Kirsten Johnson, a lauded cinematographer who gained widespread recognition several years ago for directing the documentary Cameraperson, is now again receiving plaudits for her latest helming effort, Dick Johnson Is Dead (Netflix). While distinctly different films, there are parallels between the two. Both debuted at the Sundance Film Festival to glowing reviews with Dick Johnson Is Dead earlier this year winning Sundance’s U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling. Both films also show Johnson’s penchant and talent for sharing something deeply personal while making it relatable and relevant for others. The personal becomes universal in terms of audience appeal and emotional resonance.
Johnson’s roots are as a documentary cinematographer, working with such directors over the years as Laura Poitras on Citizenfour (2004) and The Oath (2010), Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Ted Braun on Darfur Now (2007), Amir Bar-Lev on Happy Valley (2014), Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick on Derrida (2002), among many others. Johnson’s work has us empathizing with her subjects, feeling their joy, triumph of the human spirit and often unspeakable tragedy. Cameraperson cast an empathetic eye not only on those people and their stories but also on the moral dilemmas, emotional highs and lows experienced by a cinematographer both personally and professionally. It gave viewers a taste of what a cinematographer grapples with, which often entails a delicate balancing act–observing, capturing intensely personal, intimate feelings yet staying professionally detached. That in and of itself can take an exacting toll on an artist.
Fast forward to Dick Johnson Is Dead as the director introduces us to her father whose dementia will invariably have him slip away from her. Yet to preemptively strike against the inevitable, Kirsten Johnson moves her widowed dad, a psychiatrist in Seattle, to her New York apartment where they can spend quality time together while making a film exploring different scenarios of death for him–from a heart attack to a sidewalk accident, delving into the prospects of what his funeral will look like, even an ascent to the hereafter which is populated by the likes of Buster Keaton.
This seemingly dark humor has a bright, warm light to it as father and daughter deepen their bond, and face their fears through this shared cinematic pursuit. And the film’s fictitious scenarios take a backseat to the real exchanges between Dick and Kirsten behind the scenes, showing us a kind-hearted, witty man full of life and love. This is much more than a family album designed to serve as a remembrance. The director takes her family story and touches audiences, underscoring the value of humor, decency and honesty in the face of death and reminding us that we need to appreciate those important to us while they’re still around.
Kirsten Johnson observed that the success of Cameraperson sparked her work on Dick Johnson Is Dead. “It was magical for me to see the incredible range of people who could relate to Cameraperson. And that has a lot to do with what’s changed in the world as most people in most places have cameraphones themselves and understand more about decisions to film or not to film.”
That people could relate to the highly personal Cameraperson inspired Johnson to continue to push further against boundaries, getting her to figuratively aim for the impossible like “asking cinema to keep my father from dying, to help hold him together.”
But maybe it’s not so impossible as Johnson observed, “Film has the capacity to allow people to continue to live. I think about Buster Keaton who inspires me so much, risking his life on film all the time. He was already dead before I encountered his films–and he is still so alive for me.”
Collaborative process
Johnson also found her dad inspiring her approach to filmmaking and spurring her on to personally connect with collaborators. “My father’s father was a gardener who worked physically hard all of his life. My father respects physical labor. He sees each human as having to struggle with inner demons. No one controls where they’re born or what family they’re born into. My dad relates to each person he encounters in an open, honest, respectful, not judgmental way. I wanted to work with every single person who was part of this filmmaking process in that way….I also talked to every person on the crew, about their connections to death, the fear of losing someone, to share the process with them, to try to understand what they understood. There was a back and forth between people. It was amazing how much better that made everything in the collaboration.”
Johnson also gave credit to a trusted collaborator, Nels Bangerter who edited and co-wrote with her Dick Johnson Is Dead. Bangerter first worked with Johnson on Cameraperson. He cut that film along with co-editor Amanda Laws. Cameraperson won best editing honors from the Cinema Eye Honors Awards and the International Documentary Association. Johnson described Bangerter as “incredibly committed, strong about his own ideas but really respectful of mine.” Johnson said that she and Bangerter have lengthy, extensive conversations and that his preference often is for her to share some footage with him without sharing what the footage means to her. This gives him an open mind as he dives into a project and tries to do justice to the story and the people involved. On the latter score, Johnson recalled that in Cameraperson his editing showed not just her ethical dilemmas and sometimes questionable decisions but also her laughing and connecting with her subjects–a bit of goodness she had forgotten about herself because she was at times “in so much pain” agonizing over those decisions.
Johnson added that Bangerter’s contributions are so immeasurable and invaluable that “I’m not capable of fully expressing what Nels means to me.”
Dick Johnson Is Dead debuted on Netflix last week (10/2).
