WARNING: This article contains spoilers aboutDick Johnson Is Dead.
Netflix’s new documentaryDick Johnson Is Deadis like a magic trick.
But Johnson saves her greatest sleight of hand for the film’s conclusion.
Credit: Barbara Nitke/Netflix
We hear chattering paramedics, the words “cardiac arrest,” a defibrillator being charged.
In voice-over, Johnson intones: “We were so happy with ourselves that day.
We thought that maybe we could stop what was coming.”
Cut to Johnson in her closet, recording narration on her phone.
“All I can say is, Dick Johnson is dead,” the filmmaker says.
“And all I want to say is, long live Dick Johnson.”
She opens the closet door to reveal her father, very much alive, and embraces him.
As the closing credits then reveal, Dick Johnson is indeed still alive.
Dick’s progressing dementia also played a factor.
“His last stunt, I would say, was him taking a spoonful of tomato soup.
That was hard for him to do.
And I was like, ‘Okay, wow, it’s time to be done.’
Because I didn’t want to make this movie without him.
I wanted the act of collaboration through the whole thing.
And I think I will keep filming with my father until he dies for real.
I don’t know what that will become.”
“The pandemic has totally changed the dynamic of things,” Johnson says.
So it’s much the same.
He is himself despite the obstacles of this moment in time, I would say."
And, in his own way, he’s delighted to be a movie star.
“This is what’s crazy about dementia.
“It usually makes him laugh.
It also gives him back things.
Often when he’ll watch it, he’ll say, ‘Where did we park the car?
Oh, can we go for a drive now?’
Because he thinks he has [his] car again.
It’s bringing back to life things that are dead for him.
And then he’ll call Ray.
It’s a very alive thing.
And because of the dementia, it just manifests in all these super interesting ways.
All we want to say is, long live Dick Johnson.
Dick Johnson Is Deadis currently streaming on Netflix.
