Watch this when
Dick Johnson Is Dead
She kept staging her dad's death so she'd be ready for the real one. He kept getting up laughing. Anticipatory grief, but make it love. 💛
Who it's for
Dick Johnson Is Dead takes the unbearable topic of a parent's decline and approaches it with play.
Anxious→Comforted
Feelings it meets
What it is
In this documentary, filmmaker Kirsten Johnson collaborates with her father, Dick Johnson, a retired psychiatrist living with dementia, to stage a series of imagined deaths for him, from accidents to peaceful fantasies of heaven. Dick takes part willingly and with humor.
Where to find it
Netflix original documentary (streaming on Netflix).
Before you start
Heads up: Dementia and frank talk about death.
Age: PG-13 (macabre images, thematic elements)
Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.James Joyce, Dubliners
