At the request of the distributor, rentals of OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE are only available in Tennessee.
PRICE*: $10 ($8 Belcourt members) | VIEWING WINDOW: 3 days
WATCH ON: Computer, tablet, smartphone, Chromecast, AirPlay (or use a HDMI cable to connect your computer or tablet with your TV)
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*For non-members, your ticket purchase will also include a $1.50 service fee, added during check-out. We’re delighted to be able to provide member pricing for this film. When prompted, sign-in or create a Belcourt account.
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OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE explores the life and work of the legendary neurologist and best-selling storyteller, as he shares intimate details of his battles with drug addiction, familial homophobia, and an elitist medical establishment that accepted his research only decades after the fact. Sacks, known for his literary works “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” was a fearless explorer of unknown cognitive worlds who helped redefine our understanding of the brain and mind, the diversity of human experience, and our shared humanity.
Featuring exclusive interviews with Sacks conducted only a few weeks after he received a terminal diagnosis, just months prior to his death in August 2015 — alongside deeply revealing and personal interviews with family, colleagues and close friends — including his longtime editor Kate Edgar, polymath Sir Jonathan Miller, Temple Grandin, Robert Krulwich (Radiolab), and The New York Review of Books editor Robert Silvers.
"A portrait at once tender and thrilling… A movie that presents us with a man who led an eccentrically defiant, at times reckless existence that was the furthest thing from cunningly planned. He was a wanderer in the body of a clinician, like Jack Kerouac crossed with Jonas Salk." —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
"A treasure trove full of interesting bits and pieces… It would be practically impossible to make a dull film about this man." —Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film UK
"...Elegantly photographed, and it is a tribute to [Ric] Burns’ discretion as well as his filmmaking skill that he earned the trust not just of Sacks but of so many others who played an important role in his life." —Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter
Virtual Science on Screen Q&A with filmmaker Ric Burns and Dr. Atul Gawande
Wed, Sep 30 at 7:00pm CDT | Click here to watch
Our fellow arthouse, the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA, is hosting a virtual Science on Screen Q&A with filmmaker Ric Burns and renowned surgeon, writer, and public health leader Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, who is featured in the film.
About Ric Burns:
Ric Burns is an internationally recognized documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for his eight-part, 17.5-hour series, “New York: A Documentary Film,” which premiered nationally on PBS to wide public and critical acclaim when broadcast in Nov 1999, Sep 2001, and Sep 2003.
Burns has been writing, directing and producing historical documentaries for over 25 years, since his collaboration on the PBS series “The Civil War” (1990), which he produced with his brother Ken and co-wrote with Geoffrey C. Ward. Since founding Steeplechase Films in 1989, he has directed distinguished programs for PBS including “Coney Island” (1991), “The Donner Party” (1992), “The Way West” (1995), “Ansel Adams” (2002), “Eugene O’Neill” and “Andy Warhol”(2006), “We Shall Remain: Tecumseh’s Vision” (2009), “Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World” (2010), “Death and the Civil War” (2012), “American Ballet Theatre” (2015), “Debt of Honor” (2015), “The Pilgrims” (2015), “VA: The Human Cost of War” (2017), and “The Chinese Exclusion Act” (2018).
His work has won numerous film and television awards including six Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, three Writers Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing; the Eric Barnouw Award of the Organization of American Historians, and the D.W. Griffith Award of the National Board of Review.
About Atul Gawande:
Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a surgeon, writer and public health leader. He is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is the founder and chair of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He is also chairman of Haven, where he was CEO from 2018 to 2020.
Atul has also been staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1998 and has written four New York Times best selling books: “Complications,” “Better,” “The Checklist Manifesto,” and “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.” He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.
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