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HBO: What inspired you to spend a summer at a
retirement community and to make a film
about your experience?
Andrew Jenks: I was very close with my grandfather. One day
he discovered he had an infection. And the
infection quickly spread, and before he knew
it, he had dementia and he couldn't remember
my name. As a result of that I became curious
about who my grandfather was today
compared to how he used to be. And while
this was kind of all going on, I was living in a
dormitory with three hundred 18 to 19-year-
olds. So I kind of put two and two together
and wondered what would it be like if I was
living in a dorm with 300 70 or 80-year-olds,
and what their life is like.
When you're in college you're always looking
at the future and wondering what you're going
to do tomorrow and in 20 years. I wondered if
senior citizens were the same way or if they
were nostalgic and only looked to their pasts.
And that's what gave me the idea to move
down to the mecca of all retirement homes,
which is Florida.
HBO: How did you get yourself into a community
and gain access to shoot its residents?
Andrew Jenks: We went around and asked all the facilities if
we could come and stay. At first we didn't
talk about cameras and the documentary. It
was just, hey, would you let a 19-year-old live
in your facility? And surprisingly, we never
even got past that point. It was always, well,
you have to be at least 65 years old. We don't
allow younger people than that. Finally we
found a place that was on board from the get-
go, who understood what we were trying to do
and granted us full access.
HBO: What were those first days like when the
cameras started rolling?
Andrew Jenks: They were incredibly awkward. I mean,
there's no other way to put it. To assimilate
into a place where there's 300 senior citizens
roaming around, and then for a 19-year-old to
casually walk in and be one of them is
absurd. And then, for a 19-year-old to walk in
with two video cameras and two other 19-
year-olds who were there for the whole time is
even more absurd.
But although the first day or two may have
been awkward, the residents, especially those
we became friends with, got past it very
quickly. I think a lot of the residents were just
happy for us to be roaming around. It was
kind of a breath of fresh air. They didn't really
care about the cameras. They really enjoyed
us being there and hanging out with them,
playing bingo, going on the weekly field trips,
and just talking.
HBO: What surprised you or stuck with you while
you were there?
I think when people think about an assisted
living facility their initial gut reaction is all of
the negatives involved. And what shocked me
was how caring each resident was toward one
another. These are people who have lived full
lives, who have family and friends, and now
they're taken out of that situation and placed
in a whole new one and expected to live the
rest of their life with people they've never met.
The other aspect of the film which we never
expected was how the residents didn't reflect
on the past. They weren't sitting around at a
table talking about what they did when they
were 40, or what they did when they were
teenagers, or even what they were doing right
before they moved into the facility. They were
always talking about what was on the
schedule for today, if bingo was still going to
be on time. It was all about living in the
moment, and not reflecting on the past.
I think over course of the film we get to know
the residents at the facility so well. But you
never really get to know who they were before
then. You only know them as who they are
today. And I think in a lot of ways, that's who
they want to be known as. They don't want
people to come up to them and start talking
about the past.
What was also interesting was how each
resident would use whatever independence
they had to help somebody else out. I found
that surprising because these are, ultimately,
strangers. And yet they would go out of their
way to care for another resident. Every
resident would use whatever they had left to
help other people.
HBO: What did you learn from your experience? And
what do you hope audiences will take away
from watching it?
Andrew Jenks: First off, the movie is not a treatise on
assisted care. We don't throw out stats. This
is a movie about the people there and who
they are. We went into the experience kind of
saying, OK, we're going to make a movie about
old people, and then we left saying, OK, this is
a movie about Tammy, Bill, Dottie, about all
the characters and the friends that we
authentically made.
And it seems like we tend to forget that these
are the people that have lived the longest. So
why wouldn't you want to learn from the
people who have lived life the longest? It kind
of makes sense. Rather than putting them
away, you'd think we would ask questions,
and try and understand what it was like. And
not just on a personal basis, but also on a
historical basis. I was best friends with a
woman who had lived through the Great
Depression. So they've kind of seen it all.
I think as you get older, at least when you get
to that age, a lot of my friends had become
incredibly selfless. And it was so not about
them anymore. And it also spoke to the fact
that they didn't want to be a bother or a
distraction to their kids and their grandkids.
They didn't want to be a problem. That was
the last thing they wanted to do. It was this
incredible selflessness that every resident had.
And, I think, with this movie, you can really
better understand what it's like to be at that
age, and what these people want and feel and
need. And I think, after seeing this film, you
really have a better understanding of the
elderly and how great they are, and how much
they can teach us.
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