“Piano Lesson” |Scene structure

Hello, I'm Malcolm Washington, co-writer and director of The Piano Lesson. In other words, this scene is the climax of the movie. So, all spoilers ahead. In the film, Bernice, played by Danielle Deadwyler, has a complicated relationship with the piano and is afraid to play it because, in her words, she doesn't want to awaken the soul that the piano evokes. Her brother, Boy Willie, who is trying to sell the piano throughout the movie, is in a desperate battle with the ghost upstairs as he must confront some kind of spiritual liquidation that is happening within him. So at this moment, Berniece, played by Daniel, decides that she has to face this problem and lay down her hands and play the piano for the first time. This was a sequence that we spent a lot of time discussing during the filming and cutting process. All our themes come together here. The idea of ​​shadow and light, truth and secrets, and confronting the deepest parts of ourselves in order to overcome them. and transcend. Call them, Bernice, call them. I love what Daniel is doing here. She just goes away, really. And if you told her about this sequence now, she wouldn't even remember filming it. Here it is. We wanted to tell the story of Black spiritual practices in America. In other words, our spiritual practices have two distinct traditions: a Black Southern Christian tradition and roots derived from West African spiritual practices. And we are here in dialogue with both in recognizing the iconography of West African spiritual practices that Bernice's white dress wears. The idea that ancestors can be called upon and that there is a borderless relationship between the living and the dead. So here she invokes the spirits of her ancestors and chants their names. “I want help, I want help, I want help, Mama Bernice, I need help.” Declare your identity and find strength in it. As this scene builds, we see the rhythm of the cuts intensify and the lighting intensify as she summons these ghosts in an attempt to exorcise them. Avery also represents our Christian spiritual practice. And he opens a portal to all this. At this moment, we begin to hear the roar of the house in the sounds, African drums come in, followed by the voices of the choir, representing our ancestors and the beauty they possess. Throughout this movie, there were ghosts and ghosts appearing here and there, which was scary. But here we see that it is powerful in beauty. I always like this image here. Because it's a family portrait of sorts. There's a Japanese photographer named Masahisa Fukase who created this family portrait series and was the inspiration for this family frame. And when they arrive, they all lay their hands on her, and as the flame ignites, she is finally able to exorcise this ghost and remove this family's past trauma. Peace will be restored. Families are connected to each other and to their ancestors. And there's beauty in that.