Faculty of Humanities Assisted Dying in Documentaries A rhetorical analysis of the perspective of three documentaries on assisted dying and their connection to the social and political debate in the countries of production. Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die (2011) Dignitas, La Mort sur Ordonnance (2010) Nachtvlinder, de laatste dagen van Priscilla (2013) Name: Britt van Teijlingen Supervisor: Dhr. dr. F.A.M. Laeven E-mail: [email protected] Second reader: Dhr. S. Scholz Student number: 10795790 Programme: MA Media Studies: Television and Cross-media Culture University of Amsterdam Date of completion: 26 June, 2015 Table of Contents Preface p. 3 Introduction p. 4 Chapter one: Euthanasia Laws p. 7 Chapter two: Euthanasia Debate p. 10 Chapter thee: Theoretical Framework and Method p. 16 Chapter four: Analysis Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die p. 23 Chapter five: Analysis Dignitas: La Mort sur Ordonnance p. 35 Chapter six: Analysis Nachtvlinder, de laatste dagen van Priscilla p. 47 Conclusion p. 57 Bibliography p. 61 Appendix one: Segment analysis Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die p. 65 Appendix two: Segment analysis Dignitas, La Mort sur Ordonnance p. 82 Appendix three: Segment analysis Nachtvlinder, de laatste dagen van Priscilla p. 105 !2 of !114 Preface I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the realization of this thesis. Since it is not possible to thank everyone personally, I will limit myself to those who were most important. First, I would like to thank my supervisor Erik Laeven who has helped me throughout the writing process. His comments and critical eye have helped me constantly to improve my thesis, and his effort and time were very valuable. Secondly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support, and in particular my partner Tjebbe for his unconditional support, as well as my friend and fellow student Marike for all her help. !3 of !114 Introduction Last year at the IDFA 2014, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, multiple documentaries on the topic of euthanasia or assisted suicide were shown. It was striking that most of these documentaries were produced in Belgium and the Netherlands; two countries where euthanasia is legalized. This gave rise to some questions. I wondered if the current situation of assisted dying in Europe triggers filmmakers to deal with this social issue. How is the topic of assisted dying approached in these documentaries, and is this the same for all European countries? I decided to research documentaries on assisted dying to gain insight into what kind of documentaries are produced on this topic and how they are related to the social, political and legal status of assisted dying in the countries of production. Documentaries have always been used to debate social issues and to provide a distinct perspective on those issues (Nichols 19,101). The philosopher Aguayo states that documentary film has demonstrated engagement with audiences and has sometimes prompted critical deliberation and activism (33-34). Documentaries have been a source of agitation in the rising tide of social unrest (Aguayo 33-34). Recently, documentaries have often functioned as a springboard for public argument in practice, according to Aguayo (33-34). Documentaries can be produced in response to a political and social debate. But the documentary itself can contribute to the debate as well. The more closely a documentary film is connected to a social movement, the more effective the documentary is in the process of social change, according to Aguayo (221). Quite often the public debate is put into motion following a provocative documentary. This happened, for example, with the Dutch documentary Dood op Verzoek (Maarten Nederhorst 1993). The debate on euthanasia was going on for some time already, but the government tried to stay out of it as much as possible. The majority of the population supported euthanasia, but it was not allowed according to Dutch law. However, euthanasia already happened in secret. The documentary showed the euthanasia of Cees van Wendel. The film approached it from a very supportive perspective. This was a rather radical move at the time and the documentary therefore received a lot of response, both in the Netherlands and abroad. The documentary is still seen as one of the most important driving forces behind the debate on euthanasia in the Netherlands and abroad (npo.nl). This particular case shows that the perspective of a documentary can be heavily influenced by the social and political debate. But in turn, the documentary itself can also contribute to the debate. Therefore, analyzing documentaries becomes very valuable if we involve the social and political debate in !4 of !114 our research. This knowledge provides a better understanding of the documentary. It also creates the opportunity to place the documentary into a broader context. Especially with documentaries on such a debated topic as assisted dying, we should not separate the documentary from its context. The combination of researching the legal, social and political context of euthanasia and the documentaries dealing with this social issue tells us a lot about the state of affairs on assisted dying in different countries and about the role documentaries can play in such debates. Many analyses of documentaries do not place them in a broader social context, but usually only in the context of other media. Since documentaries and the legal, political and social context often influence each other, it is of scientific interest to include this. Through this research, I hope to provide a different perspective on documentary research and demonstrate the relevance of researching this combination. During this research, three documentaries on assisted dying will be analyzed. However, not all documentaries cover the same form of assisted dying. There are different forms of assisted dying or ending someone’s life through medical treatment. In the case of euthanasia, a physician administers the means of death, usually through a lethal drug. This is only allowed in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Another way of assisted dying is through assisted suicide. In this case the patient carries out the procedure himself, with the assistance of a physician. This often means that medical staff prepares a lethal drug, like a drink, but the patient has to take it himself. This form of assisted dying is allowed in Japan, Colombia, Albania, Germany, Switzerland and in the American states of Washington, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and New Mexico. With the selection of three Western European countries I will cover all the different legal situations in Europe regarding euthanasia. I will analyze one documentary from each country. I will analyze Terry Pratchett: Choosing to die (2011) from the United Kingdom, Dignitas, La Mort sur Ordonnance (2010) from Switzerland, and Nachtvlinder, de laatste dagen van Priscilla (2013) from the Netherlands. These three were chosen as they are the most recent full-length documentaries on assisted dying. Often in media research, a corpus of older films is chosen which makes it possible to place the analyzed films into the broader media discourse. I chose to research the most recent documentaries because I do not intend to place them in the broader media discourse, but in their legal, political and social context. I wanted to analyze the current social, political and legal situation since this context is constantly changing. And as I witnessed at the IDFA 2014, this current context led to a large amount of documentaries in the past few years. A !5 of !114 corpus of the most recent documentaries is the most suitable for providing information about this current situation. Since assisted dying has been a heavily debated subject in Europe for decades, with a lot of documentaries having been produced on this subject, it is interesting to research what kind of perspective on assisted dying those documentaries provide and how this is related to the legal, political and social situation. Therefore, my research question is: How do documentaries on assisted dying from the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the Netherlands persuade the viewer to adopt a certain perspective on assisted dying and how does this position these documentaries in the social and political debate on assisted dying in the countries where they were produced? To understand how the documentaries position themselves in the social and political debate, I have to set out this debate through a discourse analysis, which is done in chapter two. However, we cannot have a clear view of this debate without knowing the legal situation of assisted dying in the different countries. Therefore, I will first analyze the legal situation regarding assisted dying in the different countries in chapter one. After researching both the legal status and the social and political situation, a hypothesis on the perspectives in the documentaries will be formed in chapter three. In chapter four the theoretical framework and the method for the film analyses will be set out. I will use a rhetorical framework to analyze the different documentaries. I will approach the documentaries in this research as rhetorical instruments that provide a certain argument on assisted dying. However, I am aware that documentaries are certainly not always rhetorical instruments, but for analyzing the perspective of the documentary rhetoric offers a very valuable framework, as will be explained further in chapter four. In chapters five, six and seven the documentaries will be analyzed. Finally I will provide a conclusion in which the findings on the different documentaries will be connected, which will be linked back to how documentaries and the social and political debate are interwoven. In the conclusion the research questions will be answered, and some recommendations for further research will be made. !6 of !114 Chapter one: Euthanasia Laws To analyze how the social debate on euthanasia influenced the documentaries on assisted dying that we will analyze later, the social debate on assisted dying in these countries has to be set out first.