海角社区官网

Playing to a misty-eyed 海角社区官网audience the other night at the Hot Docs Festival 鈥� which also included an appearance by the trail-blazing actress 鈥� it burrows deep into her world. The first deaf person to win an Oscar, of course, which she did back in 1987 for “Children of a Lesser God.” But also 鈥� did you know? 鈥� the first ever deaf patient at the Betty Ford Center, where she checked herself in for treatment when she was 21 (and had to pay for her own interpreter, as she laments in the film).

Indeed, in a life with a myriad twists 鈥� bittersweet and otherwise 鈥� Matlin was actually at Betty Ford when she found out she’d been nominated for the Oscar.

“I think our society does have a huge obsession with being the first. You’re the first, you’re the first 鈥�” That is what Shoshannah Stern, the director of the film 鈥� also a deaf person 鈥� started to say during an onstage conversation (via a duo of interpreters).

“But what 鈥� then? And if you are the first, what weight are you carrying? That is a heavy burden.”

Just minutes prior, she and Matlin had stood near me in the darkened aisles, shimmying sans burden to Billy Joel’s “My Life,” watching the onscreen Matlin do likewise as credits rolled. (In real life, that is her life anthem 鈥� the song the 59-year-old rocks out to her in car regularly!)

The film, a remarkable portrait of a singular Hollywood journey, is the best celebrity portrait since that Michael J. Fox doc from a few years back, in my view. One that manages to capture it all: the determination, the alienation, the ache. That icon who is the reason you have closed captioning when you watch “White Lotus” (she fought for it to become an industry standard for all TVs), but who also became a figure of controversy in the deaf community when she was an imperfect ambassador (ugh).

The woman who kept moving in an industry despite the obvious hurdles (a scene-stealer on shows like “Seinfeld,” “The West Wing” and “The L Word”), and who still very much carries the scars of an allegedly abusive relationship with actor William Hurt (in an icky footnote to Oscar history, he’s the one who presented her statuette to her 鈥� a moment dissected in the film with 20/20 precision).

Today, a mother of four as well as new grandmother (she has been married to her cop husband since 1993), Matlin told the room in 海角社区官网that she’s been sober for 35 years. And, well, also has “20 tattoos,” she also mentioned. Among them? One on her wrist that reads 鈥減erseverance”; another 鈥渨arrior.”

Though Matlin combed through some of these revelations in an earlier autobiography, “I’ll Scream Later,” film is such a different beast that this fills out her story in an entirely other way. Certainly, it helped to have Stern steering the film 鈥� particularly because, with the book, Matlin says, she had a ghostwriter who was a hearing person.

“She was writing in English 鈥�” the director jumped in.

“Which is an entirely different language and an entirely different ball game,” Matlin, dressed in a radiant green suit, continued. “I could sign more comfortably with Shoshannah: deaf to deaf, woman to woman. There were no restrictions.”

And zero worries about being misunderstood.

“I think a lot of people have the assumption that American Sign Language is just an imitation of English,” added Stern. “That every word in English has a direct translation into sign language. And that’s just not the case. They are two completely different languages, with different syntax, different grammar use. The vocabulary is different.”

As a filmmaker, she said, “I have always felt with American Sign Language, it’s the most cinematic language. All sign languages, really. They just have that innate thing 鈥� they have close-ups 鈥� three-dimensional space.”

For sure, what makes “Not Alone Anymore” so potent is the way the movie is crafted 鈥� in some instances, creating a soundscape that takes you into the feeling of “language deprivation,” as Matlin calls her world. A fully immersive experience felt here at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, where the audience was pulled into a movie where, for large stretches of it, there is nothing but the ballet of finger gestures, the occasional hand-slap, lips moving as words float onscreen.

Watching the doc, it also reminded me what a gigantic moment Matlin’s Oscar win was in the overall culture at the time and how it fits into the wider trove of recent documentaries in the service of 鈥�80s/鈥�90s nostalgia. Among others: that aforementioned Michael J. Fox one, that Netflix doc reassessing Pamela Anderson and that Andrew McCarthy project, “Brats,” in which he unwrapped the so-called “Brat Pack,” a generational cohort of actors that included Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, himself and others.

Moreover, I thought of a piece I had read in Salon when “Brats” came out, in which the writer wrote: “Generation X, being the first to straddle the analog and digital age, experienced more pop culture in unison. There were only so many movies to see in a given year and a limited number of songs getting airplay on corporate radio broadcasts. No matter who you are, these movies likely represent some perception of either your adolescence or the supposedly common version Hollywood imagined for you.”

The Matlin movie hits many of the same notes 鈥� even as it full-circles. Decades after she nabbed her Oscar, she mounted the stage again when “CODA” took best picture in 2022. A movie she’d championed and starred in, it also led to a best supporting actor win for deaf actor Troy Kotsur.

Which then led to the comment made afterwards that would ultimately give her documentary its name. “I’m not alone anymore,” is what Matlin said that night.

“Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore” Sunday at 11:15 a.m. at the TIFF Lightbox and will be in wider release in June.