It’s shocking, now, to look back and realize that actress Marlee Matlin was just 21 when she won an Academy Award in 1986. She was, as she recalls in “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” practically a child. As we learn in this deeply affectionate biographical history, the actress, who is deaf, has already been through a lifetime of challenges. And yet, there were plenty more to come.
As a PBS American Masters portrait designed to celebrate Matlin’s accomplishments, “Not Alone Anymore” can’t really be called a traditional documentary. Matlin chose first-time director Shoshannah Stern herself (they worked together on the Sundance Now series “This Close”), and the connection between them is evident. Though this obviously precludes a lack of neutral distance, it also opens up space for Matlin to share her story with unguarded intimacy.
And what a story it turns out to be. Matlin lost her hearing as a toddler — no one knew exactly why — and her parents took the traditional approach at the time: encouraging her to live, as much as possible, as though she hadn’t.
As a result, she had one foot in two worlds but her full self in neither. She felt left out in her family, and lacked the community that other kids found in Deaf spaces. There was one exception, though, and that was in the acting program at the International Center on Deafness and the Arts. Eventually, she was cast in Randa Haines’ film “Children of a Lesser God,” about a Deaf woman and the hearing teacher (William Hurt) who pushes her to speak.
Matlin opens up in “Not Alone Anymore” (as she did in her 2009 memoir, “I’ll Scream Later”) about her on- and off-screen relationships with her late co-star, Hurt. She was 19 and he was 35, and their two-year affair was marked by his repeated emotional and physical abuse. She was both the first Deaf performer to win an Oscar and the youngest woman to win Best Actress. But when we rewatch her historic night now, annotated by her own memories, it feels palpably different than it did at the time. Today, we notice her discomfort when she hesitantly takes the trophy from Hurt, and can see how young she really is as the media immediately drops public responsibility for the Deaf community onto her slim shoulders.
Many of Matlin’s recollections take place as she sits comfortably on her couch with Stern, who is also Deaf, the two of them signing in screen-captioned American Sign Language without an interpreter. Their non-mediated ASL is so seamlessly presented that it becomes one of several elements to drive home how essential representation really is. In both contemporary interviews and past clips, we see people talking about the doors Matlin opened for them as an actor and celebrity, an award winner and an outspoken advocate of Deaf rights. (There was no closed captioning on most movies or TV shows before her public push.)
Matlin is a thoughtful, funny and intense presence, and therefore a fantastic interview. But Stern also makes excellent use of her co-workers, family and friends — including Aaron Sorkin, an inspired choice to discuss the subtleties of language; her “CODA” co-star Troy Kotsur, who looked to Matlin when he became the second Deaf actor to earn an Oscar; and longtime friend Henry Winkler, whose unshakable support from her earliest years reinforces his status as a Hollywood hero.
Stern, who is seen crying on camera more than once, makes no attempt to achieve objectivity, nor does a project like this require it. This is, in fact, the sort of celebratory personal retrospective that is often created for people much older than Matlin (who is 59, and radiates with ageless energy). Much of the structure is unsurprising; interspersed with her stories and old media clips are a lot of admirers, who enthusiastically share the many ways in which she changed the world. But their case is strong, and the stories worth telling. It’s a testament to both Stern and her subject that we leave already anticipating the chapters still to come.
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