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Caregiving and Assistance

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29Jun

Mum and me

There has been a modest but notable increase in the number of fiction and nonfiction films addressing the subject of dementia in recent decades. Scottish documentary maker Sue Bourne’s 2008 film, Mum and Me, fits firmly into this burgeoning nonfiction subgenre.
04Oct

Forget Me Not

When I first heard about this feature length documentary, I was prepared to see the same kind of story that has been filmed again and again—the usual angst that is so often presented in documentaries about this painful journey of families dealing with the loss of cognition and then recognition. But after just a few minutes into this family’s story, I sensed that this film would be different.
07Apr

Life According to Sam

This multiple-award winning video provides a smooth flowing, intimate, 2-year portrait of life within a family dealing with Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), a rare and fatal genetic disorder more commonly referred to as “premature aging syndrome.”
07Oct

The Genius of Marian

The Genius of Marian focuses on a family affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Marian Williams Steele (1912–2001) was a noted watercolor artist who died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 89. Pam White, her daughter, at age 61 began to compose a book, The Genius of Marian, as a tribute to her mother.

16Aug

The Bucket List

The two men initially banter with each other and then develop a supportive relationship. When Edward finds a discarded “bucket list” started and then abandoned by Carter, he suggests that they make it a joint list and then go out and do the things on the list while they are still able.
04Aug

Into the Other Lane: Driving and Dementia

Into the Other Lane: Driving and Dementia, the longer of the two videos, relates the stories of five individuals and their care providers who are affected by dementia-related cognitive impairment.
08Jun

Amour

After winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012, Michael Haneke’s Amour has received rave reviews from most reviewers, and more recently, an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. At first viewing, Amour seems like it could be a departure from Haneke’s other films, which ask the viewer to tolerate wanton violence or at least the ever-foreboding threat of violence.
08Feb

Alive Inside: The Story of Music and Memory

Alive Inside is an epiphanic film. It demonstrates what happens when Dan Cohen, a social worker in an East Coast nursing home, plays personally tailored music via iPod headsets for older residents diagnosed with dementia and other “imprisoning” disorders. The results are simple and striking. The residents awaken and come alive. They move, sing, and dance.
08Feb

The Iron Lady

A more recent work, The Iron Lady (Lloyd, 2011), is exceptional for its unequivocal first- person focus. Like Iris, this film explores the life of a maverick British female figure. It begins with a seemingly unremarkable scene; an elderly woman purchases milk from an inner London corner shop and returns home to have breakfast with her husband.
08Feb

Fred Won’t Move Out

One of the biggest challenges in creating a narrative film around a character who has dementia is to convincingly portray the effects of that dementia. Dementia is usually not something one can “act” from internal experience. It can only be portrayed by closely observing the wide ranging effects that a cognitive impairment like dementia imposes.
14Oct

A Separation

Set in modern-day Tehran, A Separation opens with one long three-and–a-half-minute shot, in which a wife and husband passionately address an unseen (but occasionally heard) judge. At issue is a divorce that the wife wants because her husband will not leave the country with her and their 11-year-old daughter as they had previously agreed to do.
Movies About Aging and Elderhood