Image: Luca Micheli via Unsplash
[This review of the 2020 documentary film Dick Johnson is Dead contains spoilers from the get-go. Watch the film here if you want to get the most out of this article.] “All I can say is: ‘Dick Johnson is dead’. And all I want to say is: ‘long live Dick Johnson.’” And with that, director Kirsten Johnson ends her iPhone voice memo and emerges out of the stuffy, noise-proof closet to hug her living father, Dick. And with this, the film triumphantly closes. But who is Dick Johnson anyway? What’s this about him being dead? Why am I crying? I can’t answer all the questions you might have about this acclaimed documentary film, but I can help with those last three. He’s not a celebrity, politician, academic, sportsman, philanthropist and so on. He’s the 86-year-old father of the renowned filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, and he’s just been diagnosed with dementia. Dick Johnson is Dead is all about confronting the inevitable loss of memory and cognitive function that comes with Dick’s progression further and further into the all-consuming embrace of this unrelenting illness. The film documents this process. But the way it chooses to tell this story is absolutely marvellous – if immensely surreal.
Throughout the film, Dick “dies” in a variety of gruesome and, dare I say, comic accidents: pummelled by a falling printer; crushed by oncoming traffic; struck by a plank causing him to bleed out; visiting his own funeral and more. They’re all staged of course, devised by his daughter Kirsten (with help from Dick) as they both wait for the real thing to eventually happen. But it’s something that neither of them can ever truly prepare for.
As the two create more and more elaborate stunts to amuse one another, we see Dick increasingly experience moments of forgetfulness. First he misremembers meals he’s had earlier that day, and soon he does not know where he is or what he’s supposed to be doing. This bleeds into Kirsten’s stunts, as he quickly confuses the fake blood on his clothes for his own. In this anxiety-inducing moment, it is clear that his dementia is getting worse. After this, the prankish skits come to a close and the documentary takes a more personal look at Dick and his relationship with his daughter, away from the cameras, studios and stuntmen.
Kirsten invites us into heartfelt conversations with her dad as they both share laughter and tears while Dick comes to terms with his deteriorating sense of self, starting with him selling his beloved car, and then the family home in Seattle so that he can be with his daughter in New York. This time, however, Dick is the one who has to remind Kirsten that the car and the house are irrelevant, so long as he gets to see her every day.
In my mind, this film wrestles with the heavy topic of mortality with perfect balance. It is not grim, morbid or excessively sad. Neither is it overly cutesy or happy in a way that would smother the very real grief the pair are experiencing. It is able to be both a genuinely funny and deeply sad but somehow light film, whose real story is not about Dick’s death(s), but about a loving and enduring bond between a father and his daughter. A truly excellent film that wholly deserves the praise it has garnered from critics. Richard Johnson b. 1932 -