10Sep
Nebraska
In contrast, Nebraska, Alexander Payne’s new movie about a son accompanying his addled and self-absorbed father’s unlikely quest for the million dollars he thinks he has won in a sweepstakes, does not give viewers much to smile at.
Attitudes about Aging
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09Sep
Going in Style (1979 original)
But before I did that, I decided to watch the original film by the same name from 1979 that the newer Going in Style is based on. I’m glad I did. Where the new film is stale and trite, the original film is engaging and deeply respectful of elders.
07Sep
Innocence
The one other film that deals authentically with late life marital intimacy is Innocence, produced and directed by Australian filmmaker Paul Cox in 2000. Like Hope Springs, Innocence addresses the issue of lifelessness and resignation in the relationship of an older couple.
11Jan
The Disappearance of My Mother
Some of the best films are created when an adult child attempts to understand the life of a parent by interacting with them from behind the camera. In The Disappearance of My Mother, the parent is not happy with being filmed.
11Dec
Lolly Font, Yoga Rebel
Good things come in small packages—and brief ones as well. Though a short film, Lolly Font: Yoga Rebel has strong relevance for gerontological theorists, researchers, and educators, particularly those interested in the evolving meanings of successful aging. Director Liz Cane introduces us to 84-year-old Lolly Font, a yoga teacher nearing the end of her instructional career.
11Jul
Ageless
At last. From 2012 to the present, we have reviewed more than four dozen documentary films dealing with several major topics in gerontology and adult development, and aging. Though not excluded by intention, nowhere among those films was one devoted specifically to ageism.
24Feb
Breath Made Visible
By presenting and teaching a form of dance that enables deep personal reflection and healing,
21Feb
The Elders: Everyone is a Story
An adult developmentalist recently told me that the main reason he enjoyed studying older adults is because “their bodies contain so many interesting variables” that are easily extracted with quantitative measures. To be sure, variable-oriented developmental science has contributed significantly to our understanding of the aging process.
11Feb
The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne
The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne is a stylish, engrossing, and ultimately sad film about an 84-year-old Black American woman who achieved fame and notoriety as a world-class jewel thief in a career that spans 64 years. In the opening and closing scenes of the video, Doris, then 80 years old, is accused of stealing an $8,000 diamond ring from a Macy’s store in San Diego.
11Feb
From Nine to Ninety
From Nine to Ninety deals with a common family situation in the United States—providing care for older adults within a multigenerational household setting. It focuses on a single family that shares the common challenges faced by many other families that currently struggle with adult caregiving.
31Jan
Finding Tatanka
Videographer Jacob Bricca created Finding Tatanka to gain greater understanding of his father, Kit Bricca. He hoped to fill in blank spots that have remained in their relationship across the years and, hopefully, to reach a resolution that might enrich it. The result is a video case study of this father–son relationship and more largely, of a visionary known over the years as Kit, Chris Cougar, Buffalo, Buffalo Waves in the Breeze, and Tatanka .
31Jan
The Age of Love
At the outset of The Age of Love , an elderly man shows videographer Steven Loring a snapshot of his wife and himself taken at night: “We were right in the woods and it was great. We could sit in the creek with a case of beer in the water. You love each other and you have a good time, no matter what you do—whether it’s drinking or walking or sitting at the fire at night.
31Jan
Coming of Age in Aging America
Coming of Age in Aging America is perhaps the most important film to emerge to date within The New Gerontology paradigm. In contrast to the historically dour 4-D perspective on aging (decline, deterioration, dependency, depression), it is refreshingly optimistic and celebratory.
31Jan
I Won’t Go
Oli Truss is a single older housebound woman in her nineties who lives alone in her rural home somewhere in Britain. As a child, videographer Georgina Hurcombe was her neighbor. She recalls the animals running around on Oli’s property and how “she used to teach me math after school.” That was 15 years ago.
11Dec
Bubbeh Lee and Me
This ingenuous film documents a visit that videographer Andy Abrahams Wilson made over two decades ago to see his widowed grandmother, Bubbeh Lee, over the Jewish Holidays in Florida. At the outset, Wilson explains that at the time of the filming, he had been making this trip for several years, wondering if each visit might be the last.
11Oct
The Farewell
When a lie becomes part of carefully orchestrated communication in the service of the perceived good of the lie's recipient, is it justified? The Farewell presents this question within a scenario that is also complicated by the differing societal assumptions expressed in Eastern and Western cultures.