A Brief History of Old Age on Screen: Part 2

A lot of people devote themselves to delaying their old age before doing their darnedest to prolong it. Getting old in real life is rarely a bed of roses. In movies, however, it's a time of reflection, renewal, romance and reconnection, as senior citizens seize the opportunity for one last hurrah. Join Cinema Paradiso for the second part of its celebration of the silver screen.

It's often said that age is only a number. In a place as devoted to youth and beauty as Hollywood, however, getting old is more than an occupational hazard. Of course, advances in digital technology mean it's now possible to de-age performers, as was the case with the venerable stars of Martin Scorsese's gangland epic, The Irishman (2019). But this seems likely to be an exception. as playing the younger version of an established star in a scenario that crosses the decades provides upcoming actors with invaluable experience.

Ironically, the film industry has been undervaluing know-how since the 1950s, when the advent of television prompted a shift in the age demographic of cinema audiences and the studios started pandering to youth in order to keep the box-office tills ringing. The current vogue for effects-laden blockbusters derived from comic-books is the latest phase of this strategy. However, the continuing strength of the home entertainment market and the realisation that older people like an afternoon matinee has seen Hollywood change its stance.

With so many popular stars retaining their commercial value into their sixties and beyond, the studios have decided that they are still capable of carrying storylines rather than merely cropping up in stellar support. Consequently, a fair number of the features in our survey have been made since the millennium, with the majority depicting old age as something to be embraced and enjoyed rather than endured with a bag of humbugs and a beaker of Horlicks.

Oldies Behaving Badly

The notion of ageing disgracefully has always amused and dotty old dears Josephine Hull and Jean Adair give nephew Cary Grant the double-taking jitters when he discovers that they have been putting elderly gentlemen out of their misery with doctored elderberry wine in Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). It's more a case of being cruel to be cruel in Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), as siblings and former child stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford wallow in an old-age misery that is fuelled by polluted memories of their heydays.

The black comedy was even pitchier in Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude (1971), as suicide obsessed 18 year-old Bud Cort forms a friendship with Ruth Gordon, a mischievous 79 year-old concentration camp survivor with a thing for funerals. The age gap is somewhat smaller in Louis Malle's Atlantic City (1980), as small-time hood Burt Lancaster gets a new lease of life with big-dreaming blackjack dealer Susan Sarandon. However, Lancaster finds a playmate of his own age in Jeff Kanew's Tough Guys (1986), as he and Kirk Douglas emerge from prison after 30 years to find thst much has changed, although their acclimatisation isn't helped by the attentions of dogged cop Charles Durning and short-sighted hitman Eli Wallach.

Norman (Tom Courtenay) sometimes feels he's serving a life spell while taking care of ageing actor, 'Sir' (Albert Finney), in Peter Yates's superbly played adaptation of Ronald Harwood play, The Dresser (1983), which saw both Brits nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globes and a BAFTA. Sir is very much in his anecdotage, but he can't hold a candle to John Neville's spinner of unlikely yarns in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).

Who would believe the excuses offered by 81 year-old billionaire playboy George Burns and 18 year-old grandson Charlie Schlatter when they accidentally switch bodies in Paul Flaherty's 18 Again! But their predicament seems relatively straightforward compared to the situations in which Aidan Tierney keeps landing while visiting his ailing grandmother at a rundown Canadian nursing home in Atom Egoyan's Family Viewing (both 1988).

Of all the pensioners showing their nearest and dearest exactly what they think of them, none misbehaves with such malicious glee as Tsilla Chelton, as she torments her nephew and his wife in Étienne Chatilliez's excruciatingly hilarious, Tatie Danielle (1990). Ailing playboy Pete Postlethwaite also gives as good as he gets when hustler Antoine Kamerling breaks into his room and starts playing mind games in Dominique Deruderre's Suite 16 (1994). But spare a thought for Hayley Atwell when she volunteers to step in for sister Orla Brady in looking after the retirement home residents who haven't gone home for Christmas in Anthony Byrne's How About You (2007) and finds herself confronted with the high-spirited quartet of Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton, Joss Ackland and Brenda Fricker.

The mischief is markedly more whimsical in Kirk Jones's Waking Ned (1998), as old pals Ian Bannen and David Kelly convince their neighbours to go along with a scam so they can all benefit from the windfall when an elderly resisdent of the Irish village of Tullymore dies on winning the lottery. Kelly is up to more no good alongside Milo O'Shea in David Blair's Mystics (2003), although these blissfully amoral fake mediums run into trouble when mobster's widow Maria Doyle Kennedy orders them to divine the wheareabouts of her late husband's stash of loot.

A gang of crooks and a suitcase full of cash play a part in the shenanigans experienced by Robert Gustafsson after he does a bunk from his nursing home birthday party in Felix Herngren's adaptation of Jonas Jonasson's bestselling novel, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (2013). Yael Abacassis, Moni Moshonov and Patrick Stewart find their own unlikely accomplice in 12 year-old Tzvika Hadar when they conspire to rob a bank in Reshef Levi's Hunting Elephants (2013).

Make-up artist Stephen Prouty earned an Oscar nomination for transforming 42 year-old Johnny Knoxville into 86 year-old Irving Zisman, as he's left in charge of eight year-old grandson Jackson Nicol in Jeff Tremaine's Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013). Relations are no more cordial between Robert De Niro and Zac Efron in Dan Mazer's Dirty Grandpa (2016), as Efron's wedding to the boss's daughter is placed in jeopardy after he agrees to take livewire grandfather De Niro to Daytona for spring break. Oakes Fegley loved De Niro until he moved in and took over his bedroom. Now he will do whatever it takes to drive the stubborn old man away in Tim Hill's The War With Grandpa (2020).

The last five years have seen a spate of pensioner heist pictures in the same mould as Martin Brest's Going in Style (1979), which follows the venerable trio of George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg as they go about robbing a Manhattan bank. Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin stepped into the roles in Zach Braff's 2017 remake, Going in Style, which sees them disguising themselves as Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. to top up their pension pots.

The discovery that their expected earnings have been frittered by incompetent bureaucrats similarly drives Bernard Hill and Virginia McKenna into a life of crime in John Miller's Golden Years (2016), only for them to become so addicted to the cash and the adrenaline rush that they become full-time crooks. Two further films take a real-life geriatric grab for their inspiration, as 76 year-old Brian Reader (Larry Lamb) attempts the most audacious jewellery crew in history with a crew of veteran villains in Ronnie Thompson's The Hatton Garden Job (2017) and Michael Caine takes the same role in James Marsh's King of Thieves (2018), with Michael Gambon and Ray Winstone among his old lags in the vault.

Robert Redford bade farewell to life in front of the camera in David Lowery's The Old Man and the Gun, in which a gentleman thief takes time between urbane robberies to court widow Sissy Spacek and keep one step ahead of hangdog cop Casey Affleck. But fellow octagenarian Clint Eastwood keeps acting in pictures like The Mule (both 2018), in which a widower needing a cash to prevent the bank from foreclosing on his house takes a driving job without knowing that he's been hired by a Mexican drug cartel.

Ian McKellen explores life on either side of the law in two features by Bill Condon, who had directed the Lancastrian to an Oscar nomination as film-maker James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998). In Mr Holmes (2015), the legendary sleuth is enjoying his retirement in a Sussex farmhouse when he is drawn to an unsolved case that relates to his decision to quit 221B Baker Street three decades earlier. Roy Courtnay is a less trustworthy character, however. But his bid to con retired Oxford professor Helen Mirren out of her savings proves harder than it had initially seemed in The Good Liar (2019).

A Geriatric Jumble

This section is devoted to films about ageing that don't fit neatly into the categories examined so far. Take, for example, the case of cashier Margaret Rutherford, commissionaire Bernard Miles and projectionist Peter Sellers, who stay after hours at the Bijou Cinema to relive the lost days of silent movies in Basil Dearden's The Smallest Show on Earth (1957). And where else would you put the Japanese legend about the village that dispatches anyone over the age of 70 to the mountains in Keisuke Kinoshita's Ballad of Narayama (1958), which was remade as the Palme d'or-winning The Ballad of Narayama in 1993 by Shohei Imamura?

Following Albert and David Maysles's legendary 1975 documentary, Grey Gardens, Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore were cast as Big Edie and Little Edie in Michael Sucsy's Grey Gardens, a 2009 dramatic reconstruction of the tensions that existed between the mother and daughter who were the aunt and cousin of American First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. And speaking of Camelot, John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley are growing old together in the Shady Rest Retirement Home in Mud Creek, Texas when a mummy goes on the rampage devouring souls in Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep (2002).

Historical and fictional characters also intermingle in more refined circumstances in Michael Engler's Downton Abbey (2019), as the 1927 royal visit by King George V and Queen Mary threatens to be overshadowed by an inheritance row involving Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith), and Lady Maud Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton). The upstairs downstairs roles are reversed as the scion of a rich Hong Kong family (Andy Lau) cares for the maid who has served his family for 60 years in Ann Hui's A Simple Life (2011). Earning Deannie Ip the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, this poignant drama finds a charming companion in Hong Khaou's Lilting (2014), which sees Ben Whishaw reach out to the Cambodian-Chinese mother (Cheng Pei Pei) of his recently deceased lover (Andrew Leung).

We move into the realms of fantasy with out next quartet. A 75 year-old musician suffering from dementia lapses into a coma and reverts to his childhood in Stabe Hanju's Imaginaerum: The Other World (2012). However, the guide for his journey may not be wholly reliable and trust also becomes an issue in Tarsem Singh's Self/less (2015), after Ben Kingsley has his mind transplanted into the body of Ryan Reynolds without knowing that his host is being hunted to the death by a secret organisation.

Similarly, Logan (Hugh Jackman) is caring for the ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart) near the Mexican border when they are found by a young mutant being pursued by malevolent forces in James Mangold's Logan. The same year also saw the release of Michael Almereyda's Marjorie Prime (2017), which sees Geena Davis and Tim Robbins buy 86 year-old Lois Smith a holographic simulation programme that evokes memories of her beloved husband, Jon Hamm.

Moving into animation, having been aged by her encounter with the Witch of the Waste, Sophie seeks out the wizard Howl in order to find a cure and discover a way to end conflict in Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli masterpiece, Howl's Moving Castle (2004). In order to complete a promise to his late wife to see South America, senior Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) attaches balloons to his house in Pete Docter's Up (2009) and floats off with stowaway Russell (Jordan Nagel) for company.

The scene switches to Mexico for Lee Unkrich's Coco (2017), as a 12 year-old boy heads into the Land of the Dead in order to seek out the great-great-grandfather he hopes can restore music to his family. But the most affecting animated feature about old age has to be Spaniard Ignacio Ferreras's Wrinkles (2011), which charts the retirement home friendship that develops between Miguel and Emilio as the former helps his roommate convince the inquisitive doctors that he's doing okay and doesn't need to be transferred to the ward from which no one returns.

A quick flit through some age-related actualities begins with Dusan Hanák's Pictures of the Old World (1972), in which senior citizens in Czechoslovakia discuss ageing and isolation in a changing world. Daniel Schmid's Tosca's Kiss (1984) profiles the residents at the Casa di Riposi in Milan, which was founded in 1896 by Giuseppe Verdi as the world's first retirement home for opera singers. Doubtless, they would be charmed by the octagenarian choir from Northampton, Massachusetts, which is challenged with learning a repertoire of new songs by conductor Bob Cilman in Stephen Walker's Young@Heart (2006).

Keeping up with trends and looking a million dollars is the theme of both Albert Maysles's Iris (2014), which celebrates the zest for life of 93 year-old New York social stalwart Iris Apfel, and Lina Plioplyte's Advanced Style (2014), which has been spun off from the Ari Seth Cohen blog about elderly New Yorkers with sartorial nous. Concluding this triptych is Kate Novak's The Gospel According to André (2017), which chronicles the career of Vogue's first African American creative director, André Leon Talley.

Time refuses to obey the rules in the next foursome, which starts with Steve Miner's Forever Young (1992). Having volunteered for a cryogenic experiment in 1939 after the love of his life goes into a coma, Mel Gibson seems set to lose happiness again when he starts to age rapidly after learning that his beloved is still alive. Adapted from a story by F. Scott Fitzegerald, David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) sees a man born in his eighties (Brad Pitt) grow younger with each passing year.

Following an accident, 29 year-old Blake Lively ceases to get change as everyone around her grows older in Lee Toland Krieger's The Age of Adaline (2015), while a holidaying family discovers that time is passing with obscene haste over the course of a single day in M. Night Shyamalan's Old (2021). The latter could be seen as a chiller, but it's doesn't land as squarely in the genre, as our last batch of suggestions for your edification.

Hell Is Older People

As we're trying to put a positive spin on the ageing process, we won't go into too much gory detail about bodily decay and the clutching fingers of Death. But we have to mention vampires, who steal the life force of the young in order to stave off decrepitude. Take Ingrid Pitt in Peter Sasdy's Countess Dracula (1972), Wanda Ventham in Brian Clemens's Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) and the 3000 year-old Catherine Deneuve in Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983).

The coarse terms 'hagsploitation' and 'psycho-biddy' are often applied to films about ageing women kicking against the ravages of time. But, in the case of Joan Crawford in William Castle's Strait-Jacket (1964), the more applicable label is Grande Dame Guignol. We may well come back to this sub-genre around Halloween. For now, though, we shall focus on this story penned by Robert Bloch (of Alfred Hitchcock's Pyscho fame) in which a reformed axe killer keeps getting nerve-jangling reminders of her bloody past.

Castle also produced Roman Polanski's adaptation of Ira Levin's novel, Rosemary's Baby (1968), which sees pregnant New Yorker Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) develop misgivings about allowing elderly neighbours Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman Castavets (Sidney Blackmer) and Dr Abraham Saperstein (Ralph Bellamy) to supervise her pregnancy. She would feel even more uncomfortable in the southern town of Hillsboro in Bernard McEveety's The Brotherhood of Satan (1971), as Strother Martin leads a cult of aged devil worshippers that has designs on the souls of the local children.

For the members of the Chowder Society in his 1981 take on Peter Straub's novel, Ghost Story, John Irvin assembled a dream cast. But, as they tell their spooky tales, Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman are unaware that they are in grave danger. The same is true of the passengers aboard a seaplane that develops engine trouble and lands on the island home of the seemingly folksy Ma and Pa (Yvonne De Carlo and Rod Steiger) in John Hough's American Gothic (1988).

In William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990), the occupants of a senile dementia ward commit murders after being possessed by a spirit that had entered Damien Karras (Jason Miller), the priest who had ministered to Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) in William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973), which Blatty had adapted from his own bestselling novel. Kate Hudson wishes she had stayed at her nice safe nursing home in Iain Softley's The Skeleton Key (2005) rather than agreeing to travel to Terrebonne Parish in Louisiana to help Gena Rowlands nurse her stroke victim husband, John Hurt.

Similarly, Los Angeles bank clerk Christine Brown (Alison Lohmann) comes to regret refusing a house extension loan to little old lady Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver) in Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, while 1980s student Jocelin Donahue learns the valuable lesson of checking the age of the person you're supposed to be babysitting when she finds herself looking up at Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov from the centre of a Pentagram in Ti West's The House of the Devil (both 2009).

The focus may be on the Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) when he alights at the Paradise Falls Diner in the Mojave Desert in Scott Stewart's Legion (2010). But keep an eye on the antics of old dear Gladys Foster (Jeannette Miller). Man can she climb for her age and what an appetite! The antics of Alheimer's parient Deborah Logan (Jill Larson) similarly take a trio of medical students by surprise, when they embark upon a video diary project and become increasingly disturbed by what their camera is capturing in Adam Robitel's The Taking (2014).

Single mother Kathryn Hahn suspects nothing is amiss in M. Night Shymalan's The Visit (2015), when she drops off her two children to spend some time with her estranged parents. It doesn't take the kids long to realise, however, that Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) are behaving rather oddly. And be warned if you go on Big Ronnie's Disco Walking Tour in Jim Hosking's The Greasy Strangler (2016), as the old guide (Michael St Michaels) gets up to no good once the sun goes down.

Toni Collette's grief for her mother turns to terror when she learns why she had been so secretive in her later years in Ari Aster's Hereditary (2018), and daughter Emily Mortimer has to undergo her own journey of discovery when ailing mother Robyn Nevin goes missing and she and daughter Bella Heathcote have to turn her remote Australian house upside down in order to find her in Natalie Erika James's Relic (2020).