The title of the new documentary “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” bounces off the title of the essay that Sacks published in The New York Times on Feb. 19, 2015 (“My Own Life”),…
” bounces off the title of the essay that Sacks published in The New York Times on Feb. 19, 2015 , days after he’d received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. It‘s a deceptively plain title. For Sacks, in his impish way, was suggesting that his own life, if you looked at it closely enough, might bear more than a passing resemblance to the idiosyncratic and richly freakish lives he chronicled in his case-study portraits that were really a form of wide-eyed literary biography.
You’d think a psychoanalytical neurologist with that kind of humanity and fortitude would be a relatively centered person, one with a rock-solid sense of boundaries. Far from it. At the time of the “Awakenings” experience, Sacks was emerging from his own slow-motion semi-catastrophe, a period of liberation that was also one of staggering self-destruction. Born in England in 1933, he’d come to the U.S.
Oliver never asked again, and part of the teasing mystery of “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” is that the movie, like Sacks himself, refuses to pin its subject down to anything as earthly as a diagnosis, because that would reduce him. He had enough torment about his sexuality that, after trying and failing to find a partner , he became celibate for 35 years.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Cream Drummer Ginger Baker ‘Holding His Own’ in HospitalCream drummer Ginger Baker is 'holding his own' after his family confirmed he's critically ill in the hospital
Read more »
Busbee, In His Own Words: The Late Producer on Why He Fell in Love With NashvilleIn Nashville, Busbee was considered one of the good guys. That may go without saying for a lot of writer-producers in a town where being a bad guy isn’t really allowed, but there was a special affe…
Read more »
I teach women how to do their own PR, and this is the secret to success'My clients come to me feeling like it's a complicated process, it doesn't have to be'
Read more »
Why Everyone Should Own a Set of Mini Resistance BandsIt’s well worth the $10 investment.
Read more »
Cream Drummer Ginger Baker 'Holding His Own,' Receiving Visitors in HospitalCream drummer Ginger Baker (GingerBDrums) is 'holding his own' and receiving visitors in the hospital:
Read more »