Love and the Playful Farewell with Kirsten Johnson
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This episode of The Nocturnous Conversations is sponsored by Metal Health and Quilt. Metal Health provides support and guidance to individuals, family members, and friends facing short-term health issues or managing a serious illness. Learn more at metalhealth.com. That's M-E-T-T-L-Ehealth.com. Quilt is on a mission to give every family caregiver the skills and support they deserve, starting with expert-led on-demand video classes. Quilt is recruiting founding experts from fields like geriatrics and palliative care now. Visit quilt can help dot com to learn more. The Nocturne's is made possible by the California Medical Association and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. I'm Emily Silverman and you're listening to the Nocturne's Conversations.
Today I am thrilled to be hosting filmmaker Kirsten Johnson. Kirsten is a documentary filmmaker who's worked as a cinematographer on over forty films in over eighty countries. She's also a documentary film director, most well known for her film Camera Person, which captures the relationship between her and the subjects she filmed during all her years working behind the camera. Her second documentary, Dick Johnson is Dead, premiered in 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received a special award for innovation in nonfiction storytelling. It's a film that's dedicated to her father and explores the topics of aging, dementia, and mortality. Before I talk to Kirsten, let's listen to a brief excerpt from her film, Dick Johnson is dead.
Майдан Алон і гонки черч файтфули ев'янці ми мам дад. My brother and I were both thousands of miles away, and despite what we'd already been through with mom's Alzheimer's, we didn't notice anything until it was almost too late. We started getting calls from his friends, then his secretary. He was double booking his patients. Making mistakes on their prescriptions. He had driven his car at high speed through a construction site and then kept going. Five miles home on four flat tires. Every call felt like an alarm bell. And even though we should have understood perfectly. We just couldn't bear to hear it again.
Thank you so much for being here, Kirsten. Hi, so delighted to be here. So we're really excited to have you here. I was reading that the idea for this project came to you in a dream. So is that true?
Oh yes it is. It is totally true. Um Yes, I had a dream in which I saw a man I didn't recognize in a casket. And he sat up all of a sudden and he said, I'm Dick Johnson, and I'm not dead yet. And You know, Dick Johnson's my dad. I've made this film with him called Dick Johnson is dead that's currently streaming on Netflix so people can watch it and I love that people can watch it all around the world. And He and I had already been through an experience with my mother's Alzheimer's. But it When I had the dream I think my father's dementia had already begun and I didn't yet recognize it. Basically the dream functioned as a wake up call for me.
And so was that the natural response was My dad isn't getting any younger, how do I help him? And then turning to film as the way of moving through that since film had already been such a big part of your life?
Yes, so I had made I made a film called Camera Person in twenty sixteen and camera person Is in some ways a memoir, but basically I went back into footage that I had shot on behalf of other filmmakers. And I reordered it and looked at it as a whole in relation to what I had experienced as a camera person behind the camera and and much of what I've filmed over time. has been related to Костіон з соціальні, кесті овілен. Having filmed in the aftermath of five different genocides in five places around the world, having filmed in over eighty six countries. I have
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–14:43
2
How did Kirsten Johnson’s dream inspire the concept of *Dick Johnson is Dead*?
14:43–20:35
3
What role did the earlier film *Camera Person* play in shaping her approach to this documentary?
20:35–32:40
4
Why did Kirsten choose humor and staged “deaths” to explore dementia and mortality?
32:40–36:35