12/28/25

the diary

With Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee making its way to general audiences, I have been thinking about the Daniel Blumberg composed music that makes up this musical about Shakers founder Ann Lee (played with great gusto by Amanda Seyfried).

I haven’t watched the film since this past Toronto International Film Festival, when I saw it on 70mm — but it has lived vividly in my mind since then. The film begins in 18th century England where Ann Lee and her Shakers face persecution for the intensity of their beliefs. Nevertheless, during the early stretches of the film we’re treated to rapturous dancing and singing that exemplifies the wild ecstasy they feel, the pain Lee carries after her and her husband (Christopher Abbbott) lose many children, and an unyielding belief that Lee is Christ returned.

It’s the latter belief that both causes Lee and her followers, which includes her brother William (Lewis Pullman) and Mary Partington (Thomasin McKenzie), to leave England for America and also for Lee to be jailed. While there are many ear worm devotional tunes that exemplify Fastvold’s precise camera movement and the film’s detailed period costumes, which gives shape to the epic origins of a movement with the intimate fervor felt by Lee, there’s one tune in particular that hasn’t left me.