Lynn Carter was a singer.
Oh perhaps more apt, Lynn Carter is a singer. She just can't sing anymore.
The short documentary But Still a Bird Sings follows Carter in the wake of a laryngectomy — a removal of the vocal box — a measure needed to fight off stage four cancer in her vocal cords.
While it can sometimes be difficult for shorts to pack an emotional wallop thanks to a limited time to invest in the characters, But Still a Bird Sings hits all the right notes. It takes viewers through Carter's struggle to talk through her stoma and her ongoing radiation treatments, but it also showcases her steadfast zeal to get the most out of the time she still has.
While it's never explicitly stated, the film's director Conor Knowles is in fact Lynn's son. The cinematic project kind of happened accidentally when Knowles came to Spokane to help his mom deal with her health issues.
"What happened was my mom had some health problems with her throat for a couple of years, and she had a misdiagnosis. And then, April of last year she got an official diagnosis that it was cancer of the vocal cords, and it was stage four. So she had her vocal cords removed in May. And she had six weeks of radiation scheduled for the summer," Knowles says. "And I live in Portland now. She was in Spokane. And I decided that I would take some time off of work so that she could have someone there."
He brought along his filmmaking equipment to just experiment during his downtime, and sort of stumbled upon the documentary idea by accident.
"My mom has never been very photogenic. She's always pretty camera shy," Knowles says. "But one day, I had the camera set up, and I was just filming us doing yoga. And then I just randomly asked her, 'What would you think of me making a movie about you?' She said would be into trying it. So that night, I tried to do a little interview thing, where she was just talking to the mic. And after it was done, she said she loved it. She said it was therapeutic for her, getting her thoughts out, sharing her life. And so she got really invested in the movie, it became this great project for us to do over the summer."
For Knowles, it was tough to balance what to share in the film and what moments felt too familially intimate, so he basically let Lynn decide. That's not to say the film pulls its punches. At times, like when she's cleaning out her stoma, it can grab viewers with its unvarnished graphic intensity.
"She wanted people to understand the severity of her cancer," Knowles says. "She wanted to be graphic with her stoma, the hole in her throat. She wanted to be graphic and show that to desensitize. And she just wanted it to be honest about her struggles.
"She really wanted to spread awareness about her specific cancer," he adds. "Because there aren't, as far as I know, a whole lot of documentaries about laryngectomies."
And the film sticks the emotional landing. Seeing Lynn cry while listening to CDs of her own singing is as poignant as anything you'll see at SpIFF this year.
"It's hard to explain, but she's a singer," Knowles says. "Her identity to herself, she was always a singer. And now she can't sing anymore."
But the short doesn't wallow in agony. In fact, Carter shares an optimistic worldview and one filled with hopes of things to come. She treasures the moments in which she can make art or spend time basking in the wonder of nature. As of her latest post-radiation checkup, she's cancer-free.
But Still a Bird Sings may be somewhat of a home movie, but it resonates with emotion accessible to anyone.
"I want people to hear my mom's music," Knowles says. "I want people to get to know her. It was interesting to hear someone kind of reporting back from that place of coming close to dying, coming to terms of mortality, but then surviving. I want people to just hear her share her thoughts, hear her worldview, maybe get something positive out of it." ♦
Streaming as part of the Spokane+PNW Makers program