At the premiere of her film Mommy at Anthology Film Archives this past Sunday, artist Maggie Lee wore a plastic flash camera around her neck. In a swift, single-handed gesture, she’d reach for it and snap a shot, candidly capturing the scene. Mommy is half-made of footage like this. The 45-minute documentary tells of the life and sudden death of Lee’s mother, a first-generation Taiwanese American living in New Jersey who married a magician, opened a restaurant, and had two daughters, whom she largely raised by herself after her husband performed an illusionless disappearing act. Maggie narrates her mother’s life story, visualizing it in found footage—old photographs, static-strung VHS recordings, and newspaper clippings—and her own diaristic archive (now 26, Maggie’s been selfie-ing since she was a tween).
Part vlog, Vine, music video, and newsreel, Mommy shifts tones with hyperlink logic. A montage of Maggie’s partying days transitions to a tour of her empty, for-sale family home, and old voicemails are layered over low-res cellphone video of hands in space. The film’s Internet look was aided by a new “collage the Internet” program called to.be. The film’s production and distribution is also very new media: made with Beta Pictures, Mommy will be released in full via YouTube on May 11, one week after the live premiere at Anthology. In anticipation of that release, OC presents an exclusive clip from the film and an interview with its maker, Maggie Lee.
FIONA DUNCAN: When did you start working on this film and how long did it take?
MAGGIE LEE: My mother passed away in May 2012 shortly after her sixty-sixth birthday and right after she received her first retirement check. I had to move back home immediately and was constantly documenting and writing in my diary. It took about two years to sift through a lifetime's worth of information with a fine comb.
How did the film and/or you evolve through its making?
My mother was always making me so angry and constantly stressing me out. When I moved to New York City, I made it a point to be independent and have little contact with her. It was only after I started working on the film that I realized she was trying to protect me so I wouldn't have to struggle as much as she did.
I went through some major life changes in the aftermath of her death and the process of making this movie, like learning not to be so angsty—there’s no time for that. Now, I try to be a smiley face, enjoy life, surround myself with what I love, and make beautiful things.
There's a part in the film, after the death of your mother, where you speak of reuniting with her in your dreams. It reminded me of something I once heard Bruce Sterling say about how, as he's gotten older and seen loved ones die, his dreams have come to be almost exclusively populated with the dead. He mused that the dream world may be an afterlife. What do you think about this?
I definitely think of time with my mother in dreams as a continuation of her afterlife. Prior to her passing, she was creating a lot of drawings of a smiley face angel looking through the window of a smiley face person going to the bathroom. The drawings said, "An angel is always watching you, even in the strongest places." She
Part vlog, Vine, music video, and newsreel, Mommy shifts tones with hyperlink logic. A montage of Maggie’s partying days transitions to a tour of her empty, for-sale family home, and old voicemails are layered over low-res cellphone video of hands in space. The film’s Internet look was aided by a new “collage the Internet” program called to.be. The film’s production and distribution is also very new media: made with Beta Pictures, Mommy will be released in full via YouTube on May 11, one week after the live premiere at Anthology. In anticipation of that release, OC presents an exclusive clip from the film and an interview with its maker, Maggie Lee.
FIONA DUNCAN: When did you start working on this film and how long did it take?
MAGGIE LEE: My mother passed away in May 2012 shortly after her sixty-sixth birthday and right after she received her first retirement check. I had to move back home immediately and was constantly documenting and writing in my diary. It took about two years to sift through a lifetime's worth of information with a fine comb.
How did the film and/or you evolve through its making?
My mother was always making me so angry and constantly stressing me out. When I moved to New York City, I made it a point to be independent and have little contact with her. It was only after I started working on the film that I realized she was trying to protect me so I wouldn't have to struggle as much as she did.
I went through some major life changes in the aftermath of her death and the process of making this movie, like learning not to be so angsty—there’s no time for that. Now, I try to be a smiley face, enjoy life, surround myself with what I love, and make beautiful things.
There's a part in the film, after the death of your mother, where you speak of reuniting with her in your dreams. It reminded me of something I once heard Bruce Sterling say about how, as he's gotten older and seen loved ones die, his dreams have come to be almost exclusively populated with the dead. He mused that the dream world may be an afterlife. What do you think about this?
I definitely think of time with my mother in dreams as a continuation of her afterlife. Prior to her passing, she was creating a lot of drawings of a smiley face angel looking through the window of a smiley face person going to the bathroom. The drawings said, "An angel is always watching you, even in the strongest places." She