C R E D I T S
A film by Melissa Godoy & Eileen Littig
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narrator
Walter Cronkite
producer/director/writer
Melissa Godoy
executive producer
Eileen Littig
associate producers
Matt Arnett Jo Mellen
research advisors
Janet Light David Littig Severo Ornstein Edith Valentine
cinematographer
Mike Bizzarri
editors
Ben Bolton Jeff Glaza
on-line editor
Brad Coop
re-recording mixer
Austin Gorrigan
additional photography
Mark Stucker Bill Wallace Ray Ibsen
field recordists
Jeff Glaza John McDaniel Chris Younken
recording engineers
Thomas Fleming Roger Johnson Thomas Myron
gaffers
Jeff Glaza Tony Engelman John Schmidt David Ames
production assistants
Harrell Bendolph Price Blythe Margaret LaCombe Patrick Lux
engineering
CET - Cincinnati Educational Television
audio mix
Sonic Arts
on-line mastering & color correction
On Location Multimedia
featuring
Arlonzia Pettway
Frederic Franklin
Leo Ornstein
Dr. Gene Cohen
Lolo Sarnoff
Mary Lee Bendolph
Nettie Young
Pauline Ornstein
Vivian Perlis
Michael Broyles
Denise Von Glahn
Janine Tursini
Julia Burger
John Sausser
Quicksilver Senior Improv Dance Troupe
Arts for the Aging, Inc. (AFTA)
Beryl Carter Rice
Donal McLaughlin
Creativity Discovery Corps
The Cincinnati Ballet
Dmitri Trubchanov Kristi Capps
Jay Goodlet Rene Micheo Anthony Krutzkamp Aaron Thayer
choreography
George Balanchine Léonide Massine Victoria Morgan
ballet music
Sergei Prokofiev Ludwig Van Beethoven
conductor
Carmen DeLeone
original music by
Leo Ornstein
pianist
Marc-André Hamelin
gospel music
Gee's Bend Cooperative
fiddle
Anthony Hyatt
Population Reference Bureau
Toshiko Kaneda
Boykin Nutrition Center
Lucy Mingo Allie Pettway Lola Pettway Mandy Lane Pettway Mary Pettway Nancy Pettway W.D. Pettway
Creativity Discovery Corps
Deborah Blum Lauren Edelstein Carly Fox Karen Gallant Nadir Hammons Barbara Soniat Patricia Villani
Quicksilver Dancers
Nancy Havlik Gretchen Dunn Alyse Leibelson Dorothy Levy Jenean McKay Louisa Messolonghites Luella Wells
Iona Senior Services Day Health Center
Jeannette Anderson Edna Belew Mary Dishman Catherine English Lucille Harrison George Hawkins Maurice Higgs Isom Hunter Rodger Johnson Mary George Kronstadt Mary Mallory Benita Norris Josephine Pizza Earl Parker Helen Reeves Eugene Sampson Ardath Shalett Mary Varfis Mary Wittlinger
The Washington Home
Harriet Atkin Ruth Forman Maria Halper George Holton Florence Howell Patricia Steel
Center Care
Roy Barber Shirley Bell Clara Contee Doris Dandridge Beatrice Davis Annie Lee Duckett Minnie Henderson Lee Ingram Barbara Jackson Mariah Jeter Lessie Johnson Helen Lewis Maude Lewis Reginald Locke Bernice Page Vance Torian Ophelia Veney Eloise Ware Evandy White Lular Williams
Santa Maria Nursing Home
Helen Desotell
Photo of Arlonzia Pettway in Gallery
© 2005 Matt Arnett
Quilts on a Line, Wilcox County
Photo by Edith Morgan
Courtesy of Tinwood Media and Herb & Marion Furman
Photos of Gee's Bend Quilts
Photographer Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
Courtesy of Tinwood Media
© 2006 Tinwood Media
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, New York, ca. 1945
by Irving Penn © 1945 Irving Penn
Photo of Frederic Franklin in Scheherezade by Walter E. Owen
Photo of Frederic Franklin in A Streetcar Named Desire by Marcus Blechman
Courtesy of Museum of the City of New York
Photo of Frederic Franklin in Rodeo, Gaite Parisienne, Night Shadow,
and The Seventh Symphony by Maurice Seymour
Courtesy of Ron Seymour
Gaite Parisienne
Courtesy of Dance Film Archive
George Balanchine photo by Tanaquil Le Clercq
Courtesy of New York City Ballet Archives
BALANCHINE is a trademark of The George Balanchine Trust
Abraham Ornstein portrait by Leon Kroll, 1909
Leo Ornstein-Piano Concert by William Zorach, 1918, Photographer Jeffrey Sturges
Courtesy of William Bloom and the Portland Museum of Art
Ornstein scores courtesy of Poon Hill Press, Severo Ornstein
Vivian Perlis Interview of Leo Ornstein, 1977
Courtesy of Oral History, American Music, Yale University
Georgia O'Keeffe, Sky Above Clouds IV, 1965. Restricted gift of the Paul and Gabriella Rosenbaum Foundation; gift of Georgia O'Keeffe, The Art Institute of Chicago. Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago
Georgia O'Keeffe photo by Arnold Newman, 1968
additional archival images
Artbeats
Getty Images
The Juilliard School
La Guardia and Wagner Archives
Library of Congress
Oral History, American Music, Yale University
Edith Valentine
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
pre-recorded music
"Sinner Don't You Know"
written and performed by Robert Pete Williams from the album "When a Man Takes the Blues"
(p) 1998 Arhoolie Records, www.arhoolie.com
"How We Got Over"
Performed by The White Rose, led by Leola Pettway
Produced by Matt Arnett & Vanessa Vadim
Engineer Steve Grauberger
© 2002 Tinwood Media
"I Just Can't Keep From Crying"
Performed by Seebell Kennedy
Recorded by Robert Sonkin, 1941
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
From the album How We Got Over: Sacred Songs of Gee's Bend
© 2002 Tinwood Media
"Oh Lord, Have Mercy"
Led by Jessie T. Pettway, with Isabella Pettway Patton and Paulette Pettway.
Produced by Matt Arnett & Vanessa Vadim
Engineer Steve Grauberger
© 2002 Tinwood Media
"It's Gonna Rain"
Led by Creola B. Pettway, with Georgiana B. Pettway and Arlonzia Pettway
Produced by Matt Arnett & Vanessa Vadim
Engineer Steve Grauberger
© 2002 Tinwood Media
special thanks to
Andrew Smith Gallery Martha Arendt William Arnett William Ausman The George Balanchine Foundation Judy Barlow Steven Bognar
CBS Cincinnati Art Museum Cincinnati World Cinema CET
Chip Cronkite Thomas Davison Susan Eiswerth Taylor Feltner Stephen M. Fisher Chris Funkhouser Georgia O'Keefe Museum
Ismael, Nikko & Ricardo Godoy Carolyn Gutjahr Andrea Hanson Grace Hill Miller Theatre at Columbia University John Mueller National Center for Creative Aging Arnold Newman Penn State Public Broadcasting Susan Perlstein Helen Ramon Julia Reichert Timothy Swallow Tinwood Media Andrea Torrice Annie Mae Young
thanks to
Alzheimer's Association of Greater Cincinnati Reina Aktay Arketype Bob Atchison Gayle Berens John Boland Stephen Bonadies Peter Breznay Melissa Brown Otto Budig Ellen Carnevale Devon Carney Patsy Carruthers Gary Caruana Jesse Aaron Cohen Carol Conway-Gerhardt Jeni Dahmus Pat Darnick Douglas Di Carlo
Jack Dominic Karen Durgans Matthew Gingrich Thyra Hartshorn Carrie Haslett Heather Heckman Scott Hisey Susan Howarth Linda Jacobsen Jen Judge James Kesner Daniel Konop Chai Lee Jesse Legon Joan Lewis Judy Lopez Suzanne Eggleston Lovejoy Aimee Marshall Therese Anne Matthews Erin Maxson Deanna McBrearty Leigh Montville Jody Mullen Paula Nesoff Carol J. Oja David Pettway Alison Quigley Nancy Reynolds Melody Sawyer Richardson Melissa Smey George Steel Kristin Spangenberg Dean Thomas Margaret Thomas Ken Williamson Johanna Bernstein Wilt
This film was made possible by
Foley Family Foundation
Elizabeth B. & Philip J. Hendrickson Foundation Ltd.
Helen Bader Foundation
Irene D. Kress
With additional support from
Joseph and Sarah Van Drisse Charitable Trust
Northeastern Wisconsin Arts Council
City of Cincinnati
Nancy Armbrust
©2007 NEWIST/CESA 7, All Rights Reserved
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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
How does one stay whole against the assault of old age? How do you keep your wits when you're losing your memory? When all else fails, what remains?
It is what remains that may be the most important resource to an aging nation. It is (I discovered in the process) the power of imagination.
Looking into the abyss, I pointed a camera at this unruly subject. Thinking that aging artists may have the answer, I focused on great artists, innovators who exerted influence in their fields. Though like most artists, they bury the most important messages in their art, in the end, they also influenced the course of this production.
The result? Each segment has a personality that is unique to the subject featured. Arlonzia Pettway’s segment in Alabama is as grounded as her life. The people buried in the cemetery in Gee’s Bend are as relevant to her as her quilting companions. This segment is an evenly-paced verité introduction to the trials and joys of aging and the creative life that has sustained generations. Along the way, we get to know her friends and observe what works in this hamlet of artists.
Frederic Franklin, backstage at the ballet, is spirit incarnate. As he coaches younger dancers, he ignites energy. Franklin has overcome many of the same barriers that affect every aging person, but he has done it in a way that will uplift the most cranky skeptics.
Abstract, earthy, and funny Leo Ornstein continues to defy all convention, even at 109. As we learn about his life as a major player in the invention of modernism, we understand how a full artistic life changes over time. He says, “One has to be very careful not to become obsessed with one’s own style,” and with that, in his late 90s, he composes some his most personal and beautiful music, colored with grief. Even in his 100s, he is honest. He does not have the answers. He does not know the meaning of life. And he questions the meaning of God.
The segment about the work of Arts for the Aging is pure cinéma verité. The camera witnesses how a tool as powerful as imagination can be used as a pathway to a lively part of the brain, even for people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease.
Charming and insightful Dr. Gene Cohen reveals stunning new discoveries in brain science that are significant to healthy aging as a nation. In everyday language, he guides us gradually deeper to the core of the human brain, to the amygdila, the seat of fear.
The challenge of putting this together into one film has made my brain sweat endlessly, but the key was found in the subjects and their approach to creation. For me, it was an experience of learning to see and hear differently. By continually lifting layers of reality and burrowing deeper into the human brain, I found something enduring, something that has given me hope and a strange kind of peace.
Melissa
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B I O G R A P H I E S
LEO ORNSTEIN
Composer
Leo Ornstein was a Russian-born Jew and classical music prodigy who immigrated to the United States at the age of 13. He attained international fame as a virtuoso pianist while still a teenager by introducing American audiences to the modern music of Schoenberg, Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, and Ravel, as well as to his own compositions. His early compositions for the piano, such as Danse Sauvage and Suicide in an Airplane were even more radical and inventive than the Schoenberg's. Upon listening to Ornstein play these compositions, music critic of the 1910s James Huneker wrote, "I never thought I should live to hear Arnold Schoenberg sound tame, yet tame he sounds-almost timid and halting-after Ornstein who is, most emphatically, the only true-blue, genuine, Futurist composer live."
Ornstein's music embodies a relentless American energy that captures a spiritual openness to the future. Composing beyond the edge of musical conventions, he followed his subjective muse and allowed his intuition and imagination to rein free. In Carol Oja's book, Making Music Modern, she describes Leo Ornstein as "the single most important figure on the American modern-music scene in the 1910s."
At the height of a remarkable but brief concert career, from 1910 to late 1920s, Ornstein gave up his barnstorming performing career to devote himself to composing with the assistance of his wife, Pauline Matte-Prevost, his lifelong collaborator and musical scribe. While having disappeared from the public stage, Ornstein continued his musical career as a teacher and composer. With his wife Pauline, they established a music school in Philadelphia where he taught until the mid 1950s. He resumed composing in the 1960s and continued until the death of Pauline in 1985 when he ceased composing for a time. Then in 1990, at the age of 98, living near family in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Ornstein's completed his final work, the remarkable Piano Sonata No. 8.
Do Not Go Gently captures renowned concert pianist Marc-André Hamelin playing Leo Ornstein's Piano Sonata No. 8. A Marc-André Hamelin CD recording of Leo Ornstein's compositions for piano, including Suicide in an Airplane, Danse Sauvage, and Piano Sonata No. 8 is now available under the Hyperion label (CDA67320). A revival and renewed interest in one of America's master composers of the twentieth century will soon be available in 2007 as a full-length biography, Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices by Michael Broyles and Denise Von Glahn, to be published by Indiana University Press. Both Broyles and Von Glahn appear in the program to fill in gaps: Ornstein died before the program was complete, and biographers were sorely needed. Also featured is Vivian Perlis from the Yale School of Music and founding-director of the Oral History, American Music Project. Perlis is credited with having re-discovered Ornstein living and composing in a trailer park in Brownsville, Texas in the 1970s. Archival footage of her first interviews with Ornstein about his creative process, recorded when he was in his 80s, are included in Do Not Go Gently.
ARLONZIA PETTWAY
Quilter
The 82-year-old Arlonzia Pettway is one of the quiltmakers from Gee's Bend, Alabama. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," an exhibition of 70 quilts by 46 quiltmakers that has been touring major art museums of America - the Whitney Museum of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and others - was organized by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and with Tinwood Ventures in 2002. The modern abstract aesthetic qualities of the quilts in the exhibit stunned and surpassed the expectations of art critics. Michael Kimmelman, art critic of The New York Times called the quilts, "some of the most miraculous works of modern art that American has produced."
The geometric patterns and colors of the fabrics of the quilts in the exhibit capture the visual field of many trends and individual artists in modern postwar abstract in the United States and their predecessors from Europe. For example, the intricate multicolored details in Rosie Lee Tompkin's "Three Sixes" quilt remind one of Gustav Klimt's painting of gowns. Lucy T. Pettway's "Snowball" has the kinetic and optical energy of the work of Victor Vasarely. The "Housetop" quilts are like Josef Albers' "Homage to the Square"-- paintings where the simple geometric rectangular designs stay the same and only the colors change. Here, both quiltmakers and Albers explore the interaction of color from one work to another. "Blocks and Strips" by Lucy Mooney and Amelia Bennett have the same bold juxtapositions of colored shapes as found in the work of Hans Hofmann. Lettie Young's "H" variation quilt is much like an abstraction by Paul KIee. Annie Mae Young's "Strips" and Arlonzia Pettway's "Bars" or "Lazy Gal" are reminiscent of Kenneth Noland's stripes from cloth. Collectively, the colors and designs of the Quilts of Gee's Bend have an elegance and comfortable aesthetic serenity that cannot be matched by acrylic or oil on canvas because of the softness and irregularity of its edge. In the future many of these quilts will hang in the great museums next to the works of postwar abstract expressionists and colorists.
How is it possible for the African-American women descendants of slaves living in an isolated, poverty-stricken hamlet in southern Alabama to create, without artifice or art theory, such beautiful works of art? What is their secret? They may have much in common with the great Italian violin masters of the 17th and 18th centuries from Cremona - the Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri family workshops - whose secrets remain hidden.
A day in the life of Arlonzia Pettway at Gee's Bend in Do Not Go Gently provides some of the answers. Quilting was born out of the necessity for warmth and was crafted with the remains of worn out, old work-clothes, and scraps of fabrics. Arlonzia learned quilting from her mother Missouri who learned from her grandmother Sally, who learned from her great-grandmother Dinah, who was a slave girl and quilted to keep the wind from blowing through the cracks in the walls of the homes, through which they could see the sun and the moon. Nothing is more natural to the elderly quilters in Gee's Bend than to lie in bed and think about the next day's quilts, and then get up with great enthusiasm to get to work. Entire days at Gee's Bend hum with the activity of thinking about, talking about, and making quilts with one another. The Nutrition Center in Gee's Bend, where seniors can reliably get a nutritious meal every day, has become a drop-in center for quilters, many of them are eager to learn from the eldest quilters like Arlonzia.
For four generations quilting was a collective enterprise, often a social activity, undertaken only after long days of labor-intensive agricultural field-work. Quilting was often accompanied by the singing of hymns. While economic scarcity speaks to the formal designs and materials used for quilting, religion, strong social and cultural bonds nurtured their artistic development. The limited material resources in the Gee's Bend community provide a foundation for minimalism in design. Yet like their contemporaries, minimalist artists exhibiting in New York galleries, they worked within the rules of their aesthetic vision, working out countless intensely personal variations of geometric, horizontal and vertical designs and colors so that no two quilts would be the same.
The segment about Arlonzia also has appearances from revered quilters ANNIE MAE YOUNG, MARY LEE BENDOLPH, and NETTIE YOUNG, who is also in her 80s.
FREDERIC FRANKLIN
Dancer
There is no art form that is as physically demanding and requires as much visceral immediacy as dance. By the time mid-thirties are reached, dancers have accumulated so many pulled muscles, bone and joint problems and other physical ailments that they retire. Frederic Franklin, born in Liverpool, England in 1914, now 92 years old, is an inspiration as he continues to teach and pass on to another generation of dancers the choreography he learned with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Balanchine, and other masters of 20th century dance. Franklin is now appearing in the highly acclaimed 2005 documentary film Ballet Russes. The documentary is about Serge Diaghilev's famous dance company that toured the United States in the 1930s and '40s to astonished audiences who had never experienced professional ballet.
Franklin made his professional debut in 1931 at Casino de Paris in a show starring Josephine Baker. In 1935 he got his big break when he joined the Markova-Dolin Ballet Company. In 1938 he joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as premier danseur. His first role was the Spirit of Creation in Seventh Symphony, a role that he teaches younger dancers in Do Not Go Gently. Franklin became the ballet master in 1944. While with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Franklin danced 45 principal roles - from pure classical to character parts, like the champion roper in Agnes de Mille's Rodeo.
Over his career, Franklin has partnered every great ballerina - Danilova, Alicia Markova, Tamara Toumanova, Moira Shearer, Maria Tallchief, Alicia Alonzo, and many more. He has also worked with the great choreographers - Léonide Massine, George Balanchine, Bronislava Nijinska, and Frederick Ashton. He was co-founder of the Slavenska-Franklin Ballet and founding director of the National Ballet in Washington.
Franklin has served in a variety of capacities with prestigious companies like American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet, La Scala Opera Ballet, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. His awards include the 30th Annual Dance Magazine Award, the Laurence Olivier Award, and the coveted Capezio Dance award in 1992. The year he turned 90, the year we filmed him for Do Not Go Gently, Franklin was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
Franklin also continues to perform in such roles as Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet (clips of which are shown in the program), the Old Tutor in Kevin McKenzie's Swan Lake with the American Ballet Theatre, and as Madge the Witch in La Sylphide.
A marvel with a single dedication to his art that keeps him forever young, Franklin talks in Do Not Go Gently about what keeps him going, and he is shown dancing, teaching and working with young dancers.
GENE D. COHEN, M.D., PH.D.
Gerontologist
Author of The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life (AVON Books, 2000) and The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain (Basic Books, 2006), Dr. Cohen is the first Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University, where he also holds the positions of Professor of Health Care Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry. He is also the founding Director of a think tank on aging, the Washington, DC Center On Aging (established 1994) and has most recently been the principal investigator of an NEA-funded study evaluating the impact of arts activity on the health of older persons. Dr. Cohen is Past-President of the Gerontological Society of America and Past Acting Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Before that, Dr. Cohen served as the first Chief of the Center on Aging of the National Institute of Mental Health. In addition, he also coordinated the Department of Health and Human Services, planning and programs on Alzheimer's disease, through the efforts of the Department's Council and Panel on Alzheimer's disease. During his tenure with the federal government, he received the Public Health Service (PHS) Distinguished Service Medal (the highest honor of the PHS). Dr. Cohen is an Honors graduate of Harvard College and the Georgetown University School of Medicine and has a doctorate in Gerontology from The Union Institute. He is the first Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and author of more than 100 publications in the field of aging, including several edited textbooks and his individually authored book The Brain In Human Aging. Dr. Cohen has been very active in the dissemination of knowledge about aging on national television and in other major media. He has been on Nightline, interviewed by Barbara Walters, on the MacNeil/Lehrer Show, on the CBS Nightly News, and in a series of public service messages with George Burns and Steve Allen.
In Do Not Go Gently, Dr. Cohen provides continuously deeper insight into the mysteries of the aging brain.
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