Eye-opening portrait
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life (E, 111 mins)
Directed by Ric Burns Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★
About a million years ago, I accidentally cooked lunch for Oliver Sacks. I was at my then-partner’s parents’ beach house, happily getting ready to get some fish in the pan and maybe put together a few things out of the fridge that could credibly be described as ‘‘a salad’’, when the parents arrived, with a quiet and very nearly spherical figure in tow.
We dutifully chucked more fish in the pan and leaves in the bowl, and settled down to eat.
It was only later that I found out the bloke we had made lunch for was the neurologist whose work inspired the film Awakenings ,an author who had improbably put the chemistry of the brain into the best sellers’ lists and an even more complex and embattled man than any of us at lunch that day might have guessed.
Director Ric Burns (brother of Ken, and a very fine film-maker himself) weaves together interviews, archive material, still photographs and audio to build up an insightful, affectionate and satisfying portrait of an immensely inspiring figure.
Sacks lived with addiction, psychological distress and the homophobia of others.
He comes complete with a backstory that includes years in the San Francisco leather bar scene, compulsive weight-lifting and body building, profound heartbreak and, eventually, absolutely transcendent joy.
It is, in every sense, an incredible trip. Go and see His Own Life.
Even if you don’t know anything about Sacks, you’ll be delighted to meet him. I just wish I’d known at the time that I had.