MONK IN PIECES - Mark Reviews Movies

Monk in Pieces, Zeitgeist Films / Kino Lorber

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 24, 2025

Who is Meredith Monk? That's the question Monk in Pieces, like any documentary about a person, should be able to answer, but then, we get into the realm of just how much that answer could entail. Is a person simply a collection of events that happened to and around that person? Which matters more in defining someone: a person's personal experiences or professional accomplishments? Can we even define the totality of a person and a life over the course of a 90-minute documentary?

That these are the questions raised by director Billy Shebar's movie surely point to some shortcomings in this documentary. Otherwise, this review would probably open with a more straightforward description of its main subject, instead of wondering about the purpose and meaning of biography in generalized terms. This isn't a traditional biography, to be sure, in that Shebar doesn't offer a chronological account of Monk's life from her birth to the point where she is now.

Monk does offer some insights into her upbringing, as the daughter of a long line of musicians on her mother's side, but most of that is to explain why she sings and, more importantly, why she sings and writes music in what's probably best described as a non-traditional manner. Her pieces aren't about lyrics, since Monk chirps and screeches and makes guttural sounds more often than any actual words appear in some of her music.

When that becomes clear, Shebar's approach to this documentary makes a lot more sense. How could one make a traditional biography about a person whose entire career is about making art that's only traditional in the sense that it exists as music and performance?

Monk and her work are fascinating, even if the documentary only offers relatively small and short excerpts from her pieces throughout the decades. The most intriguing moment, perhaps, comes when the singer/composer/performance artist is being interviewed by a local reporter, who only appears to know that she won an award in Germany for the best music album of that particular year. To be fair, he also seems to know that Monk doesn't write or sing music with many or any discernable lyrics, but even then, his reaction to a recording of one of her songs being played in the studio is priceless.

We can see him listening, trying to figure out what he's hearing, and even stifling a chuckle at one of the vocalizations Monk makes on the record. One can see the reporter almost reflexively dismiss the song, only to realize he still has to conduct an interview and not be rude to composer/singer sitting right across from him. Monk explains the song and the obvious complexity of her singing to the man, and while it'd be tough to say that the reporter would run out to buy the album as soon as the interview is complete, he does appear to have a better appreciation for it, at least.

The most notable part, then, of this documentary, apart from a broad outline of Monk's career through her more significant pieces, is how similar reactions to her work have defined Monk's work as much as the work itself. There are text excerpts and readings of assorted reviews of Monk's theatrical works, ranging from the first live performance in The Guggenheim to a full opera that was commissioned—and, apparently, immediately regretted, until the production actually happened and succeeded—by a company in Houston. The early notices from Monk's career aren't enthusiastic, to say the least. Some are downright mean.

In a way, Shebar almost frames this documentary as a lifelong fight between Monk's work and those who don't understand it. Eventually, people come around to her compositions, but even then, there's an amusing montage of professors from assorted universities in the present day talking over and contradicting each other—and, at times, themselves—in how exactly to describe and classify Monk's music. Again, the notion that her work might be indescribable and unclassifiable makes Shebar's approach to the movie seem even more pertinent.

In fact, the filmmaker announces that the documentary is something along the lines of a "concept album," instead of a narrative. There are different movements presented here, highlighting specific pieces or times in Monk's life that reflect something about her and/or her work. Her early compositions, for example, serve as an opportunity to explain how her philosophy of music formed from being treated for an eye disorder. Details of seeing her mother's fall as a commercial singer made her basically reject the concept of commercialized art.

She has been successful in her particular, avant-garde field, to be sure, influencing more popular performers like David Byrne, who's interviewed briefly here, and Björk, who sounds like an excited child in an archival discussion with Monk. Watching Monk in her apartment during some transitional scenes, though, lets us know that she is not a celebrity or star in the traditional way of thinking of a successful musician, and honestly, she'd probably want it that way, anyway.

We still come back to the central question: Who is this woman? Monk in Pieces—appropriately, based on the title—only gives us, well, pieces. As fascinating as they are and as much as Shebar's filmmaking reflects the attitude and philosophy of its subject, the movie leaves us with more basic questions than any definitive or even broader answers.

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