Fading in the frame: the epistemology and ethics of documenting Alzheimer’s bodies

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhile the epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease continues to proliferate, its visibility, particularly within the documentary genre, has not kept pace with its impacts. The rare documentaries that chronicle the condition have primarily been conventional, visually unimaginative texts that rely on the informative mode, but which do not take advantage of valuable opportunities to sensorially investigate epistemological and ethical issues. In contrast, I argue that Alan Berliner’s First Cousin Once Removed employs not only a range of evocative visual techniques, but the filmmaker's own body, the body of his ill first cousin once removed and the bodies of other affected individuals to creatively reveal unexplored layers of experiences with Alzheimer’s and achieve an ‘aesthetic of dis-ease’. Through a corporeal lens, I also explore how Berliner visualizes the interrelationality of sick and putatively healthy bodies, compels viewers to reflect on the contingency of their own bodies and mitigates the ethical challenges of the documentary process in significant new ways.