in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts that Meredith didn’t even know existed. At that stage I was doing a lot of the editing myself. I’d kind of hit a wall until Sabine Krayenbühl came onboard and helped me shape the final version of the film.
Filmmaker: I was quite surprised to learn that you’re mainly a narrative filmmaker (the 2022 short High Noon on the Waterfront with John Turturro and Edward Norton, 2007’s Dark Matter with Meryl Streep) whose projects have also included collaborating with Bill Plympton on the New York Times web series Trump Bites. So how does this fiction (if based on real life) background inform your approach to documentary?
Shebar: All of those earlier projects had elements of both fiction and nonfiction; I’ve always looked for ways to work that boundary line. Some of my favorite films, like Kiarostami’s Close-Up, keep you guessing about what’s “real.” Some of my favorite books are what you’d call “creative nonfiction.” And with Monk in Pieces I was able to exercise that impulse by collaborating with the ingenious animator Paul Barritt on the sequences based on Meredith’s dream journals from the 1970s.
Filmmaker: How involved was Meredith in shaping the film? Did you screen rough cuts for her along the way? How does she feel about the final version?
Shebar: As a filmmaker herself, Meredith understood that I needed the freedom to create my own interpretation of her work and life. That took a lot of restraint on her part because she’s used to controlling every aspect of every work she appears in.
I did not show her any rough cuts for that very reason – it would have been impossible for her to see a cut and not try to shape it. And then it would have been a different film. I showed her Monk in Pieces after it was done, so that she would have a chance to see it before the premiere. I was nervous as hell about it. I didn’t even stay in the room while she watched with her niece and one of her oldest friends.
She called me afterwards to say that she loved it. There were of course a few small changes she requested, but the thing I was most nervous about – the liberties I took with her music, often pairing music from one show with visuals from another – was the thing she loved the most. That was a huge relief, and it shows tremendous generosity on her part. She gave me room to grow as a filmmaker.
