From domestic ethnography to a cinema of mourning: find the father on film

My PhD documentary film, Roger Frampton Comes Alive! (Emily Rytmeister, 2021),1 documents and celebrates the life and work of my jazz musician father, Roger Frampton (1948-2000). It chronicles the path he took to become the musician and man he was, highlights the contribution he made to Australian jazz and improvised music, and acknowledges the flaws in his character that impeded his personal and professional success. It also communicates the tragedy of his early death and the impact it had on his family, friends and the Australian jazz community. In my dissertation, I acknowledged my film as a work of “patriography”2 or “biography of the father.” I explored my relationship with my father and the way it manifested in my film and throughout the filmmaking process. I identified that the primary determinant of the portrait of my father presented in the film was my love for him. This love was underscored by my grief over his passing and the desire to create an ongoing connection with him through the making of the film and the final film itself. I also identified as implicit in patriographies, such as my film, the desire to connect with the father in order to achieve separation from him. This separation fosters a clarity in one’s self-knowledge that in turn allows a closeness to the father. Indeed, through the making of Roger Frampton Comes Alive!, I felt I came to know both my father and myself.