What with thanatology being an interest of mine, it was only natural that I would want to see a documentary film about a woman who devoted practically her entire adult life to near-death studies and who was most known for authoring the culturally influential work, "On Death and Dying," published in 1969.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS: FACING DEATH. The title says it all. That's her name and in this film we find her as an aged lady, on her deathbed, patiently awaiting the appearance of the Scythe-Toter. Remarkably, with about one foot and four toes in the grave, she is still remarkably lucid and verbally coherent enough to reflect back upon a life well-lived, a feature of the film which nicely aids in our understanding of her, as do the much-appreciated English subtitles.
Who cannot help but like Ms. Kubler-Ross? For starters, she helped many a Western necrophobe re-imagine death as something not to be feared at all but instead as something to be welcomed with open arms when Father Time comes a-calling. As with the admirable Jack Kevorkian, she also believed in the human right to die with one's dignity in tact (although, incidentally and curiously, unlike JK, she was not a proponent of euthanasia). Ms. Kubler-Ross was an academic, yes (a university graduate who worked for a time in the field of psychiatry) but was most notably known for her inspiring humanitarian heart and genuine altruistic concern for other people, especially towards outcasts and the terminally ill. What a lovely and compassionate soul this humanist was, a role model for every socially inactive religionist who may piously think themselves endowed with the operative divine spirit.
Born in Zurich, Switzerland, the film's subject would eventually make her way to America, where there she started a family yet more importantly became internationally recognized for writing the aforementioned best-seller, a book in which she espoused her now famous 'five stages of grief' theory, dubbed the 'Kubler-Ross model.'
As someone who was known for being both strong-willed and a globetrotter, it must have been extremely difficult for Ms. Kubler-Ross in her dying days, confined to a bed as she was and forced to live in a vegetative state. But prepared she was to go, and hopeful that she would one day get to meet some of her intellectual heroes on the other side, like Carl Gustav Jung. As someone who was also a researcher of near-death experiences, she would have known that such a wish was certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS: FACING DEATH. The title says it all. That's her name and in this film we find her as an aged lady, on her deathbed, patiently awaiting the appearance of the Scythe-Toter. Remarkably, with about one foot and four toes in the grave, she is still remarkably lucid and verbally coherent enough to reflect back upon a life well-lived, a feature of the film which nicely aids in our understanding of her, as do the much-appreciated English subtitles.
Who cannot help but like Ms. Kubler-Ross? For starters, she helped many a Western necrophobe re-imagine death as something not to be feared at all but instead as something to be welcomed with open arms when Father Time comes a-calling. As with the admirable Jack Kevorkian, she also believed in the human right to die with one's dignity in tact (although, incidentally and curiously, unlike JK, she was not a proponent of euthanasia). Ms. Kubler-Ross was an academic, yes (a university graduate who worked for a time in the field of psychiatry) but was most notably known for her inspiring humanitarian heart and genuine altruistic concern for other people, especially towards outcasts and the terminally ill. What a lovely and compassionate soul this humanist was, a role model for every socially inactive religionist who may piously think themselves endowed with the operative divine spirit.
Born in Zurich, Switzerland, the film's subject would eventually make her way to America, where there she started a family yet more importantly became internationally recognized for writing the aforementioned best-seller, a book in which she espoused her now famous 'five stages of grief' theory, dubbed the 'Kubler-Ross model.'
As someone who was known for being both strong-willed and a globetrotter, it must have been extremely difficult for Ms. Kubler-Ross in her dying days, confined to a bed as she was and forced to live in a vegetative state. But prepared she was to go, and hopeful that she would one day get to meet some of her intellectual heroes on the other side, like Carl Gustav Jung. As someone who was also a researcher of near-death experiences, she would have known that such a wish was certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
