Sonia Khanfir

1ère année Master de recherche

ESAC 2020

As I Yet Live, a melody from the south

While I Yet Live (2018) is a short documentary directed by Maris Curran. The film is a
journey into the deep South of America, in a remote rural community called Gee's Bend.
It is an encounter with five elderly African American women who have had a life full of
labour and struggle but who have lately been recognized as artists thanks to the quilts
they create. Nevertheless, the film is not a mere introduction of a group of people to the
public, the way of telling these women's stories shows great respect and humility in front
of their struggle. The filmmaker renounces stylistic embellishments and withdraws as
much as possible to give the purest version of their story. 
History is a basic element in understanding While I Yet Live, especially for the audience
who is not familiar with American history. 
Gee's Bend was founded in 1816 by Joseph Gee who brought 18 enslaved blacks with
him and established a cotton plantation. After emancipation, freed blacks who stayed on
the plantation worked as sharecroppers and tenant farmers until they were demanded
immediate payment of all their debts, so families saw all their food, animals and
belongings taken from them. Members of the community survived on rations distributed
by the Red Cross. In 1937, during The New Deal, the federal government gave for the
first time the African American population control of the land they worked. Then in
1962, a dam was constructed on the Alabama River, flooding thousands of acres of the
most fertile land in the Gee's Bend community. 
During the Civil Rights era, not a single black person was registered to vote, and the
cessation of ferry service was one of many efforts to prevent them from going to the
Wilcox County to vote, so people marched against this discriminatory measure. In fact
the whole state of Alabama was home to significant landmarks from the American Civil
Rights Movement. The city of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, now a
museum, was a protest headquarters in the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church and
the Rosa Parks Museum, dedicated to the activist, can be found in the capital of
Montgomery.
Since the 1960s, Gee's Bend has gained significant national attention thanks to the quilts
produced by women in the community. In the late 1990s, William Arnett, a folk-art
collector came to the area and bought hundreds of quilts. The pieces have been heralded

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as brilliant pieces of modern art. A collection of quilts from Gee's Bend was shown at
the Houston Museum of Art before travelling to the Whitney Museum in New York City,
where it again received high acclaim. The exhibit also proved to be controversial,
however, and initiated serious academic discussions on the definition of art and concerns
about the exploitation of the quilters. In 2007 the community installed a series of murals
of quilt designs on the main road in the town as it can be seen in the film.
The descendants of slaves and sharecroppers still populate Gee's Bend today, but the
lack of jobs and infrastructure has burdened the community with the same crippling
poverty found across much of the Black Belt in Alabama. 
As I Yet Live doesn't talk much about that heavy history of the Gee's Bend community
but it conveys what is explained but not told by history: the deep sadness that
characterizes the landscape, the people, and their songs. 
Maris Curran tells the story of five Southern women who haven't much education and
who have spent their lives working. What makes these five quilt makers exceptional is
the art that made them transcend their conditions. From their stories we learn how
difficult their lives have always been and, paradoxically, the message of peace, faith, and
love they spread. Their quilts have been exhibited in famous museums in the U.S. but
they have never been paid for that as it is normally the case for living artists. Despite this
ingratitude, these women show deep gratitude for God and a little interest in material
reward. Essie says that we are borrowing everything for the time we are on Earth and
that actually, nothing belongs to us. This faith has been inherited from generation to
generation as well as the art of quilting and the values of solidarity among the family
and the community as a whole. This faith gives the rhythm of these women's lives as
they sing the same melancholy religious songs their mothers and their grandmothers
used to sing while quilting.
The film's cinematography is kept as natural as possible not to spoil the natural,
spontaneous character of the community. The director has mainly used wide shots to
film the landscapes and she succeeded in conveying the melancholy atmosphere of the
rural American South. With shots of elements moving softly in the landscape, like
children playing, animals, farmers, trees' leaves blown by the wind, and the Alabama
River.
While wide shots are used to situate the story, medium shots are used to introduce the
characters. As the women are telling their stories, close-ups are used to reveal their facial
expressions, their emotions, their sweat, and their hands while working. The hands are

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very important in the film as the five women have always worked manually: picking
cotton, farming, cooking, and particularly quilting.
Natural day light is a cinematographic choice that matches the rural landscape where
people live in harmony with nature.
The dominant colour in Gee's Bend is the green of the trees and the plantations but the
quilt makers have added an outburst of colour with their quilts that look like the modern
abstract paintings.
The natural flow of the film was respected in editing as well. The film scenes begin with
wide shots displaying the setting, then characters are shown in medium shots and close-
ups. This classical editing is the best choice not to distract the audience from the story.

This technical choice of natural style and rhythm reaches its climax when it comes to
sound. The most striking artistic choice about the film's sound is that it doesn't have
what we call non-diegetic music often added to documentaries to create unity and
rhythm. This choice is fully justified by the beauty of the women's voices telling their
stories in their deep voices and their singing southern accent and performing their
wonderful religious songs.

A film about simple people should be simple and humble and so is While I Yet Live. Its
pared-down cinematography emphasizes the film's depth. This film is not simply about
quilts, it is about women who have suffered for generations from injustice and who have
always fought for their rights. These rural women, these cotton pickers have marched for
the right to vote during the Civil Rights Movement. Quilting is a symbol of all the
beauty, creativity and strength of their souls.

While I Yet Live is a film about a tremendous part of the American spirit. It is about the
simple people who have made history. It is about a forgotten America, an African
American rural America that still internalizes a quiet but deep pain left by the historical
hardships and struggles. Watching this film is an emotional experience that you will
never forget.

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