LOS ANGELES (AP) – Banker White returned to his Massachusetts family home in 2009 to be a good son to his 61-year-old mother, newly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
But it was White’s skill as a filmmaker that allowed him to do even more: enrich his mom’s life; document family history and his father’s devotion; and illustrate the disease’s toll.
“The Genius of Marian,” airing Sept. 8 on PBS’ “POV” independent non-fiction film showcase (check local listings), is a delicately etched but unsparing portrait of a woman, Pam White, losing herself to dementia – the same path that was forced upon her mother, New England artist Marian Williams Steele.
The film’s title is taken from Pam White’s intended book about her mother and the Alzheimer’s that ultimately claimed Steele’s life in 2001.
But with Pam White’s own cognitive abilities diminishing, it is through her son’s inquisitive camera that we learn of Steele as a parent and as a driven, successful New England landscape painter and portraitist, and the very different choices that her daughter made.