Dick John­son Is Dead

It’s hard to con­tem­plate the inevitable death of one’s par­ents, espe­cial­ly before it has hap­pened. In Dick John­son is Dead, direc­tor Kirsten John­son chron­i­cles her­self film­ing a series of comedic sce­nar­ios in which her father per­ish­es in hor­ri­ble acci­dents and trav­els to the glo­ri­ous after­life, all designed to help her cope with his even­tu­al demise.

In her first fea­ture doc­u­men­tary since 2016’s Cam­er­ap­er­son, John­son paints a mov­ing por­trait of her father as he nears the end of his life. Dick is a fun­ny and infec­tious man; a psy­chi­a­trist born with­out any toes (some­thing he is still, at 86, quite inse­cure about) and a devout Adven­tist, he nev­er­the­less took Kirsten and her broth­er to see Young Franken­stein in the the­atre as kids, even though their reli­gion instructs against watch­ing such films.

John­son and her dad have a close, warm rela­tion­ship, and though his mem­o­ry con­tin­ues to dete­ri­o­rate over the course of mak­ing the film, her per­sis­tence towards main­tain­ing light in the dark­ness only strength­ens. She is intent on using com­e­dy as a means of cop­ing, inter­weav­ing absurd sce­nar­ios – includ­ing her father falling down a flight of stairs, being struck in the neck and bleed­ing out, and even stag­ing his own funer­al – with her real-life griev­ing process.

Love, laugh­ter and death are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive: after all, to mourn some­one is to have loved them and to have known them, which is a beau­ti­ful thing – some­thing the film illus­trates quite ele­gant­ly. Instead of push­ing her father’s death to the back of her mind, John­son embraces it ful­ly and even has fun with it. She takes her heartache and turns it into joy.

Per­haps death scares us so much because we are so resolved in our pur­suit to ignore it; we waste so much time fear­ing it instead of cel­e­brat­ing life. In a scene near the begin­ning of the film, Dick lays down in his own cof­fin and takes a nap. It’s a mor­bid moment, but Kirsten laughs, and Dick does too. It doesn’t make the pain go away entire­ly, but maybe it’ll make things a lit­tle eas­i­er. Isn’t that what we all real­ly need?