Marlee Matlin scans her counterpart on the computer screen with an alert, curious gaze, as if she were looking for an important clue on the other side of the video circuit. And as if to remember who you are dealing with, your own background follows a familiar staging. At home in Los Angeles, the 55-year-old American gives the interview in a sober study: behind her are a bouquet of yellow flowers, framed family photos and the sparkling, golden man that made her famous in one fell swoop when she was 21: her Oscar.
Matlin is Hollywood’s most famous and successful deaf actress. And to this day she is the only deaf leading actress with an Oscar, which she won for her role in the love drama “God’s Forgotten Children” (1986). She can now look back on a long career. Matlin has always worked, also a lot for television (“Law and Order”, “Seinfeld”, “The L Word”, “Quantico”). As the face of the deaf community, she has been campaigning against limited role offers and for more visibility for decades. Because the common opinion in Hollywood that there are hardly any roles for deaf actors and actresses has only gradually changed despite their Oscar win.
“For the first time, I didn’t have to worry about barriers on set.”
That’s one of the reasons, says Matlin, that she hasn’t been as excited about a new film in a long time as she was in the case of “Coda”. The film drama by director Siân Heder won two prizes at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and can be seen on the Apple TV + streaming service from August 13th. “I’ve done so many different things, from independent cinema to reality TV,” says Matlin, and an interpreter with a friendly, deep voice translates the sign language in which she says with quick and powerful gestures and expressions: “But For the first time in 35 years, I was completely in my element as an actress in ‘Coda’: as a deaf actress, as an actress who can play in her main language, sign language, and as part of an equally largely deaf cast I don’t have to worry about communication and potential barriers on set. No role has been so liberating for me so far. “
Marlee Matlin (second from right) in “Coda”.
(Photo: AP)
“Coda” is a remake of the French hit movie “Do you understand the Béliers?” from 2014. The director moved the plot from the French provinces to the American east coast. This is where the deaf Rossi family lives, with their fishing business just above water and their only hearing daughter torn between the sense of responsibility for their parents and the dream of a singing career. The film title “Coda” is the official abbreviation for “Child of deaf adults”.
Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur play the parents, Daniel Durant the son. All three are deaf. A major difference to the comedic original, in which most of the deaf characters were embodied by hearing actors. And a large part of the dialogues works with lively staged sign language. A reversal of the situation: the deaf community understands everything without subtitles; the listeners have to read along in the family scenes, in which sometimes not a single spoken word is uttered for minutes.
“She’s been doing it for so long and is so talented,” says director Heder of working with Matlin. “But her options have always been limited. Most of the time, she is the only deaf performer on set. This time she was free to improvise with the other actors.” This is best seen in the film in a scene during a school concert. The parents sit bored in their school row and discuss dinner: “Maybe spaghetti?”
In a deaf family, the sofa would never have its back to the door
Matlin doesn’t say “Affair of the Heart” when she talks about “Coda”, she says “Obsession”. She was involved in the development of the film project very early on and, together with Heder, talked for a long time to producers and sponsors for the casting and set conditions. She tells of the first meeting with the director in a restaurant as a “short meeting that turned into a three-hour conversation – and our food was cold”. What fascinated her about Heder’s script right from the start were two things in particular: “On the one hand, she said everything I wanted to hear: authenticity, inclusiveness, accessibility. And yet the story she wrote is has, the story of a perfectly normal family. No poor victims that are exhibited and with whom one feels sorry. Their problems and everyday life are not that different from other families Use sign language. And that a few things are different because of that. But the essentials are not. ” Matlin herself is the mother of four children. She knows what she’s talking about. Even if, as she laughs, her parenting style is completely different from that of her role.
The trick of “Coda”: The film tells its story in narratives that the general public knows and loves – high school comedy, social drama, music film, coming-of-age – and thus contributes to normalizing the reality of life for deaf people . All too often the subject still does not appear in films. And if so, then more as a horror story (“A Quiet Place”). Or cast with hearing actors like the “Béliers”. Exceptions are Caroline Link’s “Jenseits der Stille” (1996), most recently the independent drama “Sound of Metal”, which tells of a drummer who has lost his hearing. “Coda” is perhaps the most precise in depicting the peculiarities of the deaf culture, just as the film captures the entire physical force and directness of sign language in precise dialogue scenes.
Whenever Marlee Matlin talks about the film, she always comes back to the shooting: “That may sound strange, but for the first time I really had the feeling that I was being guided by the director. Siân learned sign language and was right there with me communicates with us – not always via sign language interpreters. And above all, she asked a lot. Usually directors tend to think: ‘Oh, she’ll know what I’m talking about.’ “
Casting the deaf characters with deaf actors has been a win for “Coda” in many ways. “There are so many details that they would not have gotten authentic without us,” recalls Matlin. “We got to the set and then the family living room had to be rearranged. It just wasn’t right. With a deaf family, for example, the sofa would never have its back to the door. You would never speak to each other in the backlight of a window. Sign language doesn’t work if you only see silhouettes. Siân listened carefully and didn’t hesitate for a moment to rearrange everything. ” Marlee Matlin laughs. For a brief moment she felt a bit like a matriarch with overly critical ideas about furnishings. But sometimes you have to move furniture to achieve the desired authenticity.
Editor’s note: In an earlier version of the article, we used “sign language” instead of “sign language”, which is incorrect.