FACT SHEET
TITLE: DO NOT GO GENTLY
[HDTV] [16:9 SD Letterbox]
LENGTH: 1/60
NOLA CODE: DNGG
CATEGORY: Documentary / Aging / Health / Art & Culture
OFFERED: January 2007 Teleconference
RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2007
CONTRACT TERMS: Unlimited releases to be completed by April 30, 2011.
Noncommercial cable, one-year school re-record, simulcast and video-on-demand rights have been granted.
PROGRAM SUPPLIER: NEWIST/CESA 7 via APT Presentations
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Do Not Go Gently celebrates the lives, work and wisdom of three remarkable artists who have maintained their creative productivity well into their golden years. Their stories illustrate the role of creativity and art in contributing to a long, happy, healthy and vibrant life. Narrated by famed newsman (and nonagenarian) Walter Cronkite, Do Not Go Gently follows 82-year-old quilter Arlonzia Pettway, 90-year-old ballet dancer Frederic Franklin and 109-year-old composer Leo Ornstein through a typical day to illuminate their experiences as part of America’s fastest-growing age group — men and women 85 and older. Do Not Go Gently uncovers the science of lifelong creativity through interviews with gerontologist Dr. Gene Cohen, whose groundbreaking work provides a deeper understanding of the aging brain. The program also documents the importance of creative outlets to elders with Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related disabilities.
PRODUCTION DATE: ©2007 NEWIST/CESA 7
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PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS: Use above for listing. A press release, Walter Cronkite biography and screening information is included. All materials, including photography, are available on APTonline.org.
PRODUCTION CREDITS: Writer, Producer, Director: Melissa Godoy. Executive Producer: Eileen Littig. Associate Producers: Matt Arnett, Jo Mellen. Editors: Ben Bolton, Brad Coop, Jeff Glaza.
UNDERWRITERS: Foley Family Foundation
Elizabeth B. and Philip J. Hendrickson Foundation, Ltd.
Helen Bader Foundation
Irene D. Kress
Joseph and Sarah Van Drisse Charitable Trust
Northeastern Wisconsin Arts Council
City of Cincinnati
Nancy Armbrust
BROADCAST HISTORY: U.S. television premiere
SCHEDULING SUGGESTION: May is Older Americans Month. Sept. 24 - Oct. 1, 2007 is International Active Aging Week. (www.icaa.cc/Activeagingweek/campaignsupportnew.htm). Consider pairing with PBS’ The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend.
OUTREACH: Screenings to support the national broadcast of the program will take place in select cities around the country. (See attached for details.)
RELATED MERCHANDISE: Individual viewer purchase: This program is available on VHS and DVD for $19.95 each, plus $10.00 shipping and handling. To order, please call 1-800-633-7445 or visit donotgogently.com.
VIEWER INQUIRIES: NEWIST/CESA 7
2420 Nicolet Drive, IS 1040
Green Bay, WI 54311
Phone: 800-633-7445
WEB SITE: www.donotgogently.com
COMMUNICATIONS CONTACT: Dawn Anderson
American Public Television
(617) 338-4455, ext. 149
CONTACT: Dawn Anderson
(617) 338-4455, ext. 149
PRESS RELEASE
DO NOT GO GENTLY
The Power of Imagination in Aging
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
- Dylan Thomas, 1951
Seniors 85+ represent the fastest growing age group in the United States. And they’re not what you think.
Narrated by legendary newsman (and nonagenarian) Walter Cronkite, Do Not Go Gently celebrates the lives, work and wisdom of three remarkable artists, each pioneers in their respective mediums, who have maintained their creative productivity well into their golden years.
The one-hour Do Not Go Gently, airing on public television stations nationwide beginning May 1, 2007 (check local listings), follows 82-year-old Gee’s Bend quilter Arlonzia Pettway, 90-year-old ballet dancer Frederic Franklin and 109-year-old composer Leo Ornstein through a typical day to illustrate the role of creativity and art in staying happy, healthy and vibrant at any age.
Do Not Go Gently uncovers the science of lifelong creativity through interviews with gerontologist Dr. Gene Cohen, whose groundbreaking work provides a deeper understanding of the aging brain.
The program also documents the importance of creative outlets to elders with age-related diseases and disabilities. “Exercising” the brain — keeping physically active, mentally engaged and “thinking young” — can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and help people suffering with the memory loss and dementia find meaning in their lives. The film also glimpses into the creative lives of other seniors, including painter Georgia O’Keefe.
At 82, Arlonzia Pettway is the eldest quilter in the Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective. For more than 150 years, the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama have produced quilts out of the fabric of some of the most astounding poverty imaginable. Over generations, they worked in isolation, inhabiting the same remote plantation land their enslaved parents once worked, each generation coaxing the next into a highly developed artistic style.
For more than seven years, Pettway’s quilts have toured in art museums in a collection hailed by the New York Times as “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.” On a tour through her hometown, Pettway opens up about her childhood, her spirituality, the history of quilting in her family, and the importance of community in her bucolic hamlet of artists.
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As part of the famed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, British-born dancer Frederic Franklin helped introduce American audiences to classical ballet in the late 1930s and ’40s. In his career, he worked with George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille and Josephine Baker and has partnered with nearly every great ballerina. Like other athletes, dancers’ professional lives are notoriously short, but Franklin has managed to extend his 70-plus-year career as a ballet master, rehearsal director, company director, coach and mentor. Still active in the ballet scene, the 92-year-old continues to take on such roles as “Friar Laurence” in Romeo and Juliet at American Ballet Theatre amongst others, and in this film, at the Cincinnati Ballet
Franklin credits his longevity to physical activity, a proper diet and a nightly glass of wine He also stays young by working with young people. Blessed with one of the world’s most remarkable memories, Franklin is seen coaching one of his first roles, the Spirit of Creation in Seventh Symphony by Léonide Massine, to young dancers at the Cincinnati Ballet. Principal dancer Dmitri Trubchanov comments on the thrill of learning from this legend, who communicates much more than just the steps to the Spirit of Creation.
In its final profile, Do Not Go Gently visits the “godfather of modern music,” composer and pianist Leo Ornstein, who passed away two weeks after filming completed. Known for his avant-garde modernist compositions whose dissonant sounds shocked European audiences of the 1910s, the Russian émigré soon rose to prominence in the United States.
Then, at the height of his popularity, he dropped out of public eye to open a music school and raise a family. Fifty years later, while in his early 80s, Ornstein was re-discovered by Yale musicologist Vivian Perlis. Though he had never completely ceased composing, he began again in a frenzy. Michael Broyles and Denise Von Glahn, authors of Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices, claim Ornstein became, at 95, the oldest published composer ever to produce a substantial new work with Piano Sonata No. 7 (written in 1988). But it is his last piece, the Piano Sonata No. 8 featured in Do Not Go Gently, written at the age of 98, that tells his life story. Played by Grammy Award-winning pianist Marc-André Hamelin, Sonata No. 8 is melodic and modern and laced with memories and grief. It makes real his sage advice, “One has to be very careful not to become obsessed with one’s own style.”
From a nursing home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the 109-year-old Ornstein recounts falling in love with his wife (and frequent collaborator) Pauline, ponders the meaning of life, shares his fears about old age and describes awaking in the middle of the night to write down music.
Throughout the film, Dr. Gene Cohen, the Director of the Center on Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University, and the author of The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life (2000) and The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain (2006), discusses his work at the Creativity Discovery Corps in Washington, D.C., a group which promotes art by older people.
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Do Not Go Gently also documents the principles of creativity applied to senior citizens at day care centers and nursing homes in Washington, D.C. The non-profit group Arts for the Aging demonstrates the transformative power of imagination for populations suffering common disabilities of age: frailty, dementia and depression. Arts for the Aging strives to nurture creativity in older people through poetry, dance, drumming, and painting in the hopes of drawing out their personalities and helping them to communicate. One of the most surprising scenes in the film, set at a poetry group for early-stage Alzheimer’s patients, suggests that imagination may be more durable than memory and may ultimately be our saving grace.
Written, produced and directed by Melissa Godoy. Executive produced by Eileen Littig. Completed in 2007, Do Not Go Gently is supplied by NEWIST/CESA 7 and presented by American Public Television through the Exchange service at no cost to public television stations nationwide.
About American Public Television:
For 45 years, American Public Television (APT) has been a prime source of programming for the nation’s public television stations. APT distributes more than 300 new program titles per year and has 10,000 hours of programming in its library. It is responsible for many public television milestones including the first HD series and the 2006 launch of the Create channel featuring the best of public television’s lifestyle programming. APT is known for its leadership in identifying innovative, worthwhile and viewer-friendly programming. It has established a tradition of providing public television stations with program choices that strengthen and customize their schedules, such as JFK: Breaking the News, Battlefield Britain, Globe Trekker, Rick Steves’ Europe, Great Museums, Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way, America’s Test Kitchen From Cook’s Illustrated, Broadway: The Golden Age, Lidia’s Family Table, California Dreamin’ – The Songs of The Mamas & the Papas, Rosemary and Thyme, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home, The Big Comfy Couch, Monarchy With David Starkey, and other prominent documentaries, dramatic series, how-to programs and classic movies. For more information about APT’s programs and services, visit APTonline.org.
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2/15/07
OUTREACH
DO NOT GO GENTLY
A series of screenings of this film will take place around the country in 2007 to support the national broadcast of the program.
March 3 & 4
Cincinnati Art Museum
March 14 &17
DelRay Beach Film Festival, Palm Beach County, Florida
March 25
Memphis International Film Festival
April 11
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
April l2
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center
April l2
National Arts Club, New York City
April l4
Broadcast on WNET during their Arts Festival
April 29 & 30
Indianapolis International Film Festival
May l0
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
May 17-20
Mendocino Film Festival, Northern California
June l4
Meyer Theatre, Green Bay, Wisconsin
June 22
Milwaukee Art Museum
June 27, 28, 29
Cultural and Heritage Arts Festival, Ocean County NJ
NARRATOR BIOGRAPHY
Courtesy of CBS
WALTER CRONKITE
Walter Cronkite has covered virtually every news event during his more than 65 years in journalism — the last 54 affiliated with CBS News. He became a special correspondent for CBS News when he stepped down on March 6, 1981 after 19 years as anchorman and managing editor of the CBS Evening News. Affectionately nicknamed “Old Iron Pants” for his unflappability under pressure, Cronkite’s accomplishments — both on-air and off — have won him acclaim and trust from journalism colleagues and the American public alike.
Born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 4, 1916, Cronkite began his career in journalism as a campus correspondent at The Houston Post during high school and his freshman year at college. He also worked as a sports announcer for a local radio station in Oklahoma City and joined the United Press in 1937, where he remained for 11 years.
It was as a United Press correspondent that Cronkite covered World War II — landing with the invading Allied troops in North Africa, covering the battle of the North Atlantic in 1942, taking part in the Normandy beachhead assaults in 1944 and participating as one of the first newsmen in B-17 raids over Germany. After reporting the German surrender, Cronkite established United Press bureaus in Europe, was named United Press bureau chief in Brussels and covered the Nuremberg trials of Goering, Hess and other top Nazis. From 1946 to 1948 he served as the chief correspondent for United Press in Moscow.
In July 1950, Cronkite joined CBS News in Washington as a correspondent and anchored their political convention and election coverage from 1952 to 1980. He assumed his duties on the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962, which began as a 15-minute broadcast. On September 2, 1963, it debuted as network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast with Cronkite’s headline-making interview with President John F. Kennedy.
Following his departure on March 6, 1981 from the CBS Evening News, Cronkite hosted several acclaimed CBS documentary programs, including the Emmy-winning Children of Apartheid and the CBS News science magazine series Walter Cronkite’s Universe. In 1985, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences inducted Cronkite into their Hall of Fame.
Cronkite was the only journalist voted among the top ten “most influential decision-makers in America” in surveys conducted by U.S. News and World Report and also was named the “most influential person” in broadcasting. In a nationwide viewer opinion survey conducted as recently as 1995, more than a decade after leaving the CBS anchor desk, he again was voted “Most Trusted Man in Television News.”
As an avid sailor of his then 48-foot yacht, “Wyntje”, Cronkite recorded his experiences sailing waterways from the Chesapeake Bay to Key West in his book South by Southeast (Oxmoor House, 1983), with paintings by artist, Ray Ellis, accompanying his text. Other collaborations with Ellis resulted in North by Northeast (Oxmoor House, 1986), which covered his trips sailing the northeast coastal waterways, and in Westwind (Oxmoor House, 1990) he recounted his sailing tour of America’s West Coast. His most recent sailing book, Around America, was published in August 2001 (W.W. Norton). Cronkite’s first book, Eye on the World (Cowles, 1971) is an edited compendium of CBS News’ reporting on the major trends and stories of 1970, for which he provided analysis and commentary.