The New Evangelists

In close-up for much of The Testament of Ann Lee , her eyes brimming with light, Ann Lee seems to be in a persistent state of shuddering. The founder of the Shaker religious sect, played by Amanda Seyfried, shimmers, and rarely stays still, yet Seyfried’s performance manages to be deeply solid and earthbound at the same time. Early in the film, she crawls across a floor singing “I hunger and thirst/after true righteousness.” Her voice sounds like cold water, as she bathes on the floor in the light of the Lord.

To perform is to desire, and desire is a productive force. It makes something happen. Seyfried’s performance as Ann Lee lets the viewer in on the production of faith–particularly, an overt faith. In the theater while I was watching the movie, I noticed a little nervous laughter sometimes, especially when the actors were performing devotion through song and movement. Bearing witness to such performance leads to basic questions about people and the way that we live that Americans in particular are usually trying to suppress. Are we doing life wrong? Is our world not the only world, or our way of living not the preferred way of living? If Ann Lee cares so much, do I not care enough? Is she just attention-seeking? Is she putting one over on me? Am I being conned?

There is a scene in the film that stages this dilemma, when Ann and her acolytes are on a ship in high seas and snow on their way to spread the gospel in America. What Ann Lee does in this scene is enact the original meaning of “performative,” the definition from speech act theory, where what is called a “performative utterance” enacts—or attempts—the very thing that it describes. The most famous example is the “I do” in a marriage ceremony, where, through the very proclamation of the will to marry, people’s relationships are transformed legally, and therefore literally. But Ann Lee doesn’t wish to marry; she proclaims the inevitability of her salvation, willing it into effect: