Lynn Shelton (August 27, 1965 – May 15, 2020)[2] was an American filmmaker, known for writing, directing, and producing such films as Humpday and Your Sister's Sister.[3] She was associated with the mumblecore genre.[4]
Early life
Shelton was born in Oberlin, Ohio,[2] and raised in Seattle, Washington.[3] She described herself as having been audacious as a young girl, but having lost confidence in her creativity in adolescence.[5] This experience contributed to a theme she explored in her 2005 film We Go Way Back.[6]
She began working in the film industry as a film editor and made a series of experimental short films which have been described as "accomplished" and providing the basis for the "subtle, almost anthropological scrutiny" brought to bear in her later works.[5]
Shelton had wanted to be a director, but was worried that being in her mid-30s, it was too late to begin. When she saw French director Claire Denis speak at Seattle's Northwest Film Forum in 2003, Denis revealed she was 40 when she directed her first feature film, and that revelation made Shelton realize that she still had plenty of time.[8]
In 2004, Shelton began writing and directing her first feature film, We Go Way Back. Described as "polished" and "impressionistic", the film depicts a 23-year-old actress, Kate, confronted by her 13-year-old self. The dialog between the older and younger Kates begins in memory, and then climaxes in an apparitional experience with the specter of her own, repressed, precocious youth.[5]We Go Way Back premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2006.
Everybody has had that experience of going home for Thanksgiving and starting to act ten years old again because they're in the same situation with their parents and their siblings. So you get back into this rut again of who you were when you were first becoming a grownup. It's not until you get out that you can break out of those bonds, but we still get trapped by them when we return.[12]
Her 2019 comedy Sword of Trust had its world premiere at South by Southwest. In it, Cynthia (Jillian Bell) inherits a sword from her deceased grandfather, which he believed proves the South won the Civil War.[15]
Shelton described her approach to comedy as doing the opposite:
When we were on set, it was really essential that none of us—not the actors or myself either—think that we're in "a comedy", because that's when I find (especially with improvisation) you start reaching for jokes. You start sort of "soft-shoeing", and trying to entertain people, and I don't want that.
I want us to just always be playing to the truth of the scene and I really have no idea how many laughs there are going to be. We're playing it so straight that it's really hard to tell the forest for the trees.[12]
A week prior to her death, Shelton revealed she was in the process of co-writing a dramatic film with Marc Maron.[18]
In a 2020 post made on her Instagram page, Shelton clipped a picture from the movie You Can Count on Me (2000), written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. The caption she wrote—"I don't know if I could ever make a film as perfect and incredible as this one, but boy oh boy would I like to try"—strongly suggests that the film (and perhaps Lonergan) had a profound influence on her decision to become a filmmaker.
Personal life
Shelton came out as bisexual in 2012.[20] She was married to actor Kevin Seal,[3][21] with whom she had a son, Milo Seal.[22] Shelton was in a relationship with stand-up comedian Marc Maron at the time of her death.[1]
In 2020, Northwest Film Forum and Duplass Brothers Productions launched the Lynn Shelton "Of a Certain Age" Grant. This $25,000 unrestricted cash grant supports a woman or non-binary US-based filmmaker, age 39 or older, who has yet to direct a narrative feature.[26] The grant's details are inspired by Shelton's own path as a filmmaker.