How does one stay whole against the ravages of 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.

Looking into the abyss, we pointed a camera at this unruly subject. Thinking that aging artists may have the answer, we 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 vérité 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 and humorous Leo Ornstein continues to defy 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 romantic 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 admits there may not be a God.

The segment about the work of Arts for the Aging is pure cinéma vérité. 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 amygdala, 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 and spirit, I found something enduring, something that has given me hope and a strange kind of peace.

Melissa Godoy, March 2007