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OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE Documentary Films

Description

Talent attending: Rick Burns (Director)

Famed neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks (THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT and many others), who died in 2015, led an extraordinary life. Less well known are the many obstacles he faced: a tortuous boarding school, a mother who shunned him for being gay, a crippling drug habit as a young man, and a career path encumbered by failure and self-doubt. Not until his experience treating patients at a chronic care facility in the Bronx — recounted in his book AWAKENINGS — did Sacks’ exceptional skills in neurology and literature finally come together.

Granted intimate access to Sacks and his close circle during his final months, master filmmaker Ric Burns has crafted a deeply moving documentary that captures Sacks’ remarkable life and reveals the enormity of his spirit. –Ken Jacobson

Accessibility: CCAP

Bios

Ric Burns is a documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for his eight-part, 17-hour series NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM, which premiered nationally on PBS to critical acclaim (1999, 2001, 2003). Burns has been writing, directing and producing historical documentaries for over 25 years, since the PBS series THE CIVIL WAR (1990), which he produced with his brother Ken and co-wrote with Geoffrey Ward. He has directed many films of note for PBS including THE DONNER PARTY (1992), THE WAY WEST (1995), ANSEL ADAMS (2002), ANDY WARHOL (2006) and THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT (2018). His work has won numerous awards including six Emmys®, three Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Journalism awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Organization of American Historians’ Erick Barnouw prizes, three Writers Guild of America Awards and the D.W. Griffith Award of the National Board of Review.