Thoughts on Death and Cinema

Article posted Thu Mar 25 19:06:19 2004

At last year’s Toronto International Film Festival I saw a remarkable film about death. Death is a common motif in entertainment and drama, at once both universal and deeply personal. We will all experience it, yet few like to ponder it. We sanitize death, clean it up, hide it, joke about it, and package it in emotionally and socially acceptable ways.

Few films deal with death honestly and starkly; Dying at Grace, by Canadian Allan King, is one of them. The film is an important, unflinching, and respectful examination of death and dying, one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in recent years. We follow the lives of five patients in the palliative care ward at Toronto’s Grace Memorial Hospital. Each of the participants bravely agreed to the filming, probably to leave a record of their passing, or to help others understand what to expect when we are in their place. King’s film is shot entirely without narration; no one talks to the cameras as we see the hardworking hospital staff try to make death as comfortable as possible.

Dying makes curious roommates. Carmela, an Italian matriarch, is the first to go; she asks to get last rites and an Italian-speaking priest. Rick, a lifelong biker, thug, and drug addict finds humility in his situation as lung cancer finishes the job that a lifetime of gang fights and drugs couldn’t. Another dying man, Lloyd, gasps, gurgles, and wheezes horribly as brain cancer shuts his body down bit by bit.

King is a master and pioneer of cinema verite, and his lens is startlingly intimate. The film is often heartbreaking as we see patients who are lucid and talkative degenerate into skeletal shells over the course of weeks. In at least one case, we actually see a person die while we watch; the experience is terrifying, sad, and even in some ways comforting. After all, as difficult as dying may be, we only have to do it once.

People often talk of being afraid of dying in a car accident or plane crash; after seeing what it’s like to die slowly over the course of weeks or months (even in hospital, with the best of care) they may have a change of heart. Cinematic death is almost invariably tidy and swift: endless extras and bad guys are hit with one bullet and apparently expire before they touch the ground. Their eyes conveniently close and they slump down motionless so the film can carry on without them.

Dying at Grace reveals that death is a process, not a point. We are all aging, but only an unfortunate few are dying. People like to think of death as a discrete point in time, a certain readout or signature on a machine. It’s perhaps comforting to think of a moment in which a person is alive and another in which he or she is dead. But life is plastic and strong and the spirit fights even as the strength wanes. As the five wait patiently to die, their mouths gape, their jaws slack. This is at first strange to see, because we are used to seeing people upright and strong. But when weak and reclining, our energy is spent trying to breathe, not keeping our mouth closed. It is an unnerving and unmistakable expression adopted by the dying.

Grace Hospital is run by the Salvation Army, and perhaps as a result God and the afterlife make more of an appearance than they otherwise might. One of the palliative care counselors brings the topic up routinely, trying her best to minister to the faithful. Still, at a time when God is often assumed to be close, one woman, Joyce, candidly discusses her lack of belief in a deity or afterlife. “I’d like to believe,” she says, “But I don’t.”

The same day I watched Dying at Grace, I had death on my mind for another reason. A longtime hero of mine died, Grammy-winning musician Warren Zevon. I’d been a fan of his for years, and gone to see him perform small local (and regional) shows. In the preceding years, I’d driven from Buffalo to Cleveland, Rochester, and Toronto to see him perform. His heyday of hits (such as “Werewolves of London,” “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” and “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”) were long behind him in the 1970s; he was now a one-man show, a stripped-down folk singer still touring for himself and his fans.

I had figured he’d be around forever, like the Rolling Stones, and I considered skipping performances that were more than a couple hours’ drive. But I decided against that: carpe diem, I said, and sucked it up for the excitable boy. And it paid off; I briefly met him and got an autograph before a show in Cleveland. I saw one of his last performances.

He’s gone now; there will be no more tours, no more albums, no more live performances. I don’t regret one second of the time or hassle I spent seeing him. I hate cliches, but there it is: his death—and Dying at Grace—reminded me to appreciate what I have when I have it, instead of always assuming it will be there. Everything is fleeting, and life especially so.

It is not morbid to keep death in mind; I think it is healthy. The knowledge of my impending demise keeps me productive and living life to the fullest. Death is far less terrifying to me than a life spent wasting time or devoid of challenges and adventures. As my namesake, Benjamin Franklin, wrote, “Does thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that is the stuff life is made of.” Warren Zevon said something like that on his final appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman after his terminal diagnosis. When Dave asked him if the experience of dying had taught him anything that the rest of us might not know, Warren responded, “Not unless it’s how much you should enjoy every sandwich.”