Q: Congratulations on the recent release of MONK IN PIECES. You’ve structured the work as a mosaic, rather than a traditional biopic. What drew you to that form, and how does it reflect Meredith’s artistic voice?

Like Meredith, I like experimenting with form, and I appreciate films that use nonlinear storytelling. 32 SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD was one that really stuck with me when I was starting out as a filmmaker. Meredith’s own work in film and theater takes what she would call a mosaic approach, and that’s what I’ve done with this film. Each piece is anchored by a different Monk composition, and offers a unique window into her life and work. What emerges is the story of an uncompromising artist, battling to keep her vision alive. 

Q: Meredith has been quite prolific over her 60+ year career as a composer and interdisciplinary artist. How did you select which works to highlight? 

The beauty of the mosaic approach is that I had the freedom to pick the music and visual material that I found most compelling and then look for interesting ways to combine them. And if you work on it long enough, experimenting with the order of the pieces, certain themes and throughlines begin to emerge organically from the material. The challenge of the mosaic approach is to keep it engaging without the crutch of a linear narrative. Finding that nonlinear engine was a wonderful process of discovery with my editor, Sabine Krayenbühl. 

Q: How did you balance archival material with present-day footage to create a portrait that feels both intimate and historically rich?

When I started working with Sabine, I had already filmed several scenes of Meredith alone in the Tribeca loft where she’s lived and worked since 1972, going about her daily rituals: making coffee, watering her plants, working at her piano. Sabine encouraged me to film more of these intimate moments, so that we could thread them throughout the film as quiet, meditative pauses between the highly kinetic archival performances. 

Q: Was there a particular moment (either within the research process or during filming) that revealed something new to you about Monk’s creative process?

My wife Katie Geissinger AB '80 has been working with Meredith for over thirty years, so I’ve witnessed many rehearsals and seen all of her productions. What I find extraordinary about her creative process is the fact that it is deeply collaborative. She doesn’t arrive with a score or any fixed ideas. Her work is created in rehearsal for a particular set of performers, using their particular talents for music, movement, and acting. A written score is superfluous, because each work is recorded in the bodies and voices of her performers. So for her, the score is an afterthought, an imperfect way of rendering the music on paper. 

Q: The film raises the question of artistic legacy. How do you think Monk’s work can or should be carried forward by others?

That’s the conundrum she’s wrestling with now. For 60 years, she’s not only directed but performed in all of her music theater works, and with an ensemble who created the works alongside her and have it in their bones. There’s a scene near the end of the film where she is warily entrusting her masterpiece, ATLAS, to director Yuval Sharon and singer Joanna Lynn-Jacobs for a new production at the LA Phil. These are incredible artists with the deepest respect for Meredith’s work, but it’s still so hard for her to let go. I believe she’s going to appoint what she calls “guardians” of her work and legacy, who can be on hand to work with other artists and organizations who want to perform her work in the future. 

Q: Björk and David Byrne speak beautifully in the film about Monk’s influence. What surprised you about their insights or the way they connected with her work?

I had no idea that Björk was so deeply influenced by Meredith’s work, which she discovered at the age of 16, when she was a punk rocker in Reykjavik. And then to discover Björk’s gorgeous renditions of Meredith’s “Gotham Lullaby”—one performed at a concert on September 11, 2001—was very powerful. I was also surprised to learn that David Byrne discovered her work in the mid-’70s when he first came to New York, and later hired her to create music and choreography for a scene in his 1986 film TRUE STORIES.

Q: How did your personal proximity to Monk and her circle shape or influence your responsibility as a documentarian?

Making a documentary about a living artist is perilous enough, but when the artist is someone as close as Meredith is to Katie and me, it’s almost impossible. But we pulled it off—mainly because Meredith was generous enough to give me editorial independence. There were of course ground rules that we negotiated in terms of what we could film, and what personal photos and writings we could use from the archive. But she did not review any cuts of the film before it was done. I showed her the finished film a few weeks before the world premiere at the Berlinale in February. I think she was in shock for a while after the screening—who wouldn’t be, after seeing someone else’s interpretation of her life’s work—but she’s been incredibly supportive of the film’s release. 

Q: What challenges or unexpected discoveries arose throughout the filming process?

While filming, I realized that our mothers were both singers on live radio in the 40s and 50s, performing popular songs and commercial jingles. Both (not surprisingly) had a tough time balancing their careers with motherhood, and that left a certain psychological legacy—both good and bad—that we both shared. So I was intrigued to see how that played out in Meredith’s career, and how it ultimately gave her the drive and fortitude to forge her own stunningly original path in the performing arts.

Q: What do you hope MONK IN PIECES  offers to people unfamiliar with her work—and what do you hope it preserves for those who already love her?

My sense is that most people come to screenings without knowing anything about Meredith or her work. My hope is that the film opens a door and allows them to experience it for themselves—especially her music, which permeates the film. One truly gratifying moment came after a screening in Lisbon, which I attended with Katie (whose voice is heard throughout the film). A young singer walked up to Katie and told her, “My life is now divided in two: before seeing this film and after.” 

For people who are already familiar with her work, there will be plenty of new music and visual material that they will have never seen or heard, and I know this because we found things that even Meredith didn’t know existed! I hope they’ll also be inspired by Meredith’s personal story: her extraordinary resilience in the face of a fickle, and at times sexist, critical establishment that misunderstood her for decades. 

Q: What’s next for you?

Something completely different. A film about the legendary diplomat and CIA Director Bill Burns.