Mother’s Day is a complicated holiday for me. This is the day my mother died 11 years ago. It is also the weekend that “Lilly”, the first feature film I have written and directed, will be released in theaters across the county. Filled with these dichotomic feelings I find a meaningful thread of resilience that is woven between them, one that has shaped my own life and is the essence of the story of the film.
“Lilly,” In the lead role Patricia ClarksonIs based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter, a woman who is known for the extraordinary achievement of becoming the fair salary, to have President Obama honor her struggle by naming her first legislation after her. She was a woman who devoted her life to making the world a better place for the rest of us. She was also a mother and grandmother – and daughter of a complicated mother.
Lilly Ledbetter was born in 1938 in Jim Crowe Alabama, on a dirt farm without electricity or running water. She was an only child who grew up in poverty and picked cotton at the age of eight for pennies a bag. When I look at Dorothea Lange Dustbowl pictures of hollow mothers, I imagine Lilly’s mother Edna, not surprised that she could not rise over her own difficulties in talking about love for her only child.
I am also a mother and grandmother whose offspring are the middle of my joy. And a daughter born to a challenging mother. Although my mother may be gone, she will forever be the most influential character of my life.
My mother, Dorothy, was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, the fourth child born to Russian immigrants. At the age of six, she was molested in the stairwell in her rental building which she said smelled of cabbage. Much later, I was told that childhood trauma that hers can lead to various personality disorders. My grandparents arrived with a little more than their strong belief in human rights. Before they mastered the language in this country, they were deep in the work movement. When my mother died, even though she no longer knew her children, she had total recall of texts that led marches to her childhood workers, the social media on her day.
I was loved, but she was mercury, injured easily, with an anger that had long had Nag. My relationship with her was undeniably complex and shaped me in ways both deep and painful. Still, above all, it reinforced me. Without this journey with self -realization, I may not have had endurance to power through the challenges of making this independent film. These are the “Russian dolls” of all, every generation of mothers does its best to care for the next one always strives for more.
“Lilly” was produced by a spectacular group of female colleagues, each of us shaped by complex, strong mothers. Producer Simone Pero’s mother Mary Ann, “was a never-married-by-election-mother-mother, at a time when it was largely considered radical, the only breadwinner, housekeeper, chef, plumber, entrepreneur, gardener, fashionista, decorator, student and landlord …
Producer Jyoti Sarda was deeply formed by her mother, Raju, who traveled halfway around the world at the age of 21 to marry a man she had only met before, and despite a high level of education experienced discrimination as both a woman and an immigrant. “My mother never got the opportunities she deserved, but she created her own success, and that self -confidence has been a stones for me,” Sarda said.
“There were times when I called my mother Joan, General Patton,” writes producer Allyn Stewart. “I am positive that she could have taken the beaches in Normandy. She gave birth to four girls and bred us with a hard sense of purpose, teaches us to be self -dependent, disciplined … and most importantly, to cook. My mother’s legacy not only lives in the dishes we prepare, but in the way approaching us:
Vickie Saxon Ledbetter, daughter of Lilly, has said that her mother had “high standards.” Lilly was the first in and the last of that factory every day because she wanted to raise her children to get a middle-class life with a car, a nice house and a college education. Movies about remarkable people often focus on their performance, but I wanted to explore the personal costs of courage. What was it like to be the only woman working in a factory with uncontrolled sexual harassment and degrading employment policy for two decades? How do you keep your head high up when the other congregations in your church see you as a Pariah because they are still working for the company you are right? What gave Lilly Ledbetter the character’s strength to be willing to put a goal on the back, to be the literal face on a question?
One of the main reasons why our own main actor took the role of playing Lilly Ledbetter was her mother. We all know Patricia Clarkson as the beautiful, Oscar-nominated actor, but Patti is also the daughter of Jackie Clarkson, an endless public employee and long-term leader of the New Orlean City Council who also had a very successful real estate career and picked up five daughters. Patti says her mother cried when she told her she would play Lilly Ledbetter.
I wish Lilly was with us when we launch this movie in the world. She was extremely moved to know that her heritage would live on, but also, as a bal burender who enjoyed the limelight every now and then, I know how much it would have ordered for the little girl from Possum Trot, Alabama, to see the world inspired by her story and that her heritage would live on. I can also imagine what it would have meant for Patti’s mother to see her daughter deliver this wonderful, Bravura performance. And I can imagine my film -loving mom, sitting in a dark room with strangers, eating a sandwich wrapped in foil and watching a movie directed by her children.
I miss you, mom.
As a mother and a daughter, I know that motherhood is never easy. It is a layered story of beauty and struggle, we learn every day, we strive to do better. I hope this Mother’s Day, “Lilly” can inspire you to reflect on your own mothers and the heritage we continue. It is our responsibility to continue the work for those who came in front of us, not only to make the world better for our own children, but for all children under the sun – just as Lilly Ledbetter did.
