Dealing with Death: A Close Analysis of a Dutch Documentary Series on the Terminally Ill in the Historical Context of Capturing Mortality

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Dealing with Death

A Close Analysis of a Dutch Documentary Series on the

Terminally Ill in the Historical Context of Capturing

Mortality

Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Humanities, University of Amsterdam

Television and Cross-Media Culture

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Abstract

In modern times, the subject and representation of death in Western societies is a taboo. Whereas death used to be omnipresent, it is now a private occurrence that should be hidden from the public eye. Although quite a lot of research has been done within the field of death studies, this subject is underrepresented within media studies. Particularly little has been written on the portrayal of real death in documentary objects. Despite this, the Netherlands has a remarkable amount of documentary series on terminally ill individuals, mortality and death. This research sets forth how the attitudes towards death have changed and uses several (inter)national media objects to point out how these attitudes are reflected on visual culture. This leads up to the close content analysis of one specifically successful Dutch documentary series, Over mijn lijk. In doing so, this research demonstrates that the Calvinist Dutch deal with death differently from other Western societies. Their visual culture reflects values that are commonly considered particularly Dutch and that contradict the prevailing discourse on the delicate subject of death.

Key words: death, mortality, terminally ill, documentary series, Over mijn

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Introduction

In the 1980s Bertrand Tavernier’s fiction film Death Watch, a terminally ill woman is documented during her last living months without her knowledge. In this story, the footage that is secretly recorded of her is thereafter used for some popular reality television series. At the time that this film was produced, it seemed very bizarre to capture one’s last months and broadcast it for a mass public. Therefore the character in Death Watch had to be unconscious of the fact that she was documented before her intimate last moments during the process of dying would be made public. This discourse on the representation of the terminally ill, the process of dying and real death is a reflection of how Western societies deal with death. Terminal diseases are addressed in terms of fighting battles, consistently denying death as an inevitability. Death itself is uncomfortably hidden, except when it comes in the form of violent, spectacular death that society regularly encounters in fiction film. Scholar John Horne comments on Death Watch by arguing that a film that “posits a near future where dying ‘the old way’ – through terminal illness – has become a rare event. So rare, in fact, that its presence is seen as suitable subject matter for a media event” (126). Historians in the fields of death studies have indeed shown that, through time, death has become shameful, even though it once used to be omnipresent. As a result of this changed prevailing discourse, death disappeared from the public eye. The process of dying, actual death and also the act of mourning became a private affair, condemned to private spheres. So much, in fact, that anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer compared mourning to masturbation, as it should be strictly relegated to one’s private environment (49).

In the Netherlands, however, there is a striking amount of television programmes that represent mortality and death. Most of these programmes follow terminally ill patients during the months before their deaths up until they actually pass away. Viewers get a glimpse into the journey of coming to terms with their illness, fulfilling last wishes, intimate

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farewells with loved ones and ultimately of them dealing with death. Given the fact that real, natural death is approached as uncomfortable in most Western societies and is therefore frequently hidden from the public eye, the way that the Dutch handle death certainly is remarkable. Many might not find this sensitive subject an appropriate topic for television, however over the last couple of years a very diverse range of documentary series have aired on Dutch television. One television series in particular interests me. BNNVARA’s Over mijn lijk (2006-2017) proves to be a highly appreciated and popular series in which several young participants who are terminally ill are followed up until their deaths. At first sight, this programme seems to contrast all research within the field of death studies because it shows many aspects of dying and death that are presumably taboo. That is why analyzing this programme in the final chapter of this research allows me to draw conclusions on how the portrayal of the terminally ill and their deaths is particularly Dutch.

Although a sufficient amount of research within the field of death studies has been done, little has been written on the topic of contemporary portrayal of the process of dying and death. That which has been written is partial, fragmented and mainly focusses on violent rather than natural death (Horne 47-49). These sources have been foundational to film studies, where scholars have established that violent death is offered extensively to mass audiences. Because of this, violent death became normalized, while the natural process of dying increasingly disgusts Western societies. As a result of this, images of real death tend to be defined as immoral and profane. But documentaries often go where fiction films do not dare to go. Regardless, there is a surprising absence of work dealing with death and documentary. The aim of this thesis is therefore to fill in this research gap by focussing on documentary objects portraying natural, real death.

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For this thesis, I am very interested in the treatment of death in Over mijn lijk and its relation to Dutch values and society. In order to answer this question, I firstly focus on the three following secondary questions:

o How have the Western attitudes towards mortality and death changed over time, and how did these changing attitudes influenced the portrayal of death in visual culture?

o To what extent can the media portrayal of the terminally ill and the process of dying in the Netherlands be considered typically Dutch? In other words, to what extent do these media portrayals articulate values that correspond to the Dutch attitude towards death?

o How do the aesthetic representation of death and the editorial choices in Over mijn lijk help to make the delicate subject of death bearable and how is the series at the same time a reflection of values that are commonly associated with the Dutch?

As there are three chapters in this thesis, each chapter addresses one of these questions. Doing so allows for a broader perspective at the beginning of this research, leading to a more narrow perspective towards the end in the form of a close content analysis of one specific case study. Consequently, I combine a discourse analysis with a close content analysis. The discourse analysis provides insights into the prevailing discourse on the topic of death in Western societies and the representation of it in contemporary visual culture in chapter 1. Chapter 2 is thereafter used to establish how the Dutch deal with death and how their attitude towards it is reflected on their visual culture. Through the close content analysis, I demonstrate how the audio-visual and narrative elements of Over mijn lijk are used to construct a discursive position that contradicts the prevailing discourse. At the same time, this close content analysis exposes how Over mijn lijk reflects values and attitudes towards death that are commonly considered particularly Dutch. In chapter three, an in-depth analysis of the most recent season of Over mijn lijk demonstrates how the series handles mortality and death of young, terminally ill individuals, and how this approach is particularly Dutch.

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Chapter 1: Mortality and Death through Illness in Western Society

The first chapter of this research is dedicated to the prevailing discourse concerning death in Western societies, and sets forth how attitudes towards death have changed. In the first section of chapter, I determine how the Western attitudes towards mortality and death changed over time, and how these changing attitudes influenced the portrayal of death in visual culture. Although death used to be omnipresent, it later became increasingly hidden. Contemporary societies are now used to violent and spectacular death through the fictional representation of it. The second section provides insights on the representation of real death. When real death is portrayed in visual culture, makers have to take the ethics of spectatorship into consideration in order to create documentary footage that is coded with veracity, while also moralising death. The final section of this chapter consists of an analysis of several international examples, after which their aspects are compared to the series Over mijn lijk.

1.1 The History of Attitudes towards Death

When writing about the subject of death and mortality, one must certainly include Philippe Ariès. Ariès was a French medievalist and historian that specialised in common daily life and he is best known for his work on the changing Western attitudes towards death. With this prominent work, Ariès provides historical insights in evolving rituals in the Western world. From the Middle Ages forward, Ariès proposes four stages of divergent attitudes towards death, namely “tamed death”, “one’s own death”, “thy death” and “forbidden death”, in which mortality, the process of dying and death are defined and handled in various ways by Western societies. During the first stage of tamed death, death would mostly come forewarned. Society during this stage felt like individuals would pass either after recognizing natural signs of illnesses or through an inner conviction. Therefore abrupt and sudden deaths were the exception and not talked about (Ariès 3-4).

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This period expressed a time when death was “omnipresent, familiar, comprehended as an irrevocable law of the species from which mankind did not attempt to escape or sensed as terrifying” (Pereira 5). Death in this stage was a very simple thing, a ritual actually. Knowing that the end was near, a dying person would prepare for death and do so in a routine that was both Christian and customary (Ariès 12). What also stands out in this first stage, is that death was a public ceremony, where the “dying man’s bedchamber became a public space to be entered freely” (12). Parents, friends, neighbours and even children would be present. Ariès also referred to this as the household death, in which death was both familiar and near, evoking no fear or awe (13). Although at the end of the seventeenth century signs of intolerance towards death began to appear, it is clear that within this first stage people adapted perfectly to this promiscuity between the living and the dead, “as the spectacle of the dead […] made no more impression upon the living than the idea of their own death” (24-25). In the second stage, the idea of the collective destiny of death was replaced by the concern for the individuality of each person and was therefore called one’s own death (Pereira 5). The focus here was primarily on the Last Judgement. According to Ariès, men of this period believed “in an existence after death which did not necessarily continue for infinite eternity, but which provided an extension between death and the end of the world” (33). Death was dramatized and amplified, although the horror of physical death would be absent (41). Iconography of death in this period in the form of woodcuts portray the proper way of dying, where loved ones gather around the deathbed of a dying individual, equivalent to death in the first period. The main difference, however, is the “increasingly close relationship between death and the biography of each individual life” (37-38).

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the onset of the third period, “a morbid, hysterical and eroticized fascination with the idea of death emerges” (Sobchack 228). Ariès mentions that countless scenes or motifs in art and literature from this period associate death with love (57). Romantic death, as he calls this, was not desirable but admirable in its

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beauty. During this period the Western society was still familiar with and regularly exposed to the process of dying due to accidental or violent causes, as the number of deaths increased by industrialization and urbanization (Sobchack 228). They also still honoured the activities dictated by custom, but while doing so they stripped those activities “from their banal and customary character” (Ariès 59). Passionate sorrow and expressive mourning was now common, which reflected directly on the visual culture, where paintings of mourning women appear (Ariès 61). After the mid-nineteenth century, there was a sudden rigorous shift in how society perceived death, which Ariès defines as a brutal revolution into the stage of the “forbidden death”. During this fourth period death, before so omnipresent, would disappear. It would become shameful and forbidden. This attitude interdicts death in order to preserve happiness (94). For that reason, the process of dying and actual death would be condemned to private spheres (Pereira 6). The beginning of this revolution is in line with the second stage, where “those surrounding the dying person had a tendency to spare him and hide from him the gravity of his condition” (Ariès 86). But most importantly, death must be hidden not for the sake of the dying person but for society’s sake, as one must avoid “the disturbance and the overly strong and unbearable emotion caused by the ugliness of dying and by the very presence of death in the midst of a happy life” (87). Ariès explains that “sorrow does not inspire pity but repugnance, it is the sign of mental instability or of bad manners: it is morbid” (90). This state of mourning is no longer an inevitable period imposed by society, but must be treated, shortened and erased by the doctor of grief (99-100).

As death slowly became more medicalized and the control and authority of medical professionals increased, it was moved out of the familiar and private environment of the home to become institutionalized in the hospital and the morgue (Tercier 13). The mourning, however, became a private affair. Ariès emphasizes that solitary and shameful mourning is the only recourse in this stage and refers to Geoffrey Gorer’s comparison

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between mourning and masturbation; an act that should only occur in a private environment. In 1955, Gorer also introduces the idea of “pornography of death”, which he explains as the normalization of violent death as it is offered extensively to mass audiences, while the natural process of dying increasingly disgusted Western societies (Gorer 49). Capturing the natural process of dying therefore was uncommon during that time, as the spectacle of death “displaced the natural actualities of illness and the everyday banalities of dying” (Horne 127). According to Gorer it was impossible to find novels, plays or other forms of entertainment with deathbed scenes that in any detail portray death from natural causes of a major character, as no one wishes to witness the agony of a dying individual (Gorer 50-51). He also states that the ugly facts of death are relentlessly hidden, an idea that comes up quite often while researching the ways death is handled throughout time in Western societies.

With all this knowledge about attitudes towards death in Western culture, it seems unlikely to create a successful format on terminally ill patients and their time before passing away. However, the way death is handled in Western society and the way death is portrayed in visual media does differ. Tony Walter states that “the media can be obsessed with death even at a time when individuals find it impossible to talk about their own personal grief” (295). This is in line with Gorer’s argument, as he states that a society that refuses to talk about death personally becomes obsessed with all sorts of unnatural, violent death. Walter moves away from the idea that death is a taboo subject. According to him, death is not denied or repressed, but highly regulated to favour the notion of the “good death”, at the expense of the violent, natural or painful death. Although mortality and death are never really denied, the idea of the “good death” is something that is mentioned in most work on this subject. Mary Bradbury describes three representations of good deaths as either being “spiritual”, to be “conformed to an idealized vision of a medically controlled event” or lastly to be “rejecting what is increasingly viewed as

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an over-interventionist approach to dying” (2). A good death is something that our society wishes upon a dying individual, but the lack of public familiarity with dying often causes surprise, confusion and anger, as in reality the individual’s death is managed through institutionalisation, isolation and stigmatisation (Horne 61). It seems that the good death and the visual capture of this is something that we as a society are willing to accept and tolerate, whilst a realistic and honestly painful death disconcerts us. Zygmunt Bauman introduces the notion of deconstructed death, which has to do with society’s denial of mortality and death. By deconstructing death, the causes of dying are inseparably connected to mortality. Although the truth that death cannot be escaped in the end is not denied (137), the idea of solely dying without assignable cause frightens human beings. Therefore visual objects on death, in the case of this thesis moving images in the form of documentaries, are easier to grasp for viewers when the individuals have a demonstrable cause of death, like a terminal illness. This allows for a distanced spectatorship, as viewers need not fully identify with the dying individual and hence are not directly reminded of their own mortality. This is in line with Vivian Sobchack’s remarks on the endless trust that Western society has in new technologies and their ability to prolong human life. Therefore, natural death and also its portrayal in visual culture have become somewhat uncomfortable.

In addition, an increased cultural faith in the infinite efficacy of new technologies as they are mobilized by medicine, the biological sciences, and fitness industries to preserve and extend the human body into perpetual health and perpetual youth has further marginalized “natural” death from disease or old age as unnatural. (Sobchack 231)

Despite this, there seems to have been a shift in the Western attitude towards death in the 1960s, as society started to encourage personal expression and the display of emotions again. The subject of death also

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became less of a taboo. As a result of this new-found courage to speak about death in public, the representation of death in visual culture also increased. However, when a dying individual is photographed and encountered in visual culture, their images often serve to shock (Horne 52). John Horne mentions the examples of Barb Tarbox and David Kirby, both subjects of visual culture that used their terminal illnesses to raise awareness. Tarbox started smoking as a young girl, which unfortunately led to her suffering from brain and lung cancer. She devotedly fought the anti-smoking cause and is known for ripping of her headgear, revealing her hairless scalp in front of young audiences and thereby continuously causing shocked reactions. The story of Kirby is similar, as he was a terminally ill man suffering from AIDS. A photograph of him in his deathbed, surrounded by his mourning family, was taken by Therese Frare and later referred to as the picture that changed the face of AIDS. According to Horne, “such pictures puncture the public sphere simply because they capture actualities typically occluded from social view” (52). In addition, they threaten the fantasies of the good death as described above, “which is why the encounter is so often bounded by ideological, moral or commercial intent” (52).

Tony Walter explains how “the counter culture reacted against rationality, asserting that feelings of all kinds should be expressed, not repressed” (297-298). He also describes the green and women’s movements as causes of the changing attitude. The green movement was more at ease with the process of a natural death, whereas this idea previously frightened people. The women’s movements questioned the patriarchal approach in studies and other works on attitudes towards death of for example Ariès and Gorer, of which women were indeed mostly left out. Although Walter does not reject the ideas of Ariès and Gorer, he does add another aspect to the treatment of death by stating that perhaps the forbidden death is replaced by the hidden death, the invisible death by the safe death. This safe death is the equivalent of the modern good death, which emerged after the attempt to humanise death by the introduction of

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the hospice as “a place for a quiet death at the end of a fulfilled life” (Walter 300). According to Walter, this is something that Ariès also hinted towards in his work; “death must become the discreet but dignified exit of a peaceful person from a helpful society that is not torn, not even overly upset by the idea of a biological transition without significance” (Ariès 609). While several researchers on the subject of death have now implicated some sort of revival of death in public discourse, certain barriers of taboo and also an avoidance of actuality, which is often quite remorseless, still work to keep the dying individual at a distance (Horne 2).

Now that I have established how the Western attitudes towards mortality and death have changed over time, I devote the next sections to the way this subject is portrayed in visual culture to see how it was influenced by these changing attitudes.

1.2 The Ethics of Spectatorship

Zygmunt Bauman touches upon some ideas of Sigmund Freud and Edgar Morin, who both argue that the concept of death is hollow and without content. It is unthinkable and inexplicable to think of one’s personal death and in Freud’s words “it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; and whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact still present as spectators” (Bauman 13). I find this an interesting quote, as I quite often question why any dying individual would allow their death to be captured. Perhaps their death is indeed impossible to imagine and capturing the process of dying could be perceived as quite literally capturing, hence preserving, that scarce time. Doing so not only allows the dying individual to be a spectator of their own process of dying, but also provides some content to that idea. As for the viewer, being a spectator of someone else’s death reminds us all of our fragility. As Pereira beautifully states, it is as if we are continuously by “their side and shadow them in their enduring in between” (7).

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It is firstly of importance to clarify the meaning of actual death, as this indicates the transformation from the state of being alive to the state of being dead. Several scholars argue that this specific transformation from being alive to being dead is that which shocks and traumatizes the viewer (Pereira, Bauman, Horne). Pereira gives the example of Eric Steel’s The Bridge (2006). In this documentary Steel and his crew spent a year filming at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, a place that is notorious for the large number of suicides. In this documentary, the viewer is exposed to footage of suicidal individuals jumping towards their own death into the water of the Golden Gate. Steel and his crew were accused of non-ethical behaviours, as many viewers condemned the fact that the makes chose to capture death rather than prevent it, and in addition used the shocking material in the documentary. The suicidal deaths in this documentary are the clear opposite from a good death. The way that mortality and death are portrayed in documentaries like these might play a large part in the way that death is being perceived as unnatural and unfair (Pereira 17). This example, the loss of a life by the act of jumping of a bridge, is also very abrupt, which is understandably difficult to watch. According to Pereira, it is vital to understand that being a witness of the irrevocable instant in time when someone ceases to exist, creates self-awareness towards one’s death (15). However, besides being abrupt, this transformation from being alive to being dead can also be understood as the gradual process of dying. Malin Wahlberg argues that the “most provoking figure of death is not the image of a dead body but a body transforming into a corpse” (47). She states that the viewer is used to images of a dead body because of the commonality of death in fictional cinema. The state between being alive and being dead, regardless of how long this might be, is therefore that which makes a viewer uncomfortable. It often crosses the boundaries that many consciously or unconsciously have when it comes to the ethics of spectatorship.

Sue Tait writes about the ethics and aesthetics of screening death. She explains that documentary images of the dead are conventionally taboo in

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Western culture. Historically the taboo around imagery of death also extended to cinema, but restrictions governing violent content have loosened (333). Because cinematic death is now framed as spectacular and exciting, “the ability of filmmakers to moralise death and code it with veracity is a challenging project” (333). There are several notions that help to moralise death in documentary footage. Vivian Sobchack emphasizes disease and bodily decay are now seen as an affront to nature and that “death is more comprehensible in the current cultural moment when it occurs for a young or hard body—or as the sudden consequence of external forces rather than the gradual consequence of internal processes” (231). Documentaries also, in contrast to fictional films, tend to “observe the social taboos surrounding real death and generally avoid explicit (that is, visible) screen reference to it” (231). Because we hardly ever see real death on the screen, we only see the activity and the remains of the event of dying. Also abruptness will help spectators to distances themselves from the dying individuals when watching documentaries on the subject of death, as it “denies formal reason and connotes the irrationality, arbitrariness, and unfairness of death” (240). This confirms the idea of a natural death as being “unnatural” and helps the spectator to distance themselves from death. The vision of the filmmaker is also quite important, as their vision shapes and frames the viewer’s gaze on real dying. A filmmaker “physically mediates his or her own confrontation with death: the way (s)he ethically inhabits a social world, visually responds in and to it, and charges it with an ethical meaning visible to others” (244). John Horne also emphasizes this and enhances Sobchack’s statements by giving the example of Briony Campbell’s documentation of her dying father in The Dad Project (2011). Her very personal framing of the footage and photographs of her father during his illness and also after he has passed reassures the viewer that it is alright to watch. All is consensual, therefore this kind of spectatorship does not feel like an intrusion into the life of a dying individual. Viewers also test their own ethical behaviour, as the very act of looking at the documentary is ethically charged and this act itself is an object of ethical judgement. Sobchack states the following:

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The viewer is—and is held—ethically responsible for his or her visible visual response. The cinematic signs of the act of viewing death provide the visible grounds on which the spectator judges not only the filmmaker’s ethical behaviour in response to death but also his or her own ethical response to the visible visual activity represented on the screen—both its content and its form. (Sobchack 244)

It is indeed striking how viewers feel the need to respond and express how they feel after watching an ethically complicated documentary. After such a documentary has aired, viewers take it upon themselves to share in which way they have been moved. On Twitter for example, one will find an infinite amount of comments of viewers stating whether or not they appreciated the documentary and what kind of emotions it unleashed. Finally, Sobchack discusses several “forms of visual activity that emerge across a wide range of documentary films and raw nonfictional footage” (249). These forms indicate how the filmmaker cinematically engages with and represents the event of death. Furthermore, these forms reflect ethical behaviour of the filmmaker, that she calls the ethical gaze. According to Sobchack, the forms can be thematised as the accidental, helpless, endangered, interventional or as the humane gaze. Sobchack explains that “each [form] is constituted as human behaviour visibly encoded in the representation to signify the particular embodied situation of the filmmaker and thus his or her capacity to affect the events before the camera lens” (249). These forms, on which I will expand in the second section of chapter three, are an inscription of the filmmaker’s visual activity to the events of death. With a lack of any such inscription, an ethical problem often arises as it is unclear that the filmmaker is “in no way party to – and thus responsible for – the death at which (s)he gazes” (249).

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The one aspect of ethics and spectatorship that seems to be most prominent is that the transformation from being alive to being dead should not be portrayed in documentary footage. Vivian Sobchack clearly summarizes that “death can only be represented in a visible and vigorous contrast between two states of the physical body: the body as lived body, intentional and animated—and the body as corpse, a thing of flesh unintended, inanimate, static” (236). This is the first aspect in which Dutch documentaries seemingly push this boundary and explore the portrayal of that very transformation from being alive to being dead. In a recent Dutch documentary titled Levenseindekliniek (NTR, 2016) for example, the viewer follows several protagonists during the process of euthanasia. The filmmakers are allowed to capture the doctor’s visits, intimate conversations with loved ones and eventually even the actual death of one of the elderly protagonists. The spectator, meaning both the filmmakers and the viewer, is invited into the living room, onto the couch as this lady gets administered the life-terminating drugs. As the colour is leaving her face, the lady transforms from being alive to being dead. The responses to this documentary were quite impetuous. The portrayal of actual death did seem to make the viewer uncomfortable, however the outraged responses were mostly directed towards the fact that the viewer was uncertain whether euthanasia was indeed the fully independent choice of the lady, who was no longer in a state to confirm her death wishes. Clinical ethic Erwin Kompanje reacts to the documentary as well and explains that the image of life disappearing from the face of the lady is shocking to viewers because they are only used to seeing re-enacted dying on television. He also clarifies that in this specific case he and many other viewers did question whether the euthanasia was administered not too prematurely (Kompanje). Exploring those ideas any further is not relevant for this thesis, however the documentary Levenseindekliniek portrays protagonists who do not fear or fight death but actually prefer being dead over being alive. Also, the cases in this documentary are morally complicated, as all patients of the clinic are rejected by their doctor because their suffering is not demonstrable. The fact that these individuals choose to embrace and

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long for death makes it less difficult to be a spectator of their deaths. John Horne discusses this as well with the concept of a ‘grievable life’, in which he explains how our society considers “the death of certain bodies and beings as more tragic, more deserving of our grief, than others, whether that be regarding age, gender, race, nationality, sexuality, disability, or so forth” (132). Viewers are not only unable to identify with the protagonists of this documentary, but are also not that keen on watching these sorts of non-grievable deaths. John Tercier’s adds to this by stating that we are “distancing ourselves from them, not just to achieve the emotional detachment necessary to go on living, not just to relegate the dead to memory, but so we might apprehend what we as survivors are graced with and sentenced to – life” (216). These sorts of programmes do not only remind the viewer of the fact that we are graced with and sentenced to life, but also that not all individuals want to be living. However distressing it may be to realize that, it does enable the viewer to feel like the deaths of these individuals are less grievable.

To conclude, being a spectator, either as a filmmaker or as a viewer, to the event of real death is inevitably ethically charged. Filmmakers have to be very conscious of the way they choose to portray death in a truthful yet moralised manner and often do so by excluding bodily decay, emphasizing the cause of death and by making sure that their object is acquainted. Viewers, on the other hand, judge the intentions of filmmaker based upon their gaze and vision. In addition they feel the need to respond as they are also held ethically responsible for observing the real deaths of real individuals.

1.3 Mortality and Death in Contemporary Visual Culture

During Philippe Ariès’ earlier stages, which have been discussed previously in this chapter, it was not uncommon for death to be captured in visual culture on site. However, as the portrayal of death seemed to die and be properly buried, “it sprang to life on the printed page and in various visual spectacles” (Goldberg 32). Vicki Goldberg points out that illustrations

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moved in right as the dying and the dead were slowly fading from the field of view (33). In early paintings and photography, the portrayal of death was a way to anchor time. Later on, the use of visual culture as a part of the process of memorialisation is something that occurred in fictional and documentary films as well (Richards 195). Despite this, the capture and portrayal of death might seem remarkable, with regard to the death anxiety from which Western societies suffers. John Horne proposes that films on mortality and death, specifically caused by a terminal illness, “function as spectatorial salves. Spectatorship offers a safe space for the social taboo to be transgressed, whilst concurrently granting the temporary quelling of individual death anxiety” (128). This helps to explain the increased portrayal of mortality and (violent) death in films, which at first hand seems contradictory to the taboo surrounding death in modern societies. John Tercier discusses this increased portrayal as well, and exemplifies how the contemporary general public is interested to see medicine, mortality and death as they “feel particularly excluded from the life and death scenes that 50 years ago occurred in the home and now occur behind closed doors” (197).

Tercier mainly focusses on the fictional portrayal of death, but several scholars point out that there are some definite similarities between the way death is represented in fiction and in documentary footage. John Horne, for example, emphasizes that the dying individual in documentary is in one aspect very similar to fiction films, namely the fundamental spectatorial dynamic. According to him, “the dying individual is mediated, framed and screened for the benefit of the spectator” (135). With this in mind, I will now discuss some of the very few documentaries that confront the subject of death. These documentaries all have a, as Vivian Sobchack notes, morally charged nature which offers a direct gaze upon natural dying (243). I consciously chose not to include documentaries on death caused by anything other than a terminal illness. Prominent films like Gates of Heaven (1978), The Act of Killing (2012), Grizzly Man (2005), The Bridge (2006), A Certain Kind of Death (2003) certainly had an impact on the way Western societies perceive death. However, I feel like these

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documentaries all depict death in an abrupt, unnatural and even violent manner. This is in line with all that has been discussed in the previous sections; nowadays death has to be far removed from natural death in order not to confront the spectator with their own death and thus make them uncomfortable. Although I surely do not deny the importance of these sorts of documentaries, in order to establish a solid argument on the representation of the dying individual in Over mijn lijk, I must limit myself to a sole comparison between this case study and other documentaries on the terminally ill.

Firstly, I will briefly summarize all these six documentaries and include some additional information that helps to understand both the content and the context of the documentary. After this summary, I distinguish several similarities and differences and thereafter correlate these documentaries to the case study Over mijn lijk.

The first example, Joan Robinson: One’s Woman’s Story (1980), is a highly controversial documentary on Joan Robinson during her last two years. Robinson suffered from terminal ovarian and breast cancer and asked her friend Mary Feldhaus-Weber to document the severity and hopelessness of her illness. The documentary includes very intimate scenes and after 22 months of fear, pain, recrimination and struggle, Robinsons passes away. Journalist Tom Shales states that it is not surprising that television “has spent 30 years avoiding most of the subjects that this film brings up […] and that no one could be blamed for preferring to look the other way” (Shales). This documentary aired on American television in the 1980s and was not received well by the general public, as it presumably was impetuous after such a long silence on the subject of death.

In Lightning Over Water (1980), documentary and fiction merge into one. When director Nicholas Ray finds out that he suffers from terminal cancer, his friend and fellow director Wim Wenders collaborates with him to capture his final days on camera. The documentary consists of several improvised scenes in which both men performed the very roles they were in. The original title was Nick’s Film: Lightning Over Water, but Wenders

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later decided to re-edit the documentary, as he felt it told a story in third person, which should have been in first person.

Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997) is about the performative artist Bob Flanagan and his life with cystic fibrosis. This documentary not solely focusses on the months leading up to Flanagan’s death, but also on his work as an artist and the way he uses BDSM for both sexual gratification and as a way to regain control over his body that decays from cystic fibrosis. This documentary also includes several re-enacted scenes, as well as some controversial BDSM performances. This film never aired on television but won several awards at film festivals.

So Much So Fast (2006) is about Stephen Heywood, a 29-year-old rebuilder and architect who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as ALS. This film documents the last five years of Heywood’s life. He was a catalyst in the ALS research field and had a brother who became obsessed with finding him a cure. While fighting his disease, Heywood tries to make the most of his days, marries his girlfriend, has a son with her and continuous to rebuild houses. This film very much focusses on death as an unfair, unnatural and random thing, while it is at the same time very optimistic in tone.

How to Die in Oregon (2011) follows several terminally ill patients in the state of Oregon, which is the first American state to legalize medical aid in dying. The documentary covers and advocates for the ‘Death with Dignity Act’. It allows viewers to get an intimate look into the lives of terminally ill patients and their loved-ones, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of one’s right to end their life with dignity. Although the State of Oregon already legalized euthanasia in 1994, far beyond any other of the total of six US states in which this is currently legal, the topic is still very controversial. How to Die in Oregon clearly supports the act and this film was very well received among both the public and film critics.

In The LuLu Sessions (2011), viewers are introduced to Dr. Louise Nutter, who goes by the name LuLu. The documentary started accidently

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as close friend and director S. Casper Wong spontaneously visited LuLu. When she got an unexpected call from the oncologist telling her she suffered from breast cancer, Wong picked up the camera. She continued to capture her visits to LuLu the following year, up until her final days at the Vermont Respite House and her death there. The result is very intimate and raw, yet surprisingly humorous. This film also was very well received and won a great amount of awards.

Several points stand out while analyzing the documentaries above. Firstly, all films but How to Die in Oregon are directed and produced by someone close to the dying individual. By approaching this complex subject from a personal perspective, viewing these films does not feel like an intrusion into the personal lives of the terminally ill. The documentary on Joan Robinson, for example, would be significantly more difficult to watch, as it includes many scenes containing gruesome details on Joan’s suffering. The fact that a close friend of Joan is the one that captured these scene helps to make the documentary less ethically challenging. Vivian Sobchack states that “as the filmmaker watches the dying, we watch the filmmaker watching and judge the nature and quality of his or her interest” (243). Therefore the viewer will feel at ease when a filmmaker is close to the dying individual, as it reassures them of their noble intentions and of the fact that the sick are participating consensually. In Over mijn lijk, however, the host is not an acquaintance of the dying individual and the programme has clear commercial purposes. Although this could be problematic, host Valerio Zeno makes it work. His typically Dutch directness, clear-headedness and humour ensures viewers that it is alright to watch, while it at the same creates a respectful distance between the spectatorand the terminally ill. It also helps that Valerio is young, just like all the dying individuals in the documentary series. He can therefore relate to all the individuals and have both poignant conversations as well as enjoyable experiences with them.

During Over mijn lijk, there is a strong emphasis on the fact that all dying individuals in the series are regular people like you and me, whose

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lives could be brutally interrupted by terminal illnesses. Most of the six examples mentioned above, on the other hand, feature protagonists that are quite a bit older. Only the protagonist of So Much So Fast is under the age of 30, whereas in Over mijn lijk most participants are under 30. This is in line with what John Horne discusses with his notion of the ‘grievable life’, in which “the death of certain bodies and beings are more tragic, more deserving of our grief, than others” (132). However harsh it may sound, the death of an older individual is often considered less unfair than the death of a young person in Western society. Observing death randomly affecting young individuals that appear to be healthy, reassures viewers that death is unpredictable rather than inevitable and therefore does not directly emphasizes them of their own inevitable mortality. This is only natural, as people will perpetually hold on to the fantasies of a good death. Ideally, one dies at home, surrounded by loved-ones and free from pain. According to Horne, “documentary introduces reality into the equation, potentially bringing us closer to actuality and away from fantasies of the good death” (52). This applies to both the six examples as well as Over mijn lijk, however the emphasis throughout all but one documentary is still on dying with dignity and grace. Solely Joan Robinson: One’s Woman’s Story portrays the brutal truth of death by including her suffering and the decay of her body. Remarkably this is also the only example that was received quite badly by the public and marked as very unethical.

Lastly, what strikes me while analyzing the six examples is that they all hardly only focus on the dying individual but also include other storylines. How to Die in Oregon has the clear political goal to convince viewers of euthanasia, while So Much So Fast promotes the development of a medicine for ALS-patients. Lightning Over Water and Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist are a combination of a documentary and fiction, while The Lulu Sessions, Joan Robinson: One Woman’s Story and Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, as well, are a homage to one person or even a homage to friendship. I feel like Over mijn lijk, on the contrary, approaches the dying individual head on with very little distractions. Perhaps this works because

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of the distance between the host and the terminally ill in the series, or because the series captures multiple dying individuals at once.

As the above demonstrates, some aspects of the series are in line with what scholars within the field of death studies discuss. The attitude of most Western societies towards death prove to relegate the subject to private spheres. When death is portrayed in visual culture it is often regulated in favour of the good death, as for viewers this representations is easier to accept and tolerate. Portraying real death is challenging and there are several ethics of spectatorship that filmmakers comply to. Bodily decay is seen as an affront to nature and the portrayal of this is preferably avoided, however an assignable cause of death must be emphasized. The actual moment of death must be excluded in order to produce a documentary that is perceived as ethical. Lastly, the intentions of the filmmaker must be clear and the viewer is more comfortable when the filmmaker is acquainted to the dying individual. When death is introduced in documentary, for example in the objects analysed in this chapter, there often is a strong second story line besides the terminal illness and most

also have an activist impetus.

In order to establish whether the structure of this format can be considered typically Dutch, the following chapter will be dedicated to set forth the Dutch values concerning mortality and death.

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Chapter 2: The History of Dealing with Mortality and Death in the

Netherlands

After discussing general attitudes towards death in chapter one, this chapter focusses on the history of dealing with mortality and death in the Netherlands. The first section of this chapter is dedicated to Dutch values and attitudes towards death. Values that are commonly considered particularly Dutch descend from the country’s Calvinist history. Determining these values and the national character in this section enables me to analyse to what extent these characteristics are reflected in Over mijn lijk. In virtually all Dutch programmes, which are discussed in section two of this chapter, the dying individuals are in control of all aspects of their death. In a sense this helps the individuals to reclaim their freedom. Because although dying from a terminal illness may be inevitable, the participants do it their way. The final section consists of a comparison between these other Dutch programmes and Over mijn lijk, in which it becomes clear how the series differs from other programmes on this subject.

2.1 Calvinism and the Way the Dutch Deal with Mortality and Death

To establish to what extent the media portrayal of the terminally ill and the process of dying in the Netherlands is typically Dutch, this section of the thesis is used to delineate values that are commonly considered particularly Dutch. Doing so provides insights on the characteristic way in which the Dutch deal with death and therefore it helps understand that the portrayal of terminally ill patients and death on television in the Netherlands is unique and remarkable.

When talking about particularly Dutch values, the word Calvinism quickly comes to mind. The idea of the Netherlands as a Calvinist society is often adopted as a simple truth or as common knowledge. Despite its secularization, the Netherlands has preserved its Calvinist

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characterisation. Calvinism is therefore often used as the genesis of several ethics, values and morals that are generally associated with the Dutch (Te Velde 59). Whereas Calvinist characteristics historically have the connotation of being overly moralistic and ascetic (Kruijt 59-60), these characteristics are now popularly connected to the Dutch hard work ethic, directness, discipline and certain qualities such as rigidity, frugality and perseverance. Multiple sociological and anthropological researchers discuss the Dutch volksaard or volkskarakter, which can be translated as the national character. In 1930, for example, ethnologist Sebald Rudolph Steinmetz describes this national Dutch character. He mentions “individualism, the aversion to personal glorification and other forms of ‘pathos’, the critical attitude, the tendency towards irony, the moderate portrayal of emotions, of vanity and lastly the absence of a vengeful nor sensual or sensitive approach” (Steinmetz 36-41). But according to Steinmetz, the most prominent characteristic of the Dutch is their love of individual freedom. This is something that has been mentioned in all works on this topic, which is presumably connected to the fact that most of these studies appeared around a time when, due to war, the freedom of the Netherlands was not self-evident (Heerikhuizen 647). The work of sociologist Jakob Pieter Kruijt corresponds with the above, but he also adds that the Dutch are characterized by their deliberate decision making, independence of ideas and their honest display of intentions (49). These characteristics in all probability play a part in the success, as well as the amount, of Dutch formats dealing with terminally ill individuals and the process of dying.

With this outline of common Dutch values in mind, it is now interesting to see how these values are expressed in social customs, specifically in the way mortality and death are dealt with. Sociologist Paul Schnabel stresses that the importance of freedom of choice and national values like pragmatism and stoicism are reflected in all aspects of Dutch society. He gives the example of our health care system, in which both birth and death are preferably not medicalized and therefore as natural as possible

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(Neighmond). Although the Dutch are demonstrably comfortable with their health system, they strongly feel that birth and death are matters of which only the people should be in control. They should be self-determined and based upon personal preferences. According to Schnabel, the lenient euthanasia laws in the Netherlands portray this attitude very well (Neighmond). Euthanasia in the Netherlands today is regulated by the ‘Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act’ that took effect in 2002. This act guards the legality of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, provided that the attending physician acts in accordance with the set criteria, on which I will not extend further as it is not relevant for the purpose of this thesis. During the revolutionary 1960s, the debate on self-determination, autonomy of the patient and the choice to euthanize prospered. This debate intensified even further after the ‘Postma-case’ in 1973, in which certified physician Truus Postma chose to facilitate the death of her own mother, who had suffered from a stroke and repeatedly requested euthanasia. Although Postma was sentenced to one week in prison, the public opinion on euthanasia was affected and that same year the Dutch Association for Voluntary Termination of Life was founded.

An interesting documentary that caused a lot of controversy is Dood op verzoek (1994) by Maarten Nederhorst, in which he captures the entire euthanasia process of ALS-patient Cees van Wendel de Joode. The documentary aired on broadcaster IKON, which is remarkable as this was an ecclesiastical Dutch broadcaster that provided content on behalf of seven denominations. The portrayal of euthanasia and footage of the actual death, from the perspective of the patient as well as from the physician, “provoked an international reaction within hours of broadcasting” (Sheldon 309). In the Netherlands the documentary was also very controversial, however in general viewers and critics admired it. After this, doctor and patient associations, media and political parties unified and in 1998 submitted a motion to exempt euthanasia from criminal sanctions. Christian philosopher Theo A. Boer remarks that euthanasia, both in the Netherlands and internationally, doubtlessly took place, whether it was legal or not. He argues, however, that this early

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request for transparent euthanasia in the Netherlands is an example of its Calvinism.

Deceitful behaviour is something that a Protestant does not like. When you do something, be open about it. Be transparent, also about the compromises and the dirty hands you make. That attitude has brought a lot, including, not the least, a political culture of transparency. The Dutch euthanasia law is partly the result of this Protestant honesty. (Boer 5)

This partially explains why the Dutch feel comfortable capturing and portraying death, whereas doing so is still somewhat of a taboo in the rest of the world. Honesty and transparency are definitely morals that one encounters while watching Over mijn lijk. The programme does not disguise the unsightly truth of a terminal illness and allows the viewer to be part of the explicit process of dying that normally takes place behind closed doors.

Perhaps compared to other countries, the Netherlands is a frontrunner in this area. Historian James Kennedy looks into cultural change in our country with great interest and amazement, and claims that the Netherlands indeed has a very tolerant and progressive climate (10). He also notes that the Dutch legalise and tolerate that which is not possible elsewhere. The Netherlands’ reputation as an oasis of experimental lifestyles has reached rather mythical proportions in foreign press (11). The emphasis of this tolerant and progressive climate is on the autonomous individual with the right to self-determine their lifestyle. It therefore seems that viewers are not easily affected by documentary programmes that capture mortality and death of someone that chooses to anchor their process of dying for others to see.

In their very recent book, thanatologists Claudia Venhorst and Brenda Mathijssen discuss death and its rituals in the Netherlands. They emphasize that Dutch society handles death in its own unique way (150).

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The book provides some interesting insights into changing rituals concerning death, which reveals how we as a society perceive death. An example that is mentioned is the legalisation of cremation in 1955 and its subsequent shift, as people increasingly chose cremation over a traditional burial. This demonstrates how the deceased are no longer exclusively relegated to the cemeteries, but are now allowed into the living rooms and therefore into the daily lives of their relatives (19). Death is no longer something to be afraid of, which explains why portraying the process of dying in documentary programmes does not alarm or disquiet the Dutch. The Netherlands is also the only country that allows relatives to be present during the actual admittance of the deceased person to the crematorium (147-148). This again shows that the Dutch do not flinch at death, while it at the same time emphasizes the importance to freely choose to what extent one desires to be involved. Venhorst and Mathijssen confirm throughout the book that diversity in rituals, the freedom to choose and the personal preferences of an autonomous person all come first in the Netherlands. In virtually all Dutch programmes, which will be discussed in the next section, the dying individuals are in control of all aspects of their death. In a sense this helps the individuals to reclaim their freedom; although dying from a terminal illness may be inevitable, I will do it my way.

Lastly, the thanatologists speak of a new, collective way of mourning (80-81). This is for example visible in the revived celebration of ‘Allerzielen’. This memorial day descends from Western Catholic culture and was barely celebrated, but this day gained interest and in recent years there even is an annual theme week in which the deceased are commemorated (84). This indicates that there is an increasing need for collective mourning, which also explains why the process of dying of an unknown individual is now appealing material for Dutch documentary programmes. This need for collective mourning is not solely particularly Dutch, as the aftermath of major events like terrorist attacks or natural disasters has demonstrated that the rise in need for collective mourning is international. However, the Netherlands is the only country in which the

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personal deaths of unfamiliar Dutch citizens are portrayed for the entire country to see, which leads to mourning natural deaths outside major events.

The following section contains examples of Dutch documentary programmes on this subject. I thereby look for traces of the Dutch characteristics, which have been established above, in order to determine how the portrayal of mortality and death in the Netherlands differs from the general representation introduced in the previous chapter and therefore can be considered particularly Dutch.

2.2 Three Major Groups of Dutch Programmes on Mortality and Death

In this section, I provide an overview of fairly recent examples of Dutch documentary programmes dealing with mortality and death, arguing that there are three major groups in which these objects can be placed. This allows me to systematically distinguish the objects from one another, while it is at the same time a way to anchor how they differ from the international media objects mentioned in the first chapter of this thesis. Additionally, the previous section provides some grounds on which I can consider whether the portrayal of mortality and death in these examples is particularly Dutch, as several characteristic ways of dealing with death in the Netherlands have been established here already. Each major group will contain an image that reflects the idea of that particular group. These images are stills from one of the discussed examples and they support the main points made about each of the major group.

Firstly, I have noticed that the full-length documentaries all tend to fall within one specific group of objects that try to convince the viewer, or at least to give the viewer insight into controversial matters. I call this first group the activist films. The protagonists of documentaries within this first group often are not the main subject, however they incite empathy from the viewer which is thereafter used to raise awareness and even convince the viewer of a certain point of view towards the controversial matters that

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are addressed. Examples are the earlier discussed Dood op verzoek (1994) and Levenseindekliniek (2016), both contentious documentaries as they pushed the boundaries of what society was used to seeing and therefore deemed acceptable at that time. Dood op verzoek not only by being the first of its kind and the instigator in the debate on euthanasia in the Netherlands, but also because it premiered on IKON. With sentimental words, music and an overall mournful atmosphere, this documentary’s emphasis is on the agony of the patient, proposing death as the only humane solution. With the prominent role of the family doctor, the documentary strives to convince viewers that voluntary, medicalized death in the comfort of one’s home is acceptable. In Levenseindekliniek, of which the content has already been discussed in the first chapter, this idea is taken one step further by portraying deaths of patients who have been disapproved for euthanasia by their own doctor. Doctors are allowed to reject a request for euthanasia for personal reasons or because they believe that the patient does not qualify for euthanasia. Although these rejected patients often scarcely meet the demands in order to qualify, the Levenseindekliniek helps them to fulfill their request for life termination. Both Dood op verzoek and Levenseindekliniek include footage of death itself, when the individuals get administered the life-terminating drugs. As Malin Wahlberg argues, the “most provoking figure of death is not the image of a dead body but a body transforming into a corpse” (47). Being a witness of the irrevocable instant in time when someone ceases to exist, creates self-awareness towards one’s death (Pereira 15). However, these examples all consist of individuals that decide not to fight or postpone death but rather desire it. Therefore the viewer is less likely to identify with the individuals in these examples. These deaths are also, in John Horne’s words, seen as “less deserving of our grief” (132), as the self-inflicted passing of an (older) individual is often considered less unfair. Lastly, the most recent example of a documentary on death that fits within the first major group is De laatste dagen van Aurelia Brouwers (2018). In this documentary the viewer follows a psychically troubled woman, Aurelia, who counts the days until she is released from her mental

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suffering and undergoes euthanasia. Her request for euthanasia is rejected by her physician, after which she turns to the ‘Levenseindekliniek’ for help. By again focussing on the awful details, in this case of Aurelia’s multiple mental diseases, the documentary emphasizes that one’s suffering is not necessarily physically demonstrable. To convince the viewer of Aurelia’s suffering and her determination to terminate her life, the makers of this documentary chose to include a lot of footage which demonstrates that euthanasia is indeed Aurelia’s own and only choice. In image 1, Aurelia is shown in front of the whiteboard in her room, where she keeps track of all the undertakings one has to complete when applying for euthanasia. Next to these undertakings, the date of her approaching death is written down, surrounded by hand-drawn smiley faces and with a countdown of the days to that date. This image reassures the viewer that Aurelia is truly certain of her choice to terminate her life at such a young age, due to the mental illness she suffers from. The above shows how the examples in the first group all have some sort of didactic value and aim to convince the spectator of a certain point of view. In the cases mentioned above, the misery of the dying individual is certainly not hidden in order to achieve this persuasive goal.

Image 1: Aurelia in front of her whiteboard

The second major group, which I call the spiritual films, contains objects that primarily focus on the essence of life and the meaning of death. Their

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approach is quite philosophical and spiritual, which can be assigned to the fact that these programmes air on the EO, which is the Dutch evangelical broadcaster. The first example of this group is Tot de dood ons scheidt (2004-2008), which consists of short episodes in which the viewer is introduced to an older couple of which one is terminally ill. The couple reflects on their relationship and solely communicates through letters that they read to each other, which clearly demonstrates how this older generation is somewhat more uncomfortable discussing personal details in anticipation of their death. The Christian approach of the programme shines through, as the emphasis throughout is on marriage and the vows of couples to love each other through sickness and health, “until death do us part”. The other example is De kist (2009-2018), in which host Kefah Allush talks to several well-known individuals about life and death. None of these individuals are terminally ill, therefore the programme is less emotionally charged than all the other examples. With his characteristic yellow Fiat 500, Allush drives around the Netherlands with a coffin tied to the roof of the car. They discuss the expectations of death in a straightforward manner. Even though the individuals in this programme are not terminally ill, they have often encountered death through one of their loved ones. On each episode, the participants are allowed to adapt the coffin by writing or drawing on it (image 2). This is of course very symbolic and rather than discuss actual death, the host and participant philosophize about all things connected to the idea of death. Both programmes focus on conversation rather than action, and characteristics of the EO, like sobriety and spirituality, are imprinted into these examples.

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Image 2: Host Kefah Allush and artist Rob Scholte adapt the coffin The last major group is one that I like to call the tearjerkers, as it dramatizes the process of dying and allows the viewer to be part of several quite intimate moments in a dying individual’s life. The first example is the only programme from a commercial broadcaster in this list; Mijn laatste keer (2015-2016), which is about terminally ill patients celebrating special occasions a final time. At first hand this seems like an optimistic approach, especially as these final celebrations take place with lots of spectacle. However, with the compassionate words from host Lucille Werner, the constant emotional music and the touching speeches, the emphasis throughout the programme is on the emptiness that the dying individual will leave behind. The makers and host all continuously bring up the fact that everything will change whenever a person passes, both to the dying individual and to their relatives. By constantly reminding them, as well as the viewer, of the emptiness that a dying person leaves behind once they pass, the main goal of programmes within this major group seems to be to steer the emotions of the viewers. This is all in line with the broadcaster on which this programme was transmitted, as generally commercial broadcasters like SBS tend to dramatize factual television slightly more than a public broadcaster would. However, the programme Liefde voor later (2013-2015) from public broadcaster KRO dramatizes the documentation of several dying individuals as well, albeit in a different way. In this programme, host Anita Witzier visits families of which one parent is terminally ill. In order to create tangible memories for the rest of

Dealing with Death: A Close Analysis of a Dutch Documentary Series on the Terminally Ill in the Historical Context of Capturing Mortality