Testimony: Did Michelle Williams Create the Sculptures Herself for the Movie?

What is it about? A few weeks before the opening of his exhibition, the artist’s daily life and relationships with others. The chaos of his life will become his inspiration…

Origin of works

Liz’s artwork is by Cynthia Lahti, a Portland-based artist whose work Kelly Reichardt has long followed. It turns out that Lahti is also a very old friend of the film’s co-writer, Jonathan Raymond. The director had her sculptures in mind from the writing of the script and therefore created the character of Liz around her work.

When he was approached to collaborate on the film, Lahti was about to quit his career, questioning the legitimacy of his work. By working on the film and, in particular, under the tutelage of Michelle Williams before shooting, the artist rediscovered the desire to create. The director recalls: “By the time we finished shooting ‘Showing Up,’ he had created so much work that we couldn’t even set foot in his studio. He was on fire!”

a genius

The display defies the imagination of a genius. For Kelly Reichardt, the innate gift of genius is pure construction: “The show means working out every day and making time to exercise. That was essential to the script. We had to show how daily exercise becomes something ‘automatic’ like eating. Work becomes a necessity, if only to pay the rent.”

A fetish actress

This is the fourth collaboration between Michelle Williams and Kelly Reichard, following Wendy and Lucy, The Last Track and Some Women. “We don’t see each other for years and then we see each other again and I see that he is getting better and better as an actor, so I try to keep up with him. It’s very fluid between us, the collaboration came back very. Quickly.”The film director testifies.

In turn, the actor agrees to shoot with the latter every time even before reading the script: “It’s an honor to work with him, but also to gain experience together. After making four films together, I feel that our collaboration will be one of the most important contributions I will make to cinema.”

A title with many meanings

The director returns to meaning “testimony”which relates to the fact “Show up to work every day. Then, show the idea to others, to your friends, to the people you love. The characters in the film have a difficult relationship with each other. For example, the tension between Joe and Liz doesn’t prevent them from respecting each other’s work and being there for each other.”

Image format

The director often favored the square format in his filmography when it came to shooting nature, for example The Last Song or The First Cow. If he likes to shoot in this format, it was not suitable for display: “It made more sense to shoot in a more traditional format. The school buildings are very long and flat. I really wanted to capture this configuration of the school with its low floors and roof terraces. It was because of the shapes we were shooting that we decided to approach the rectangular format but also keep Liz and all the girls together.”

Michelle Williams and Kelly Reichardt at the AlloCiné Microphone: