Sometimes - we point our camera at people... And we change their lives.
Sometimes - our subjects change OUR lives.

While it's great to feel like being a filmmaker is about discovering things and sharing them with the world... It's hard to feel like anything we did made Arthur Lederman any more extraordinary than he was.

Arthur died last week -at the age of 104. It's easy to think about his tenure on this earth as an accomplishment... But if you knew him, or had the chance to see the film that was made about him, then you know his footprint on this earth was far greater than the sum of its years.

I first met Arthur on film - as I meet many people. He was portrayed in a student film that had been submitted for the CameraPlanet Innovation award that we judge each year at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Three graduate students had gone out to record the relationship between clients of Dorot - a Jewish service organization - and a group of young German home service aids.

In their travels they opened a door at 116th Street and Broadway - and found themselves in the apartment of Arthur Lederman.

Arthur was then a 101-year-old Polish refugee who lost his family in the Holocaust. His visitor was 21-year-old Christoph Erbsloeh, is a German student and the grandson of a soldier in Hitler’s army.

“If you were born 50 years ago, you would kill me” said Arthur in his first encounter with the first German to set foot in his apartment.

It was pure Arthur. Charming. Combative. Controversial. Feisty.

And while I 'meet' hundreds of people on film every month... I can't think of but a few that I feel compelled to seek out in person.

So I reached out to the filmmakers -both to help them finish their film, and to make a connection with the man they had embraced. Amy Rubin, Michael Rey, and Stefan Knerrich were the three grad students.

The film begun at Columbia, they skillfully crafted into the documentary feature "Facing Arthur".

Inside his apartment - there was a treasure trove of sculpture, watercolors, and memories. Arthur was a concert Violinist. He was an accomplished artist. He spoke Polish, German, Russian, and Hebrew. We was a Talmudic scholar.

He was a soaring spirit.

And he had been trapped - in the Upper West Side apartment.

So we didn't discover him. He discovered us. He allowed us the privilege of knowing him. And not in a casual way.

Once you met him - he was in your life. His laugh. His wisdom. His extraordinary view of world events. Moments after 9/11 - my thoughts raced
to him. Would this terrible tragedy crush his spirit. No, I quickly understood, he'd seen tragedy before.

He's live through this century. A difficult one. He came to America alone. His wife ran away with a rich man. His music had made him a star in prewar Poland, while here he suffered as a music teacher.

“I’ve got a sense of humor!” says Arthur in the film. “You don’t buy your sense of humor at Macy’s, even if they say it’s 25 percent cheaper!”

And humor he has - but always to a purpose.

“Children in Germany aren’t killing Jews anymore, but they don’t know anything about Jews" says Arthur. "How did you imagine a Jew? With a crooked nose?”

For almost 3 years... Arthur became the center of a group of friends and filmmakers. First with Amy, and Michael, and Stephan. Then as I broke the 4th wall and ask Amy to introduce me... He charmed and embraced my family. My older son, at the time 12 years old, was studying to be a Bar Mitzvah. And Arthur became his teacher. Both gentle and formidable... We would go for visits and he would insist on a scholarly response. Soon Max and biking up the 20 block on weekends to spend time with Arthur on his own.

In September of 2002, when Max was reading from the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah...he spoke eloquently about Arthur and all that this man had taught him. What an extraordinary gift to give a boy that had just a year earlier been a strangers son.

Arthur had faced adversity, sadness, joy, loss, and the extraordinary weight of a mind that is both extraordinarily empathetic and deeply judgmental and demanding. To those closest to him, Arthur's probing could be piercingly painful. He said to Christof once, without rancor - “You know, you have a little Hitler in you. Deep in your being, you are a Hitler.”

Sharp tongued. But empathetic. He was born on Christmas day. He says with his wry smile "two great Jews born on that day." And he laughs.

Arthur was always coy about his age... Not because he didn't want to reveal his years as much as not wanting to be judged by them. More than twice my age, more than once I thought he was younger than I was.

Always - the question of 'how long' was in the air. He'd broken all the records. He was in good spirits. He lived at home. His intellect was very much in tact. His signature was beautiful. "Of course... It has ART in it"

Arthur grinned when complimented on his name. Another Arthur-ism.

And then the subject -mostly unspoken - of the fact that he'd already outlived all of his peers.

"I don't know - perhaps I'm immortal" he said when asked about his tenure on this earth.

And the truth is - if immortality is being able to live forever, then he is immortal.

His art. His humor. His music. His sculpture. His philosophy. All recorded, all wrapped in the careful fabric of a movie.

Did Amy and her peers find him?
Or, in hindsight - did he send out some cosmic smoke signals from his apartment... A message in search of a messenger.

Sometimes... You don't make films. They make you.

We make films. And some days - it can feel really good. Today is one of those days...