Does Living Longest Make You ‘The Oldest Person in the World’?

The Oldest Person in the World, a new documentary, which is about exactly what the title says, is a beautiful meditation on life and death, mortality and longevity, and all the points in between. Veteran filmmaker Sam Green (a fellow Detroiter, known for docs 32 Sounds and The Weather Underground) says he became interested in the subject matter while filming a documentary on the Guinness Book of World Records. “Why”, Green wondered, “are we so captivated by this one person who has been around longer than anyone else on the planet?”

He goes on to note, quite accurately, that the honor seems to change hands frequently. In fact, over the course of his decade-long project, he meets and interviews six or so “oldest people” — as each dies and passes the title to the next — all of whom happen to be women over the age of 116.

But, at the start of this journey, Green doesn’t know any of that or where this enterprise will take him, only that he’s deeply curious about meeting and speaking with these people. “Let’s start here,” says Green as the film begins. In Brooklyn, New York, in 2015. Green is setting up to interview the then-oldest person, Susannah Mushatt Jones. Miss Susie, as she is called, sleeps through most of her press conference/birthday party (It’s fun seeing Eric Adams do something meaningful and without swagger; at the time, he was Brooklyn Borough President).

The Oldest Person in the World   ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Sam Green
Running time:  87 mins

Soon afterwards, Green interviews Jones’s niece and caretaker who speaks about the poignancy of her aunt’s life and the nieces and nephews she supported and inspired.

Then, Jones passes, and the title does too. Green flies to Italy to interview the *next* oldest person, Emma Morano who proudly cites staying away from men as the secret to her long life. That and eating three raw eggs a day. Just wait til we get to an avowed celibate, Sister Andre, the French nun with fabulous eyewear, who believes longevity or its opposite must be seen as the unknowable will of God. While minimizing the importance of earthly titles like “oldest person,” the sister clearly wants to stay in the game and get that title.

Around this time, the film takes on a life of its own. Green’s son is born, the Covid pandemic hits, his own health becomes complicated, anniversaries are celebrated and the dead are mourned. In other words, life happens. Over the ten years he is filming, Green’s questions deepen as his own life does all of the crazy things life is wont to do. Green may start off asking the obvious questions (“What’s your secret?) but soon, he pivots to much bigger and more personal questions around life and legacy and the unknown.

This, to me, is when the film makes the most impact. Green’s inquiry touches on so many beautiful things, and I can’t say more out of fear of spoiling the ride. But let’s just say, this film is not a collection or anthology of 116 year old women. It is a beautiful reverie on “time and death and fate.” (Green) My absolute favorite moment was watching Miss Violet Brown, at 117, recite the Lord Byron poem she memorized in her Jamaica schoolroom 100 years prior.

We are living in an age of influencers peddling longevity, telling us to deny time and death, telling us that with their help (and supplements or programs or products) we can live forever. But the kind of age tracked and celebrated by The Oldest Person has nothing to do with the death-denying influencers who, I realized, aren’t selling life, they’re selling virility, even the women. Sexual and economic power. Staying in the game without any signs of age. But the subjects of this film — Miss Susanne, Sister Andre, Violet Brown, Kane Tanaka, Emma Morano — this is actually what longevity looks like. When my own grandmother died, at 100, she said, “I don’t know how I got to live this long. Everything around me died, and I just… kept going.”

At turns, both personal (Green has called it his most personal film) and sociological, The Oldest Person rigorously and mindfully unpacks the mystery behind who lives and who does not. In its final image, Green presents his son, Atlas, running forward on a track in Williamsburg. Because that’s what life does, doesn’t it?