Seattle Sound Flashback: Lynn Shelton's Conversations with Her 13-Year-Old Self

Here is a revived version of a 2006 Seattle Sound piece about Lynn Shelton's directorial debut and a sidebar about the independent company that produced it. I'm not certain when the publication came to an end, but I contributed from 2006-2007, during which time it morphed into Sound. City Arts, also now expired, would rise from the ashes.

LYNN SHELTON AND LAURA VEIRS:

CONVERSATIONS WITH MY 13-YEAR-OLD SELF

For her first full-length feature, Lynn Shelton, who traded acting for directing several years ago, decided to revisit a time in her life that may be long gone, but still feels as fresh as last night's dream. 

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at 2006's Slamdance Film Festival, We Go Way Back is the captivating result. Dreams, in fact, play a big part in the story, as Kate (Cornish grad Amber Hubert), a fixture on the fringe circuit, finds her dream-life intruding upon her real life upon turning 23. 

Offered the lead in Ibsen's proto-feminist drama Hedda Gabler, the Ballard actress should be thrilled, but instead she keeps re-reading letters she wrote to herself at 13. Meanwhile, the play's production grows increasingly convoluted, to the point where Kate must speak her lines in Norwegian, while everyone else gets to speak in English. Then there are all the not-great men she can't resist. Why? What happened to her self-confidence? 

Kate dreams about the more self-assured young woman she used to be until that person--13-year-old Kate (Garfield student Maggie Brown)--comes to life. As Shelton explains in her director's statement, "At 13, I possessed a clarity of vision and a degree of self-confidence that I marvel at today."

Aside from the Northwest talent on both sides of the camera, We Go Way Back takes place in Seattle and the Key Peninsula and features an all-local soundtrack. Music supervisor Sean Nelson (Harvey Danger) helped Shelton round up a stellar line-up of artists, including the Decemberists and the Lights [Nelson would star in Shelton's followup, My Effortless Brilliance]. 

Local singer/songwriter Laura Veirs, however, provides the bulk of the score, and her evocative songs are a perfect fit for Shelton's expressive visuals. 

As Veirs recollects, "Once I met her, I instantly connected with her and wanted to get involved. She showed me some of her previous short films, and I liked those a lot, so I dove right into the project."

Aside from a cover of 1930s standard "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," the rest of the material stems from Veirs' recordings Carbon Glacier and Year of Meteors. When we met to discuss the movie, Shelton enthused, "It's amazing. It just works so beautifully as soundtrack." 

The experience of working together was so fulfilling that she followed up by shooting a video for "Magnetized," with plans to include it as a DVD extra.

A longtime Seattle resident, Shelton teaches at The Art Institute and expects to start shooting her second feature next summer. Veirs, meanwhile, looks forward to more movie composing. She acknowledges, "It's not something I'd done prior to working with Lynn." Now it's one of her main objectives.

As for her fall plans: "My band the Tortured Souls and I are touring the West Coast, and then we're making our fifth record together." [The result was 2007's Saltbreakers.] Sadly for Seattleites, she intends to relocate to Portland afterward, but don't count out further collaborations between these two talented Northwesterners. 

We Go Way Back opens at Seattle’s Varsity Theatre on September 15.

THE PRODUCERS: FILM PRODUCTION IN SEATTLE

We Go Way Back was produced by Seattle studio The Film Company. Founded in 2004 by filmmaker Gregg Lachow (The Seven Mysteries of Life), it's not to be confused with the Capitol Hill cinematheque Northwest Film Forum, which produced and entered the world of distribution with Robinson Devor's critically acclaimed Police Beat. The two non-profits are separate entities, although a pre-Film Company Lachow was recipient of the NWFF's first "Start-to-Finish" grant for his 1999 feature Money Buys Happiness.   

As Lachow explains, "[The Film Company] greenlights artists, not projects. We don't read scripts or hear pitches." So far, they have produced one short and four features. (NYC's Cyan Pictures is distributing We Go Way Back.) 

Their next feature release is Canadian director Guy Maddin's Seattle-filmed, silent effort Brand Upon the Brain!, which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall. Then they'll begin working on The Part I Love the Best, to be directed by Lachow's wife, Megan Murphy.   

Michael Seiwerath is NWFF's executive director, a post he took over from cofounder Jamie Hook in 2001. (Hook founded the organization with Deborah Girdwood in 1995.) 

According to Seiwerath, "The NWFF has aided in the production of more than 500 films. Police Beat is the fifth Start-to-Finish feature film we have actively produced or co-produced, and we are in development on the sixth, [David Russo's] #2. We are looking to start a national art house film network, made of the cinematheques in North America." They are also working on a DVD release for Police Beat.    

Endnote: I interviewed Lynn Shelton in person at Caffe Vita; Laura Veirs, Gregg Lachow, and Michael Seiwerath by email. We Go Way Back is available to stream on most every digital platform thanks to Factory 25. 

Images: Rotten Tomatoes (Maggie Brown), MUBI (Amber Hubert), Mastering Modernity (a nightmarish Hedda Gabler), Always on the Run (Veirs in/around 2006), and The Criterion Collection (Brand Upon the Brain!).