Filmmaker Pete McCormack poured the whole of his heart into directing Spirit Unforgettable, but he had to be convinced to make the film in the first place.
The feature-length documentary casts its lens on Spirit of the West singer John Mann as he and his loved ones react and adapt to the 54-year-old’s diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s. McCormack – a Vancouver-based author, musician and filmmaker who directed 2009’s Facing Ali – has long been one of Mann’s close friends. When McCormack learned about Mann’s diagnosis in 2014, he knew that the irreversible brain disease was already affecting Mann’s memory, thinking and reasoning skills. Documenting his friend’s deterioration for the screen was the furthest thing from his mind.
“It wasn’t an instinctual thing: ‘My friend’s going through something that is so insidious, I should make a film,’” says McCormack in a recent phone interview.
The suggestion came from one of Mann’s fellow band members. Once McCormack considered it – and ran it by Mann and his wife, Jill Daum, who both welcomed it – he was all in, because “I know the story is very compelling and the band is so iconically Canadian. They exemplify a lot of things that I love about Canada: they’re self-deprecating and they’re funny, they’re talented, they’re caring, and they sacrificed for their family.”
Spirit Unforgettable screens this week at the 35th Vancouver International Film Festival as the high-profile pick for the fest’s BC Spotlight gala. It’s that rare bird of documentary that straddles several categories: music, Canadiana, biography, human interest, inspirational.
Weaving together archival footage and new interviews, it dives deep into the history of Spirit of the West. We learn about Mann’s artistry and humanity, the brotherhood between the band members, and the origin story behind fan favourite “Home for a Rest” (the song is based on a bungled month-long UK tour, during which the then-novice band only performed four shows, preferring instead to keep “the shine on the bar with the sleeves of our coats”). And we bear witness to the multitude of ways in which a life, families, and a band of brothers are altered by early onset Alzheimer’s.
“I approached the whole journey with a lot of tenderness, and I felt very protective of John and Jill,” says McCormack. “And at the same time, I’ve made a lot of films, and I felt a real obligation to capture what I could of John’s voice.”
The director accompanied Mann and Daum to demoralizing doctor’s appointments (“That was just me and my own camera and my own tripod, and no one else,” he recalls. “I really went into kind of a Zen mode for that: ‘I need to not be here in any kind of physical presence. I really have to be a fly on the wall’”) and documented them in their home, where Daum cares for her husband as he struggles to remember lyrics while still able to write and recall melodies.
“For John, for some strange reason, melody remained solid in his head,” says McCormack of Mann, who reads lyrics off of an iPad while performing. “We don’t know why that is. If there is a silver lining, it’s that: that he can still remember the melodies – and that’s shocking. The melody remains.”
The film culminates with footage from the band’s June 2015 performance at Toronto’s Massey Hall. When Mann finds himself unable to sing “Home for a Rest,” the audience swoops in and completes the song for him – a highly emotional moment that McCormack says reduced him to tears as he bore witness to it from a makeshift recording booth.
McCormack says Mann and Daum agreed to the documentary because “they’re artists. It’s quite natural. And they did not see one moment of the film before it was completed. They’re the kind of artists you want, because they’ll say, ‘[The director is] an artist; let him go and do his thing.’ That’s a trust thing as well. There’s no way I would betray that. I think it’s a natural thing for them to be artists and to have a story told – and, obviously, a poignant and tragic and sometimes redemptive story.”
There’s no denying that Spirit Unforgettable is rife with sadness, because the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s is a sad one, says McCormack. “No one ever says, ‘I had Alzheimer’s six years ago, but I’m doing great now.’ There’s none of that.”
And yet, although sad, the film is also incredibly hopeful, says McCormack. “John – the way he has dealt with the diagnosis, and to carry on and to push forward and continue to sing and to have such grace about it all – is really inspiring. And he reminded me very strongly that there is life after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, and that’s something I didn’t know. There’s life and there’s love and there’s art after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.”
McCormack and Mann will be in attendance when Spirit Unforgettable screens at VIFF’s BC Spotlight gala, at The Centre on Oct. 8. It also screens Oct. 12 at Vancouver Playhouse. Tickets for both at Viff.org.
