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Filming Death
End-of-Life Documentary Cinema
by Outi Hakola
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Book Presentation:
Examines the narratives documentary films construct and mediate about death and dying
• Gives a comprehensive and in-depth image of how documentary films represent and imagine death and dying, hospice and palliative care, as well as assisted dying
• Explores what is considered an ethical approach to filming the intimate moments of dying individuals’ lives
• Discusses how documentary cinema aims to help alleviate death anxiety
• Asks whether documentary cinema can ever represent the transient and multisensory experience of death
End-of-life documentaries have proliferated in the 21st century as various organisations, institutions, journalists, independent filmmakers, and members of the public have wanted to give death and dying a face in the public discussion.
Each documentary film that concerns individuals with a terminal illness, in hospice care, or desiring assisted death, redefines cultural expectations of what dying is and feels like. These films invite their viewers to witness intimate and emotional moments of dying people, including moments on their deathbed. Filming Death explores these documentaries as ethical spaces, asking the viewers to learn how to engage with end-of-life through the experiences of others and to find ways to alleviate potential death anxiety.
The book argues that the diversity of documentary films resists simplified moral divisions between good and bad death, and instead, embellishes diverse realities where dying takes many forms, ranging from death acceptance to raging to death.
About the Author:
Outi Hakola is a Lecturer in the Department of Health and Social Management at the University of Eastern Finland.
Press Reviews:
In this highly engaging book, Outi Hakola offers an important contribution to the literature on mortality and cinema. Her work with end-of-life documentaries is guided by theoretical sophistication, empirical nuance, and ethical and emotional sensitivity. This book should be of interest to scholars in film, communication, death studies and psychology
– Johanna Sumiala, University of Helsinki, Finland
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
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