We live in a society that fears, denies, and attempts to conquer death. This dominant cultural attitude towards death is detrimental to everyone involved in the dying process. There is a collective of people comprised of doctors, therapists, parents, spouses, nurses, and children who believe in the human capacity to die well. This group of individuals has a vision for transforming how we die in our country. At the center of that vision is an effort to effectively communicate to the general public that there is a crisis surrounding end-of-life experiences. Moreover, this group of individuals discovered that the most effective way to communicate this message to the public is to share stories of those who have died in a manner that both informs and educates the public. Documentary films focused on death and dying stories that both inform and engage the viewer have the ability to greatly sway social constructs surrounding death and dying. Thus, the documentary, if done well, can be a powerful tool for helping people cope with the process of dying. By examining three death and dying documentaries, and isolating the techniques used by filmmakers to inform and engage the audience, I provide recommendations for making an effective death and dying documentary.

Memento mori is a broad and understudied cultural phenomenon and experience. The term “memento mori” is a Latin injunction that means “remember mortality,” or more directly, “remember that you must die.” In art and cultural history, memento mori appears widely, especially in medieval folk culture and in the well-known Dutch still life vanitas paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet memento mori extends well beyond these points in art and cultural history. In Death in Documentaries: The Memento Mori Experience, Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter suggests that documentaries are an especially apt form of contemporary memento mori. Bennett-Carpenter shows that documentaries may offer composed transformative experiences in which a viewer may renew one’s consciousness of mortality – and thus renew one’s life.

This book explores death in contemporary society – or more precisely, in the ‘spectacular age’ – by moving beyond classic studies of death that emphasised the importance of the death taboo and death denial to examine how we now ‘do’ death. Unfolding the notion of ‘spectacular death’ as characteristic of our modern approach to death and dying, it considers the new mediation or mediatisation of death and dying; the commercialisation of death as a ‘marketable commodity’ used to sell products, advance artistic expression or provoke curiosity; the re-ritualisation of death and the growth of new ways of finding meaning through commemorating the dead; the revolution of palliative care; and the specialisation surrounding death, particularly in relation to scholarship. Presenting a range of case studies that shed light on this new understanding of death in contemporary culture, The Age of Spectacular Death will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology and anthropology with interests in death and dying.

This book explores the moral and representational issues associated with engaging young people with popular media depictions of death and dying. Emotionally charged depictions of death play an important role in contemporary media directed toward teen and young adult audiences. Across creative works as diverse as interactive digital games, graphic novels, short form serial narratives, television and films, young people gain opportunities to engage with representations of death. In some cases, representations of death, dying, and the decision to end one’s own life have been subject to public outcry and criticism related to its perceived potential impact on impressionable audiences. Death in/as entertainment can also be fleeting, commonplace and used for humour making it trivial. The chapters in this volume particularly consider the types of engagement made possible through different contemporary creative mediums and the ways in which they might distinctively capture or arouse thoughts and feelings on the end and loss of a human life. Death as Entertainment will appeal to researchers and students interested in new media and its cultural and psychological impact. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Mortality.

Interest in documentary filmmaking has never been greater. There are more documentaries now playing in mainstream cinemas than ever before. The Documentary Masterclass offers an engaging insight into the techniques of ten leading documentary directors.

Attitudes towards death are shaped by our social worlds. This book explores how beliefs, practices and representations of dying and death continue to evolve and adapt in response to changing global societies. Introducing students to debates around grief, religion and life expectancy, this is a clear guide to a complex field for all sociologists.