Mark Reviews Movies: OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 22, 2020

The framing and form of Oliver Sacks: His Own Life suggest a pretty typical biographical documentary. Director Ric Burns watches Oliver Sacks, the famous neurologist and writer who studied and wrote about people with neurological differences, as he tells the story of his life, from childhood until filming the documentary at the beginning of 2015.

On the surface, the occasion is the completion and forthcoming publication of his memoir, but beneath all of that is Sacks' recent diagnosis with terminal cancer. He is going to die in a matter of months.

Describing the impact of this knowledge on the film is difficult, if only because it defines so much of how and why Burns' documentary ultimately does go above and beyond the usual effect and method of biography. We're watching Sacks, filled with energy and telling his story with admirable frankness, and then we see and hear his friends, his colleagues, assorted experts, and people whom he inspired speaking of Sacks in the past tense.

The juxtaposition of Sacks' storytelling with those talking head interviews immediately gives the film a sense of sadness, as well as urgency. The man needs to tell his story now, because we know, very soon, it will be too late.

The fascinating thing about the film is how little influence Burns seems to impose upon that final narrative. He allows Sacks to talk, without much prompting and with very few questions. Sacks knows his own story better than anyone else, and the filmmaker trusts that fact. The doctor has a point to make, too, about the purpose of his work and the lessons he believes people should take from it. Burns' documentary is here to support and bolster those thoughts.

As a result, this film isn't so much a chronology of Sacks' personal and professional accomplishments. We do get the basics, though—from his difficult childhood, to his rebellious youth, to his difficulties with drugs and his struggles with his sexuality, and to the long road to being recognized and accepted by the scientific community.

Through specific case studies and Sacks' own experiences, the film becomes more about his methodology, his goals, and his seemingly endless sense of empathy. Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is a thoughtful and thought-provoking work, guided by Sacks, helped along by some intelligent and insightful supporting experts, and presented in a straightforward and generous manner by Burns.

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