Filmmakers Banker White and Anna Fitch discuss the making of their film, The Genius of Marian.
POV: In your own words, how would you describe The Genius of Marian?
Banker White: The Genius of Marian is a documentary, a film that shares my family's experience of my mother's early onset Alzheimer's diagnosis. And the project grew out of a project of her own, a book project with that title, The Genius of Marian, that she began writing about a year before her diagnosis. That book was a tribute to her mother who was this amazing artist and grandmother but also explored the emotional complexity of her become her mother's caregiver And so this was a project I was involved with as a son and about a year into it she was diagnosed herself. And, and so I think the, The Genius of Marian as a film very much continued in that spirit. It's a film about family, but it also explores how emotionally complicated it is to, it is to love someone and care for them and simultaneously grieve through this disease process.
POV: You said a year into the project your mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. At what stage in your mind did this become a different thing, a film about your mother and about your family? I mean it must have evolved and transformed hugely.
Banker White: For me, in October of 2009 I moved home because she'd just received her official diagnosis. And that was this just kind of reaction as a son. She was also probably the most emotionally distressed in the first kind of year, right after the diagnosis. So we were like a family in crisis. I moved home, really to help my dad. Not to work on a film. But because we were already in the process of, of working together on this book, I filmed with her and it became this thing that we did every day. We'd wake up in the morning. In fact, the movie opens with me kind of walking down the stairs and engaging my mom on camera. And those are the types of things that we would do every day. It was very casual in a way, because it was just about this wonderful connection we were having. And it felt good to both of us and we weren't really, I wasn't pushing too hard around all the things that I know were very difficult for her with her own diagnosis.
And then I made the decision to move home. Meaning home, the Boston area. I'd been based out in, in San Francisco for about a decade before that. And I moved back or a flew back to, to San Francisco with this, this footage that I had. And I had just met Anna and we were starting to date. And I actually think the process of having someone who was meeting my mother for the first time through this footage, that was profound. Hearing someone kind of talk about how that footage affected her and made her think about her own relationships to her family, and I think that that made me think differently about the project.
POV: What was it that, that you connected with, that you were moved by? What is it about Pam that leaps out at you?
Anna Fitch: I think the thing that was really special about the footage that Banker first shot with his mother is it was a window into a relationship, a very close personal-private relationship between a mother and a son. And that's just not something that you see. You don't see those moments in your friends' lives and you don't necessarily experience them regularly in your own life. You experience them in crisis situations, you know when your parent is dying, when something tragic has happened. You know there's these very, very real moments where you can feel the love and the breadth of a relationship.
And somehow Banker had captured that on film and seeing it, brought up a lot of emotions for me around my relationship with my family. And, and I, I knew that would be experienced by most people who saw this and that it was important that people get a chance to see it.
POV: Entering into any family has its own challenges, but talk about your experience entering into Banker's family which is now your family as well.
Anna Fitch: When I moved back home with Banker, I was immersed in a pretty intense family situation. And got to know everybody pretty quickly. And was accepted into the family and, and life was very, was very real. It wasn't just going out to dinners and having casual conversations. And it was in some ways a nice introduction. And I was lucky enough to still meet Pam at a time when we could communicate and form a relationship. Had it been a few years later, it would have been very different.
POV: Banker, tell me a little bit about your family, starting with your mother.
Banker White: She is totally devoted to, to her family. So I've experienced a lot of love and support. You know in my adult life I now know that she had a pretty difficult childhood herself, as did my dad. And I think for both of them, like putting all of their energy into creating like the perfect nuclear family was very important to them. And they met for the first time when my mom was 14. And so I think from a very, very young age both of them really wanted to put together this very close family.
We all showed up around this crisis. And then we communicate well about some things and we don't about others. So I think our family's always been that way. And I think the film shows a little bit of that, how everyone's there trying to do their best, some successes and some failures and I'm very close with both my siblings too. I'm the oldest, my sister's three years younger and my brother is eight years younger than I am.
POV: Talk a little bit about how you use archival footage in the film and what you were trying to do with that.
Banker White: When I started this project, a huge part of what I did together with my mom is just go through all of Marian's artwork that then opened up into boxes of 35-millimeter slides and then reels and reels of 8-millimeter and super-8. And then as the project continued, also diving into my dad, also. It was really interesting like I put into perspective how much I probably learned from him directly about what it means to, to record memories. Cause you know he doesn't consider himself a filmmaker, but every major milestone has been recorded in super-8 and then you know VHS.
I think that the way that the film is paced is that it's where the film kind of breathes. And most of the use of that footage is usually paired with, with music and a subtle soundscape and allows you to kind of absorb maybe what you'd just seen in the scene before, but also reflect on your own life experiences related to loss or whatever comes up. And I think we do that through the whole film.
And we're intentional of trying to make it not too specific about memories but as this kind of like palette that helps people process their own emotions.
POV: So this is a very personal and particular story about your family and Alzheimer's. Do you want to talk about Alzheimer's on a broader scale?
Banker White: This is probably the most universally resonant film I've ever put out in the world, because so many different families are affected by Alzheimer's disease. And I think that there are lessons in the film that expand beyond just Alzheimer's disease, but what it means to be a family caregiver.
And so I think the decision to make it a public document was about how critical I think it is that, that people within their families, within their communities start to think about how to deal with you know the aging population and the way that it's affecting. And how ill-equipped we may in fact be for this growing crisis. They say 5.2 million Americans right now are diagnosed and by 2050 they expect it to be almost 14 million.
And the experience of being a part of a family where you have someone that you love going through this is that it's isolating, just by virtue of how demanding it is. Even if you're well-equipped to emotionally talk about it, it is isolating just because of literally the day to day requirements of what it means to care for someone.
POV: This is not a film about finding a cure, it's not even in the conversation. Is that a portrait of your family in that, just resolved to handle the reality as it is? Or is there a whole other conversation about a cure or something like that going on in the background that we don't see?
Banker White: There's definitely a whole series of conversations going on in the background that for one reason or another didn't make it to the film. The issue of genetics and how that has affected everyone in the family. My sister specifically. And actually interviews and things that we filmed that really speak directly to that that for one reason or another just didn't feel appropriate.
And I think you know my father just retired too and is becoming, he's always been on boards of different nonprofits. I don't think he ever thought that he would have showed up and done panel discussions at the Cure Alzheimer's Neurology Conference in Boston, but that's become a part of what he's doing. And you know what we're doing in our outreach work I think really directly speaks to both helping families find resources and connect people who are interested in finding a cure, be directed to researchers and nonprofits that we believe in.
The thing that we were most interested in having the film tackle was this emotional complexity and you need to be able to somehow in the midst of this incredibly demanding disease find some sense of perspective. To find some sense of space to go help yourself and hopefully the people you're trying to care for. And I felt like that was, that was the thing that we, we tried most specifically to communicate in the film.
Anna Fitch: one of the hardest things about Alzheimer's is there is nothing on the horizon. There is no treatment. There's some medications that help a little for a little while, but then the disease catches up. We're not used to being told things are just going to get worse and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's the reality.
So all you can do is figure out how to deal with it in the best possible way. That's all that that's left. And as much as we all hope that more money goes towards research and that that continues, if this is happening in your family now, or it starts happening soon, all you can focus on is care-giving and emotional support and it takes a huge toll. It takes a lot of people to take care of one person with Alzheimer's disease. And how are you going to work that out with your different family situations, different economic situations and it's a disease that progresses and changes. And just when you find a solution, something else comes up. And you find yourself playing catch-up.
And I think seeing this film resonates with a lot of people because they're familiar with it and some people might see this film at just the right time or before they're dealing with something like that and it could give them some perspective that might help them through the process.
POV: Now this is a film that spans generations and we see your mother as she's growing up. We see you as you're growing up in the archival footage. And now you have children, your sister has, has children. What's your perspective on, on grandchildren and, and your mother?
Banker White: I think the birth of grandchildren is definitely the thing that counterbalances the tragedy of this diagnosis and the disease process that we're really in the middle of.
The way that they deal with her, without judgment, is so healing for my mother, because they have these really funny exchanges and conversations back and forth. And they have no sense that they're talking with someone who doesn't know how to access thoughts and put words together in a way that make her less able to have a conversation.
They have these great social interactions with humor. They see things, they show it to her. They also have a sense that she is impaired in some way and generally will like take her by her hand and guide her around the room. I think it's really, really beautiful to watch. And that wasn't really taught. That's just their grandmother and they have a really beautiful connection.
Anna Fitch: It's going to be really special for the grandchildren to be able to watch this film in the future, because they didn't get a chance to experience what it was like to be with their grandma before this happened.
POV: So what do you ultimately want an American audience to take away from the film?
Anna Fitch: Culturally in this country we have a hard time with aging. And that's our reality right now as a country. Our demographic is getting older and facing these issues. And I hope the film gives people a chance to pause and think about what they want for themselves and what they want for their parents before something happens and you're playing catch-up.
Banker White: I think making this film as a son was very important, because it's really easy to dramatize what the situation looks like.
And I think I learned a lot about trying to figure out how as a son I wanted to communicate coping mechanisms. And I wanted to do it in a way that was very respectful of my mother, that celebrated who I know she still is today, but also was mindful of who she was before this process started.
It's really important for people who are starting to go through this to try and be aware of the fact that the nature of your relationship with this person that you love is going to change. And the process might take a decade. But there are ways to be able to have a meaningful interaction with them. And if you can allow yourself to do that I think it, it really improves her life experience and will definitely improve what it feels like for you to want to be a part of their life.