The conversation has already started when “Carol and Joy” begins, as Joy Kane wants to share “another interesting factoid” about her mother, recalling that she took a harp class while Joy was still in the womb. It’s hard to tell whether it is more electrifying to be in the spry 98-year-old’s presence for the ability to transmit history that predates her or most now around at her age or the enthusiasm she share it and before her daughter Carol can offer cups of coffee to her and director Nathan Silver, asking Joy if she’d like a dollop of ice cream in hers (as is her longtime preference), the film warmly invites audiences into a cozy apartment in New York that lures wide-eyed onlookers to move to the city because of the romance of it and feels like a side you only see in the movies.
In fact, it was because of a movie that Silver was inspired to make another when he sought out Carol Kane to star in “Between the Temples,” the 2024 comedy in which she would play a middle-aged woman suddenly inspired to pursue a Bat Mitzvah from a rabbi (Jason Schwartzman) having a crisis of character all his own. While “Carol and Joy” wasn’t anywhere near as planned, the 40-minute portrait fits nicely into the director’s filmography of frenzied profiles of people finding their footing as cinematographers Sean Price Williams and Hunter Zimny have to stay on their toes to keep up with the unfolding conversation that occurs between Carol Kane and her mother, who maintains a steady business giving music lessons as a voice coach. As visitors dip in and out of Joy’s apartment and film reels will occasionally run out before she can finish a story, Joy’s ability to roll with the punches in the short time Silver is able to spend with her ends up speaking to an entire history of resilience, overcoming parents who disapproved of her every move and an unhappy marriage that was born out of trying to conform and ultimately discovering freedom in the arts, not only providing a place for her passion but quite literally offering a way back from a debilitating stroke in her eighties by practicing the piano.
When Joy describes how she managed to create a home for herself in every sense, “Carol and Joy” offers a refuge for viewers as well as when to see her still standing in a notoriously unforgiving metropolis after the difficult choices she made is bound to make those difficult decisions a little less frightening for others. Conveyed with the same tenderness in which Joy shares her life so generously and sporting the humor that one would expect from anything co-starring her daughter, the film offers a perfect way to curl up on the couch on a winter’s day as it’s streaming now on the Criterion Channel and recently, Silver graciously took the time to talk about the impetus for the lovely portrait of the Kanes, embracing the quirks of shooting on celluloid and why adapting his style to a nonfiction film wasn’t all that hard.
How’d this come about?
After Carol and I had worked together on “Between the Temples,” I heard all about her mother Joy throughout the shoot because she constantly would talk about Joy and call her to check in on her. So after we were done filming, I went to Carol’s apartment, which she keeps above the apartment where her mother lives and I went there to do some press with her. Afterwards, she took me downstairs to meet her mom who played piano for me. People were coming in and out of the apartment. and it was like this insane corner of New York that I felt had been hidden for me for years. I [thought] “Wow, this feels like another era.”
I immediately wrote to Chris Wells, who was a co-writer/co-producer on “Temples,” and told him about what an incredible time I had with Carol and Joy and just how amazing Joy is. And he immediately said, “We need to get this on film,” so that’s what led to us figuring out how to find financing to shoot [this] — we knew we needed to shoot on film — and we knew we wanted to make some kind of short film, which is a bit different than putting together a feature because you never know how it’s going to get out into the world.
I feel extremely grateful for the kind of reception we’re having for this one. But the other element was that our hair and makeup artist on “Between the Temples,” Emily Schubert, got very close to Carol and actually started taking voice lessons with Joy right after we wrapped that shoot. She’s in the movie — the whole BB [voice lesson] part is Emily — and she got to know Joy very well and helped put this together. So I guess you can blame the whole thing on “Between the Temples.”
It seems a lot of great things came out of that movie. Was this pretty random as far as who was there for voice lessons or swung by the apartment in general and what was discussed or was much of it prescribed?
We discussed with Carol and Joy who they wanted to come in, so it was to them to decide, but I wanted to capture the kind of feeling when I’d first gone over there where there were just people. feels very much like it’s a walk where there’s people coming and performing, and you’re drinking coffee, tea or whatnot, and talking. [Carol and I] formed a great bond on “Between the Temples.” She thankfully entrusted me to put this all together, but she knows her mother inside and out, so she helped get the stories out that she thought needed to be shared, and Joy obviously had her own story she wanted to tell. But it was a nice collaboration between the two of trying to put something of a life on screen in 40 minutes.
Formally, was this exciting for you? As a director, you’re always trying to make a moment come alive and it feels like you’re trying to harness that here rather than trying to activate it.
What’s funny is that I made a documentary series about my mom called “Cutting My Mother,” in which I discovered that she was planning to get her bat mitzvah, which she didn’t end up seeing through to the end, but that sparked the idea of that basically led to “Between the Temples.” And when I was prepping “Between the Temples” with Carol, she watched “Cutting My Mother” and loved it. That’s part of why she agreed to work with me because I’m in that movie as well in a similar vein where I’m talking to my mom throughout.
I feel like with this one, it didn’t make sense to capture Joy in digital. It seems like she’s like this analog lady. You have to capture her on something that actually speaks to who she is. But of course the time limitations with a roll of film are something [to be mindful of] and the way she tells stories, she’s not aware of. So that became the structure of the movie — the fact that film [rolls] went out and John Magary, in the edit, embraced this rather than trying to hide it. He made this about how she’s overflowing with stories that can’t be contained to a film. That was a pretty neat thing to discover in the edit, but also something where with a documentary, you have these certain limitations and you’re there to shoot something that you know you can’t control because it’s someone’s life. You don’t know what they’re going to say and you know that you’re going to have to carve a story out of it. You’re trying to listen for clues as to what that story is going to be — and what this film is going to be — throughout the whole time you’re talking, but you’re also trying to engage with them.
All the rollouts [of the film reels] became a structuring device for us. I was surprised that I couldn’t have planned that in advance. It was something that comes with this terrain of making a documentary. And when I’m shooting these things that are not fiction films, I’m not trying to tick certain boxes of how it’s going to be presented to the world and I had no idea what form it would be. Initially, [this] was going to be a 10-minute movie and I’d gone the before we started shooting just to talk through what we were going to talk about the following day. And [Joy] started talking and I was like, “I don’t want you to waste this now. Please stop talking. I’ll return tomorrow with the camera and the crew.” Then the first day I went [to film], she was telling a whole different bit of stories when I showed up there with my crew. So it was neat to then adjust my expectations as to what the stories were going to be that ended up in the final film. The stories with the father and the struggles with her husband, they’re very beautiful, but I had no idea that that was actually going to be the meat of the movie. So it’s a neat way of working where you have no idea what the length is going to be or what it is going to end up looking like. It’s nice after fiction where so much more is planned, in my case, at least.
You’ve got two of the best in Sean Price Williams and Hunter Zimny behind the cameras for this. Did you let them loose as far as connecting to the moment unfolding?
We just talked it through generally and wanted it to be mostly handheld. We ended up going there for two-and-a-half days for shooting in order to get all the different people who would come in and out, but the first day we had two cameras and burned through so much film that we couldn’t afford to do that the second day. But that first day, it was one camera on Carol, one camera on Joy and their faces were most the most important aspects, obviously, because I wanted to see them. I wanted to know them and Sean and Hunter know I like close up, so it was basically just talking through where they would be situated in the room and because that room is so small, there were only so many options. But it immediately revealed itself.
It came out so beautifully. You also are able to bring music into this in such a lovely, unobtrusive way. What was it like to find those moments?
John Magary is so good for this kind of thing. He’s always very attuned to anything that might enhance the sound and that was his idea and I thought it was just a beautiful way to work in the things [where] it’s almost like you’re in her mind when she comes on the screen. Obviously you have Joy performing on screen and [eventually] the other pianist and the singer [who come by for lessons], so the music’s just part of the fabric of it, but it’s nice to also have some non-diegetic stuff bleeding into this documentary in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s telling you what to feel.
When you wanted to preserve this moment in time, what’s it like to have as a keepsake now?
I’m so grateful to Carol and Joy for trusting me to make this because it means a lot to me. I just feel like her pearls of wisdom throughout the movie affected me deeply and I hope they affect others. I also shot with them when they were here in Paris recently, so I’ll edit it together and we spent time in the hotel where Joy lived for years, so that was really neat. It’s just helped further cement our relationship and they said that I’m family, whether I like it or not.
“Carol & Joy” is now streaming on the Criterion Channel.