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DOCUMENTARY VIEWS OF THE ART OF AGING

Audiovisual Editor, The Gerontologist University of Minnesota 258 Appleby Hall 128 Pleasant St. S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455 yahnk001{at}umn.edu

How does one introduce the diversity and variety of the aging experience to newcomers to gerontology? How does one suggest the diversity of gifts available in old age? How does one assess the quality of the aging experience in America? What does it take to age creatively and find a life that is both meaningful and satisfying? Answers to these kinds of questions are found in a category of documentaries that provides insights into the art of aging. This category of documentaries introduces viewers to selected, representative elders who are vital, interesting, idiosyncratic, and complex individuals. Nothing overcomes barriers of ageism and stereotyping more than compelling revelations of character; and one of the strengths of the documentary medium is its grounding in the truths of character—the dialects and rhythms of speech, the nuances of gestures and glances and other physical movements, the penchant of the old for distilling their philosophy of life, unexpected touches of wry humor and self-deprecation, and the glimpses of hardihood, tolerance, and adaptation in the face of physical and emotional difficulties.

Two videos in this category were reviewed in The Gerontologist in 1999 (Vol. 39, No. 1). The Best Is Yet to Be: The Art of Aging in America (1997) explored the satisfaction of aging from the perspective of the experiences of five older adults. The individuals in this video were healthy, engaged in relationships, and committed to living creative lives. One of the women, a widow, drove a recreational vehicle across the country as a testament to her continuing curiosity and sense of adventure in old age. One artist was featured in the video; but the focus of the documentary was the way exercise, intellectual activity, meaningful relationships, and a zest for new experiences sustain individuals in old age.

Time on Earth (1997) was an evocative documentary with a lush visual style that complemented the stories of three older adults—a man and two women—who spent their retirement years traveling about the country in recreational vehicles. Jack was a gregarious man with failing eyesight; he joined the recreational vehicle community after his wife's death. Charmaine and Dorothy survived difficult relationships and family tragedies. Charmaine was new to the open road, and Dorothy was a veteran. The documentary revealed the depths of their personal stories and provided glimpses into how each was moving from a dark time in his or her life to a more hopeful and fulfilling time. Whatever their concerns, all felt that life on the "open road" was filled with possibilities.

Videos that address the art of age—or the essence of old age—acknowledge the importance of positive attitudes, a healthy lifestyle, meaningful pursuits, continued learning, valued relationships, and reflections on the last stage of life. If there are losses, there are compensations; and if there are barriers, there is always the possibility of adaptation to overcome them. Old age is revealed in the characters and values of the old themselves—in their relationships with young and old alike, their gestures, their smiles and frowns; and inevitably in their dedication to take stock of their lives and find meaning in that pursuit.

Aging in America: The Years Ahead. Video/2003/57 min. A film by Julie Winokur. Directed by Julie Winokur. Edited by Katie Buono. Photographs by Ed Kashi. Distributed by Talking Eyes Media, 824 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. 415-641-4636. Web: www.talkingeyesmedia.org. E-mail: eyesmedia{at}mindspring.com. Purchase only: for institutions (universities, colleges, companies, government agencies) $195, for nonprofit community organizations (senior centers, caregiver advocates, etc.) $85.

Aging in America: The Years Ahead is an ambitious attempt to survey the wide range of responses to the experience of growing old—especially in the context of the proposition that in 30 years people older than 55 will outnumber people younger than 18 for the first time in American history. Based on this assertion, the director asks, "What will you do in those years?" The director and narrator, Julie Winokur, introduces herself early in the video and explains that hers is a personal journey, in concert with photographer Ed Kashi, to "discover what is a good old age." The film essentially tries to bring Ed Kashi's impressive photographic study—of the same title—to life by combining his black-and-white photographs of a variety of older adults with video of the same subjects (shot by Winokur). In many scenes the editor creates photographic montages complemented by music. In some respects, this approach brings the photographs to life by introducing video footage; in many cases the photographs are the anchor of the scene and the montage of photographs is the most memorable part of the overall scene.

In Aging in America the art of aging is expressed most clearly through the photographic art. More than 240 photographs—I presume from the book—are included in the video. In this documentary the video clips narrate, and the black-and-white photographs evoke. Ed Kashi's images are extraordinary. He composes his subjects effectively, controls the lighting on his subjects, and often captures the essence of the weathered lines on the faces of the elders. In all respects these photographs add to the quality of the video. In videos like The Best Is Yet to Be: The Art of Aging in America, or Time on Earth (noted above), the exploration of the meaning of old age is based upon the identification of a core group of 3–5 informants. Viewers resonate to their experiences and identify with their self-reflective judgments. Each of the informants is given sufficient screen time to develop his or her story. But the informants in Aging in America are not given equal treatment because their stories often lack a compelling basis for further development.

The emotional core of Aging in America is the engaging story of the friendship between two old men, Warren and Arden. The first scene featuring them (about 4 minutes into the video) introduces the two old men from West Virginia. Warren is a bachelor, and Arden has lived alone on a farm he bought more than 60 years ago. Arden, 90, is a caregiver for his wife, now suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. The old woman lies in bed all day, a stuffed doll in her arms, and Arden is absolutely devoted to her. Warren met Arden in the local Wal Mart, and the two soon became friends. The director returns to this story six more times in the video—and it accounts for about 12 minutes of video (or approximately one fifth of the overall content). That relationship is rich in plot twists, and as I watched it unfold I was reminded of a classic video on aging, Ernie and Rose (1982), about two old men who became friends after the death of one man's wife. Each time the director returned to Warren and Arden's story, I was happy to see them again and wanted to know more about their relationship.

Warren and Arden's story is a complete video-within-the-video, and I could imagine it being expanded in order to fit the framework of the typical 28-minute educational video. It encompasses the arc of drama—from exposition to plot developments to crisis and climax and finally to resolution. Much of their story is narrated by Warren, who recounts the story of his unfolding friendship in calm and measured tones. They are an "odd couple" of sorts—Warren the introvert and Arden the gregarious extrovert. Warren is a big man; Arden is a small man. Warren is usually serious and straight-faced; Arden always has a twinkle in his eye and always is ready with a funny quip. Warren is drawn to Arden as a kind of father-figure, and in a scene at the end of the video refers to him as "Pappy." But Warren is also drawn to Arden because he is inspired by Arden's devotion to his frail and helpless wife. In short, Warren is drawn to Arden because he has a deep-seated need for a family of his own. Inspired by the caregiver, Warren becomes a caregiver, too—first for Arden's wife, and later for Arden himself. A graphic at the end of the film notes that Arden died in 2003, and now Warren lives alone on Arden's farm. How could anyone resist this story of friendship and bonding in old age?

In these segments the skills of the photographic artist and the videographer perfectly complement each other. Director and photographer try to create a parallel scene of the trials of caregiving by telling the story of a woman, Virginia, whose husband, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease, dies in the hospital after a fall at home. But Virgina's story lacks the powerful emotional appeal of Warren and Arden's story—and I think it adds little to the overall impact of the video. In that scene the narrator refers to the experiences of the woman: "We learned a lot from Virginia about the moral and spiritual imperative of caring for a loved one, and this is something that we can't afford to lose." But the viewers have little evidence from the video segments associated with Virginia's story to understand the source of that assertion and judge for themselves what they have learned from the material.

Other segments in the film also are not at the emotional level of Warren and Arden's relationship. After introducing the two friends, the director begins to cover a variety of storylines: frail elders spending their days in an infirmary in a state prison in Alabama devoted to care for elderly convicts; active elders engaged in the Senior Olympics; a subculture of elders active in the Senior Pro Rodeo Circuit; a 100-year-old man who lives at home thanks to the help of the renowned On Lok social services program in San Francisco; a widower who remarries at the age of 86; and women who are members of a recreational vehicle community. None of these storylines ranks with the episodes relating to Warren and Arden.

Still, there are several intriguing tidbits within these segments. For instance, the 63-year-old grandmother who plays softball in the Senior Olympics is vivacious and celebrates her level of activity. In a clip during the opening section, she is shown on camera saying, "You can grow up and die—you don't have to grow old and die." In a later scene she comments on the shifting definition of old when she comments, "My grandmother was old when she was 30." After she smacks the ball in one of her plate appearances, she comments, "Nobody lasts better than old people." An engaging and graceful dance instructor of 86 is given brief coverage. The narrator refers to him as "one of America's living legends," and he shows an exuberance that is nearly contagious. But he is not given sufficient screen time to help viewers make their own judgment about his character. Later, two women are interviewed about the perils of plastic surgery. One of the women launches into a long dissertation about the problems with facelifts not matching the rest of the woman's body. At one point she lifts her sweatshirt and rubs her flat and unwrinkled body and admits, "I'm not ashamed of it!" As to her face, she quips, "It took me almost 85 years to get these wrinkles, and I'm going to keep them." What a humorous and upbeat moment! But that is her only scene.

At times, some of the segments seemed unresolved and conveyed a sense of awkwardness and discomfort. For instance, in one scene an old man, after returning from an outing with his aide (provided by the On Lok social services organization), reflects upon the inevitable decline one faces in old age. Then he asks, "What the hell happened this morning?" His sudden memory loss is never followed up—and the scene ends abruptly. Later in the film, a long scene shows the marriage of an 86-year-old widower and an 81-year-old widow. The couple sits next to each other in one shot, and as the scene unfolds, they share some of the details of the basis of their intimacy. As the man tries to express himself, the camera catches his partner looking somewhat uncomfortable and tentative. This awkward moment passes, but again I felt the transition was abrupt and the emotional quality of the scene incomplete. Perhaps the most awkward moment, for me, was watching one of the women in the recreational vehicle community near the end of the video. She is clearly uncomfortable with her own aging process, and twice she notes an aversion to seeing her image in a mirror. She criticizes other older drivers for wanting to drive too long. (As we hear her voice-over, we see an old woman sliding out of the cab of her recreational vehicle with great difficulty and then grasping a walker set next to the cab.) Then the woman speaking the voice-over is shown on camera: "I don't really know what old is to me. I guess old to me is infirmity, when you can't do things. And everything else in between is aging." What are we to make of this woman's attitude? She is portrayed as an active elder, someone who values the freedom of the open road; and yet of all the informants in the video her voice is the most ageist—and as a character she seems unfulfilled in her old age. Certainly her definition of aging does not apply to the vast majority of elders. The nuances of aging incorporate numerous self-contradictions and ironies like the one noted here. Unfortunately, the organization of this video and the selection of informants that are covered in the various scenes do not always elicit those subtleties and gray areas that deserve to be explored.

But Warren and Arden are the stars of this video. The two men are equally comfortable on camera in either video footage or still photographs. Warren usually is shown sitting outside, a flowering bush behind him. Arden usually is shown sitting in a chair next to his wife's bed in the house. One of the loveliest interactions in the video is when Arden turns to his normally unresponsive wife and says, "I sort of like her a little bit." The camera catches the old woman's face break into a wide smile. Arden turns to the camera and beams proudly. In another scene Warren recounts the difficulty he faced in helping Arden's wife with toileting needs. She felt ashamed that he had to help her this way—but he told her, "You don't need to be. Did you do this on purpose? No? Then you don't need to be ashamed." When Arden's wife is dying in the hospital, Kashi's photographs capture the essence of loss—and in one montage the dying woman is lit with a heavenly glow by the light of the window behind the bed. The camera pulls back to show Warren gently resting his arm on Arden's shoulder. These photographs capture the art of age by showing the heartbreak, resilience, and love in the faces of these old men. Even as the credits roll, the director draws upon the humor and grace of this relationship in two brief video clips showing the men interact warmly. It is obvious that they know viewers cannot get enough of Warren and Arden.

The length of the video (57 minutes) makes it a bit unwieldy for use in some educational contexts. But since Warren and Arden's story is broken into several segments and dispersed throughout the video, it is difficult to extract their story from the rest of the more generalized documentary scenes. The video might be used in an introductory gerontology course in order to touch on some of the topics the course will develop in greater depth. Certainly the account of Warren and Arden's friendship will stand apart from the rest of the video because it is so compelling.

The Grand Generation. Video/1993/28 min. Directed by Paul Wagner. Written and produced by Paul Wagner, Marjorie Hunt, Steve Zeitlen. Produced by City Lore, The Calvert Marine Museum, and American Focus, in cooperation with the Office of Folklife Programs, Smithsonian Institution. Distributed by Filmmakers, Inc. 124 East 40th St., New York, NY 10016. 212-808-4980. Web: www.filmakers.com. E-mail: info{at}filmakers.com. Rental: $55, Purchase: $295.

Viewers of The Grand Generation are in the hands of a talented filmmaker—someone who has an established track record for making documentaries about the art of aging. Paul Wagner and his team also created the award-winning 1984 documentary, The Stone Carvers (reviewed in The Gerontologist, Vol. 37, No. 6), a film about retired Italian American stone carvers who worked on many of Washington DC's monumental buildings. Many excellent films have been made about older craftspeople, artists, and musicians. Usually these films emphasize the accomplishments of these creative people, but they fail to reveal sufficient depth of character or individuality. The Stone Carvers portrays extraordinarily creative people; but as the old men featured in the film reflect upon their lives and careers, viewers come to know them as individuals and are witness to their responses to the aging process.

In The Grand Generation the art of aging is expressed through the simple truths about living into old age, and those truths are expressed by a Hispanic farmer from New Mexico, a Civil Rights activist, a Chesapeake Bay waterman, a baker from the Bronx, an embroiderer, and a coal miner and ballad singer. Wagner's films introduce us to old people, and beyond that first introduction we are invited to listen to their stories, participate in their accrued wisdom, and judge them not only for what they have done in the past but for who they are in the present. The art of their age is complemented by the cinematographic art of the filmmaker, Paul Wagner. He films each of them on a studio set against a dark backdrop; in doing so, he is able to accentuate the geography of their faces by controlling how light and shadow falls across them. In effect, he uses the skills of a still photographer in his application of 16 mm filming. A note on this last point: The Grand Generation, like The Stone Carvers, is a film—not a video. Of course, users rent a video copy of the film. But by using film stock, Wagner achieves a crispness and texture in the images of the old people that makes them stand out more vividly than the video medium. (Another note: The Grand Generation should not be confused with Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, his book about the generation whose identity was forged during the WW II era.)

One of the strengths of the film is Wagner's decision not to use narration. In doing so, he places the words of the informants in the foreground. Nothing competes with their words. We listen to them tell stories, one after the other, and we hear their stories and judge them based upon their words. Wagner's film is a work that celebrates folklore; at its core it is a film about storytelling. The six individuals tell their stories—about growing up, working, aging, overcoming oppression, expressing their creativity throughout their lives, and facing death. One of the joys of the film is to listen to dialects—from the Bronx accent of the baker to the Middle Atlantic dialect of the waterman to the Southern Mountain dialect of Nimrod Workman. The film celebrates the human voice as much as it does the images of successful aging. In an early scene the Chesapeake Bay waterman, a stout man of 67, tells a story about finding crabs where no one would have thought to look:

Well, there's your word experience comes in again. See, those crabs know where to go when they molt or shed. They don't go on the bald bottom like this—'cause when they're soft, they're vulnerable. And they get in that grass and hide so their enemies can't find 'em. And 'course, I know where to go, and all the good crabbers do, so we know where to go get 'em. You don't get much of it in your youth. You only get that in latter years when you're out, see! So you've got to have it!

In another example of the power of dialect, Nimrod Workman shares his philosophy of dying:

And when that day comes, those hairs is numbered on your head, your footsteps are marked out, and when you make that last footstep, I don't care where you're at—if you're over here goin’ down the stairs or gettin' out of your bed—you're goin'!

Additional layers of folklore expand upon these meanings in the film. In one scene the waterman reads a poem about old age; and in another segment Rosina Tucker, born in 1892, reads a poem about the oppression of Blacks in the South. After reading the poem, she adds, "We have to put forth great effort for anything we do. Nothing is easy." Two of the informants sing and one plays a mandolin. Nimrod Workman sings about the oppression of coal miners, and Cleofes Vigil, the Hispanic farmer, sings a children's song he remembers the family singing as they sat around the fireplace. Vigil is a striking presence on camera: he has a fine gray handlebar mustache, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and bushy eyebrows. His hair is cut short on the sides of his head, yet there is a swath of dark hair above.

Wagner structures the film around eight thematic statements made by a variety of individuals—including anthropologist Barbara Meyerhoff, folklorists Abe Lass and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, and early 20th-century American writer John Dos Passos. Examples include "Experience is what the old have to teach us" (Meyerhoff); "Old age is not for sissies" (Lass); "Older people are empowered by their history" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett); "In order to possess one's past ... one must bind it to existence by a project" (Sartre); and "A sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifetime across the scary present" (Dos Passos). Each statement sets up commentary by the six informants.

Of course, the film is dominated by the on-camera stories told by the informants. But as in many other documentaries (and as we saw in Aging in America: The Years Ahead) the viewer's attention will waver unless the shots of the informants are combined with other images that complement the stories being told. If the A-roll is the informants depicted on camera, then the B-roll is the set of images that are shown to support the voice-over of the informants. In The Grand Generation, Wagner also uses black-and-white photographs to complement his informants' stories. In most instances he uses generic photographs that recreate an era and provide a context for the voice-overs. But in two cases he uses specific photographs that show the informants at work in the past (the waterman and the Bronx baker). For the Civil Rights activist, Rosina Tucker, he uses photographs of her that span her lifetime—moving backward from her old age to her youth. For the embroiderer, Ethel Mohammed, he shows insert close-ups of her magnificent, richly colored embroidery based upon her family stories. In all cases, these images do not detract from the storytelling.

Although the film was completed in 1993, and thus may seem dated to some, I believe the film has universal appeal. The six informants are vigorous elders—committed to their cultures. Nimrod Workman died in 1994; and Rosina Tucker died before the film was completed (in 1987). But a good folklorist defeats time by providing a culture with an archive that captures the essence of the character—and I think that's what Wagner achieves here. The film would be useful in introductory gerontology classes, elder study groups, and in social science curricula relating to history and folklore. I think both young and old will benefit from "meeting" these six elders and listening to their stories.

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