Hello, I'm Malcolm Washington, co-writer and director of “The Piano Lesson.” So this scene here is the climax of the movie. So all spoilers ahead. In the film, Berniece, played by Danielle Deadwyler, has a complicated relationship with the piano and has been afraid to play it because, in her words, she does not want to awaken the spirits that the piano evokes. His brother, Boy Willie, who has been trying to sell the piano throughout the film, is fighting to the death with a ghost upstairs as he has to deal with some sort of spiritual reckoning going on inside him. So at this point, Danielle's Berniece decides she needs to face this thing, lay her hands on it, and play the piano for the first time. This was a sequence that we spent a lot of time talking about during filming and then in the editing process. All our themes converge here. The idea of shadow and light, truth and secrets, and confronting the deepest parts of ourselves to move forward. And transcend. Call them, Berniece, call them. I love what Danielle does here. In reality, she just goes somewhere else. And I think if you talked to him now about this sequence, he wouldn't even remember filming it. This here. We wanted to tell a story of black spiritual practice in America. So in our spiritual practice, there are two different traditions, the Southern Black Christian tradition and the West African roots of spiritual practice. And here we engage with both of them in recognizing the iconography of some West African spiritual practice with Berniece's white dress. The idea that you can call upon your ancestors and that there is a limitless relationship between the living and the dead. So here she is conjuring the spirits of her ancestors, chanting their names. “I want you to help me, I want you to help me, I want you to help me Mama Berniece, I want you to help me.” Declaring their identities and finding power in them. So as this scene unfolds, you'll see the cutting pace intensify, the lighting intensify as she conjures these spirits in an attempt to exorcise this ghost. Avery is also there representing our Christian spiritual practice. And open the portal to all this. At this moment of sound, you will begin to hear the roar of the house, the drums of Africa enter, followed by a chorus of voices representing our ancestors and the beauty they carry with them. Throughout this entire movie, there has been one apparition and that apparition was terrifying at points. But here we see that its beauty is powerful. I always like this image here because it's kind of a family portrait. I was looking at a Japanese photographer named Masahisa Fukase, who did this series of family portraits that really inspired the family stills. And when they enter, she is finally able to exorcise this ghost and clear up the trauma of this family past when everyone lays their hands on her and the flame is lit. Peace is restored. The family is connected to each other and to the ancestors who came before them. And there is beauty there.
