There is something to be said about those who observe. The older that I get, the more I find myself looking back fondly on memories and wanting to revisit them in some tangible way. But that’s the pain of reality. You can never go backward, only forward while hoping that what comes next will provide something meaningful. Turn around and you’re another year older, further along in your career, and unable to capture what used to be within your grasp. It’s the bittersweet reality of aging in insurmountable ways, and there are times where I personally think the only way to solve this is to just touch a photograph.
That is what makes Kirsten Johnson one of the modern essential documentarians. With Cameraperson (2016) she did something unthinkable. She managed to take B-Roll footage from various film projects she had worked on to become a personal look at her career. These aren’t moments drawn together by ideas, save for Johnson’s innate interest in filming them, following a moment while trying to capture what makes it vital. Some of them lack context at all, and yet you begin to understand as these people talk about what fascinates her about the world. It’s so full of compassion and the potential to be better. She may never appear on camera, but it feels far more effective than a talking heads exposé.
The gist behind her follow-up Dick Johnson is Dead (2020) exists somewhere from there, becoming even more personal. For the first time she is on camera, though more to help her aging father understand how crazy this project will be. On the surface, it’s a comical look at death by staging Dick’s various ways of death, whether by a sudden air vent falling on his head or being hit by a car. There are sequences that call to Jesus watching his disciple’s feet as he enters a stylized heaven and has this bittersweet touch of him getting to dance with his wife, surrounded by the icons of yesteryear including Buddy Holly.
It’s all so bittersweet because while this seems like a cute project you’d do with someone to pass time, it holds a deeper and more universal reverence. For as much as Johnson uses cinema as a form of preservation, it’s also a chance to grapple with the idea of mortality in general. Dick Johnson does not die by the end, and yet the whole story finds him continually in states of peril, forcing characters to question their relationship with him as he watches on. It’s comical, tragic, and creative. Most of all, it’s something that spoke directly to me.
To be honest, I think 2020 only heightens my awareness of death. Globally, COVID-19 has taken over a million victims with even more continuing to struggle every day. There is not a cure and the world is slowly tearing down. It was announced on Saturday that Cineworld and subsidiary Regal Theaters was shutting down, and with that came hundreds of memories of being inside their establishments, having formative moments of my life. The feeling like the world is changing, becoming something intangible is just as painful because in some ways it best symbolizes my connection to the past.
At the same time, I wouldn’t say that 2020 has been nearly as distressing for my private life as 2019 was. While there is that fear that I will wake up tomorrow to some bad news, nothing has happened that compares to almost 18 months ago for me. I was on the verge of graduating from college after several false starts. I was about to self-publish my first novel. I was turning 30. All of these big milestones that I wanted to experience with others, and yet they came with a certain level of regret.
In the span of two months, I lost two of my grandmothers. Compared to everyone else in my life, they were often more supportive of me than I was. They were that positive feedback when I felt like giving up. As a child, they were influential in getting me to not only enjoy reading as a leisurely activity but to be a creative writer. We’d e-mail back and forth, where I’d write then in Juno a story that I made up over the course of an hour. Those words of encouragement have likely lead to where I’ve ended up 25 years later.
The first grandmother was more predictable, as she had become bedridden and had a decent year of health problems. The second came so abruptly that I had no way of seeking closure. She died after her cancer returned, coming so quickly that I didn’t even know until afterward. I also hadn’t seen her in a year or two when I visited her in Arizona. I wouldn’t say the final outing was regretful, but there was little to suggest that it was our permanent goodbye, save for Facebook messages about book recommendations.
That summer was difficult for me solely because I never got to hear their words of encouragement, that they were proud of me. There are parts of me that wonders that if I even worked a little harder and finished a year earlier how much different things would be.
Then again, that’s how sudden death can be, even for people who are closer to it than their youth. Add in the passing of my beloved 18-year-old cat in December 2018, and you get a long period of noticing the power of loss. Like most, I still feel like they’re there. I want them to be because I notice how specific their impact on me cannot be replicated. In the case of my cat, it’s a symbol of comfort going back to my high school years. He was very much “my cat” that none of the others I own FEEL like him, as strange as it sounds. I don’t want them to, but I also want him back.
This may be why Dick Johnson Is Dead had a strong impact on me when seeing it. While I still have grandparents around and I’ve made more effort to appreciate their time in my life, it’s that sense of regret. Even if I could, I couldn’t restage conversations that felt meaningful. Their instinct is gone, and while I made the most of my time with them, it still feels like it will fade into memory, forcing me to hold on. As a writer, it makes my job all the more important to make sure that they’re not gone. I need to keep them alive for further generations to know that these people were more than names.
An underlying theme of the documentary is the tangibility of memory. Kirsten’s mother had Alzheimer’s leading up to her death, making communication much more difficult. How do you reach someone who isn’t able to remember those moments vividly? I’ve often considered it the ultimate fate worse than death, and I applaud anyone who has the heart to deal with those years, watching the decay with some hope that they’ll pull through. They are, after all, human beings. They cared for you at your most vulnerable. There has to be something there that will work.
Meanwhile, Dick has dementia and the viewers are treated to scenes of him taking memory tests. He isn’t entirely gone, but it becomes clear why Johnson set out to do this project. In some ways it is regret for her own mother, needing to remember Dick as this wonderful man with a vivid sense of imagination. So much of the documentary exists in a realm of fantasy and yet there’s plenty to argue once again that as much as this is about Dick, it’s about Johnson more directly. She’s trying to come to terms with a variety of things, whether it be her father’s death or her own personal fears of death.
At times the documentary is a deconstruction of itself, showing scenes where Dick is seen reenacting his death only to have a stuntman appear from around a corner to take the injury. Is it Dick getting a view of his own potential death? We know that it’s fake, but maybe there’s some truth in it that forces us to push beyond the laughter and find an understanding of how absurd our lives are. One minute we can be having the best day of our lives. The next can find us hit by a car, an air conditioner, or even some macabre beheading out of Universal Horror.
It’s a fun approach to the subject and one that feels more beautiful because it does feel like we’re getting a genuine look at Dick as something more than an old man. He’s able to be seen as how Johnson and her family see him. This is his preservation, for future generations of Johnsons to see what makes him valuable. Unlike Cameraperson, there is more effort to not only see what makes a person special but their genuine reaction to the moments as well. It’s a story about mortality that brings with it a whole host of familiar questions, and it opens up a lot inside of me.
Because I am a writer, there are certain things that have been more difficult for me to capture. I am a terrible photographer. I don’t believe myself to be photogenic. I can’t draw nor am I confident with a video camera. All I have are words, and I am thankful that there are others who have been able to capture moments of my life, making me realize that for as awkward as I am, there is something there worth capturing. They give a look into what used to be, and I only wish that more moments were caught, preserved so that I can use them to recall memories. Otherwise, like Dick, they will fade away. He may be the one with dementia, but we all run the risk of memory loss of the big moments, and that’s what’s terrifying.
I write this not as a review, but as a personal look at how art speaks to me personally. Watching Dick Johnson Is Dead, I’m left with a series of ideas that are powerful. It’s a reminder of what used to be even in my life. It’s doubtful that Johnson ever met my grandmothers, and yet she conjured up so much emotion for me about them. They make me wish that I captured their stories in ways that mattered. There’s more documentation out there than I’m alluding to, but you begin to miss the in-between moments, when the cameras are not rolling, when they’re the most candid and being genuine. That is one of the great curses of life. You can only access them if you’re right there, knowing how to poke their buttons.
With all of this said, I encourage everyone to be conscientious of those you love in your life. Try and find moments to reach out and enjoy their humanity while you can. Make your life hold meaning because it could be gone tomorrow. It feels like something I haven’t gone more than a few days (though usually hours) lately without thinking of in some way. COVID-19 has this terrible way of making me feel more compassionate about the world. I hope it has done so for you. If nothing else, there is a great documentary on Netflix, and one of the best that 2020 has yet to offer, that I recommend you check it out. I’m not guaranteeing that it will change your life, but I hope you’ll take a moment to look at why it matters so much.
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