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A boxing match in Brooklyn; life in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina; the daily routine of a Nigerian midwife; an intimate family moment at home with the director: Kirsten Johnson weaves these scenes and others into her film Cameraperson, a tapestry of footage captured over her twenty-five-year career as a documentary cinematographer. Through a series of episodic juxtapositions, Johnson explores the relationships between image makers and their subjects, the tension between the objectivity and intervention of the camera, and the complex interaction of unfiltered reality with crafted narrative. A work that combines documentary, autobiography, and ethical inquiry, Cameraperson is a moving glimpse into one filmmaker s personal journey and a thoughtful examination of what it means to train a camera on the world. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES - New high-definition digital master, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack - Making Cameraperson, a new program featuring director Kirsten Johnson, producers Marilyn Ness and Danielle Varga, and editors Nels Bangerter and Amanda Laws - In the Service of the Film, a roundtable conversation with Johnson, producer Gini Reticker, and sound recordists Wellington Bowler and Judy Karp - Excerpts from two 2016 film festival talks with Johnson, including one between her and filmmaker Michael Moore - The Above, a 2015 short film by Johnson - Trailer - PLUS: An essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda and reprinted writings by Johnson

Description

This playful, profound, and immensely moving docu-fantasia by Kirsten Johnson is a valentine to the director’s beloved father, Dick Johnson, made as she has begun to face the reality of losing him to dementia. Using the language of cinema both to defy death and to confront it head-on, Johnson mischievously envisions an array of ways in which the man she loves most in the world might die, staging a series of alternately darkly comic and colorfully imaginative tableaux interwoven with raw vérité footage capturing the pair’s tender but increasingly fragile bond. Tackling taboo questions of aging, mortality, and grief with subversive humor and surprising grace, Dick Johnson Is Dead is ultimately a triumphant celebration of life, and of the gentle, funny, unforgettable man at its center. Long live Dick Johnson. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital master, approved by director Kirsten Johnson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New audio commentary featuring Johnson, cowriter and editor Nels Bangerter, and documentary sound recordist Judy Karp New conversation among Johnson and her fellow producers Katy Chevigny and Marilyn Ness and coproducer Maureen A. Ryan New interview with sound designer Pete Horner New program featuring Johnson in conversation with fellow filmmakers about redefining what a documentary can be Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing English descriptive audio PLUS: An essay by author So Mayer