Storytelling in Movies

August 07, 2020 compiled by Judith Allen Shone for caregiver reference.

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Alzheimer’s

We learn from stories. Novelist, Tim O’Brien is quoted as saying, “Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential storytelling is.”

Vanessa Boris, on Harvard Business.org in What Makes Storytelling So Effective For Learning? offers that “storytelling forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey the culture, history, and values that unite people.”

Whether through books, blogs, podcasts, online publications, Audio or CDs, radio, TV or movies, or in personal telling, stories have taught us as a society through the years.

The stories in these movies offer a glimpse at the world of Alzheimer’s.

Still Alice

Alice’s Speech – a trailer

Through her “The Art of Losing” speech . . . from the perspective of the one with Alzheimer’s disease, Alice tells her story.

A note: I found it really difficult to stay in the room sometimes, so I had to watch more than one time!

From the novel of the same name, the movie Still Alice tells the story of woman, a mother, a wife and a Harvard professor who slowly recognizes she is losing her memories. Challenged by early onset Alzheimer’s, she learns new ways to live and love, and in her speech tells us details of how it feels to be the one with the disease, not the caregiver, not the family, but the one who is having the experiences.

Matthew Lalanne YouTube Watch this 2:57 minute clip, then the movie.
Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
(Juilanne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart)
The film was named among the year’s top ten independent films by the National Board of Review.

Alive Inside

Official Trailer 1 (2014) – Alzheimer’s Documentary HD

Music brings back the life to the Alzheimer’s patients as they shed tears of joy listening to music from “who they have been and who they are.” The movie Alive Inside shows the impact of music on lives of those with Alzheimer’s. The movie affirms that no pill enhances life like music has been shown to do.


Movieclips Indie YouTube “Awakening, connecting people…” “amazing…”
This 2:17 minute clip gives you a sense of the American documentary film directed and produced by Michael Rossato-Bennett that tells the story of patients and their experience with music therapy.

Away From Her

Away From Her HD Quality Movie Trailer

Wikipedia: “The story centers on a couple whose marriage is tested when the wife begins to develop Alzheimer’s and moves into a nursing home, where she loses virtually all memory of her husband and begins to develop a close relationship with another nursing home resident.”

HdDvdMovies YouTube 2:28 minute clip
2006 Canadian independent drama film written and directed by Sarah Polley. http://myconnection.org/movies Download Full Dvd Movie
(Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. Olympia Dukakis)

Storytelling in movies (c) compiled by Judith Allen Shone, Copyrights for movies and YouTube presenters acknowledged.

Photo: Lady with her laptop: https://www.pexels.com/@karolina-grabowska