In 1920, American film giant D.W. Griffith made a silent melodrama starring Lillian Gish called Way Down East. It's about Anna Moore, a poor country girl who gets tricked into a fake marriage by a rich and deceitful man named Lennox, then deserted once she becomes pregnant. Singer/songwriter Kathleen Munroe, who records under her surname Munroe, has recut Griffith's footage — now in public domain — focusing specifically on its melancholic dance scene for "Bonnie" off her 2015 self-titled EP.
The song, Munroe says, is her take on the Dolly Parton heartbreaker "Jolene" — a plea to a mistress taken one step further. "I wanted to push the obsession with the other woman further," she says, "and make a pop song about having a more overt crush on the girl you're losing your boyfriend to."
Munroe, who is an accomplished actress herself, says she found Way Down East searching through old Gish material. "I think Lillian Gish has an inalienable sadness," she says. "It might just be her bone structure or her huge eyes or something, or maybe I'm projecting based on the more famous roles she played. But I felt like she worked well for this video because the party has a celebratory feel but her character adds some longing. It all seemed to fit the song, which is upbeat sonically, but lyrically, it's a bit of a downer...I also liked that the image quality has deteriorated, because it makes the scene feel a little ghosty, especially after slowing down the video speed."
The clip, with its strong connection to film history, served as a jump-off to discuss the relationship in her own creative life between making films and making music.
Chart Attack: What is the place of film in your music? Do you find yourself inspired by certain scenes or shots? Does film help generate musical ideas?
Kathleen Munroe: I am hugely inspired by movies. And literature, TV, photographs, paintings. Most of the songs I write are born out of feelings or ideas connected to other narrative material I consume. I never feel more motivated to write than when I encounter really compelling work in other fields. That's not to say I don't write from an intimate or personal place; I actually feel pretty bare and exposed in the music I make. I guess I just feel most successful and honest when I can connect my feelings/stories/voice to something outside myself.
I also have a pretty image-based way of thinking. I usually start writing a song with one central image in mind, and build around it. And there's a cinematic aspect to the sounds/production I like my music to live in. Relative to this last EP, the LP I just finished recording (with Mike Keire in Hamilton) is more heavily influenced by film scores — Westerns, especially — and I'm really excited about the way it turned out.
I hear you've been busy filming while finishing your LP. Do you see those two careers — acting and making music — as exclusive to each other or related?
Music and acting are definitely related in that they're both narrative. They offer different ways of telling stories, but to me, they satisfy the same impulse. Logistically, they're really complimentary, because I have stretches of time off between film/TV contracts, and I can use that time to really focus on writing and recording music. It's a nice balance, and a really fortunate position to be in.
Creatively, emotionally, intellectually, whichever — what are the different itches they each scratch?
I think I'm drawn to both acting and music because I'm interested in storytelling. The creative experiences are different, though. Acting is highly collaborative, so it's a very live, immediate process that involves active listening, refinement, trust, openness, humility. It's exciting because the group dynamic allows for so much room for discovery. The production/live show part of music can do the same thing (the experience of recording the new LP was exceedingly collaborative, which was amazing), but for me, creatively, songwriting feels like the essential thing about music. It's solitary. There's room to be non-linear and non-literal in the expression of ideas, so there's a great freedom in the process. And for me, music isn't primarily a commercial endeavor, so I think I allow myself more room to be honest and expressive rather than interested in outcome or reception.
What can you tell me about the film projects you've been working on?
I'm about to start filming the first season of a new series for Amazon called Patriot. It's this great dramedy about a family working in US intelligence, from the people who made The Weather Man, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, and I Love You Phillip Morris. I also have a few movies coming out this year that I'm really excited about: Birdland, the dramatic feature debut from award-winning Toronto-based documentary filmmaker Peter Lynch (Project Grizzly, Cyberman); The Void, which is this really cool, bold monster movie from Toronto genre collective Astron 6; and Headhunter's Calling, a drama starring Gerard Butler, Alfred Molina, Alison Brie, Gretchen Mol, and Willem Dafoe.
PREMIERE: Munroe’s “Bonnie” finds longing in the dancing ghosts of film history by chris hampton | Chart Attack.
