David Furst: This is All of It on WNYC. I'm David Furst filling in for Alison Stewart. A new film gives us a glimpse into the life of actor Carol Kane and her 98-year-old mother, Joy, inside their Upper west side apartment. It is titled simply Carol & Joy. Shot on 16 millimeter film, the 40-minute documentary feels more like an afternoon visit. It starts with Joy, an active music teacher, former dancer, lifelong Francophile, recounting childhood memories of her father, Carol's grandfather.

In the film, we hear stories about growing up as a woman. Friends stop by. Piano music and singing fills the room. The film captures a mother and daughter deeply connected by creativity and shared curiosity about life. Carol & Joy is streaming now on the Criterion Channel. Joining us to discuss is the film's director, Nathan Silver, who was recently here on All of It with Carol to talk about working together on the film Between the Temples. Also joining us are the film's stars, Carol and Joy Kane. Welcome, all of you, to All of It.

Joy Kane: Hello, Dave.

Nathan Silver: Hello. How are you?

Carol Kane: Hello. Thank you for having us.

David Furst: It's great to have you. I can say watching this film, it was delightful spending an afternoon with all of you. It really feels like stopping over for a visit. When I finished, I wanted it to just keep going. It's great to have you here.

Carol Kane: I've heard that from a few people. Like, "Why didn't it keep going?" [laughs]

David Furst: Why didn't it keep going? Carol--

Carol Kane: Also, listen, I have to correct you. I hate to correct you [unintelligible 00:01:50]. On Thanksgiving, my mama turned 99, so 98 is no longer accurate.

David Furst: I am so happy that you corrected me. Thank you, and happy birthday.

Joy Kane: Thank you. David, if you'd like to continue and go on, I will tell you that the next chapter happens in Paris, because some months afterward, Nathan, who now lives there, and we found ourselves in Paris at the same time. Of course, he got his trusty camera out and continued shooting. Only the language is in French.

David Furst: Oh, that's wonderful. We'll all meet in Paris next time. That sounds fantastic as far as I'm concerned. Carol, when did this idea come up to shoot a documentary about you and your mother?

Carol Kane: I must confess, I had nothing at all to do with it. [chuckles] I believe, and Nathan will chime in here, that there was a discussion about the fact that I lived with my mother in a very small apartment. I believe that Nathan said something to the effect that if he lived with his mother, they would kill each other or something like that. I believe, was it Chris, Nathan's co-writer, that said we should-- I think Nathan came over and saw a improv session with my mother and her piano partner. Was it Chris that said, "Let's [crosstalk] a doc?

Nathan Silver: What happened was I went over to their apartment when we were doing Between the Temples. I had to interview Carol for a website, and it was my first time meeting Joy. I walked into their place, and it's exactly the movie. It's just filled with life, art. I couldn't believe. It felt like this lost New York that I didn't know it still existed. I immediately afterwards texted my co-conspirator, Chris Wells, and he said, "We need to make a movie about this." On top of that, our hair and makeup artist from Between the Temples, Emily Schubert, started taking vocal lessons with Joy after [crosstalk.

David Furst: Oh, started taking voice lessons with Joy.

Joy Kane: Yes.

Nathan Silver: She's in the movie, too.

David Furst: The music scenes in the movie are spectacular, by the way. The music lessons are outstanding.

Carol Kane: They're. Thank you. I agree.

Nathan Silver: Joy's incredible. Emily would constantly tell me about Joy, and she said, "You got to go over there. There's something there." Then Chris was like, "There's got to be a movie." It came about through that, through just going to the apartment and seeing that these two are very special people in their apartment. It's funny. It's like Seinfeld. People are constantly coming in.

David Furst: Constantly coming in. You definitely get the sense of that, watching this documentary. People are constantly--

Carol Kane: The people come in and out of the apartment, like Seinfeld, you said.

[laughter]

David Furst: Now, that's nice, Nathan, that you had this idea of heading on over there and invading their space. Joy, how did you respond to this idea of having cameras inside your home, documenting you in the place where you live?

Joy Kane: I didn't have any pre-occasion thoughts about it, but when Nathan came and his group, his team, they were so delightful. I just adored them. It was very jolly. We sang. The cameraman, the soundmen with everybody, we just had a little festival while we were between official acts. Then Nathan is such a lovely interlocutor. In other words, once we were seated face to face, I didn't have any worries or preconceptions. Nathan just spoke to me naturally. He asked me questions in a very friendly, warm way, and I answered. It rolled by itself. I must say that I was a little apprehensive before I met them all, because I said, "I can't do this program, and I haven't rehearsed, blah, blah, blah." Of course, because of who Nathan is, it just rolled sweetly along on.

David Furst: On a beautiful human scale.

Carol Kane: That's well put.

David Furst: I want to hear a little moment from the film here. This is Joy. You're speaking with a young visitor who has come over. One of these people coming and going. You're talking about an important musical experience from your youth.

Carol Kane: They're going to play [crosstalk].

Joy Kane: My husband, [unintelligible 00:07:01].

David Furst: No, I think it's the other clip here. Let's hear it.

Joy Kane: Then one day my dad took me to a great big symphony hall. I heard a French piece by a French composer that was called La Mer. It was about the sea. I was sitting in the balcony. When that music rolled out, I thought I was going to fall over the balcony. It was so real, and it was so full of movement.

David Furst: I love that. We're happy you stayed on the balcony, by the way.

Joy Kane: Yes, but I engaged in more and more movement in my life, that is, dance classes and really movement and leading movement groups.

David Furst: What does it mean to you to still be teaching and sharing music?

Joy Kane: Oh, everything. What would I do if I didn't move? If I didn't make music? My life would be dry. It would be dry as a dried up old pear. I have to make music, and it feeds me. It's juicy. It's full of movement.

David Furst: That's wonderful. How did music shape life in this home, Carol?

Carol Kane: I'm just a lucky recipient. I was extremely foolish when I was young and my mother offered to teach me the piano. Of course, my reaction was, "I'm not studying with my mother," so I didn't learn to play the piano. It's such a loss because she sits down there and makes this beauty. I just get to sit and hear it in the day and the night. I just get to sit and hear this beauty come out of the keyboard.

Joy Kane: I have to interject here, that meanwhile, we had discovered a children's theater program. When she was five years old, she joined it. She was busy all the time.

David Furst: I was going to say, we all get to enjoy your acting skills, Carol. It's a different thing, but we thank you.

Carol Kane: It's a different thing. You asked me about the music. Music is so nourishing. There's that unique thing of being able to do it on your own. You don't need an audience, and you don't need a writer. You don't need any-- You just go with my. In my mother's case, she plays gorgeous pieces that other people have written, but she also improvises an enormous amount of the time. She just makes music from scratch.

David Furst: I want to talk about the-- you talked about filming in this apartment. Carol, you basically moved into your mother's apartment full-time in 2020 during the pandemic. Why did you move in?

Carol Kane: My mother had a health issue where she had to have an operation called a TAVR. It's a heart situation where they open up the aortic valve. She had this surgery, and they sent her home the next day at the age of 95. Then the next day, we had to go back through emergency, and she couldn't breathe. Her lungs had filled up with water. We were in ICU for like, 13 days. It was a very scary time. She's so strong, and she made it through. That's when I moved in because we needed to take care of each other at that point.

David Furst: What has it been like reliving your mother, daughter dynamic, living together again now?

Carol Kane: It's different than it was when I was young, because when I was little, obviously I had a father there sometimes. He had to travel a lot for work. I had a sister there, my sister Nina. Now we're just the two of us, and we're adults, and it's a whole different dynamic. It's not reliving, it's just building a whole different dynamic, wouldn't you say?

Joy Kane: Oh, absolutely.

David Furst: The film examines some of the joys and complications and frustrations. You can explain better than me, but the injustices of growing up as a woman in the early half of the 20th century. It looks at some of the choices that were made for you, Joy. It really doesn't shy away from some painful family and personal history.

Joy Kane: Yes. Not some of the choices, David. All the big choices were taken away from one. In my early adulthood, I lived in a very nice community, but the standards were rigid. Girls in my social class did go to college, but the subject was how to catch a doctor, a lawyer, a scion of a wealthy family, how to catch the right man and marry well. It was expected that one would then have children, two, three or four. It was just expected. It was the dumb thing. One didn't question that. If one did, one was in trouble. I was in trouble because I was always rebelling against that. I was not strong enough in the beginning to resist the pressures upon me. I was made to marry and almost automatically had children, because that's what we did.

David Furst: This film captures some very serious history and some serious stories. Humor is also very present. Again, let me mention the film is called Carol & Joy. It is now streaming on the Criterion Channel. We're speaking with Carol Kane, Joy Kane, and director Nathan Silver. Nathan, how did you film this? Was this basically like you're there for a couple of days and you just let it roll, let the camera roll?

Nathan Silver: You're there basically to recreate the first experience of going there, or my first experience going there. I went to capture what it felt like to walk into this apartment and just the people as they are. It's portraits of them and of Joy, really. I feel like the whole idea-- My cinematographers, Sean Williams, Hunter Zimny, I've worked with them a bunch, and were always on the same page. They knew what we needed to gather. It was just about really making it feel like an afternoon there. Basically, we shot for a couple of days, but the bulk of it was caught on the first day. Then we went in to get other people who we'd missed, like Joy's piano partner and Emily Schubert to do voice lessons with her. It was a really lovely time. Like Joy was saying, it just felt like we were over there for coffee and conversation more than a film.

David Furst: [chuckles] The film begins with everybody's making coffee and getting their orders in there. I wanted to ask you, Nathan, about that happens a lot during the course of this documentary. There are these times where the film runs out, right?

Nathan Silver: Yes.

David Furst: They are some of the really great moments. The screen goes black, but we can still hear the conversation continuing. Every time it happens, I always said out loud, "Oh, I want this to keep going."

Nathan Silver: I know.

David Furst: It captures this perfect feeling of, "We can't capture everything. It's impossible." There's so much to say and do.

Nathan Silver: Exactly. We knew we needed to shoot on film because, to capture Joy, she's an analog lady. We need to do her justice. We shot on 16. That's one of the things about a roll of film, it's limited. It's not like Digital. Those rollouts, we would start each-- We would pick the stories back up during the shoot, but our editor, John McGarry, he was like, "The rhythm of the film needs to be in those rollouts." I love that because it shows that Joy can't be contained or can't be captured on film alone. It feels like she's overflowing with life. I think that that's the beautiful part about her. That's what I wanted the film to feel like.

David Furst: Absolutely. That is the feeling. I think it's part of why, at the very end, I'm just feeling, "Oh, I want this afternoon to just keep on going." Carol and Joy, maybe starting with you, Carol, what do you hope audiences carry with them after spending time with you and your mother?

Carol Kane: Oh, just the spirit of artistry and beauty that my mom embodies. Also, the incredible courage that she had in breaking away from a life that was not right for her. She had courage. She eventually divorced my father, who I love, but that wasn't right for her. Then she moved to Paris when she was 55 and started a whole new life. That is not an easy thing to do, and she did it. Therefore, she is my role model of courage.

David Furst: That decision--

Carol Kane: And artistry.

David Furst: And artistry. That decision, a major moment, Joy, at the age of 55?

Joy Kane: Yes. I didn't think so at the time. At the time, it seemed to be the only thing to do because nothing was working for me here in New York or in the States, and so I ran. What you asked me, what do I hope that people might draw from the film? I hope, especially, that young women and women that are not so young will be encouraged to take risks and to not think that where they are is where they'll be forever, because that's not true. Just take courage and take their life in their hands as much as possible. That's what I hope.

David Furst: That is a wonderful message to finish with. We have been speaking with Joy Kane, Carol Kane, and Nathan Silver about their new short documentary film, Carol & Joy, which is now streaming on the Criterion Channel. Thank you, all of us, for joining us today on All of It.

Carol Kane: Thank you.

Joy Kane: Thank you. Bye, Dave.

Nathan Silver: Thank you.