#1111: JOHNSON, Kristen: Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)

JOHNSON, Kristen (United States)
Dick Johnson Is Dead [2020]

Spine #1111

Blu-ray

This playful, profound, and immensely moving docu-fantasia by Kirsten Johnson is a valentine to the director’s beloved father, Dick Johnson, made as she has begun to face the reality of losing him to dementia. Using the language of cinema both to defy death and to confront it head-on, Johnson mischievously envisions an array of ways in which the man she loves most in the world might die, staging a series of alternately darkly comic and colorfully imaginative tableaux interwoven with raw vérité footage capturing the pair’s tender but increasingly fragile bond. Tackling taboo questions of aging, mortality, and grief with subversive humor and surprising grace, Dick Johnson Is Dead is ultimately a triumphant celebration of life, and of the gentle, funny, unforgettable man at its center. Long live Dick Johnson.

89 minutes
Color

5.1 Surround
1:78:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2022

Director/Writer

Written by Nels Bangerter and Kristen Johnson.

Writing consultant: Logan Hill.

Johnson was 35 when she directed Dick Johnson is Dead.

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by author So Mayer.

Commentary

Featuring Johnson, cowriter and editor Bangerter, and documentary sound recordist Judy Karp.

Conversation

Among Johnson and her fellow producers Katy Chevigny and Marilyn Ness and coproducer Maureen A. Ryan.

Interview

With with sound designer Pete Horner.

Program

Featuring Johnson in conversation with Bangerter and filmmakers Mike Mills, Michael Moore, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Laura Poitras.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

99

By Director
By Spine #