Personal Post: "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me", Stritch's Passing, and My Grandmother

I was planning on viewing and writing about Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me eventually. It sat on a lengthy list of films I needed to catch up on and I kept telling myself, “I’ll get around to it”. And so it ultimately is with a bit of shame and regret that I’m only watching this good film and amiable portrait of the great performer now, upon news of her passing.

It doesn’t feel appropriate to review the film now or to couch it in a conversation of that sort. The film gives us a glimpse of the octogenarian during her 86^th year of life and shows how she’s was as ruthlessly feisty and strong-willed as ever. Most performers would have retired long ago, but Stritch was a workaholic, who was as lively and alert as she was due to keeping herself active late in life. She’s a difficult personality – and “personality” is perhaps the most apt descriptor for the eccentric, steely, shit-talking Stritch. The film is largely an entertaining one, bolstered by Stritch’s ability to work an audience. She’s a great camera presence, who can tell a story or joke with effortless candor and sharp wit. She lets it all hang out, and she has no time for bullshit, speaking her mind with a defiant attitude that’s refreshing and alarming in equal measure. But the film doesn’t shy away from showing her flaws. She cursed like a sailor, dropping f-bombs with furious delight, she was egotistical to a fault, and she was a self-justifying alcoholic. The film also shows her insecurities and fears as she moves towards the last days of her life. She is sent to the hospital at one point for a diabetic attack, and from her bed she tearfully confesses how frightened she is. But Stritch has an odd way of putting a spin on it: “fear is exciting, isn’t it?” 

I kept thinking of my own grandmother as I watched. She is eighty years old, and yet so strong – and yet so frail. My grandmother’s fears are growing, and they only make my fears grow alongside them. In quiet, stolen moments, I can see her spark diminish. It’s still there, but it glows a little less brightly with each passing year. She keeps up with housework and occasional outings, and her activeness helps her be stronger than most individuals her age. But she’s painfully aware she has more days behind her than ahead. She has casually, wearily mentioned that she hasn’t got too many years left. I’m forced to do the decent, well-meaning, and regrettably false thing and assuage her fears, rebuking her comments. I know she’s right, but I refuse to let her give into her fears, real as they are – and hard as it is for me to fully relate and understand them. 

My grandmother is also a personality. Few like to spar with her anymore. They treat her as if already delicately in formaldehyde. I have family members who judge me for having heated arguments – often about the most inane, fruitless topics – but I do it for her as much as me. I can see the glimmer, the rare pleasure in her eye as someone takes time out to treat her like the human being and feisty, intractable force she is at heart. 

As Stritch notes, fear is exciting. But it’s also, in the vulgar parlance of Stritch, scary as fuck. But to see your fears and your worries and your concerns reflected in a film is helpful and informative and relieving.

Stritch lived one hell of a life, right up to the – I refuse to say bitter – end. My grandmother has as well – though she still has time.