Culture
Capturing community, spirituality, and death: Scott Kirschenbaum on ‘The Last Ecstatic Days’
By: Ian Milheim
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Are you “good” with death?
Probably not, right?
It’s a rare feat.
We’ve decided that someone’s final days, moments, and breaths require a privacy fence, sternly and dutifully erected around the inevitable. In directing The Last Ecstatic Days, Scott Kirschenbaum sought an alternate view: we see the dying, we experience it together as a steady communion and, when the moment comes, the camera doesn’t cut or drop focus or pan away; we witness death.
The Last Ecstatic Days was a request bequeathed to Kirschenbaum by Ethan Sisser, the 36-year-old image of exuberance at the center of this film airing on WOUB-TV Thursday at 8 p.m. and Friday at 10 p.m. Sisser, a beloved yoga instructor, son, sibling, and soul, was given a death sentence by a rapid slew of diagnoses after a lifetime of physical and mental prowess. His prolific social media presence emerged from the algorithm fully-formed, a sort of deep-dive meditation on the self, on death, and the places where they grasp and release from one another.
Far from a ballad of deterioration, Sisser’s “death doula” gently leads him, and us, down a curated path of music, laughter, theories, and acceptance; a celebration of the steady flow channeling out of life. As the documentary progresses, the idea of being “good” with life or death fades into a realization that the line of demarcation between the two is less defined than expected.
In granting him passage within a community, surrounded by friends, family, and online viewers, a hypnotic sense of motion and stillness mingle interchangeably, Sisser’s affirmations coursing through each moment: “I am embodied, I am empowered, I am ecstatic.”
I sat down with Kirschenbaum after viewing The Last Ecstatic Days to ask him about the experience. Find a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Ian Milheim: What is The Last Ecstatic Days about?
Scott Kirschenbaum: It’s a remarkably uplifting story about a young man with brain cancer named Ethan Sisser, who was posting a lot about his end of life journey on social media. He asked for a community to support him while he was transitioning, dying. A hospice doctor in Asheville, North Carolina saw this and invited Ethan to come be with her. And this community provided him with free end of life care for the last two weeks of his life.
At what stage were you brought in?
Kirschenbaum: When I spoke to Ethan, he asked me within the first minute if I would help him film his death. So, within about 72 hours I was on a red eye flight cross country from the Bay Area where I was living to Asheville to make this film.
Were you personally aware of his social media presence?
Kirschenbaum: I hadn’t seen the posts. I had just heard Ethan on The Duncan Trussell Family Hour. He had this mensch-like quality, so I just had to go for it.
Were you anxious about balancing the weight of the subject with the responsibility of making the film, and later, about whether you could capture it?
Kirschenbaum: Well, there was a question of ‘when will this happen?’ Then, when it became clear that it would be soon, everything seemed to fall into place instantaneously. We all knew where we needed to be even though we had never discussed it.
My hope is that, as the film progresses, the viewer doesn’t so much experience anxiety—because it wasn’t really anxiety that I was feeling. It was more like your heart starts to open for Ethan, then it opens more, and then more again, until it seems to fill the entire room. So instead of tension, it became this deep reverence—this sense of, ‘wow, we’re just holding this for Ethan.’
By the end, it felt very light, almost church-like at times, though never forced. It carried a spiritual quality that flowed naturally. People would show up wanting to offer spiritual practices, or massage, or acupuncture, or music, and it all felt right because Ethan welcomed it—because this is how it should be when you die in community. And really, this is how death was practiced for centuries. There’s no reason why we can’t try this now.
You think we’ve lost something by moving away from that?
Kirschenbaum: Especially with what they’re describing with this Big Beautiful Bill, which is a crisis for hospice care, we are going to need community death care. Why can’t, when we talk about community, why can’t we envision taking care of our neighbors as they’re in their dying days?
Many people might feel intimidated by a film that deals so directly with death. How would you reassure viewers that they can handle watching it, and that it’s worth it?
Kirschenbaum: It’s just a singular movie experience. It’s different and it’s very, very life affirming. If you let yourself walk to the door and open this up and say, ‘I’m going to be with Ethan,’ this doesn’t need to be overly complicated. If someone said to you, ‘will you witness me during my last ecstatic days?’ How could you say no to them? I’m not a “death person.” I’m now just more grateful for life. And that’s what this film does for you.
How did this change the way you think about your own death?
Kirschenbaum: Well, one of the elders from the film, Greg Lathrop, he mentions that your last breath might be your easiest. It just so happens that that could be the easiest breath you take in your life. I think for me, there’s a greater ease with grief now and with mortality. And it doesn’t mean I’m going to be an all-star when it comes to my last days, but I think I have a greater perspective and I’m willing to look at this and see the poetry. So I think just as I want to be an artist in my life, I want to be an artist in my dying and I want to really put some forethought into this, and it’s not just cheesy Hallmark considerations. This experience is so special if you give yourself permission to make it that way.
It’s an ongoing meditation. There’s a quote I love, I think from Confucius, about how “every man has two lives and his second begins when he realizes he only has one.” That’s the gift. The blessing of this film for me is I want to live more now and I want to continue to see this learning seep into my everyday life.