1
00:00:01,033 --> 00:00:09,333
♪♪♪

2
00:00:31,700 --> 00:00:34,466
-Listen, can you
repeat your question...

3
00:00:34,500 --> 00:00:35,933
-Yes.

4
00:00:35,966 --> 00:00:37,766
- ...more shortly?
- Mm-hmm.

5
00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:39,600
-I only have an attention span

6
00:00:39,633 --> 00:00:40,933
of about 12 seconds.

7
00:00:40,966 --> 00:00:43,866
- Shouting out...
- So, are we rolling?

8
00:00:43,900 --> 00:00:46,100
-I suppose I could always
stand up if I wanted.

9
00:00:46,133 --> 00:00:47,700
- You can do whatever you want.
- Yes.

10
00:00:47,733 --> 00:00:49,166
- You are...
- I just felt like...

11
00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:50,400
-The whole idea, Dr. Sacks,

12
00:00:50,433 --> 00:00:51,866
is you can move
anywhere you want.

13
00:00:51,900 --> 00:00:53,800
-Okay.

14
00:00:53,833 --> 00:00:57,766
-Now, listen, should I be,
as it were, looking at you,

15
00:00:57,800 --> 00:00:59,633
looking at you?

16
00:00:59,666 --> 00:01:03,966
-Looking wherever your emotional
kind of wherever...

17
00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,900
-On analytic days... and
Monday is an analytical day...

18
00:01:07,933 --> 00:01:11,533
I have my Freudian cup
for coffee.

19
00:01:11,566 --> 00:01:16,300
I first saw my analyst
in January of '66,

20
00:01:16,333 --> 00:01:18,666
and so we are now
in our 50th year,

21
00:01:18,700 --> 00:01:21,200
and we're beginning
to get somewhere.

22
00:01:21,233 --> 00:01:23,533
- [ Laughter ]
- Eh.

23
00:01:23,566 --> 00:01:26,266
Incidentally, um,

24
00:01:26,300 --> 00:01:30,133
when I first saw Shengold,
my analyst, in '66,

25
00:01:30,166 --> 00:01:34,100
I was taking a great deal
of amphetamine at the time.

26
00:01:34,133 --> 00:01:38,466
And I was sort of psychotic,
or half-psychotic,

27
00:01:38,500 --> 00:01:39,833
for much of the time.

28
00:01:39,866 --> 00:01:42,366
And having
a schizophrenic brother,

29
00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:46,600
I once said to Shengold,
"Am I schizophrenic, too?"

30
00:01:46,633 --> 00:01:48,300
He said, "No."

31
00:01:48,333 --> 00:01:52,533
And then I said,
"Am I then merely neurotic?"

32
00:01:52,566 --> 00:01:54,500
And he said, "No."

33
00:01:54,533 --> 00:01:56,433
And we left it there.

34
00:01:56,466 --> 00:01:59,766
[ Laughter ]

35
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:01,566
♪♪♪

36
00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:04,133
Now, um, I'm...

37
00:02:04,166 --> 00:02:06,366
I'm also going to say something

38
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:09,333
which, if you want,
for the moment, is off-record.

39
00:02:09,366 --> 00:02:12,333
- Yes.
- Um. Oh [bleep].

40
00:02:12,366 --> 00:02:16,566
I'm afraid some... some of my...
Oh, bugger.

41
00:02:16,600 --> 00:02:19,200
Sometimes it's "[bleep],"
and sometimes it's "bugger."

42
00:02:19,233 --> 00:02:21,366
[ Laughter ]

43
00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:23,833
And sometimes it's both.
Sometimes it's "bugger [bleep]."

44
00:02:23,866 --> 00:02:27,233
I do a lot of cursing.

45
00:02:27,266 --> 00:02:29,533
Multi-syllabic cursing.

46
00:02:29,566 --> 00:02:32,000
♪♪♪

47
00:02:32,033 --> 00:02:33,500
I've been asked,

48
00:02:33,533 --> 00:02:36,400
"Are you a doctor first
and then a writer?"

49
00:02:36,433 --> 00:02:41,666
I think the real answer
is that I'm equally both,

50
00:02:41,700 --> 00:02:45,433
and, in important ways,
they blend together,

51
00:02:45,466 --> 00:02:48,300
and in a way,
they can certainly be united

52
00:02:48,333 --> 00:02:51,600
in case histories.

53
00:02:51,633 --> 00:02:53,466
And one way or another,

54
00:02:53,500 --> 00:02:57,166
I have been turning my life
into writing.

55
00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:58,833
♪♪♪

56
00:02:58,866 --> 00:03:01,066
Mostly my clinical life,

57
00:03:01,100 --> 00:03:04,766
but a certain amount of
my personal life, as well.

58
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:10,100
♪♪♪

59
00:03:10,133 --> 00:03:12,933
I'm an inveterate storyteller,

60
00:03:12,966 --> 00:03:15,266
and I tell many, many stories,

61
00:03:15,300 --> 00:03:19,233
some comic, some tragic.

62
00:03:19,266 --> 00:03:22,400
I was about to say
"some true, some untrue."

63
00:03:22,433 --> 00:03:25,633
Sometimes a little tuning
here and there.

64
00:03:25,666 --> 00:03:29,266
♪♪♪

65
00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:34,666
This was an earlier me,
in an earlier incarnation.

66
00:03:34,700 --> 00:03:40,233
I came to America in 1960
on my 27th birthday.

67
00:03:40,266 --> 00:03:44,300
I'm now three times 27, or 81.

68
00:03:44,333 --> 00:03:46,300
I never expected to make 80.

69
00:03:46,333 --> 00:03:48,900
In fact, I never expected
to make 40.

70
00:03:48,933 --> 00:03:52,100
I was rather destructive
when I was younger.

71
00:03:52,133 --> 00:03:54,066
♪♪♪

72
00:03:54,100 --> 00:03:56,066
Much of my life has been spent

73
00:03:56,100 --> 00:04:00,800
trying to imagine what it's like
to be another sentient being,

74
00:04:00,833 --> 00:04:03,266
what it's like to be a bat,

75
00:04:03,300 --> 00:04:06,266
what it's like to be an octopus,

76
00:04:06,300 --> 00:04:08,866
what it's like to be
anyone else, for that matter,

77
00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:11,000
what it's like
to be another human being.

78
00:04:11,033 --> 00:04:14,500
I mean, we all have our
solitary consciousnesses.

79
00:04:14,533 --> 00:04:17,200
♪♪♪

80
00:04:17,233 --> 00:04:19,866
18 months ago, I had a sense

81
00:04:19,900 --> 00:04:23,466
of wanting to complete my life,
whatever that meant.

82
00:04:23,500 --> 00:04:27,166
And one thing was to try
and look at it as a whole

83
00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:30,800
and articulate it,
which I've tried to do here.

84
00:04:32,933 --> 00:04:35,533
Now, incidentally, are we on
film? Was that all on film?

85
00:04:35,566 --> 00:04:36,766
- Yes.
- Good. Okay, good.

86
00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:38,133
- Oh, yes. Everything's...
- Good.

87
00:04:38,166 --> 00:04:41,600
Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.
And let me introduce.

88
00:04:41,633 --> 00:04:47,033
Um, there is Hallie,
who is one of my helpers.

89
00:04:47,066 --> 00:04:51,266
Here is invaluable, unique Kate,

90
00:04:51,300 --> 00:04:55,200
who has been my editor,
collaborator, friend,

91
00:04:55,233 --> 00:04:59,966
and ghostwriter for many years.

92
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:04,500
And somewhere or other, um...

93
00:05:04,533 --> 00:05:05,866
Billy!

94
00:05:05,900 --> 00:05:07,933
- He's right here.
- Oh, there you are.

95
00:05:07,966 --> 00:05:11,966
Here is Billy,
who is a fellow writer

96
00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:15,000
and who lives in the building

97
00:05:15,033 --> 00:05:20,633
and to whom I dedicate
the present book.

98
00:05:20,666 --> 00:05:24,700
Despite all sorts
of contradictions

99
00:05:24,733 --> 00:05:26,366
and odd directions,

100
00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:31,366
there does seem to be
a single person here...

101
00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:35,933
and one who,
though seemingly unstable

102
00:05:35,966 --> 00:05:38,266
and actually unstable
in many ways,

103
00:05:38,300 --> 00:05:42,266
has steadily tried
to look at human nature

104
00:05:42,300 --> 00:05:45,266
from the viewpoint
of a clinical neurologist

105
00:05:45,300 --> 00:05:47,466
who sees neurological disorders.

106
00:05:47,500 --> 00:05:52,700
♪♪♪

107
00:05:52,733 --> 00:05:56,033
- Here's Dr. Sacks.
- Oh, hello.

108
00:05:56,066 --> 00:05:59,700
Mr. Capparelli.
How nice to see you again.

109
00:05:59,733 --> 00:06:01,066
How are you doing?

110
00:06:01,100 --> 00:06:02,833
- Fine.
- Fine.

111
00:06:02,866 --> 00:06:07,433
You think this is the condition
which your mother had and...

112
00:06:07,466 --> 00:06:09,200
- Yeah.
- ...and her mother?

113
00:06:09,233 --> 00:06:11,566
-Yeah, and her mother, yeah.

114
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:15,466
-Do you have any movement
here at the fingers?

115
00:06:15,500 --> 00:06:17,566
-He was a person
with a question.

116
00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:19,333
I think the question
was always...

117
00:06:19,366 --> 00:06:21,433
-Can you usually look
at a newspaper most days?

118
00:06:21,466 --> 00:06:24,033
-..."Who am I?
Why do I feel these things?

119
00:06:24,066 --> 00:06:26,066
Why don't I feel
what other people feel?"

120
00:06:26,100 --> 00:06:28,466
-What sort of work did you
used to do, Mr. Capparelli?

121
00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:30,666
-I was a foreman.

122
00:06:30,700 --> 00:06:32,666
-But in order
to answer his question,

123
00:06:32,700 --> 00:06:35,033
his method was to look
into other people.

124
00:06:35,066 --> 00:06:37,866
-This illness,
you look on the positive side.

125
00:06:37,900 --> 00:06:39,200
-Yes.

126
00:06:39,233 --> 00:06:42,066
-And you've been able
to keep your spirits up...

127
00:06:42,100 --> 00:06:44,733
-Oliver saw medicine
a lot differently

128
00:06:44,766 --> 00:06:47,033
from the way
other people saw it.

129
00:06:47,066 --> 00:06:48,900
He was trying to conceptualize

130
00:06:48,933 --> 00:06:51,033
how people thought
and how they saw the world.

131
00:06:51,066 --> 00:06:52,266
-Okay. Bye, Elena.

132
00:06:52,300 --> 00:06:54,133
-Oliver believed that
there was some sort of

133
00:06:54,166 --> 00:06:57,466
cognitive-perceptual
inner world for everything

134
00:06:57,500 --> 00:07:00,633
you saw on the exterior
as a movement disorder,

135
00:07:00,666 --> 00:07:02,700
as a tic disorder,
or even as a dementia.

136
00:07:02,733 --> 00:07:04,966
-Let me just look at you.
I'm just going to...

137
00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:06,766
-He was somebody for whom

138
00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:09,833
the primary diagnostic
question was,

139
00:07:09,866 --> 00:07:13,466
"How are you? How do you be?"

140
00:07:13,500 --> 00:07:18,000
He was extraordinarily empathic
with his patients.

141
00:07:18,033 --> 00:07:21,933
♪♪♪

142
00:07:21,966 --> 00:07:26,000
-He was asking
as hard as a person can,

143
00:07:26,033 --> 00:07:28,933
"Who are you? I need to know.

144
00:07:28,966 --> 00:07:32,200
I need to know more.
I need to know even more."

145
00:07:32,233 --> 00:07:36,166
And his attention
would release people.

146
00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:40,200
He could get secrets.
He could learn things.

147
00:07:40,233 --> 00:07:41,500
-Everything in...

148
00:07:41,533 --> 00:07:43,500
-And then he will tell stories

149
00:07:43,533 --> 00:07:46,766
about people
in terrible trouble,

150
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,233
who are brave and special...

151
00:07:50,266 --> 00:07:52,666
and full of heart...

152
00:07:52,700 --> 00:07:55,166
paralyzed but not over.

153
00:07:55,200 --> 00:07:56,633
He will take
this thread of them,

154
00:07:56,666 --> 00:08:00,833
and he will pull them out,
pull them slowly out.

155
00:08:00,866 --> 00:08:02,633
But what he also did
simultaneously,

156
00:08:02,666 --> 00:08:04,366
which was the great part,

157
00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:08,100
is he pulled the whole world in
the other way.

158
00:08:08,133 --> 00:08:10,800
He would tell these stories
so well

159
00:08:10,833 --> 00:08:15,533
that other people...
playwrights, actors, poets...

160
00:08:15,566 --> 00:08:18,033
would pick up the stories
he tells, retell them,

161
00:08:18,066 --> 00:08:20,300
or tell them in their own way.

162
00:08:20,333 --> 00:08:22,633
And the net effect
is that people

163
00:08:22,666 --> 00:08:25,700
who are lonely and left out...

164
00:08:25,733 --> 00:08:28,533
autistic people, Touretters,

165
00:08:28,566 --> 00:08:32,733
people in all kinds
of mental difficulties...

166
00:08:32,766 --> 00:08:34,800
are storied back into the world.

167
00:08:34,833 --> 00:08:38,866
♪♪♪

168
00:08:38,900 --> 00:08:43,900
-He was in a way the archetypal
patient, not doctor.

169
00:08:43,933 --> 00:08:47,166
The one who could see
from inside

170
00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:49,266
the person he had
in front of him,

171
00:08:49,300 --> 00:08:52,000
and the person was himself,
first of all.

172
00:08:52,033 --> 00:08:55,666
So that is a case
which has no parallel.

173
00:08:55,700 --> 00:08:56,966
-Dare I hug a sister?

174
00:08:57,000 --> 00:08:58,666
-Doctor. Oh, surely.
Take care of yourself.

175
00:08:58,700 --> 00:09:00,166
It's wonderful to see you,
Doctor.

176
00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:02,166
-Thank you very much.

177
00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:05,233
-Sister Lorraine
at Little Sisters

178
00:09:05,266 --> 00:09:09,600
said, "Clearly he has
been through something.

179
00:09:09,633 --> 00:09:11,266
You know,
he never talks about it,

180
00:09:11,300 --> 00:09:15,100
but, clearly,
you don't get like this

181
00:09:15,133 --> 00:09:19,433
without deep, deep experience."

182
00:09:19,466 --> 00:09:22,866
-Life threw
so many things at him.

183
00:09:22,900 --> 00:09:25,166
Not finding his niche
for a long time,

184
00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:28,666
being ignored by colleagues,
being criticized.

185
00:09:28,700 --> 00:09:30,433
And then his own
personal travails,

186
00:09:30,466 --> 00:09:32,233
some of which
he brought on himself,

187
00:09:32,266 --> 00:09:35,500
he was the first to admit.

188
00:09:35,533 --> 00:09:37,500
-He had always been
very reluctant

189
00:09:37,533 --> 00:09:41,266
to discuss certain parts
of his life.

190
00:09:41,300 --> 00:09:43,966
Most of his adult years
were so troubled

191
00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:47,733
that he really wasn't ready
to explore that.

192
00:09:47,766 --> 00:09:51,233
-Listen. I'm going to get on
to a bit of narrative.

193
00:09:51,266 --> 00:09:52,600
We've advanced now...

194
00:09:52,633 --> 00:09:56,300
-But now he very much wanted
to go on record,

195
00:09:56,333 --> 00:09:59,533
not only in the book
but on film,

196
00:09:59,566 --> 00:10:03,900
to say, "What do I need to say
before I'm done?"

197
00:10:03,933 --> 00:10:08,133
♪♪♪

198
00:10:08,166 --> 00:10:12,033
-There's quite a lot of things
which are not in the book.

199
00:10:12,066 --> 00:10:14,533
The most essential one is that

200
00:10:14,566 --> 00:10:18,466
last month I was told
that I had metastatic cancer

201
00:10:18,500 --> 00:10:22,133
and that it's
a matter of months,

202
00:10:22,166 --> 00:10:24,000
maybe a year, if I'm lucky.

203
00:10:24,033 --> 00:10:28,633
♪♪♪

204
00:10:28,666 --> 00:10:31,466
-The day after
he got the diagnosis

205
00:10:31,500 --> 00:10:37,166
that melanoma had spread
to his liver in early 2015,

206
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:41,566
he had really just delivered
the manuscript of his memoir

207
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:44,000
two weeks before.

208
00:10:44,033 --> 00:10:47,300
I called the publisher,
and I said,

209
00:10:47,333 --> 00:10:51,133
"We can't wait until September
to publish this book

210
00:10:51,166 --> 00:10:55,300
because Oliver
may not be alive by then."

211
00:10:55,333 --> 00:10:57,933
♪♪♪

212
00:10:57,966 --> 00:11:01,733
It was very important to him
to be alive to see it.

213
00:11:01,766 --> 00:11:04,933
♪♪♪

214
00:11:04,966 --> 00:11:07,000
[ Piano playing ]

215
00:11:07,033 --> 00:11:16,833
♪♪♪

216
00:11:16,866 --> 00:11:19,600
-This was my haunt for 40 years.

217
00:11:19,633 --> 00:11:23,133
Beth Abraham, in the Bronx.

218
00:11:23,166 --> 00:11:26,133
50 years later,
coming in for a visit,

219
00:11:26,166 --> 00:11:29,133
I think I'm sometimes looked at
as if I were Lazarus.

220
00:11:29,166 --> 00:11:32,166
"What, you here?
You still vertical?"

221
00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:38,133
♪♪♪

222
00:11:38,166 --> 00:11:40,466
When the hospital opened,
it was for people

223
00:11:40,500 --> 00:11:45,233
with chronic
neurological disease.

224
00:11:45,266 --> 00:11:50,766
This particular area and floor
was a horrific one.

225
00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:57,833
♪♪♪

226
00:11:57,866 --> 00:12:00,900
For people with
severe dementia...

227
00:12:00,933 --> 00:12:06,200
and also some people who were
in coma or vegetative states.

228
00:12:06,233 --> 00:12:13,600
♪♪♪

229
00:12:13,633 --> 00:12:19,233
I came here in October 1966
and spent some months

230
00:12:19,266 --> 00:12:23,100
getting to know
all of the patients here.

231
00:12:23,133 --> 00:12:29,100
And among them,
I found some remarkable patients

232
00:12:29,133 --> 00:12:31,033
who were motionless

233
00:12:31,066 --> 00:12:33,800
and sometimes
in strange postures,

234
00:12:33,833 --> 00:12:36,100
many of whom
had been admitted here

235
00:12:36,133 --> 00:12:38,766
when the hospital opened in 1920

236
00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:42,900
in the height of the epidemic
of sleepy sickness.

237
00:12:42,933 --> 00:12:45,100
♪♪♪

238
00:12:45,133 --> 00:12:50,433
-It seemed to me that the great
seminal moment in his life,

239
00:12:50,466 --> 00:12:54,633
as a creative person,
as a doctor, and as a writer,

240
00:12:54,666 --> 00:12:57,766
is him arriving at Beth Abraham

241
00:12:57,800 --> 00:12:59,900
and noticing
that some of these patients

242
00:12:59,933 --> 00:13:03,133
are not like the other ones...

243
00:13:03,166 --> 00:13:05,266
and he has the moral audacity

244
00:13:05,300 --> 00:13:07,200
to think that some
of these patients,

245
00:13:07,233 --> 00:13:08,966
not only are they different,

246
00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,666
but they're alive, something's
going on inside there,

247
00:13:12,700 --> 00:13:15,433
which is a terrifying thought.

248
00:13:15,466 --> 00:13:17,633
And the question was,
how was that possible?

249
00:13:17,666 --> 00:13:19,600
What in this person's life
had made it

250
00:13:19,633 --> 00:13:21,733
that he might have this insight?

251
00:13:21,766 --> 00:13:25,533
♪♪♪

252
00:13:25,566 --> 00:13:27,866
[ Birds chirping ]

253
00:13:32,166 --> 00:13:34,800
-Our house
was in Northwest London,

254
00:13:34,833 --> 00:13:38,100
in Kilburn, near Golders Green,

255
00:13:38,133 --> 00:13:40,600
at the intersection
of two roads.

256
00:13:43,233 --> 00:13:47,300
I was born there
on July the 9th, 1933.

257
00:13:48,933 --> 00:13:51,300
♪♪♪

258
00:13:51,333 --> 00:13:54,433
Our family was a typical
Orthodox Jewish

259
00:13:54,466 --> 00:13:57,066
middle-class family.

260
00:13:57,100 --> 00:14:00,933
From an early age,
it was understood

261
00:14:00,966 --> 00:14:04,066
that I was going to be a doctor.

262
00:14:04,100 --> 00:14:07,166
My mother and father
were both physicians,

263
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:10,233
and so were two of my three
older brothers.

264
00:14:10,266 --> 00:14:13,533
♪♪♪

265
00:14:13,566 --> 00:14:17,000
-His father, Sam,
was a classic GP.

266
00:14:17,033 --> 00:14:20,700
He was part of the community.
He was on call 24 hours.

267
00:14:20,733 --> 00:14:24,866
People called him at all times
of the day and the night.

268
00:14:24,900 --> 00:14:28,600
-His mother, Elsie,
also had a very busy practice

269
00:14:28,633 --> 00:14:31,700
as a gynecologist and surgeon.

270
00:14:31,733 --> 00:14:33,700
-She was clearly brilliant.

271
00:14:33,733 --> 00:14:37,200
She was one of the foremost
surgeons in England

272
00:14:37,233 --> 00:14:40,466
and certainly one of
the first women surgeons.

273
00:14:40,500 --> 00:14:43,300
-It was an incredibly talented
family.

274
00:14:43,333 --> 00:14:46,933
And Oliver was the brilliant
prodigy and favorite,

275
00:14:46,966 --> 00:14:50,400
doted upon by all.

276
00:14:50,433 --> 00:14:53,800
Effervescent,
exuberant, enthusiastic,

277
00:14:53,833 --> 00:14:57,533
but also painfully,
painfully shy.

278
00:14:57,566 --> 00:15:01,600
-I was accident-prone,
always injuring myself.

279
00:15:01,633 --> 00:15:04,133
I was face-blind,

280
00:15:04,166 --> 00:15:07,933
and I suffered
terrifying migraines.

281
00:15:07,966 --> 00:15:11,200
My mother also had migraines,
and she explained to me

282
00:15:11,233 --> 00:15:15,300
how part of the brain
would be affected for a while

283
00:15:15,333 --> 00:15:17,400
then come back to normal.

284
00:15:19,933 --> 00:15:22,633
My mother, we were close,

285
00:15:22,666 --> 00:15:27,933
although it was perhaps
an uneasy closeness,

286
00:15:27,966 --> 00:15:29,600
and sometimes too close.

287
00:15:29,633 --> 00:15:34,500
I think she wanted me
to be like her.

288
00:15:34,533 --> 00:15:36,233
♪♪♪

289
00:15:36,266 --> 00:15:39,833
Sometimes, especially
when I was very young,

290
00:15:39,866 --> 00:15:42,600
she might deliver
a baby or a fetus

291
00:15:42,633 --> 00:15:44,466
with anencephaly, so-called,

292
00:15:44,500 --> 00:15:47,400
with the top of the head
missing and non-viable,

293
00:15:47,433 --> 00:15:49,766
and she would sometimes
bring a fetus home

294
00:15:49,800 --> 00:15:52,333
and suggest I dissect it.

295
00:15:52,366 --> 00:15:57,666
And that was not... not so easy
for a child of 10 or 11.

296
00:15:59,666 --> 00:16:01,633
[ Bombs exploding ]

297
00:16:01,666 --> 00:16:08,666
♪♪♪

298
00:16:08,700 --> 00:16:11,100
-When the Battle of Britain
began,

299
00:16:11,133 --> 00:16:13,366
all kids were being evacuated
to the countryside,

300
00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:18,066
but especially kids
whose parents were doctors.

301
00:16:18,100 --> 00:16:21,866
-We were all evacuated to
a country town during the war,

302
00:16:21,900 --> 00:16:24,500
but I was with my family.

303
00:16:24,533 --> 00:16:28,133
Oliver had this separation
to endure,

304
00:16:28,166 --> 00:16:30,166
and, of course, it was
devastating for Michael.

305
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:33,266
That seemed
to have been the trigger

306
00:16:33,300 --> 00:16:35,233
of Michael's problems.

307
00:16:35,266 --> 00:16:40,700
♪♪♪

308
00:16:40,733 --> 00:16:45,133
-My brother Michael and I
were evacuated together

309
00:16:45,166 --> 00:16:48,366
and spent 18 months
at a hideous boarding school

310
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:50,500
in the Midlands.

311
00:16:50,533 --> 00:16:53,466
We were bullied. We were beaten.

312
00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:56,866
And I think the circumstances
did something

313
00:16:56,900 --> 00:17:00,766
to push my brother Michael
towards psychosis.

314
00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,066
♪♪♪

315
00:17:03,100 --> 00:17:08,800
Soon after this, when he was 15,
Michael became psychotic.

316
00:17:08,833 --> 00:17:12,233
He was diagnosed
as schizophrenic.

317
00:17:12,266 --> 00:17:15,000
He could no longer
sleep or rest,

318
00:17:15,033 --> 00:17:18,566
but agitatedly strode to and fro
in the house,

319
00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:23,333
stamping his feet, glaring,
hallucinating, shouting.

320
00:17:23,366 --> 00:17:26,100
[ Young Michael shouting ]

321
00:17:26,133 --> 00:17:30,300
I became terrified of him,
for him,

322
00:17:30,333 --> 00:17:35,100
of the nightmare which was
becoming reality for him.

323
00:17:35,133 --> 00:17:37,966
What would happen to Michael?

324
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,933
And would something similar
happen to me, too?

325
00:17:40,966 --> 00:17:48,633
♪♪♪

326
00:17:48,666 --> 00:17:50,466
-The shadow of the brother

327
00:17:50,500 --> 00:17:55,600
was immensely powerful
in his mind.

328
00:17:55,633 --> 00:18:00,200
The terror.
The terror, simply.

329
00:18:00,233 --> 00:18:04,233
♪♪♪

330
00:18:04,266 --> 00:18:08,200
-The effect on my parents
was devastating.

331
00:18:08,233 --> 00:18:11,466
A sense of shame, of stigma...

332
00:18:11,500 --> 00:18:14,533
of secrecy, entered our lives,

333
00:18:14,566 --> 00:18:18,033
compounding the actuality
of Michael's condition.

334
00:18:18,066 --> 00:18:21,033
♪♪♪

335
00:18:21,066 --> 00:18:25,566
It was at this time that I set
up my own lab in the house

336
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:29,700
and closed the doors,
closed my ears,

337
00:18:29,733 --> 00:18:33,000
against Michael's madness.

338
00:18:33,033 --> 00:18:36,133
I felt a passionate sympathy
for him,

339
00:18:36,166 --> 00:18:39,033
but I had to keep
a distance, also,

340
00:18:39,066 --> 00:18:41,400
create my own world of science,

341
00:18:41,433 --> 00:18:44,966
so that I would not
be swept into the chaos,

342
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,466
the madness, the seduction,
of his.

343
00:18:48,500 --> 00:18:51,566
♪♪♪

344
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:55,133
-He was very close to Michael.

345
00:18:55,166 --> 00:18:58,866
Oliver cared very deeply
about Michael.

346
00:18:58,900 --> 00:19:03,633
He felt tremendous empathy
and sorrow, as well,

347
00:19:03,666 --> 00:19:05,666
that Michael's life
had been allowed

348
00:19:05,700 --> 00:19:11,233
to slide so far down the ravine.

349
00:19:11,266 --> 00:19:13,233
Michael was one of the reasons

350
00:19:13,266 --> 00:19:16,866
why Oliver did what he did
professionally.

351
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:24,233
-Oliver's empathy
didn't start with people.

352
00:19:24,266 --> 00:19:27,266
It goes much beyond that.

353
00:19:27,300 --> 00:19:32,366
The first friends he had,
at 6, he says,

354
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:34,800
were numbers.

355
00:19:34,833 --> 00:19:40,300
Numbers, then he went
to minerals and metals at 10.

356
00:19:40,333 --> 00:19:45,066
Then elements, plants
came before.

357
00:19:45,100 --> 00:19:47,900
And people.

358
00:19:47,933 --> 00:19:51,733
Humanity was
the very last thing.

359
00:19:51,766 --> 00:19:54,666
That was a reaction
to great suffering.

360
00:19:54,700 --> 00:19:58,933
♪♪♪

361
00:19:58,966 --> 00:20:02,333
-The love of chemistry
and of the periodic table

362
00:20:02,366 --> 00:20:07,266
was an absolutely constant
with me from an early age.

363
00:20:07,300 --> 00:20:12,366
I've loved the elements
since I was 10 or 11.

364
00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:16,366
I have a periodic-table
bedspread on my bed.

365
00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:19,533
I have shopping bags
with periodic tables.

366
00:20:19,566 --> 00:20:22,566
I have many
periodic-table T-shirts.

367
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:26,933
And I have some
periodic-table socks.

368
00:20:26,966 --> 00:20:28,700
-From the very beginning,

369
00:20:28,733 --> 00:20:33,133
he had a real relationship
with inanimate objects.

370
00:20:33,166 --> 00:20:35,800
He carried a periodic table
in his wallet

371
00:20:35,833 --> 00:20:38,966
like the rest of us
carry a driver's license.

372
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:40,966
-I love it very much.

373
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:43,800
It stands for order, stability,

374
00:20:43,833 --> 00:20:48,200
but it also stands for
imagination and mystery.

375
00:20:48,233 --> 00:20:51,133
-He liked to get an element
for each year

376
00:20:51,166 --> 00:20:52,700
to celebrate his birthday.

377
00:20:52,733 --> 00:20:54,800
Number 77 is iridium.

378
00:20:54,833 --> 00:20:58,166
And he came to my very
primitive laboratory in London

379
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:02,000
10 years ago, and together
we melted the iridium.

380
00:21:02,033 --> 00:21:03,700
♪♪♪

381
00:21:03,733 --> 00:21:06,566
-As I was going through my 70s,

382
00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:09,566
I felt I was living
through them all.

383
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,233
Hafnium, tantalum, tungsten.

384
00:21:12,266 --> 00:21:14,766
Rhenium, 75.

385
00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:17,300
Osmium, 76.

386
00:21:17,333 --> 00:21:20,033
Iridium, 77.

387
00:21:20,066 --> 00:21:23,400
Where's me platinum?
Somewhere. 78.

388
00:21:23,433 --> 00:21:26,166
If you doubt reality...
- [ Thud ]

389
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,966
-...drop tungsten on your foot.

390
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,933
[ Children shouting ]

391
00:21:31,966 --> 00:21:36,966
-I first met him
at St. Paul's School in London.

392
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:41,266
At that time,
Oliver was just oddly eccentric.

393
00:21:41,300 --> 00:21:44,933
He was interested
in biological classifications

394
00:21:44,966 --> 00:21:48,466
and his interest in animals,
and he would collect animals.

395
00:21:48,500 --> 00:21:50,933
And minerals, as well.

396
00:21:50,966 --> 00:21:54,900
He did weird things
with his collections.

397
00:21:54,933 --> 00:21:57,133
-He had lumps of sulfur
and things

398
00:21:57,166 --> 00:21:59,500
that he would throw out
onto the lawn

399
00:21:59,533 --> 00:22:01,833
to show that they exploded.

400
00:22:01,866 --> 00:22:05,366
[ Explosion, fire crackling ]

401
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:11,066
-Both he and I and Eric Korn
were all Jewish.

402
00:22:11,100 --> 00:22:14,400
We were the only Jews
at St. Paul's,

403
00:22:14,433 --> 00:22:17,633
but we had no interest
in being Jewish.

404
00:22:17,666 --> 00:22:19,566
We were just "Jew-ish."

405
00:22:22,100 --> 00:22:25,866
-I was in awe of my two closest
school friends

406
00:22:25,900 --> 00:22:28,633
Jonathan and Eric's intelligence

407
00:22:28,666 --> 00:22:31,766
and couldn't think
why they hung around with me.

408
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,633
Even though I was regarded
as bright,

409
00:22:34,666 --> 00:22:39,400
I never had much
intellectual self-confidence.

410
00:22:39,433 --> 00:22:43,166
But we all got scholarships
to university.

411
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:48,400
-I went to Cambridge,
and Oliver went to Oxford.

412
00:22:48,433 --> 00:22:50,766
It was at that time,
or a little bit later,

413
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:53,833
when they discovered
that he was gay.

414
00:22:53,866 --> 00:22:57,266
♪♪♪

415
00:22:57,300 --> 00:23:00,800
-When I turned 18, my father
thought this was the time

416
00:23:00,833 --> 00:23:04,966
for a serious
father-to-son talk.

417
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,433
We talked about
allowances and money.

418
00:23:08,466 --> 00:23:13,700
And then my father got on to
what was really worrying him.

419
00:23:13,733 --> 00:23:18,533
"You don't seem to have
many girlfriends," he said.

420
00:23:18,566 --> 00:23:23,533
"Perhaps you prefer boys,"
he continued.

421
00:23:23,566 --> 00:23:26,333
"Yes, I do," I said.

422
00:23:26,366 --> 00:23:30,800
"It's just a feeling.
I've never done anything."

423
00:23:30,833 --> 00:23:33,766
Then I added, "Don't tell Ma.

424
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,466
She won't be able to take it."

425
00:23:37,500 --> 00:23:40,133
But my father did tell her.

426
00:23:40,166 --> 00:23:45,133
And the next morning, she came
down with a face of thunder,

427
00:23:45,166 --> 00:23:49,233
a face I had never seen before.

428
00:23:49,266 --> 00:23:52,900
"You are an abomination,"
she said.

429
00:23:52,933 --> 00:23:55,600
"I wish
you had never been born."

430
00:23:55,633 --> 00:23:58,666
♪♪♪

431
00:23:58,700 --> 00:24:00,800
My mother was speaking,

432
00:24:00,833 --> 00:24:03,466
though I am not sure
I realized this at the time,

433
00:24:03,500 --> 00:24:07,333
out of anguish
as much as accusation,

434
00:24:07,366 --> 00:24:08,900
the anguish of a mother who,

435
00:24:08,933 --> 00:24:12,533
feeling that she had lost
one son to schizophrenia,

436
00:24:12,566 --> 00:24:16,233
now feared she was losing
another to homosexuality.

437
00:24:16,266 --> 00:24:18,866
♪♪♪

438
00:24:18,900 --> 00:24:23,333
She did not speak to me
for several days.

439
00:24:23,366 --> 00:24:25,133
When she did speak,

440
00:24:25,166 --> 00:24:28,133
there was no reference
to what she had said,

441
00:24:28,166 --> 00:24:33,000
nor did she ever refer
to the matter again.

442
00:24:33,033 --> 00:24:36,566
But something
had come between us.

443
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:41,200
Her words haunted me
for much of my life

444
00:24:41,233 --> 00:24:43,966
and played a major part
in inhibiting

445
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:49,100
and injecting with guilt
my sense of my own sexuality.

446
00:24:49,133 --> 00:24:51,900
[ Bells ringing ]

447
00:24:55,900 --> 00:25:01,300
When I got my scholarship
to Oxford, I faced a choice.

448
00:25:01,333 --> 00:25:04,300
Until then, I had been obsessed

449
00:25:04,333 --> 00:25:07,933
with both science
and literature,

450
00:25:07,966 --> 00:25:13,766
but now I wanted to understand
how the human brain worked.

451
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:15,266
It was my first step

452
00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:18,666
towards becoming
a clinical neurologist.

453
00:25:18,700 --> 00:25:22,233
[ Flash bulb pops,
clock chimes ]

454
00:25:22,266 --> 00:25:27,100
-I saw practically nothing
of him when he was at Oxford.

455
00:25:27,133 --> 00:25:30,233
But we became acquainted
with him once again

456
00:25:30,266 --> 00:25:34,100
when he was doing medicine
at the Middlesex Hospital,

457
00:25:34,133 --> 00:25:39,466
and we would occasionally
go in and see him in the ward.

458
00:25:39,500 --> 00:25:41,900
And one would see him
lifting weights

459
00:25:41,933 --> 00:25:45,300
as he walked up and down
amongst the patients.

460
00:25:45,333 --> 00:25:48,366
[ Indistinct conversations ]

461
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:53,266
-I always felt insecure
and shy and rather timid.

462
00:25:54,733 --> 00:25:59,533
And I thought that if I became
strong, physically strong,

463
00:25:59,566 --> 00:26:04,633
this would alter my personality
and I would become confident.

464
00:26:04,666 --> 00:26:06,166
But it didn't work.

465
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:10,766
I became very strong
but remained equally timid.

466
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:15,233
♪♪♪

467
00:26:15,266 --> 00:26:19,633
I think maybe a specific
contributor to shyness

468
00:26:19,666 --> 00:26:23,233
has been my feeling of
having had to live a life,

469
00:26:23,266 --> 00:26:25,600
in a way, of dissimulation.

470
00:26:25,633 --> 00:26:28,633
♪♪♪

471
00:26:28,666 --> 00:26:31,733
It was not easy or safe

472
00:26:31,766 --> 00:26:37,133
to be a homosexual
in the London of the 1950s.

473
00:26:37,166 --> 00:26:40,433
Homosexual activities,
if detected,

474
00:26:40,466 --> 00:26:44,166
could lead to harsh penalties,
imprisonment,

475
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:48,233
or, as in Alan Turing's case,
chemical castration.

476
00:26:48,266 --> 00:26:51,600
♪♪♪

477
00:26:51,633 --> 00:26:56,200
My house jobs came to an end
in the spring of 1960,

478
00:26:56,233 --> 00:26:58,633
and I was in state
of uncertainty

479
00:26:58,666 --> 00:27:01,600
about my own future
at this time.

480
00:27:01,633 --> 00:27:04,266
♪♪♪

481
00:27:04,300 --> 00:27:10,266
I think I was quite resentful
and carried resentment.

482
00:27:10,300 --> 00:27:14,133
I was... Especially
on the matter of sexuality,

483
00:27:14,166 --> 00:27:18,433
I was angry with my mother,
I was angry with religion,

484
00:27:18,466 --> 00:27:20,233
I was angry with England,

485
00:27:20,266 --> 00:27:24,700
I was angry with [bleep]
homophobic society...

486
00:27:24,733 --> 00:27:28,066
although I partly shared
the homophobia,

487
00:27:28,100 --> 00:27:30,566
mostly directed at myself.

488
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,233
♪♪♪

489
00:27:33,266 --> 00:27:37,400
In June 1960, I told my parents

490
00:27:37,433 --> 00:27:41,633
I would be leaving England
on my birthday, July the 9th,

491
00:27:41,666 --> 00:27:44,100
on an extended vacation

492
00:27:44,133 --> 00:27:46,800
and might not return
for a while.

493
00:27:46,833 --> 00:27:49,066
[ Motorcycle engine passes ]

494
00:27:49,100 --> 00:27:52,333
-His great luck, I suppose,
was to leave England,

495
00:27:52,366 --> 00:27:55,366
to leave the source
of a lot of his pain,

496
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,533
and to come to sunny California,

497
00:27:57,566 --> 00:28:01,366
where there's guys, weights,
drugs, and hospitals,

498
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:03,300
and, you know, great teachers.

499
00:28:03,333 --> 00:28:05,433
He found that.

500
00:28:05,466 --> 00:28:08,500
I mean, that's an
American success story.

501
00:28:08,533 --> 00:28:11,066
Not many people are that lucky.

502
00:28:11,100 --> 00:28:13,500
Where do you go when your mother
calls you an abomination,

503
00:28:13,533 --> 00:28:17,733
is you go to San Francisco
and stop writing home.

504
00:28:17,766 --> 00:28:20,100
[ Rock music plays ]

505
00:28:20,133 --> 00:28:22,433
[ Weights clanging ]

506
00:28:22,466 --> 00:28:28,733
♪♪♪

507
00:28:28,766 --> 00:28:35,000
♪♪♪

508
00:28:35,033 --> 00:28:41,300
♪♪♪

509
00:28:41,333 --> 00:28:47,600
♪♪♪

510
00:28:47,633 --> 00:28:50,266
-Soon after arriving
in San Francisco,

511
00:28:50,300 --> 00:28:54,233
I got an internship
at Mount Zion Hospital.

512
00:28:54,266 --> 00:28:58,333
I think I felt something
of a split in myself,

513
00:28:58,366 --> 00:29:03,966
which actually went with
my names, Oliver Wolf Sacks.

514
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:08,300
Oliver was the kindly doctor...
Dr. Oliver.

515
00:29:08,333 --> 00:29:12,666
And Wolf was
the lupine part of myself,

516
00:29:12,700 --> 00:29:16,100
which would put on my leathers
and get on my bike

517
00:29:16,133 --> 00:29:19,700
and sort of be a lone
motorcyclist at night,

518
00:29:19,733 --> 00:29:23,533
with a peculiar sense
of freedom and wildness.

519
00:29:23,566 --> 00:29:27,000
♪♪♪

520
00:29:27,033 --> 00:29:29,933
-I think he was
exploring possibilities

521
00:29:29,966 --> 00:29:32,066
for an adult life

522
00:29:32,100 --> 00:29:35,833
that was an expression
of who he was.

523
00:29:35,866 --> 00:29:38,933
And I think he was attempting

524
00:29:38,966 --> 00:29:43,100
to create an adult self
that was authentic.

525
00:29:43,133 --> 00:29:45,966
♪♪♪

526
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,000
But I think what he was really
looking for was a partner.

527
00:29:50,033 --> 00:29:53,200
♪♪♪

528
00:29:53,233 --> 00:29:55,633
-I first met Mel working out

529
00:29:55,666 --> 00:29:59,466
at the Central YMCA
early in '61.

530
00:29:59,500 --> 00:30:03,400
He was in the Navy,
stationed in San Francisco,

531
00:30:03,433 --> 00:30:06,666
and he trained when he could
at the Y.

532
00:30:06,700 --> 00:30:09,900
And we became friends.

533
00:30:09,933 --> 00:30:13,133
There was an erotic element
for me,

534
00:30:13,166 --> 00:30:17,133
but no explicit sexual element.

535
00:30:17,166 --> 00:30:18,833
-They were muscle-builders.

536
00:30:18,866 --> 00:30:22,100
What they were into was
motorcycles, faster and faster,

537
00:30:22,133 --> 00:30:25,966
scuba diving deeper and deeper,
weightlifting more and more.

538
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,100
It was very incarnate.

539
00:30:30,133 --> 00:30:34,433
-I liked to push myself
to the maximum,

540
00:30:34,466 --> 00:30:39,633
so I bulked up
to about 280 or 290

541
00:30:39,666 --> 00:30:42,266
and, to my delight,
was able to set

542
00:30:42,300 --> 00:30:44,633
a California
weightlifting record,

543
00:30:44,666 --> 00:30:48,400
a squat with a 600-pound bar
on my shoulders.

544
00:30:48,433 --> 00:30:52,033
♪♪♪

545
00:30:52,066 --> 00:30:56,933
In 1962, Mel's Navy service
was coming to an end.

546
00:30:56,966 --> 00:30:59,833
I was committed
to moving to Los Angeles

547
00:30:59,866 --> 00:31:04,066
for a three-year residency
in neurology at UCLA.

548
00:31:04,100 --> 00:31:06,233
♪♪♪

549
00:31:06,266 --> 00:31:08,400
As the summer approached,

550
00:31:08,433 --> 00:31:11,033
Mel and I had arranged
to share an apartment

551
00:31:11,066 --> 00:31:13,566
in Venice, California,

552
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:17,133
close to Muscle Beach Gym,
where we could train.

553
00:31:17,166 --> 00:31:19,833
♪♪♪

554
00:31:19,866 --> 00:31:23,066
And evenings could be a strain.

555
00:31:23,100 --> 00:31:26,000
Mel liked being massaged

556
00:31:26,033 --> 00:31:29,033
and would lie naked
face-down on his bed

557
00:31:29,066 --> 00:31:33,600
and ask me to massage his back.

558
00:31:33,633 --> 00:31:37,300
I would sit astride him,
wearing my training shorts,

559
00:31:37,333 --> 00:31:41,433
and pour oil on his back.

560
00:31:41,466 --> 00:31:44,433
It would bring me
to the brink of orgasm.

561
00:31:44,466 --> 00:31:47,266
♪♪♪

562
00:31:47,300 --> 00:31:51,300
On one occasion,
I could not contain myself

563
00:31:51,333 --> 00:31:56,033
and [bleep] all over his back.

564
00:31:56,066 --> 00:32:00,500
I felt him suddenly stiffen
when this happened,

565
00:32:00,533 --> 00:32:03,500
and without a word,
he got up and had a shower.

566
00:32:03,533 --> 00:32:05,666
♪♪♪

567
00:32:05,700 --> 00:32:08,733
The next morning,
Mel said tersely,

568
00:32:08,766 --> 00:32:12,233
"I have to find
a place of my own."

569
00:32:12,266 --> 00:32:17,633
I felt desperately lonely and
rejected when Mel moved out,

570
00:32:17,666 --> 00:32:20,133
and I wondered
whether it was my fate

571
00:32:20,166 --> 00:32:23,066
to fall in love
with straight men.

572
00:32:23,100 --> 00:32:28,333
♪♪♪

573
00:32:28,366 --> 00:32:33,000
I rented a little house
in Topanga Canyon,

574
00:32:33,033 --> 00:32:38,333
and I resolved never to live
with anyone again.

575
00:32:38,366 --> 00:32:40,466
And it was at this juncture

576
00:32:40,500 --> 00:32:44,133
that I had turned to drugs
as a sort of compensation.

577
00:32:44,166 --> 00:32:48,800
♪♪♪

578
00:32:48,833 --> 00:32:52,466
-We encountered each other
on the neurology ward at UCLA

579
00:32:52,500 --> 00:32:55,700
in October of '62.

580
00:32:55,733 --> 00:32:57,666
I was a psychiatry resident.

581
00:32:57,700 --> 00:33:00,400
Oliver was a neurology resident.

582
00:33:00,433 --> 00:33:04,433
In the mornings,
we would gather for rounds,

583
00:33:04,466 --> 00:33:09,366
and Oliver was a continually
disruptive presence.

584
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,333
♪♪♪

585
00:33:11,366 --> 00:33:13,633
He would drift away
from the group.

586
00:33:13,666 --> 00:33:17,500
At times, he would be
halfway down the hallway

587
00:33:17,533 --> 00:33:22,633
at the patient's tray
eating the leftover food.

588
00:33:22,666 --> 00:33:26,000
And I remember many occasions

589
00:33:26,033 --> 00:33:28,700
when the chief resident
flew into rages

590
00:33:28,733 --> 00:33:31,500
and was yelling and screaming
at Oliver,

591
00:33:31,533 --> 00:33:33,300
calling him back.

592
00:33:33,333 --> 00:33:37,333
He was this brilliant,
generous, empathic,

593
00:33:37,366 --> 00:33:41,466
loving person
who couldn't find his way.

594
00:33:41,500 --> 00:33:44,000
♪♪♪

595
00:33:44,033 --> 00:33:46,000
Raw talent in abundance,

596
00:33:46,033 --> 00:33:50,866
but a tremendous amount
of unhappiness and confusion,

597
00:33:50,900 --> 00:33:55,966
and, uh, not knowing
what direction to go in.

598
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:00,466
There were a lot of drugs then,
handfuls of drugs,

599
00:34:00,500 --> 00:34:02,033
which suggests something

600
00:34:02,066 --> 00:34:06,466
of the casual, self-destructive
element in it.

601
00:34:06,500 --> 00:34:08,333
♪♪♪

602
00:34:08,366 --> 00:34:12,633
-In the irresistible
thrall of amphetamines,

603
00:34:12,666 --> 00:34:17,400
sleep was impossible,
food was neglected.

604
00:34:17,433 --> 00:34:19,800
I gave little thought
to what this was doing

605
00:34:19,833 --> 00:34:22,966
to my body and my brain.

606
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:27,366
I did and did not realize
that I was playing with death.

607
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:33,466
♪♪♪

608
00:34:33,500 --> 00:34:35,366
-He would take
milkshakes of speed,

609
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:37,800
ten times more than would kill
a normal person,

610
00:34:37,833 --> 00:34:39,700
and to be able
to account for that,

611
00:34:39,733 --> 00:34:43,200
you had to talk about
his bodybuilding.

612
00:34:43,233 --> 00:34:45,166
-[ Grunting ]

613
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:50,000
-He was absolutely
built like an ox.

614
00:34:50,033 --> 00:34:51,933
And so he would
get on his motorcycle

615
00:34:51,966 --> 00:34:56,100
and motorcycle without stopping,
except for gas.

616
00:34:56,133 --> 00:34:58,100
36-hour, nonstop.

617
00:34:58,133 --> 00:35:03,000
♪♪♪

618
00:35:03,033 --> 00:35:05,366
I would set out
for the Grand Canyon,

619
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,333
500 miles away.

620
00:35:08,366 --> 00:35:12,966
I would ride through the
night, lying flat on the tank.

621
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,333
And crouched like this,

622
00:35:15,366 --> 00:35:18,866
I would hold the bike flat out
for hour after hour.

623
00:35:18,900 --> 00:35:22,500
♪♪♪

624
00:35:22,533 --> 00:35:26,033
Sometimes I felt
I was inscribing a line

625
00:35:26,066 --> 00:35:28,133
on the surface of the Earth,

626
00:35:28,166 --> 00:35:30,433
poised motionless
above the ground,

627
00:35:30,466 --> 00:35:34,233
the whole planet
rotating silently beneath me.

628
00:35:34,266 --> 00:35:35,833
♪♪♪

629
00:35:35,866 --> 00:35:38,833
If I held the bike
near its maximum speed,

630
00:35:38,866 --> 00:35:42,666
I could reach the Grand Canyon
in time to see the sunrise.

631
00:35:42,700 --> 00:35:46,866
♪♪♪

632
00:35:46,900 --> 00:35:51,066
♪♪♪

633
00:35:51,100 --> 00:35:52,733
[ Bird calling ]

634
00:35:52,766 --> 00:35:55,933
-Oliver was already
at this point.

635
00:35:55,966 --> 00:36:00,733
One of a kind.
There was no other like him.

636
00:36:00,766 --> 00:36:03,633
One patient
that I remember very well,

637
00:36:03,666 --> 00:36:06,966
we would see her
when we went on rounds.

638
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:11,366
This very, very
deteriorated woman.

639
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:15,200
And what Oliver did was
he went in there one day,

640
00:36:15,233 --> 00:36:17,933
and he took her out,

641
00:36:17,966 --> 00:36:20,733
and he took her
to his motorcycle,

642
00:36:20,766 --> 00:36:24,566
and he took her for a ride
on his motorcycle.

643
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:29,266
And I was stunned
by the gesture,

644
00:36:29,300 --> 00:36:35,300
just the simple act of giving
that he had for this woman.

645
00:36:35,333 --> 00:36:39,166
It's extraordinarily
unconventional,

646
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:41,333
and it was typical of Oliver.

647
00:36:44,300 --> 00:36:46,666
-On one level,
I can't put together

648
00:36:46,700 --> 00:36:50,033
the weight-lifting,
motorcycle-riding,

649
00:36:50,066 --> 00:36:55,366
drug-imbibing,
self-destructive Oliver Sacks

650
00:36:55,400 --> 00:37:00,800
with the careful, gentlemanly,
fastidious person

651
00:37:00,833 --> 00:37:04,000
of exuberant, enthusiastic

652
00:37:04,033 --> 00:37:07,333
observation and curiosity
about people.

653
00:37:07,366 --> 00:37:09,733
On the other hand,
the connecting part for me

654
00:37:09,766 --> 00:37:13,800
is that, in all respects,
he was deeply an outsider,

655
00:37:13,833 --> 00:37:15,933
floating in and out
of the periphery,

656
00:37:15,966 --> 00:37:19,500
just barely hanging on.

657
00:37:19,533 --> 00:37:22,600
I have to think
that virtually every professor,

658
00:37:22,633 --> 00:37:24,466
every attending physician

659
00:37:24,500 --> 00:37:27,266
who'd seen him
and helped mentor him

660
00:37:27,300 --> 00:37:29,000
must have been flabbergasted

661
00:37:29,033 --> 00:37:31,933
to discover he became anything
in his life.

662
00:37:31,966 --> 00:37:34,133
He was a kind of
supreme [bleep]-up

663
00:37:34,166 --> 00:37:36,666
at multiple times along the way.

664
00:37:36,700 --> 00:37:39,033
♪♪♪

665
00:37:39,066 --> 00:37:44,033
-When I finished my residency
at UCLA in 1965

666
00:37:44,066 --> 00:37:46,133
and came to New York,

667
00:37:46,166 --> 00:37:51,566
I thought I would try
and become a bench scientist.

668
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,166
So I got an interdisciplinary
fellowship

669
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:59,133
in neuropathology
and neurochemistry

670
00:37:59,166 --> 00:38:04,200
at the Albert Einstein College
of Medicine in the Bronx.

671
00:38:04,233 --> 00:38:07,433
-Well, that ended up badly.

672
00:38:07,466 --> 00:38:13,000
Because, although he worked
in detail on earthworms...

673
00:38:13,033 --> 00:38:16,666
all his data
flew off his motorbike

674
00:38:16,700 --> 00:38:19,400
on the Cross Bronx Expressway,

675
00:38:19,433 --> 00:38:22,833
and he didn't have copies.

676
00:38:22,866 --> 00:38:26,600
And, well, anyway,
he was clumsy in the lab.

677
00:38:26,633 --> 00:38:28,633
So, at that time, they said,

678
00:38:28,666 --> 00:38:31,400
"I think you'd better
go see patients."

679
00:38:31,433 --> 00:38:35,833
Which was, I'm sure,
perceived as a put-down.

680
00:38:35,866 --> 00:38:38,600
♪♪♪

681
00:38:38,633 --> 00:38:41,800
-It was an absolute disaster,

682
00:38:41,833 --> 00:38:43,633
and I was sort of
flung out of that.

683
00:38:43,666 --> 00:38:45,933
They said, you know,
"You're a menace, Sacks.

684
00:38:45,966 --> 00:38:49,233
Get out. See patients.
You'll do less harm."

685
00:38:49,266 --> 00:38:52,466
♪♪♪

686
00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:55,933
Part of it was my drugging
had increased

687
00:38:55,966 --> 00:38:58,966
when I got to New York.

688
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,200
I had started to call in sick
for days at a time.

689
00:39:03,233 --> 00:39:05,633
I was taking amphetamines
constantly

690
00:39:05,666 --> 00:39:08,566
and eating very little.

691
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:12,166
On New Year's Eve 1965,

692
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:15,800
I looked at my emaciated face,

693
00:39:15,833 --> 00:39:20,866
and I said, "Oliver, you will
not see another New Year's Day

694
00:39:20,900 --> 00:39:22,733
unless you get help."

695
00:39:22,766 --> 00:39:26,533
♪♪♪

696
00:39:26,566 --> 00:39:29,733
"There has to be
some intervention."

697
00:39:29,766 --> 00:39:33,366
And so, the beginning of '66,

698
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,233
I sought out an analyst,

699
00:39:36,266 --> 00:39:40,466
who insisted that this would
only work if I gave up drugs.

700
00:39:40,500 --> 00:39:43,733
And he said, "You're putting
yourself out of reach,

701
00:39:43,766 --> 00:39:45,366
and you have to stop.

702
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,466
Otherwise,
we won't get anywhere."

703
00:39:48,500 --> 00:39:51,133
♪♪♪

704
00:39:51,166 --> 00:39:56,100
Six months later,
I started seeing patients,

705
00:39:56,133 --> 00:40:00,066
partly chronic patients
at Beth Abraham Hospital

706
00:40:00,100 --> 00:40:03,333
but also patients with migraine
in a headache clinic

707
00:40:03,366 --> 00:40:08,033
just up the road
at Montefiore in the Bronx.

708
00:40:08,066 --> 00:40:12,466
And I was fascinated,
and moved very much,

709
00:40:12,500 --> 00:40:17,633
by hearing people's stories,
their experiences of migraine

710
00:40:17,666 --> 00:40:21,766
and how deep and strange
these could be.

711
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,966
♪♪♪

712
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,866
I started reading
about the subject,

713
00:40:27,900 --> 00:40:32,366
and I found myself driven
to the older literature...

714
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,500
and, in particular,
to an old book I found

715
00:40:36,533 --> 00:40:39,866
called "Megrim"
by Edward Liveing,

716
00:40:39,900 --> 00:40:43,266
published in the 1870s.

717
00:40:43,300 --> 00:40:47,800
In February of '67, as I was
struggling to give up drugs

718
00:40:47,833 --> 00:40:51,800
and still mourning the fact
that I did not have what it took

719
00:40:51,833 --> 00:40:54,200
to be a research scientist,

720
00:40:54,233 --> 00:40:57,533
I had one last drug high.

721
00:40:57,566 --> 00:41:02,133
But instead of surrendering
to mindless ecstasy,

722
00:41:02,166 --> 00:41:05,900
I started reading
this 500-page book

723
00:41:05,933 --> 00:41:09,166
with great concentration.

724
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,900
I identified with Liveing.

725
00:41:12,933 --> 00:41:16,366
I almost saw his patients
as my own.

726
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:21,000
I was deeply moved
by his descriptions.

727
00:41:21,033 --> 00:41:25,666
I read through the whole book
in a state of ecstasy.

728
00:41:25,700 --> 00:41:30,066
And with the amphetamine in me,
sometimes it seemed to me

729
00:41:30,100 --> 00:41:32,566
that the neurological
heavens opened

730
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:37,533
and that migraine was shining
like a constellation in the sky.

731
00:41:37,566 --> 00:41:40,866
♪♪♪

732
00:41:40,900 --> 00:41:44,133
I resolved to write
a comparable book,

733
00:41:44,166 --> 00:41:48,633
a "Migraine" of my own,
a "Migraine" for the 1960s,

734
00:41:48,666 --> 00:41:53,433
incorporating many examples
from my own patients.

735
00:41:53,466 --> 00:41:57,300
It would be the first book
I ever published,

736
00:41:57,333 --> 00:42:00,500
and I never took amphetamine
again.

737
00:42:00,533 --> 00:42:02,433
I didn't need it anymore.

738
00:42:02,466 --> 00:42:04,766
Nor have I touched it since...

739
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,300
and partly because of this

740
00:42:07,333 --> 00:42:11,600
and partly because life became
and work became

741
00:42:11,633 --> 00:42:14,833
much more interesting.

742
00:42:14,866 --> 00:42:16,566
This was really the start

743
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:20,433
of a remarkable turning point
in my life.

744
00:42:29,366 --> 00:42:31,566
In the fall of 1966,

745
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:34,633
I started seeing patients
at Beth Abraham,

746
00:42:34,666 --> 00:42:38,000
a chronic-disease hospital
affiliated with

747
00:42:38,033 --> 00:42:41,600
the Albert Einstein College
of Medicine in the Bronx.

748
00:42:45,333 --> 00:42:48,700
♪♪♪

749
00:42:48,733 --> 00:42:52,133
I soon realized
that among its 500 residents,

750
00:42:52,166 --> 00:42:55,533
there were some 80 patients,
dispersed in various wards,

751
00:42:55,566 --> 00:42:58,066
who were survivors
of the extraordinary

752
00:42:58,100 --> 00:43:02,633
encephalitis lethargica,
or sleepy-sickness pandemic,

753
00:43:02,666 --> 00:43:05,833
which had swept the world
in the early 1920s.

754
00:43:05,866 --> 00:43:15,400
♪♪♪

755
00:43:15,433 --> 00:43:24,966
♪♪♪

756
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:26,600
Many were frozen

757
00:43:26,633 --> 00:43:31,133
in deeply Parkinsonian
or catatonic states,

758
00:43:31,166 --> 00:43:33,566
and some of the patients
had been like this

759
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:35,833
for 30 or 40 years.

760
00:43:35,866 --> 00:43:42,566
♪♪♪

761
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:45,500
The nurses,
who knew these patients well,

762
00:43:45,533 --> 00:43:48,933
were convinced that behind
their statuesque appearance,

763
00:43:48,966 --> 00:43:51,000
locked in, imprisoned,

764
00:43:51,033 --> 00:43:54,200
there were intact minds
and personalities.

765
00:43:54,233 --> 00:43:56,700
♪♪♪

766
00:43:56,733 --> 00:43:58,300
The nurses also mentioned

767
00:43:58,333 --> 00:44:00,500
that the patients
might have occasional,

768
00:44:00,533 --> 00:44:05,300
very brief liberations
from their frozen states.

769
00:44:05,333 --> 00:44:08,433
Music, for example,
might animate the patients

770
00:44:08,466 --> 00:44:11,900
and allow them to dance,
even though they could not walk,

771
00:44:11,933 --> 00:44:14,900
or to sing, even though
they could not speak.

772
00:44:14,933 --> 00:44:17,700
♪♪♪

773
00:44:17,733 --> 00:44:21,833
What fascinated me
was the spectacle of a syndrome

774
00:44:21,866 --> 00:44:26,100
that was never the same
in two patients,

775
00:44:26,133 --> 00:44:30,366
a syndrome that could take
any possible form,

776
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:35,033
a syndrome that included an
enormous range of disturbances

777
00:44:35,066 --> 00:44:38,066
occurring at every level
in the nervous system.

778
00:44:38,100 --> 00:44:39,733
[ Monitor beeping ]

779
00:44:39,766 --> 00:44:42,533
A syndrome that could show,
better than any other,

780
00:44:42,566 --> 00:44:44,900
how the nervous system
was organized.

781
00:44:44,933 --> 00:44:50,533
♪♪♪

782
00:44:50,566 --> 00:44:53,633
It had been established
in the late 1950s

783
00:44:53,666 --> 00:44:55,600
that the Parkinsonian brain

784
00:44:55,633 --> 00:45:00,966
was deficient
in the transmitter dopamine,

785
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,033
and I wondered whether L-DOPA

786
00:45:03,066 --> 00:45:06,633
could help my own
very different patients.

787
00:45:06,666 --> 00:45:09,700
♪♪♪

788
00:45:09,733 --> 00:45:14,433
The license to use L-DOPA
took several months to come,

789
00:45:14,466 --> 00:45:17,300
and it was not until
March of 1969

790
00:45:17,333 --> 00:45:19,900
that I embarked
on a double-blind trial

791
00:45:19,933 --> 00:45:23,666
with six patients,
putting three on L-DOPA.

792
00:45:23,700 --> 00:45:30,566
♪♪♪

793
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:37,466
♪♪♪

794
00:45:37,500 --> 00:45:44,366
♪♪♪

795
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,766
-And suddenly there's
this incredible flowering.

796
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:57,033
♪♪♪

797
00:45:57,066 --> 00:46:06,400
♪♪♪

798
00:46:06,433 --> 00:46:08,433
-There was
a thrilling beginning,

799
00:46:08,466 --> 00:46:09,933
an exhilarating beginning,

800
00:46:09,966 --> 00:46:12,166
and everyone shared
this exhilaration.

801
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:14,966
We were all a bit manic
and euphoric.

802
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,733
♪♪♪

803
00:46:17,766 --> 00:46:19,733
And within a few weeks,

804
00:46:19,766 --> 00:46:23,100
the effects of L-DOPA
were clear and spectacular.

805
00:46:23,133 --> 00:46:26,233
♪♪♪

806
00:46:26,266 --> 00:46:30,333
And I decided to offer L-DOPA
to every patient.

807
00:46:30,366 --> 00:46:39,100
♪♪♪

808
00:46:39,133 --> 00:46:47,900
♪♪♪

809
00:46:47,933 --> 00:46:50,066
[ Birds chirping ]

810
00:46:50,100 --> 00:46:53,966
♪♪♪

811
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:55,800
-I once asked
one of his patients,

812
00:46:55,833 --> 00:46:59,966
"Do you remember
when you first came to?"

813
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:05,800
And she said, "Oh, yes,"
very quietly.

814
00:47:05,833 --> 00:47:09,900
"Suddenly, I was talking."

815
00:47:09,933 --> 00:47:13,133
And I said, "Do you remember
your first words?

816
00:47:13,166 --> 00:47:15,733
After not having been there
for 30 years,

817
00:47:15,766 --> 00:47:17,266
what were your first words?"

818
00:47:17,300 --> 00:47:20,733
She said...
"I said, 'Ooh, I'm talking!'"

819
00:47:20,766 --> 00:47:27,133
♪♪♪

820
00:47:27,166 --> 00:47:30,233
-And after her awakening
in 1969,

821
00:47:30,266 --> 00:47:32,933
Rose immediately burst
into fluent talk

822
00:47:32,966 --> 00:47:38,333
about Gershwin and others
who were around in the 1920s.

823
00:47:38,366 --> 00:47:40,800
And I asked her...
She was a very bright woman.

824
00:47:40,833 --> 00:47:46,200
She said, "I know it's 1969,
but I feel it's 1926."

825
00:47:46,233 --> 00:47:51,166
She said, "I know I'm 64,
but I feel I'm 21."

826
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,733
She said, "Nothing much has
happened in the last 43 years."

827
00:47:55,766 --> 00:47:59,966
So there had been not quite
unconsciousness, not sleep,

828
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:04,533
but some strange timeless
suspension of consciousness.

829
00:48:04,566 --> 00:48:07,833
♪♪♪

830
00:48:07,866 --> 00:48:10,566
At first, nearly all
the patients' responses

831
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:12,533
were happy ones.

832
00:48:12,566 --> 00:48:16,300
There was an astonishing,
festive awakening that summer,

833
00:48:16,333 --> 00:48:18,700
as they burst
into explosive life

834
00:48:18,733 --> 00:48:22,433
after having been
almost inanimate for decades.

835
00:48:22,466 --> 00:48:26,866
♪♪♪

836
00:48:26,900 --> 00:48:30,566
But then almost all of them
ran into trouble,

837
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:35,400
developing specific side effects
of L-DOPA,

838
00:48:35,433 --> 00:48:38,966
sudden and unpredictable
fluctuations of response,

839
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,900
and extreme sensitivity
to L-DOPA.

840
00:48:41,933 --> 00:48:44,266
♪♪♪

841
00:48:44,300 --> 00:48:47,566
Some of the patients would
react differently to the drug

842
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:49,533
each time we tried it.

843
00:48:49,566 --> 00:48:54,300
♪♪♪

844
00:48:54,333 --> 00:48:58,266
I tried altering the doses,
titrating them carefully.

845
00:49:00,733 --> 00:49:03,133
But this no longer worked.

846
00:49:03,166 --> 00:49:05,166
There seemed to be,
with many of the patients,

847
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:09,633
nothing between too much L-DOPA
and too little.

848
00:49:09,666 --> 00:49:12,266
♪♪♪

849
00:49:12,300 --> 00:49:17,666
The system now seemed to have
a dynamic of its own.

850
00:49:17,700 --> 00:49:20,566
What was going on
was so complex,

851
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:23,733
in both neurological
and human terms,

852
00:49:23,766 --> 00:49:28,600
that I felt a need to keep
detailed notes and journals,

853
00:49:28,633 --> 00:49:33,833
as did some of the patients
themselves.

854
00:49:33,866 --> 00:49:38,100
I started carrying
a tape recorder and a camera

855
00:49:38,133 --> 00:49:41,066
and, later, a little
Super 8 movie camera.

856
00:49:41,100 --> 00:49:43,733
Because I knew
that what I was seeing

857
00:49:43,766 --> 00:49:48,233
might never be seen again.

858
00:49:48,266 --> 00:49:53,266
I had to have
full biographic detail,

859
00:49:53,300 --> 00:49:58,033
along with full sort of
biological insight.

860
00:49:58,066 --> 00:49:59,566
I mean, this was a point

861
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:03,200
where biology and biography
intersected.

862
00:50:03,233 --> 00:50:07,366
♪♪♪

863
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:09,733
All my patients
are at this intersection.

864
00:50:09,766 --> 00:50:13,466
I mean, all of
<i>us
are at this intersection.</i>

865
00:50:13,500 --> 00:50:16,633
-[ Shouting ]

866
00:50:16,666 --> 00:50:19,733
-Ms. Sandoval. Ms. Sandoval.

867
00:50:19,766 --> 00:50:22,433
-There were times
in the first year

868
00:50:22,466 --> 00:50:26,400
when everything went bad,
when I wondered

869
00:50:26,433 --> 00:50:31,566
what sort of awful situation
I had got the people into.

870
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:33,300
And one of the patients said,

871
00:50:33,333 --> 00:50:37,400
"That stuff should be given
its proper name, hell-DOPA."

872
00:50:37,433 --> 00:50:39,266
♪♪♪

873
00:50:39,300 --> 00:50:44,300
The majority said later
they were glad they had it.

874
00:50:44,333 --> 00:50:46,800
But not all of them.

875
00:50:46,833 --> 00:50:49,300
♪♪♪

876
00:50:49,333 --> 00:50:53,566
Rose said very clearly
that everything and everyone

877
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:57,733
which had had meaning for her
was gone.

878
00:50:57,766 --> 00:50:59,533
She didn't like our world,

879
00:50:59,566 --> 00:51:02,100
and she said this
quite explicitly.

880
00:51:02,133 --> 00:51:07,000
And after 10 days of this
extraordinary awakenings,

881
00:51:07,033 --> 00:51:10,833
she went back into this state,
with her head thrown back

882
00:51:10,866 --> 00:51:13,700
and the eyes gazing

883
00:51:13,733 --> 00:51:16,433
at infinity, or nowhere.

884
00:51:16,466 --> 00:51:19,466
And despite
altering the medication,

885
00:51:19,500 --> 00:51:20,933
we could do nothing,

886
00:51:20,966 --> 00:51:24,300
and she stayed like this
for another 10 years.

887
00:51:24,333 --> 00:51:27,000
♪♪♪

888
00:51:27,033 --> 00:51:30,233
Was this physiologically
necessitated?

889
00:51:30,266 --> 00:51:34,566
Was it a defense against
an intolerable anachronism?

890
00:51:36,233 --> 00:51:37,866
I don't know.

891
00:51:37,900 --> 00:51:43,200
It was, you know,
an infinitely complex situation.

892
00:51:43,233 --> 00:51:49,366
♪♪♪

893
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:53,800
-The breakthrough
with awakenings

894
00:51:53,833 --> 00:51:56,900
is that there are
no breakthroughs.

895
00:51:56,933 --> 00:51:59,466
I mean, you try with chemistry,
you try with surgery,

896
00:51:59,500 --> 00:52:02,366
you try with all kinds of things
to change things, you know,

897
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,500
but then there comes a point
where you're dealing with

898
00:52:05,533 --> 00:52:10,333
not just the human condition,
but the condition of life.

899
00:52:10,366 --> 00:52:14,866
The breakthrough is that you
come to live within your means

900
00:52:14,900 --> 00:52:17,566
and that the project
of the doctor and the patient

901
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,566
is, together, to find a way

902
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:24,566
of living with
what can't be changed.

903
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:28,100
The whole point of his practice

904
00:52:28,133 --> 00:52:32,566
was to spend hours together

905
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:37,733
trying to compose the story
which will help them go

906
00:52:37,766 --> 00:52:40,900
from being just abandoned
objects in the corner

907
00:52:40,933 --> 00:52:44,966
to being subjects
of their own lives.

908
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:48,633
That is his basic insight,
a sense of biography

909
00:52:48,666 --> 00:52:51,733
where you wouldn't think
there's a biography.

910
00:52:51,766 --> 00:52:54,900
The layer on top of that
is being able to help people

911
00:52:54,933 --> 00:52:56,766
experience themselves as stories

912
00:52:56,800 --> 00:52:59,766
and, together,
to turn their situation

913
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:03,300
into a narrative, into a story.

914
00:53:03,333 --> 00:53:06,133
So that the storytelling
in Oliver,

915
00:53:06,166 --> 00:53:08,166
it's not just spinning tales.

916
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:12,833
It is also that he is, himself,
on a therapeutic basis,

917
00:53:12,866 --> 00:53:15,000
giving people
a sense of narrative,

918
00:53:15,033 --> 00:53:17,700
that narrative itself
is therapy.

919
00:53:23,500 --> 00:53:28,233
-1972 remains sharply etched
in my memory,

920
00:53:28,266 --> 00:53:33,433
with the awakenings and
tribulations of my patients.

921
00:53:33,466 --> 00:53:36,000
The previous three years
had been a time

922
00:53:36,033 --> 00:53:39,133
of overwhelming intensity.

923
00:53:39,166 --> 00:53:45,000
Such an experience is not given
to one twice in a lifetime.

924
00:53:45,033 --> 00:53:50,433
Its preciousness and depth,
its intensity and range,

925
00:53:50,466 --> 00:53:55,066
made me feel I had to
articulate it somehow.

926
00:53:55,100 --> 00:53:58,566
It seemed to me that I needed
to return to London,

927
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:01,066
to go home to write.

928
00:54:01,100 --> 00:54:04,600
♪♪♪

929
00:54:04,633 --> 00:54:06,833
-Despite the fact
that his mother

930
00:54:06,866 --> 00:54:10,500
had laid this awful curse
on him,

931
00:54:10,533 --> 00:54:13,466
in fact, Oliver never
stopped writing home.

932
00:54:13,500 --> 00:54:15,466
He was very close to her.

933
00:54:15,500 --> 00:54:18,600
She was such an important figure
in his life.

934
00:54:18,633 --> 00:54:21,933
And he returned again and again

935
00:54:21,966 --> 00:54:25,000
to home, 37 Mapesbury,

936
00:54:25,033 --> 00:54:28,700
to his childhood, to his family,

937
00:54:28,733 --> 00:54:31,700
to a milieu
that he knew so well.

938
00:54:31,733 --> 00:54:33,700
[ Birds chirping ]

939
00:54:37,666 --> 00:54:39,733
-My mother had been fascinated

940
00:54:39,766 --> 00:54:44,800
when I told her about my
post-encephalitic patients.

941
00:54:44,833 --> 00:54:47,800
She had been urging me
to write their stories,

942
00:54:47,833 --> 00:54:49,966
and in the summer of 1972,

943
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:53,100
she said,
"Now. This is the time."

944
00:54:53,133 --> 00:54:57,466
♪♪♪

945
00:54:57,500 --> 00:55:00,433
I spent each afternoon
writing or dictating

946
00:55:00,466 --> 00:55:04,300
the stories of "Awakenings."

947
00:55:04,333 --> 00:55:08,500
She would listen intently,
always with emotion,

948
00:55:08,533 --> 00:55:12,700
but equally with
a sharp, critical judgment,

949
00:55:12,733 --> 00:55:17,166
one honed by her own sense
of what was clinically real.

950
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:19,200
♪♪♪

951
00:55:19,233 --> 00:55:21,000
In a sort of way, then,

952
00:55:21,033 --> 00:55:22,733
we wrote many
of the case histories

953
00:55:22,766 --> 00:55:27,500
of "Awakenings" together
that summer.

954
00:55:27,533 --> 00:55:32,833
And there was a sense of
time arrested, of enchantment,

955
00:55:32,866 --> 00:55:38,500
a privileged time, out from
the rush of daily life,

956
00:55:38,533 --> 00:55:41,933
a special time
consecrated to creation.

957
00:55:41,966 --> 00:55:48,100
♪♪♪

958
00:55:48,133 --> 00:55:50,900
In September,
I returned to New York

959
00:55:50,933 --> 00:55:54,133
and to the apartment
next to Beth Abraham,

960
00:55:54,166 --> 00:55:57,200
where I had been living
since 1969.

961
00:55:57,233 --> 00:55:59,466
♪♪♪

962
00:55:59,500 --> 00:56:02,500
I was there
on November the 13th,

963
00:56:02,533 --> 00:56:07,033
when my brother David phoned me
to say that our mother had died.

964
00:56:07,066 --> 00:56:10,533
She had had a heart attack
during a trip to Israel.

965
00:56:10,566 --> 00:56:15,333
♪♪♪

966
00:56:15,366 --> 00:56:19,633
My mother's death was the most
devastating loss of my life,

967
00:56:19,666 --> 00:56:22,766
the loss of the deepest
and, perhaps in some sense,

968
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:27,466
the realest relation of my life.

969
00:56:27,500 --> 00:56:30,633
It made me feel that
I must complete "Awakenings"

970
00:56:30,666 --> 00:56:34,900
as a last tribute to her.

971
00:56:34,933 --> 00:56:37,033
When the formal mourning
was over,

972
00:56:37,066 --> 00:56:40,400
I stayed in London
and returned to writing,

973
00:56:40,433 --> 00:56:42,966
with the sense of
my mother's life and death

974
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:46,533
dominating all my thoughts.

975
00:56:46,566 --> 00:56:50,966
And in this mood, I wrote the
later sections of "Awakenings"

976
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:55,033
with a feeling, a voice,
I had never known before.

977
00:56:55,066 --> 00:57:02,533
♪♪♪

978
00:57:02,566 --> 00:57:06,633
-When "Awakenings"
came out in 1973,

979
00:57:06,666 --> 00:57:10,733
Oliver described
the on-off effect of L-DOPA.

980
00:57:10,766 --> 00:57:14,933
This had never been seen
by doctors, neurologists

981
00:57:14,966 --> 00:57:17,633
who took care of Parkinsonism.

982
00:57:17,666 --> 00:57:19,666
Because they had never seen it,

983
00:57:19,700 --> 00:57:25,833
they were very suspicious
that this was embellishing...

984
00:57:25,866 --> 00:57:31,300
that this was somebody
who wanted to make a splash

985
00:57:31,333 --> 00:57:34,433
and was exaggerating.

986
00:57:34,466 --> 00:57:37,000
Not creating completely,

987
00:57:37,033 --> 00:57:40,866
but exaggerating, embellishing.

988
00:57:40,900 --> 00:57:43,700
Neurologists didn't know
what to make of this guy,

989
00:57:43,733 --> 00:57:47,000
and so they sort of
didn't embrace him.

990
00:57:48,700 --> 00:57:50,800
-There's a misconception
about Oliver

991
00:57:50,833 --> 00:57:54,500
that he became famous
with the book "Awakenings,"

992
00:57:54,533 --> 00:57:56,866
but the hard truth
is that the book,

993
00:57:56,900 --> 00:57:59,100
though it was
quite well-received,

994
00:57:59,133 --> 00:58:00,533
didn't sell especially well

995
00:58:00,566 --> 00:58:04,700
and was absolutely dismissed
by fellow neurologists.

996
00:58:04,733 --> 00:58:07,266
[ Plane engine roars ]

997
00:58:07,300 --> 00:58:10,566
♪♪♪

998
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:15,733
-July the 9th, 1973,
was my 40th birthday.

999
00:58:15,766 --> 00:58:17,866
I was in London.

1000
00:58:17,900 --> 00:58:20,066
"Awakenings"
had just been published.

1001
00:58:20,100 --> 00:58:22,800
And I was having a birthday swim

1002
00:58:22,833 --> 00:58:25,200
in one of the ponds
on Hampstead Heath

1003
00:58:25,233 --> 00:58:27,566
when I met a handsome young man

1004
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:31,066
with an impish smile
on his face.

1005
00:58:31,100 --> 00:58:32,533
It was just as well

1006
00:58:32,566 --> 00:58:36,200
that I had no foreknowledge
of the future,

1007
00:58:36,233 --> 00:58:39,100
for after that sweet
birthday fling,

1008
00:58:39,133 --> 00:58:43,566
I was to have no sex
for the next 35 years.

1009
00:58:43,600 --> 00:58:47,133
♪♪♪

1010
00:58:47,166 --> 00:58:50,266
-He was celibate for 35 years.

1011
00:58:50,300 --> 00:58:52,733
This part of his life
and personality

1012
00:58:52,766 --> 00:58:54,833
he sort of squelched,

1013
00:58:54,866 --> 00:58:58,133
and nobody knew anything
about it.

1014
00:58:58,166 --> 00:59:00,500
You can imagine 20 years ago.

1015
00:59:00,533 --> 00:59:03,866
I mean,
it was grounds for dismissal.

1016
00:59:03,900 --> 00:59:07,866
It was grounds for prosecution,
for heaven's sakes,

1017
00:59:07,900 --> 00:59:11,166
in both America and in England.

1018
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:15,300
If you're a physician,
you could be defrocked.

1019
00:59:15,333 --> 00:59:17,866
I mean, no way.

1020
00:59:17,900 --> 00:59:21,966
It would have been suicide
to talk about that.

1021
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:31,566
♪♪♪

1022
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:37,366
♪♪♪

1023
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,166
<i>-I've always been a dreamer.</i>

1024
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:46,133
<i>I think there was something
secretly Utopian and dream-like</i>

1025
00:59:46,166 --> 00:59:49,933
<i>in the way
in which I came to America.</i>

1026
00:59:49,966 --> 00:59:53,966
<i>The notion of a brave new world
sexually</i>

1027
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:57,800
<i>and a sense of freedom
and openness.</i>

1028
00:59:57,833 --> 01:00:02,466
<i>I think, however, it did go
along with a sense of dread.</i>

1029
01:00:02,500 --> 01:00:06,100
<i>I think I felt that things
would be forced</i>

1030
01:00:06,133 --> 01:00:10,266
<i>by my coming here
to such a low point,</i>

1031
01:00:10,300 --> 01:00:16,033
<i>such a point
of despair and darkness,</i>

1032
01:00:16,066 --> 01:00:22,000
<i>that a make-or-break situation
would come about.</i>

1033
01:00:22,033 --> 01:00:25,466
<i>I've done this more times
than I like to think.</i>

1034
01:00:25,500 --> 01:00:29,566
<i>I certainly did it with my
next book, "A Leg to Stand On."</i>

1035
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:35,000
<i>I pressed towards the end,
and I did all but kill myself.</i>

1036
01:00:35,033 --> 01:00:37,000
♪♪♪

1037
01:00:37,033 --> 01:00:38,633
[ Doors open ]

1038
01:00:38,666 --> 01:00:41,100
[ Cart rolling ]

1039
01:00:41,133 --> 01:00:46,800
In 1973, I was working
as a consultant

1040
01:00:46,833 --> 01:00:49,166
once a week
at Bronx State Hospital

1041
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:52,800
on a ward with youngsters
who had autism

1042
01:00:52,833 --> 01:00:57,666
or childhood schizophrenia
or fetal alcohol syndrome.

1043
01:00:57,700 --> 01:01:00,033
They had been warehoused
together.

1044
01:01:00,066 --> 01:01:03,166
♪♪♪

1045
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:06,766
This ward had a strong

1046
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:10,000
behavior-modification philosophy

1047
01:01:10,033 --> 01:01:12,833
that behavior could be changed

1048
01:01:12,866 --> 01:01:17,266
by reward or punishment,
especially punishment.

1049
01:01:17,300 --> 01:01:18,900
♪♪♪

1050
01:01:18,933 --> 01:01:22,200
And what they called
therapeutic punishment,

1051
01:01:22,233 --> 01:01:26,666
isolating people,
depriving them of food,

1052
01:01:26,700 --> 01:01:29,566
gave me the shudders.

1053
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:31,600
At a Wednesday staff meeting,

1054
01:01:31,633 --> 01:01:36,466
I said that I thought
the therapeutic punishment

1055
01:01:36,500 --> 01:01:40,466
was cruel, useless,

1056
01:01:40,500 --> 01:01:45,233
and maybe appealed to
sadistic instincts in the staff.

1057
01:01:45,266 --> 01:01:46,700
♪♪♪

1058
01:01:46,733 --> 01:01:49,700
There was a deadly silence.

1059
01:01:49,733 --> 01:01:53,933
Then, a couple of days later,
the ward chief came to me.

1060
01:01:53,966 --> 01:01:56,266
And he said, "There's a rumor
going around the ward

1061
01:01:56,300 --> 01:01:59,166
that you abuse
your young patients."

1062
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:02,866
♪♪♪

1063
01:02:02,900 --> 01:02:05,900
That evening
when I left the ward,

1064
01:02:05,933 --> 01:02:10,566
the director of the hospital
said, "Don't come back."

1065
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:14,300
I wanted to write
a denunciatory book,

1066
01:02:14,333 --> 01:02:19,000
to be called "Ward 23."

1067
01:02:19,033 --> 01:02:24,966
And it was in this mood of rage
and guilt and accusation

1068
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:28,166
that I went off to Norway

1069
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:32,500
in the summer of '74...

1070
01:02:32,533 --> 01:02:38,766
where I had a series
of self-destructive accidents,

1071
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:41,866
culminating in my encounter

1072
01:02:41,900 --> 01:02:44,833
with a bull on a mountain

1073
01:02:44,866 --> 01:02:48,000
and badly injuring my leg

1074
01:02:48,033 --> 01:02:51,333
and almost ending my life.

1075
01:02:51,366 --> 01:02:55,600
♪♪♪

1076
01:02:55,633 --> 01:02:58,233
I was alone.

1077
01:02:58,266 --> 01:03:03,933
I found myself face-to-face
with a huge bull,

1078
01:03:03,966 --> 01:03:06,666
and I started to run.

1079
01:03:06,700 --> 01:03:10,666
Suddenly I was
at the bottom of a cliff,

1080
01:03:10,700 --> 01:03:16,133
my left leg twisted
grotesquely beneath me.

1081
01:03:16,166 --> 01:03:19,000
Eight long hours passed.

1082
01:03:19,033 --> 01:03:22,900
The temperature was going down.

1083
01:03:22,933 --> 01:03:25,566
Suddenly I heard a voice.

1084
01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:30,833
I saw two figures on a ledge.
They rescued me.

1085
01:03:30,866 --> 01:03:35,166
♪♪♪

1086
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:38,366
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]

1087
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:40,500
I was flown to England

1088
01:03:40,533 --> 01:03:44,533
and operated on
to repair the torn quadriceps.

1089
01:03:44,566 --> 01:03:48,033
[ Monitor beeping,
machine hissing ]

1090
01:03:48,066 --> 01:03:52,666
But following the surgery,
for two weeks or more,

1091
01:03:52,700 --> 01:03:56,333
I could neither move nor feel
the damaged leg.

1092
01:03:56,366 --> 01:03:59,233
♪♪♪

1093
01:03:59,266 --> 01:04:02,833
No information was coming
from the leg to my brain,

1094
01:04:02,866 --> 01:04:04,500
and none could be sent.

1095
01:04:04,533 --> 01:04:06,433
[ Crackling ]

1096
01:04:06,466 --> 01:04:10,466
I had lost the sense
of ownership.

1097
01:04:10,500 --> 01:04:14,166
It felt alien, not a part of me,

1098
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:18,300
and I was deeply puzzled,
confounded.

1099
01:04:18,333 --> 01:04:20,600
♪♪♪

1100
01:04:20,633 --> 01:04:23,266
My English publisher exclaimed,

1101
01:04:23,300 --> 01:04:26,500
"You have to write
about it all!"

1102
01:04:26,533 --> 01:04:29,866
This "Leg" book, in fact,

1103
01:04:29,900 --> 01:04:33,400
occupied 10 years of my life.

1104
01:04:33,433 --> 01:04:37,666
♪♪♪

1105
01:04:37,700 --> 01:04:43,466
-I began corresponding
with Oliver in the late '70s.

1106
01:04:43,500 --> 01:04:45,866
I had read "Awakenings,"

1107
01:04:45,900 --> 01:04:49,066
which not that many people
had done at that time.

1108
01:04:49,100 --> 01:04:52,700
This was a period,
I subsequently realized,

1109
01:04:52,733 --> 01:04:56,033
when Oliver was in the middle
of this incredible blockage

1110
01:04:56,066 --> 01:04:59,533
on what would become
his "Leg" book.

1111
01:04:59,566 --> 01:05:01,966
[ Typewriter clacking ]

1112
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:04,566
His blockage took the form
of graphomania.

1113
01:05:04,600 --> 01:05:06,500
It wasn't that
he couldn't write.

1114
01:05:06,533 --> 01:05:09,200
He wrote millions and millions
and millions of words.

1115
01:05:09,233 --> 01:05:12,200
They were just the wrong words.

1116
01:05:12,233 --> 01:05:16,333
And he kept on getting stuck.

1117
01:05:16,366 --> 01:05:18,366
And the major reason
he was stuck

1118
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:20,200
was the issue of the credibility

1119
01:05:20,233 --> 01:05:23,833
of whether people
would believe it.

1120
01:05:23,866 --> 01:05:25,500
-The medical profession

1121
01:05:25,533 --> 01:05:27,733
had not only rejected
"Awakenings,"

1122
01:05:27,766 --> 01:05:30,933
they ignored it,
they stonewalled him.

1123
01:05:30,966 --> 01:05:34,433
And he was, I think,
undermined by that.

1124
01:05:34,466 --> 01:05:40,466
♪♪♪

1125
01:05:40,500 --> 01:05:43,133
-This period was nothing
but really travail

1126
01:05:43,166 --> 01:05:45,800
and disappointment
for Oliver and publications.

1127
01:05:45,833 --> 01:05:48,400
He was seeing patients
in a variety of places,

1128
01:05:48,433 --> 01:05:50,600
and then he would
go home and write.

1129
01:05:50,633 --> 01:05:52,833
He would send them in
to major medical journals

1130
01:05:52,866 --> 01:05:56,066
like "Brain,"
and they would all get rejected.

1131
01:05:56,100 --> 01:05:58,066
He was rejected everywhere.

1132
01:05:58,100 --> 01:06:06,500
♪♪♪

1133
01:06:06,533 --> 01:06:08,666
-During all this time,

1134
01:06:08,700 --> 01:06:12,233
I continued to work on
"A Leg to Stand On,"

1135
01:06:12,266 --> 01:06:17,566
much of it while swimming
at Lake Jeff in the Catskills.

1136
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:20,666
It was tremendously difficult
to write.

1137
01:06:20,700 --> 01:06:24,166
There was draft after draft.

1138
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:28,666
Sometimes the words
and paragraphs and narrative

1139
01:06:28,700 --> 01:06:30,766
would come so urgently
to my mind

1140
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:33,333
that I would sort of
rush out of the lake.

1141
01:06:33,366 --> 01:06:37,233
I didn't have time
to dry myself.

1142
01:06:37,266 --> 01:06:42,666
And then I sent these
yellow pads to my then-editor,

1143
01:06:42,700 --> 01:06:45,566
Jim Silberman, at Summit Books.

1144
01:06:45,600 --> 01:06:47,466
And he said...

1145
01:06:47,500 --> 01:06:50,200
"First," he said,
"no one has sent me

1146
01:06:50,233 --> 01:06:53,666
a handwritten manuscript
in 30 years.

1147
01:06:53,700 --> 01:06:58,700
And, secondly, this looks like
it's been dropped in the bath."

1148
01:06:58,733 --> 01:07:03,533
He said, "I know no one who
could do anything about this,

1149
01:07:03,566 --> 01:07:07,100
except one of our editors
freelancing on the West Coast.

1150
01:07:07,133 --> 01:07:10,533
Her name is Kate Edgar.

1151
01:07:10,566 --> 01:07:13,333
She is amazing."

1152
01:07:13,366 --> 01:07:16,266
And, so, in 1982,

1153
01:07:16,300 --> 01:07:21,266
the soggy manuscript
was sent to Kate.

1154
01:07:21,300 --> 01:07:25,133
And what came back was
not only beautifully typed,

1155
01:07:25,166 --> 01:07:27,133
but had all sorts of interesting

1156
01:07:27,166 --> 01:07:32,833
critical and creative comments
all over it.

1157
01:07:32,866 --> 01:07:36,466
-It took many, many
rewrites and revisions

1158
01:07:36,500 --> 01:07:39,733
working with Kate
to get that book completed,

1159
01:07:39,766 --> 01:07:41,533
but 11 years later,

1160
01:07:41,566 --> 01:07:44,166
"A Leg to Stand On"
finally came out.

1161
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:47,633
- Separate the sheets.
- I understand.

1162
01:07:47,666 --> 01:07:52,066
-I came along about 10 years
after his mother died.

1163
01:07:52,100 --> 01:07:55,333
And I became the person

1164
01:07:55,366 --> 01:07:59,766
who was encouraging, supporting,

1165
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:03,866
critical but not condemning.

1166
01:08:03,900 --> 01:08:06,300
Open-minded.

1167
01:08:06,333 --> 01:08:12,366
I think in some ways
our conversation

1168
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:14,833
continued from the conversation

1169
01:08:14,866 --> 01:08:17,866
he would have with his mother.

1170
01:08:17,900 --> 01:08:21,633
But as an editor,
I began to realize

1171
01:08:21,666 --> 01:08:25,833
that in order to keep him
from getting stuck,

1172
01:08:25,866 --> 01:08:29,933
it was important for him to have
almost a writing therapist

1173
01:08:29,966 --> 01:08:34,700
on call and there next to him.

1174
01:08:34,733 --> 01:08:37,233
So we did develop a way

1175
01:08:37,266 --> 01:08:40,866
of working back and forth

1176
01:08:40,900 --> 01:08:45,266
that was... very intensive.

1177
01:08:45,300 --> 01:08:47,433
♪♪♪

1178
01:08:47,466 --> 01:08:50,866
-Kate came as his editor,

1179
01:08:50,900 --> 01:08:56,533
but over the years,
she became his everything.

1180
01:08:56,566 --> 01:09:00,033
I mean, Kate ended up doing
everything for him.

1181
01:09:00,066 --> 01:09:01,600
Everything.

1182
01:09:01,633 --> 01:09:04,466
Finding a place to live,

1183
01:09:04,500 --> 01:09:09,066
buying his tickets for trips,
making every arrangement.

1184
01:09:09,100 --> 01:09:13,866
I mean, the whole structure
that he has around him

1185
01:09:13,900 --> 01:09:15,900
he owes to Kate.

1186
01:09:18,233 --> 01:09:22,466
-Oh, where did people
put the music?

1187
01:09:22,500 --> 01:09:24,633
Oh, there, yes, I think there.
- Maybe here. Maybe here.

1188
01:09:24,666 --> 01:09:26,666
-Hello, Yolanda.

1189
01:09:26,700 --> 01:09:28,766
Yolanda, you should be
introduced to everyone.

1190
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:30,866
- I know them.
- You know them.

1191
01:09:30,900 --> 01:09:33,000
-Yes.

1192
01:09:33,033 --> 01:09:35,133
-Oliver initially struck me

1193
01:09:35,166 --> 01:09:39,400
as rather uncouth in many ways.

1194
01:09:39,433 --> 01:09:40,700
♪♪♪

1195
01:09:40,733 --> 01:09:42,500
-Oh. Stop. Too nervous to play.

1196
01:09:42,533 --> 01:09:45,833
-He was very fastidious,
but at the same time

1197
01:09:45,866 --> 01:09:48,600
he didn't seem to care much
about his appearance.

1198
01:09:48,633 --> 01:09:49,933
-What is that?

1199
01:09:49,966 --> 01:09:51,966
-He could be very shy

1200
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:54,266
but at the same time he could be

1201
01:09:54,300 --> 01:09:58,700
disarmingly or shockingly honest
about himself.

1202
01:09:58,733 --> 01:10:00,800
He was a handful.

1203
01:10:00,833 --> 01:10:02,800
-[ Clears throat ]

1204
01:10:09,866 --> 01:10:12,366
Hi, Yolanda.

1205
01:10:12,400 --> 01:10:15,766
The Jell-O
is particularly good today.

1206
01:10:17,966 --> 01:10:20,733
[ Chuckles ]
- What are you thinking?

1207
01:10:20,766 --> 01:10:23,766
-I daren't tell you
what I'm thinking.

1208
01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:25,466
[ Laughter ]

1209
01:10:25,500 --> 01:10:29,533
All right, okay, I will.
Um...

1210
01:10:29,566 --> 01:10:31,766
Time was...

1211
01:10:31,800 --> 01:10:33,766
It doesn't occur now,

1212
01:10:33,800 --> 01:10:36,566
but it used to occur
until a few years ago,

1213
01:10:36,600 --> 01:10:39,733
when I would wake up at night
with an erection.

1214
01:10:39,766 --> 01:10:41,700
This sort of erection

1215
01:10:41,733 --> 01:10:44,400
is actually nothing to do
with sexual excitement.

1216
01:10:44,433 --> 01:10:47,833
Sometimes goes with a need
to empty one's bladder.

1217
01:10:47,866 --> 01:10:51,633
Probably sometimes just with
the autonomic stimulation

1218
01:10:51,666 --> 01:10:53,633
which goes with dreams.

1219
01:10:53,666 --> 01:10:57,733
And it was sometimes
irritatingly persistent.

1220
01:10:57,766 --> 01:11:02,966
And I would sometimes
cool my turgid penis

1221
01:11:03,000 --> 01:11:05,033
in orange Jell-O.

1222
01:11:05,066 --> 01:11:07,000
[ Laughter ]

1223
01:11:07,033 --> 01:11:10,700
Now, I... I...

1224
01:11:10,733 --> 01:11:12,966
I knew I shouldn't have said it.

1225
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:15,300
[ Laughter ]

1226
01:11:15,333 --> 01:11:17,966
Did I say something?

1227
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:20,433
-He was a man of the extremes.

1228
01:11:20,466 --> 01:11:22,133
-Yes.

1229
01:11:22,166 --> 01:11:25,633
-He was immoderate
in all possible directions.

1230
01:11:25,666 --> 01:11:28,033
[Laughing]
He was one of the most

1231
01:11:28,066 --> 01:11:32,666
childlike friends I ever had.

1232
01:11:32,700 --> 01:11:37,166
And up to the very last day,
I think.

1233
01:11:37,200 --> 01:11:41,600
-Beautiful mother baby.

1234
01:11:41,633 --> 01:11:43,766
-In some ways,
he was so separate

1235
01:11:43,800 --> 01:11:46,266
from the physical world,

1236
01:11:46,300 --> 01:11:51,100
sometimes not in tune
with his own body.

1237
01:11:51,133 --> 01:11:56,366
But he seemed to feel
an affinity somehow,

1238
01:11:56,400 --> 01:11:59,200
a need to embody others,

1239
01:11:59,233 --> 01:12:03,833
to physically act out
what he was talking about.

1240
01:12:03,866 --> 01:12:06,600
Some people felt
he had Tourette syndrome,

1241
01:12:06,633 --> 01:12:08,966
because he could
rarely mention Tourette

1242
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:14,866
without ticcing himself...

1243
01:12:14,900 --> 01:12:17,800
in a sort of
very sympathetic way.

1244
01:12:17,833 --> 01:12:21,633
He found these ways to identify
with all kinds of people,

1245
01:12:21,666 --> 01:12:24,366
whether they were
Nobel physicists

1246
01:12:24,400 --> 01:12:27,666
or brilliant literary people

1247
01:12:27,700 --> 01:12:31,666
or the most compromised patient
in a hospital bed,

1248
01:12:31,700 --> 01:12:36,833
sometimes even a person
who couldn't speak.

1249
01:12:36,866 --> 01:12:41,166
He would imagine himself
into them.

1250
01:12:41,200 --> 01:12:45,833
He had some unconscious way
of sensing this.

1251
01:12:45,866 --> 01:12:51,133
That was the reason
he was able to revive

1252
01:12:51,166 --> 01:12:53,233
the tradition
of the case history

1253
01:12:53,266 --> 01:12:56,466
at a time
in the late 20th century

1254
01:12:56,500 --> 01:12:59,000
when case histories
were in disfavor,

1255
01:12:59,033 --> 01:13:03,566
because everyone wanted
science and statistics

1256
01:13:03,600 --> 01:13:06,066
and quantitative medicine.

1257
01:13:06,100 --> 01:13:07,533
-[ Laughs ] Lovely.

1258
01:13:07,566 --> 01:13:12,733
-Oliver made the case always
for qualitative medicine.

1259
01:13:12,766 --> 01:13:14,666
-You know, but sometimes...

1260
01:13:14,700 --> 01:13:20,533
-Writing, description,
observation, sympathy.

1261
01:13:20,566 --> 01:13:22,266
And imagination.

1262
01:13:22,300 --> 01:13:24,266
♪♪♪

1263
01:13:24,300 --> 01:13:26,433
-In spending as much time
with the patients

1264
01:13:26,466 --> 01:13:29,300
as he spent with them, he
became involved in their lives.

1265
01:13:29,333 --> 01:13:31,466
He got to know them,
he spoke to them all the time,

1266
01:13:31,500 --> 01:13:33,966
he saw them at home,
he saw them in other places.

1267
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:36,200
He kept detailed notes
on every encounter he had

1268
01:13:36,233 --> 01:13:38,800
with most of his patients.

1269
01:13:38,833 --> 01:13:41,333
At a certain point,
he knew them so well

1270
01:13:41,366 --> 01:13:44,800
he had no choice
but, really, to chronicle them

1271
01:13:44,833 --> 01:13:49,166
and to pull these together
as case histories.

1272
01:13:49,200 --> 01:13:52,133
-Now, during the 10 years he was
working on the "Leg" book,

1273
01:13:52,166 --> 01:13:54,133
there was never a moment
when he wasn't writing.

1274
01:13:54,166 --> 01:13:55,466
You have to understand that

1275
01:13:55,500 --> 01:13:57,500
he was writing up
these case histories

1276
01:13:57,533 --> 01:14:02,633
that were piling up behind him,
ready to come out.

1277
01:14:02,666 --> 01:14:05,366
-In 1983, a friend and colleague

1278
01:14:05,400 --> 01:14:09,200
asked me if I would join him
in giving a seminar

1279
01:14:09,233 --> 01:14:14,166
devoted to agnosias,
the peculiar inability

1280
01:14:14,200 --> 01:14:18,900
to recognize anything,
including faces.

1281
01:14:18,933 --> 01:14:22,466
And at one point during
the seminar, my colleague asked

1282
01:14:22,500 --> 01:14:27,333
if I could give an example
of a visual agnosia.

1283
01:14:27,366 --> 01:14:31,566
I thought of one of my patients,
a music teacher

1284
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:34,666
who had become unable
to recognize his students,

1285
01:14:34,700 --> 01:14:37,200
or anyone else, visually.

1286
01:14:37,233 --> 01:14:42,066
I described how Dr. P might
pat the heads of water hydrants

1287
01:14:42,100 --> 01:14:46,533
or parking meters,
mistaking them for children,

1288
01:14:46,566 --> 01:14:52,033
and how he even mistook
his wife's head for a hat.

1289
01:14:52,066 --> 01:14:55,266
I had not thought of elaborating
my notes on Dr. P

1290
01:14:55,300 --> 01:14:57,200
up to this point,

1291
01:14:57,233 --> 01:15:00,600
but that evening,
I wrote up his case history.

1292
01:15:00,633 --> 01:15:03,900
I entitled it "The Man Who
Mistook His Wife for a Hat"

1293
01:15:03,933 --> 01:15:06,433
and sent it off.

1294
01:15:06,466 --> 01:15:10,166
It did not occur to me that
it might become the title story

1295
01:15:10,200 --> 01:15:14,166
of a collection
of case histories.

1296
01:15:14,200 --> 01:15:17,733
-This was far from
best-seller material.

1297
01:15:17,766 --> 01:15:20,566
A book of
neurological case histories.

1298
01:15:20,600 --> 01:15:24,100
It was fascinating,
but no one expected this

1299
01:15:24,133 --> 01:15:27,866
to be a popular success.

1300
01:15:27,900 --> 01:15:31,966
Sure enough, it was,
and strictly by word of mouth.

1301
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:34,033
-Please welcome
Dr. Oliver Sacks.

1302
01:15:34,066 --> 01:15:36,200
[ Applause ]

1303
01:15:36,233 --> 01:15:38,233
-One year after
"A Leg to Stand On,"

1304
01:15:38,266 --> 01:15:40,433
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife
for a Hat"

1305
01:15:40,466 --> 01:15:44,266
would really make his career
explode and make his name.

1306
01:15:44,300 --> 01:15:46,366
-Here is a remarkable man
of medicine.

1307
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:48,500
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dr. Oliver Sacks.

1308
01:15:48,533 --> 01:15:50,533
[ Applause ]

1309
01:15:50,566 --> 01:15:52,866
-What amazed and moved me

1310
01:15:52,900 --> 01:15:55,800
were the letters
which poured in.

1311
01:15:55,833 --> 01:15:59,833
The reality of the situations
and struggles I'd written about

1312
01:15:59,866 --> 01:16:03,300
touched the hearts, as well
as the minds of many readers.

1313
01:16:03,333 --> 01:16:04,766
They said, "You're a menace."

1314
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:07,366
-He was the first major
public intellectual

1315
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:09,366
in the area of medicine

1316
01:16:09,400 --> 01:16:13,166
who really spoke about diseases
to the general public

1317
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:16,200
in a way
that they could understand.

1318
01:16:16,233 --> 01:16:19,200
-His writing brought back
a central aspect of medicine,

1319
01:16:19,233 --> 01:16:22,633
which is you treat the person
and not the disease.

1320
01:16:22,666 --> 01:16:24,633
-I sometimes feel more at home

1321
01:16:24,666 --> 01:16:28,933
with my patients
than with my neighbors, say,

1322
01:16:28,966 --> 01:16:34,466
but at some level
I think we are all patients.

1323
01:16:34,500 --> 01:16:35,933
-We published, I think,

1324
01:16:35,966 --> 01:16:39,566
something like 29 or 30 pieces
by him over the years,

1325
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:42,266
on many different cases.

1326
01:16:42,300 --> 01:16:45,966
♪♪♪

1327
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:48,733
-Each one of his people
that he wrote about

1328
01:16:48,766 --> 01:16:52,533
was experiencing the world
in a different way.

1329
01:16:52,566 --> 01:16:54,666
-Scientists know it's the brain
that gives rise

1330
01:16:54,700 --> 01:16:57,233
to our conscious perception,
to consciousness.

1331
01:16:57,266 --> 01:16:59,066
- Hello.
- And we've been trying to

1332
01:16:59,100 --> 01:17:01,533
understand forever what's the
relationship between the brain

1333
01:17:01,566 --> 01:17:04,000
and its various
constituent parts

1334
01:17:04,033 --> 01:17:06,133
and the experiencing "I."

1335
01:17:06,166 --> 01:17:08,666
And Oliver Sacks, of course,
was very good at studying

1336
01:17:08,700 --> 01:17:10,566
this experiencing "I,"
and what happens

1337
01:17:10,600 --> 01:17:13,366
in this condition
or in that medical condition.

1338
01:17:13,400 --> 01:17:16,866
What is it to live with
certain types of afflictions?

1339
01:17:16,900 --> 01:17:19,666
What is it to live
with migraine attacks?

1340
01:17:19,700 --> 01:17:21,500
What is it to live
without a memory?

1341
01:17:21,533 --> 01:17:24,233
What is it if you're stuck
always in 1982,

1342
01:17:24,266 --> 01:17:26,700
as one of his patients was?

1343
01:17:26,733 --> 01:17:30,300
What does it actually feel like
from the inside?

1344
01:17:30,333 --> 01:17:32,666
-There was the case,
for example,

1345
01:17:32,700 --> 01:17:35,200
of the colorblind painter.

1346
01:17:35,233 --> 01:17:40,066
-This was fruit
as Isaacson saw it.

1347
01:17:40,100 --> 01:17:43,100
Oliver found that
the very absence of color

1348
01:17:43,133 --> 01:17:48,200
also revealed a certain
basic sense of order.

1349
01:17:48,233 --> 01:17:50,566
-After a few weeks, "Mr. I"

1350
01:17:50,600 --> 01:17:53,900
started to feel
that perhaps he was seeing

1351
01:17:53,933 --> 01:17:57,733
a more delicate world
than others.

1352
01:17:57,766 --> 01:18:01,033
-He was also fascinated
by Sign Language,

1353
01:18:01,066 --> 01:18:04,600
the language of immense
complexity, subtlety.

1354
01:18:04,633 --> 01:18:09,466
It's not based on any system
of communication we know.

1355
01:18:09,500 --> 01:18:12,000
It's an entirely separate
language.

1356
01:18:12,033 --> 01:18:15,966
And it has its own charm
and humor.

1357
01:18:16,000 --> 01:18:20,166
-He was constantly talking
about taking off his white coat

1358
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:21,966
and getting out of the clinic

1359
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:25,833
and going into the world
with people.

1360
01:18:25,866 --> 01:18:28,233
-Hello. It's nice to see you.

1361
01:18:28,266 --> 01:18:32,133
♪♪♪

1362
01:18:32,166 --> 01:18:33,666
What was that about?

1363
01:18:33,700 --> 01:18:37,666
-He was interested in how
the person experienced that,

1364
01:18:37,700 --> 01:18:40,066
really getting inside the minds

1365
01:18:40,100 --> 01:18:44,033
of people that had various
neurological differences.

1366
01:18:44,066 --> 01:18:45,900
-Oliver specifically wanted

1367
01:18:45,933 --> 01:18:49,500
to be in the skin of a person
with Tourette syndrome,

1368
01:18:49,533 --> 01:18:52,033
with Temple Grandin,
in the skin of somebody

1369
01:18:52,066 --> 01:18:55,700
who had Asperger syndrome.

1370
01:18:55,733 --> 01:18:58,200
-Well, they used to think that
people on the autism spectrum

1371
01:18:58,233 --> 01:18:59,933
had no inner world.

1372
01:18:59,966 --> 01:19:03,133
Oliver really got emotionally
where I was at.

1373
01:19:03,166 --> 01:19:06,900
That, he really,
really understood.

1374
01:19:06,933 --> 01:19:10,466
He got inside my emotions in
a way that other people hadn't.

1375
01:19:10,500 --> 01:19:12,466
It was sort of
kind of mind-blowing.

1376
01:19:12,500 --> 01:19:16,166
-Oliver brought
Temple Grandin to life,

1377
01:19:16,200 --> 01:19:18,533
in the full breadth
of her humanity,

1378
01:19:18,566 --> 01:19:20,600
in his portrayal of her in

1379
01:19:18,566 --> 01:19:20,600
<i>The New Yorker</i>

1380
01:19:20,633 --> 01:19:22,800
and "An Anthropologist on Mars,"

1381
01:19:22,833 --> 01:19:24,300
simply by writing about

1382
01:19:24,333 --> 01:19:26,600
what she did
and what she thought about.

1383
01:19:26,633 --> 01:19:29,700
He undermined stereotypes
of autistic people

1384
01:19:29,733 --> 01:19:31,933
that had prevailed for decades.

1385
01:19:31,966 --> 01:19:34,400
-What you have to bring
to the illness

1386
01:19:34,433 --> 01:19:37,533
and to the patient
is you bring yourself.

1387
01:19:37,566 --> 01:19:40,533
You don't just bring
a pocketful of medications.

1388
01:19:40,566 --> 01:19:43,900
You bring yourself,
and you interact.

1389
01:19:43,933 --> 01:19:45,666
And throw it back.

1390
01:19:45,700 --> 01:19:50,633
In Parkinsonism, parts
of the brain are damped down

1391
01:19:50,666 --> 01:19:55,366
and low in dopamine
and tend to make one immobile.

1392
01:19:55,400 --> 01:19:58,200
I feel that one of my patients
in particular

1393
01:19:58,233 --> 01:20:01,033
has taught me so much
about Parkinsonism.

1394
01:20:01,066 --> 01:20:03,533
Right from the start,
he thought Parkinsonism for him

1395
01:20:03,566 --> 01:20:07,900
had not presented as stiffness
or tremor or motor symptoms,

1396
01:20:07,933 --> 01:20:11,066
but as a change
in the quality of his dreams

1397
01:20:11,100 --> 01:20:13,500
and then of his imagination,

1398
01:20:13,533 --> 01:20:17,600
that an inner Parkinsonian
landscape arose within him,

1399
01:20:17,633 --> 01:20:20,033
which had driven him
towards art.

1400
01:20:20,066 --> 01:20:23,666
♪♪♪

1401
01:20:23,700 --> 01:20:25,833
Now, with Tourette syndrome,

1402
01:20:25,866 --> 01:20:29,833
parts of the brain
are spontaneously hyperactive.

1403
01:20:29,866 --> 01:20:32,733
They're firing spontaneously.

1404
01:20:32,766 --> 01:20:35,433
Tch, tch, tch, tch!
Sparking off.

1405
01:20:35,466 --> 01:20:38,100
-Oliver said that Tourette
wasn't a deficiency;

1406
01:20:38,133 --> 01:20:40,466
it was an excess.

1407
01:20:40,500 --> 01:20:43,133
So I don't think of myself
as less than normal.

1408
01:20:43,166 --> 01:20:46,400
I think of myself
as
<i>more</i>
than normal.

1409
01:20:46,433 --> 01:20:49,966
-We met in 1987.

1410
01:20:50,000 --> 01:20:51,500
I remember exactly.

1411
01:20:51,533 --> 01:20:53,866
I got a call one day,
and it said,

1412
01:20:53,900 --> 01:20:56,366
[as Sacks] "Um, um, hello?

1413
01:20:56,400 --> 01:20:59,900
Um, are you Shane Fistell,
the young man with Tourette's?"

1414
01:20:59,933 --> 01:21:02,700
And I said yes.
"I know who you are."

1415
01:21:02,733 --> 01:21:05,333
He said, "Well, I'm Oliver.
Oliver Sacks.

1416
01:21:05,366 --> 01:21:08,866
I would like to come up
to see you, if I may."

1417
01:21:08,900 --> 01:21:10,933
You don't have to stop for me.

1418
01:21:10,966 --> 01:21:14,400
♪♪♪

1419
01:21:14,433 --> 01:21:18,066
No, no, I know.
I know... I know you have to.

1420
01:21:18,100 --> 01:21:21,100
So, he came up right away. He
was there in about week or so.

1421
01:21:21,133 --> 01:21:24,100
And he spent a few days with me.

1422
01:21:24,133 --> 01:21:27,366
It's not even real!

1423
01:21:27,400 --> 01:21:32,133
-This is the Charcot Library,
and, you know, here...

1424
01:21:32,166 --> 01:21:34,366
-It smells sweet.
Do you smell that sweetness?

1425
01:21:34,400 --> 01:21:36,433
The books have a sweet...
old sweet smell?

1426
01:21:36,466 --> 01:21:38,466
-Okay, well,
you're getting very close

1427
01:21:38,500 --> 01:21:40,033
to your original description.

1428
01:21:40,066 --> 01:21:41,500
Ohh.
- [ Smooching ] Oh.

1429
01:21:41,533 --> 01:21:43,866
<i>Mon frere, mon frere.
[ Laughs ]</i>

1430
01:21:43,900 --> 01:21:45,600
Oh, nice to see you!

1431
01:21:45,633 --> 01:21:50,600
-My pleasure, yes.
Okay, and, uh... uh...

1432
01:21:50,633 --> 01:21:52,266
-Ohh!

1433
01:21:52,300 --> 01:21:56,366
-And Tourette's personal
description of seven Shanes.

1434
01:21:56,400 --> 01:21:57,800
-Seven... Seven Shanes?

1435
01:21:57,833 --> 01:22:00,233
So meeting him was wonderful.

1436
01:22:00,266 --> 01:22:03,733
I felt... I said it...

1437
01:22:03,766 --> 01:22:05,633
I felt good.

1438
01:22:05,666 --> 01:22:07,700
It was wonderful
to have Tourette,

1439
01:22:07,733 --> 01:22:10,466
that I could revel in it
and marvel at the good things.

1440
01:22:10,500 --> 01:22:14,133
It wasn't all negative and
clinicized and pathologized

1441
01:22:14,166 --> 01:22:19,166
and reduced to a non-entity,
you know?

1442
01:22:19,200 --> 01:22:22,300
Oliver invited people
to look at themselves,

1443
01:22:22,333 --> 01:22:24,933
and people, when they're looking
at people with disability,

1444
01:22:24,966 --> 01:22:26,633
they're also looking
at themselves,

1445
01:22:26,666 --> 01:22:28,733
and they're afraid
to look in the mirror.

1446
01:22:28,766 --> 01:22:31,200
So he was...
People think he was saying,

1447
01:22:31,233 --> 01:22:33,033
"Look at the others."

1448
01:22:33,066 --> 01:22:35,333
He's not saying that.

1449
01:22:35,366 --> 01:22:37,566
He's saying, "Look at <i>us...</i>

1450
01:22:37,600 --> 01:22:39,233
Dad? Dad!

1451
01:22:39,266 --> 01:22:40,533
...as the whole human race."

1452
01:22:40,566 --> 01:22:42,000
Dad?

1453
01:22:42,033 --> 01:22:44,766
-His body movements
are so sudden and violent.

1454
01:22:44,800 --> 01:22:47,633
-He wasn't... He wasn't
searching for a panacea.

1455
01:22:47,666 --> 01:22:49,600
- Look here, Shane.
- [ Laughs ]

1456
01:22:49,633 --> 01:22:52,466
You know, he's like a country
doctor making house calls

1457
01:22:52,500 --> 01:22:55,000
to the whole world, you know,
to the whole planet.

1458
01:22:55,033 --> 01:22:57,200
-How are you feeling,
Mr. Benifontaine?

1459
01:22:57,233 --> 01:22:58,866
-His great gift was storytelling

1460
01:22:58,900 --> 01:23:01,233
about the human condition
in a medical context

1461
01:23:01,266 --> 01:23:04,333
and humanizing
each one of his patients...

1462
01:23:04,366 --> 01:23:08,366
and emphasizing
not so much the loss,

1463
01:23:08,400 --> 01:23:11,766
as the richness of their
experience, the difference,

1464
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:14,066
the fact that they saw the world
in different ways.

1465
01:23:14,100 --> 01:23:16,966
- There's no resistance here.
- He always saw the particular.

1466
01:23:17,000 --> 01:23:18,900
He always saw
each unique individual

1467
01:23:18,933 --> 01:23:20,733
and each unique patient.

1468
01:23:20,766 --> 01:23:23,400
And so that makes him
a very astute observer

1469
01:23:23,433 --> 01:23:24,966
of the human condition.

1470
01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:27,833
As long as we have human nature,
as long as we have experiences,

1471
01:23:27,866 --> 01:23:29,666
this is something
that is for the ages

1472
01:23:29,700 --> 01:23:31,866
because that description
is still gonna be valid

1473
01:23:31,900 --> 01:23:34,500
1,000 or 2,000 years from now.

1474
01:23:34,533 --> 01:23:41,266
♪♪♪

1475
01:23:41,300 --> 01:23:44,466
-He established himself first
really in the literary realm,

1476
01:23:44,500 --> 01:23:46,433
but he did not want
to see himself

1477
01:23:46,466 --> 01:23:49,333
as a literary person only.

1478
01:23:49,366 --> 01:23:52,633
He very much wanted to be
accepted as a scientist,

1479
01:23:52,666 --> 01:23:57,033
and he couldn't understand why
he couldn't be seen that way.

1480
01:23:57,066 --> 01:23:59,433
♪♪♪

1481
01:23:59,466 --> 01:24:02,900
-I do go my own way.

1482
01:24:02,933 --> 01:24:07,000
I may not be entirely easy
to decipher.

1483
01:24:07,033 --> 01:24:09,800
I'm not easily categorized.

1484
01:24:09,833 --> 01:24:11,533
And I think this can give rise

1485
01:24:11,566 --> 01:24:15,166
to bewilderment and ambivalence.

1486
01:24:15,200 --> 01:24:17,866
Am I a writer or a doctor?

1487
01:24:17,900 --> 01:24:19,600
Where do I belong

1488
01:24:19,633 --> 01:24:24,433
in what is sometimes
a fairly rigid hierarchy?

1489
01:24:24,466 --> 01:24:27,666
As the same time, I am haunted,

1490
01:24:27,700 --> 01:24:30,800
as someone who writes
about patients,

1491
01:24:30,833 --> 01:24:33,600
by the fact that others
have sometimes accused me

1492
01:24:33,633 --> 01:24:37,133
of exploiting them,
betraying them.

1493
01:24:37,166 --> 01:24:41,133
There have been some
very stinging comments.

1494
01:24:41,166 --> 01:24:44,500
-Not everyone appreciated him.
He had his critics.

1495
01:24:44,533 --> 01:24:46,966
Someone described him as the
man who mistook his patients

1496
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:52,633
for a literary career,
which is a low blow.

1497
01:24:52,666 --> 01:24:54,800
-I think
that's completely wrong.

1498
01:24:54,833 --> 01:24:57,300
I think Oliver genuinely
cared about his patients,

1499
01:24:57,333 --> 01:24:59,166
and I think
the descriptions he had

1500
01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:01,966
of all these different kinds
of neurological problems

1501
01:25:02,000 --> 01:25:04,400
gave tremendous insight.

1502
01:25:04,433 --> 01:25:06,666
For someone to say
that he exploited his patients

1503
01:25:06,700 --> 01:25:10,200
by writing those articles,
I think that's absolutely wrong.

1504
01:25:10,233 --> 01:25:12,400
-People would often
come up to me and say,

1505
01:25:12,433 --> 01:25:14,900
"Sacks, what's your theory?"

1506
01:25:14,933 --> 01:25:17,733
I would say,
"I don't have any theories.

1507
01:25:17,766 --> 01:25:21,500
I just describe.
I just observe."

1508
01:25:21,533 --> 01:25:25,333
But there's no such thing
as "just observing."

1509
01:25:25,366 --> 01:25:30,033
A great theorist of the brain
and the mind, Gerald Edelman...

1510
01:25:30,066 --> 01:25:34,000
at one point he said to me,
"You're no theoretician."

1511
01:25:34,033 --> 01:25:39,566
And I said, "But I am a
field-worker. I show things.

1512
01:25:39,600 --> 01:25:43,500
And you need what I do
to do what you do."

1513
01:25:43,533 --> 01:25:46,033
-New York, 1990.

1514
01:25:46,066 --> 01:25:47,966
Robin Williams
and Robert De Niro

1515
01:25:48,000 --> 01:25:50,200
are rehearsing
to be doctor and patient

1516
01:25:50,233 --> 01:25:52,400
in a new film, "Awakenings."

1517
01:25:52,433 --> 01:25:53,900
A Bronx hospital...
- Hello.

1518
01:25:53,933 --> 01:25:56,000
- ...provides the film's setting.
- Won't you join us?

1519
01:25:56,033 --> 01:25:57,866
Here's the exciting world
of editing.

1520
01:25:57,900 --> 01:26:01,200
On a multi-million-dollar film,
this is what it's come down to.

1521
01:26:01,233 --> 01:26:03,533
This, a box...
sound dubbing equipment.

1522
01:26:03,566 --> 01:26:06,566
Ooh! Coming in for a close-up.
For those of you who...

1523
01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:10,000
-Oddly enough,
it wasn't until about 1990,

1524
01:26:10,033 --> 01:26:14,833
when the movie version
of "Awakenings" came out,

1525
01:26:14,866 --> 01:26:18,700
that his profession
really began to embrace him.

1526
01:26:18,733 --> 01:26:24,100
♪♪♪

1527
01:26:24,133 --> 01:26:26,466
All of a sudden,
medical profession,

1528
01:26:26,500 --> 01:26:30,000
having held him sort of at
arm's length for so many years,

1529
01:26:30,033 --> 01:26:33,533
now embraced him and began
offering him honorary degrees,

1530
01:26:33,566 --> 01:26:37,400
honorary memberships in their
institutions and academies.

1531
01:26:37,433 --> 01:26:39,200
- [ Applause ]
- Thanks very much.

1532
01:26:39,233 --> 01:26:41,600
-He began to get invitations

1533
01:26:41,633 --> 01:26:43,766
to lecture
both in medical schools...

1534
01:26:43,800 --> 01:26:45,533
-Please welcome Dr. Sacks.

1535
01:26:45,566 --> 01:26:48,066
-...and in cultural institutions
open to the public...

1536
01:26:48,100 --> 01:26:49,333
...the museum again...

1537
01:26:49,366 --> 01:26:51,500
...saying,
"Come and speak to us,"

1538
01:26:51,533 --> 01:26:55,733
because of this Hollywood movie,
which I thought was ironic.

1539
01:26:55,766 --> 01:26:59,400
But perhaps he was
a little ahead of his time,

1540
01:26:59,433 --> 01:27:02,500
or else a century
behind his time.

1541
01:27:02,533 --> 01:27:04,033
-Oliver was an observer.

1542
01:27:04,066 --> 01:27:05,933
That's why in the beginning

1543
01:27:05,966 --> 01:27:09,300
Oliver didn't get respect
from the science community.

1544
01:27:09,333 --> 01:27:11,133
See, some people think

1545
01:27:11,166 --> 01:27:13,100
that you have to
have a hypothesis

1546
01:27:13,133 --> 01:27:15,666
and a controlled experiment
to have science.

1547
01:27:15,700 --> 01:27:19,533
And I say, "Okay.
What is astronomy then?"

1548
01:27:19,566 --> 01:27:23,200
The Hubble Space Telescope
just looks at things.

1549
01:27:23,233 --> 01:27:25,133
It's observation.

1550
01:27:25,166 --> 01:27:27,666
Observation is part of science.

1551
01:27:27,700 --> 01:27:29,066
Because without observation,

1552
01:27:29,100 --> 01:27:32,033
you couldn't even
make up a hypothesis.

1553
01:27:32,066 --> 01:27:33,900
What Oliver did is sort of like

1554
01:27:33,933 --> 01:27:37,033
the Hubble Space Telescope
of neurology.

1555
01:27:37,066 --> 01:27:39,766
It's astronomy of the mind.

1556
01:27:39,800 --> 01:27:45,000
♪♪♪

1557
01:27:45,033 --> 01:27:48,366
-One thing we talked a lot about

1558
01:27:48,400 --> 01:27:51,233
was the hard problem...

1559
01:27:51,266 --> 01:27:53,566
consciousness, consciousness,

1560
01:27:53,600 --> 01:27:57,633
which concerned him totally
in his writings.

1561
01:27:57,666 --> 01:27:59,500
He was obsessed.

1562
01:27:59,533 --> 01:28:02,966
He was obsessed with that,
as, by the way,

1563
01:28:03,000 --> 01:28:06,233
every serious scientist is
by now.

1564
01:28:06,266 --> 01:28:08,066
♪♪♪

1565
01:28:08,100 --> 01:28:10,300
-Much of my life has been spent

1566
01:28:10,333 --> 01:28:14,866
trying to understand
the relation of brain and mind,

1567
01:28:14,900 --> 01:28:19,166
in particular, the biological
basis of consciousness.

1568
01:28:19,200 --> 01:28:21,266
♪♪♪

1569
01:28:21,300 --> 01:28:23,633
-Consciousness
ultimately is experience.

1570
01:28:23,666 --> 01:28:25,733
The essential core
of consciousness

1571
01:28:25,766 --> 01:28:29,000
is the fact that it feels like
something from the inside

1572
01:28:29,033 --> 01:28:31,233
to be a conscious being.

1573
01:28:31,266 --> 01:28:33,333
What does it feel like to be me?

1574
01:28:33,366 --> 01:28:36,000
What does it feel like
to be you?

1575
01:28:36,033 --> 01:28:38,833
What's the exact relationship
between the body...

1576
01:28:38,866 --> 01:28:41,400
in particular the brain,
because we know it's the brain

1577
01:28:41,433 --> 01:28:44,466
that gives rise
to conscious experience...

1578
01:28:44,500 --> 01:28:47,933
and our experience?

1579
01:28:47,966 --> 01:28:50,700
And Oliver always expressed
a sense of wonderment

1580
01:28:50,733 --> 01:28:52,633
that literally, every day,

1581
01:28:52,666 --> 01:28:57,433
I wake up in a world of
color and sound and fury,

1582
01:28:57,466 --> 01:29:00,666
and it feels like a miracle.

1583
01:29:00,700 --> 01:29:03,833
And he never lost
that sense of wonder.

1584
01:29:03,866 --> 01:29:06,100
♪♪♪

1585
01:29:06,133 --> 01:29:09,433
-But for much of the early part
of the 20th century,

1586
01:29:09,466 --> 01:29:14,966
mind and consciousness got
somehow pushed out of science.

1587
01:29:15,000 --> 01:29:17,333
♪♪♪

1588
01:29:17,366 --> 01:29:21,033
For how could science
explain learning?

1589
01:29:21,066 --> 01:29:23,900
How could it explain
the reconstructions

1590
01:29:23,933 --> 01:29:29,233
and revisions of memory we make
throughout our lives?

1591
01:29:29,266 --> 01:29:33,300
How could it explain
the processes of adaptation,

1592
01:29:33,333 --> 01:29:37,200
of improvisation and creativity?

1593
01:29:37,233 --> 01:29:40,266
How could it explain
consciousness,

1594
01:29:40,300 --> 01:29:44,300
its richness, its wholeness,
its ever-changing stream,

1595
01:29:44,333 --> 01:29:47,433
and its many disorders?

1596
01:29:47,466 --> 01:29:51,666
How could it explain
individuality or self?

1597
01:29:51,700 --> 01:29:54,166
♪♪♪

1598
01:29:54,200 --> 01:29:56,500
-For many years, scientists

1599
01:29:56,533 --> 01:30:00,566
tried to avoid
this whole subject,

1600
01:30:00,600 --> 01:30:04,800
to avoid this word
"consciousness."

1601
01:30:04,833 --> 01:30:07,100
And then they realized

1602
01:30:07,133 --> 01:30:09,466
that it was in the center
of everything,

1603
01:30:09,500 --> 01:30:14,500
and now you cannot avoid it
anymore.

1604
01:30:14,533 --> 01:30:17,433
-In 1979, Francis Crick,

1605
01:30:17,466 --> 01:30:21,233
who with James Watson had
already won the Nobel Prize

1606
01:30:21,266 --> 01:30:23,666
for their work on DNA,

1607
01:30:23,700 --> 01:30:26,300
published
"Thinking About the Brain,"

1608
01:30:26,333 --> 01:30:28,366
which, in a sense, legitimated

1609
01:30:28,400 --> 01:30:32,966
the study of consciousness
in neuroscientific terms.

1610
01:30:33,000 --> 01:30:36,300
Prior to this,
studies of consciousness

1611
01:30:36,333 --> 01:30:39,633
were felt to be
irretrievably subjective

1612
01:30:39,666 --> 01:30:41,700
and, therefore, unscientific.

1613
01:30:41,733 --> 01:30:43,266
[ Crackling ]

1614
01:30:43,300 --> 01:30:47,466
-The new neuroscience
excited Oliver hugely

1615
01:30:47,500 --> 01:30:52,300
and gave Oliver
almost a new creative energy.

1616
01:30:52,333 --> 01:30:56,466
Oliver was trying to meld

1617
01:30:56,500 --> 01:30:59,866
the clinical presentations
of these odd syndromes

1618
01:30:59,900 --> 01:31:05,100
with what these neuroscientists
were studying.

1619
01:31:05,133 --> 01:31:08,900
And he began to understand
that his role would be

1620
01:31:08,933 --> 01:31:14,700
to have a conversation with
scientists like Francis Crick,

1621
01:31:14,733 --> 01:31:17,933
with Christof Koch,
with Gerald Edelman,

1622
01:31:17,966 --> 01:31:21,733
about how his clinical insight
could come together

1623
01:31:21,766 --> 01:31:24,800
with this highly conceptual work
they were doing,

1624
01:31:24,833 --> 01:31:29,100
trying to understand the neural
correlates of consciousness.

1625
01:31:29,133 --> 01:31:31,300
♪♪♪

1626
01:31:31,333 --> 01:31:33,166
-I first met Francis Crick

1627
01:31:33,200 --> 01:31:37,333
at a 1986 conference
in San Diego.

1628
01:31:37,366 --> 01:31:39,700
When it was time
to sit down for dinner,

1629
01:31:39,733 --> 01:31:44,333
Crick seized me by the shoulders
and sat me down next to him,

1630
01:31:44,366 --> 01:31:47,833
saying, "Tell me stories."

1631
01:31:47,866 --> 01:31:50,166
In particular, he wanted stories

1632
01:31:50,200 --> 01:31:54,800
of how vision might be altered
by brain damage or disease.

1633
01:31:56,733 --> 01:31:59,400
-They struck up
a very intense relationship,

1634
01:31:59,433 --> 01:32:01,866
and Francis just kept on pumping
for more information.

1635
01:32:01,900 --> 01:32:04,866
"Tell me more
about this patient.
What about that patient?"

1636
01:32:04,900 --> 01:32:13,900
♪♪♪

1637
01:32:13,933 --> 01:32:16,233
-Something which
Crick and I spoke about

1638
01:32:16,266 --> 01:32:18,400
right at the very beginning
was that,

1639
01:32:18,433 --> 01:32:20,233
in attacks of migraine,

1640
01:32:20,266 --> 01:32:24,866
sometimes the sense of movement
would disappear.

1641
01:32:26,866 --> 01:32:31,166
And you would see
a series of stills,

1642
01:32:31,200 --> 01:32:35,866
like stroboscopic illumination
or film run too slow.

1643
01:32:35,900 --> 01:32:37,600
♪♪♪

1644
01:32:37,633 --> 01:32:39,933
-This particular type
of migraine,

1645
01:32:39,966 --> 01:32:42,833
suddenly the sense of continuity
is shattered,

1646
01:32:42,866 --> 01:32:46,200
and you see the world
only as discrete frames.

1647
01:32:46,233 --> 01:32:48,633
[ Crackling ]

1648
01:32:48,666 --> 01:32:50,266
-I found myself wondering

1649
01:32:50,300 --> 01:32:53,100
whether the apparently
continuous passage

1650
01:32:53,133 --> 01:32:56,800
of time and movement
given to us by our eyes

1651
01:32:56,833 --> 01:33:00,233
was an illusion...

1652
01:33:00,266 --> 01:33:02,900
whether, in fact,
our visual experience

1653
01:33:02,933 --> 01:33:06,333
consisted of a series
of timeless moments

1654
01:33:06,366 --> 01:33:08,400
which were then welded together

1655
01:33:08,433 --> 01:33:11,366
by some higher mechanism
in the brain.

1656
01:33:11,400 --> 01:33:14,600
♪♪♪

1657
01:33:14,633 --> 01:33:17,466
I called it cinematic vision,

1658
01:33:17,500 --> 01:33:21,433
and Crick was very,
very interested in this.

1659
01:33:21,466 --> 01:33:24,233
-Of course, that's exactly
what happens in a movie.

1660
01:33:24,266 --> 01:33:26,733
If you take something
at 24 or at 30 frames,

1661
01:33:26,766 --> 01:33:29,200
each frame is a static frame,

1662
01:33:29,233 --> 01:33:33,033
yet we all see
continuous motion.

1663
01:33:33,066 --> 01:33:36,333
But patients who have
what's called akinetopsia,

1664
01:33:36,366 --> 01:33:37,833
an absence of seeing motion,

1665
01:33:37,866 --> 01:33:39,833
they typically have
bilateral lesions

1666
01:33:39,866 --> 01:33:41,466
here in the back of the brain,

1667
01:33:41,500 --> 01:33:44,400
and to them the world
looks like individual stills,

1668
01:33:44,433 --> 01:33:48,400
like a strobe light, but they
don't see continuous motion.

1669
01:33:48,433 --> 01:33:51,700
And that tells us
that there's some relationship

1670
01:33:51,733 --> 01:33:53,866
between specific parts
of the brain

1671
01:33:53,900 --> 01:33:57,766
and particular aspects
of consciousness,

1672
01:33:57,800 --> 01:33:59,733
that there is a particular part
of the brain

1673
01:33:59,766 --> 01:34:02,700
that's just responsible
for seeing the sense of motion.

1674
01:34:02,733 --> 01:34:04,333
So this illusion of motion

1675
01:34:04,366 --> 01:34:06,433
is revealed to be what it is,
an illusion.

1676
01:34:06,466 --> 01:34:10,866
In fact, what the underlying
reality are discrete frames.

1677
01:34:10,900 --> 01:34:13,566
That tells us something
that may reveal the way,

1678
01:34:13,600 --> 01:34:18,033
actually, we perceive motion
in particular,

1679
01:34:18,066 --> 01:34:23,266
and maybe the sense of time
in general, the flow of time.

1680
01:34:23,300 --> 01:34:25,700
That is an interesting question
that people now ask.

1681
01:34:25,733 --> 01:34:27,933
What are the mechanisms
in our brain

1682
01:34:27,966 --> 01:34:32,433
that lead us to perceive
duration and flow of time?

1683
01:34:32,466 --> 01:34:36,533
And that all came out of
these observations by Oliver.

1684
01:34:36,566 --> 01:34:39,466
♪♪♪

1685
01:34:39,500 --> 01:34:44,633
-I found myself
thinking of time.

1686
01:34:44,666 --> 01:34:47,900
Time and perception.

1687
01:34:47,933 --> 01:34:51,400
Time and consciousness.

1688
01:34:51,433 --> 01:34:52,600
Time and memory.

1689
01:34:52,633 --> 01:34:54,166
[ Children shouting ]

1690
01:34:54,200 --> 01:34:55,866
Time and music.

1691
01:34:55,900 --> 01:34:58,433
[ Piano playing ]

1692
01:34:58,466 --> 01:35:00,300
[ Crackling ]

1693
01:35:00,333 --> 01:35:02,833
Time and movement.

1694
01:35:02,866 --> 01:35:05,900
♪♪♪

1695
01:35:05,933 --> 01:35:09,033
-Soon after that,
in fairly quick succession,

1696
01:35:09,066 --> 01:35:13,900
he publishes "Musicophilia,"
about music and the brain.

1697
01:35:13,933 --> 01:35:16,566
He publishes "The Mind's Eye."

1698
01:35:16,600 --> 01:35:21,433
It's about various
mostly visual syndromes.

1699
01:35:21,466 --> 01:35:23,833
He publishes "Hallucinations."

1700
01:35:23,866 --> 01:35:26,833
And all of these books
are deeply informed

1701
01:35:26,866 --> 01:35:31,333
by the neuroscience
that's burgeoning at this time.

1702
01:35:31,366 --> 01:35:32,933
He becomes, at that point,

1703
01:35:32,966 --> 01:35:35,666
not only
a man of the 19th century,

1704
01:35:35,700 --> 01:35:38,433
but a man of the 21st century.

1705
01:35:38,466 --> 01:35:42,100
And this, I think, was very
deeply satisfying to Oliver

1706
01:35:42,133 --> 01:35:45,633
to be able to pull
these things together.

1707
01:35:45,666 --> 01:35:48,000
He was also hugely relieved

1708
01:35:48,033 --> 01:35:50,066
to be accepted
by his colleagues,

1709
01:35:50,100 --> 01:35:54,400
to get some of the recognition
that he had sought.

1710
01:35:54,433 --> 01:35:56,800
♪♪♪

1711
01:35:56,833 --> 01:35:58,933
-I was in medical school,
actually,

1712
01:35:58,966 --> 01:36:01,566
when I first came across
his work,

1713
01:36:01,600 --> 01:36:04,100
and it was like
a revelation to me.

1714
01:36:04,133 --> 01:36:07,266
His writing showed me there's
truth and there's knowledge,

1715
01:36:07,300 --> 01:36:10,466
and there's important things
about the human experience

1716
01:36:10,500 --> 01:36:13,400
that you just don't get
from medical text books.

1717
01:36:13,433 --> 01:36:15,533
And there were truths
to be found

1718
01:36:15,566 --> 01:36:17,400
in going deeply
into people's lives

1719
01:36:17,433 --> 01:36:21,733
and seeing what happens to them
and how it unfolds over time.

1720
01:36:21,766 --> 01:36:26,033
Arguably, Oliver Sacks is
the most important person for me

1721
01:36:26,066 --> 01:36:30,033
in shaping my idea
of what a doctor should be,

1722
01:36:30,066 --> 01:36:32,000
about what a good doctor is.

1723
01:36:32,033 --> 01:36:34,666
♪♪♪

1724
01:36:34,700 --> 01:36:37,233
-The head of Columbia's
neurology department

1725
01:36:37,266 --> 01:36:42,566
recently said, these days,
70% of the applicants

1726
01:36:42,600 --> 01:36:45,400
to do neurology
as a concentration

1727
01:36:45,433 --> 01:36:47,000
mention Oliver Sacks

1728
01:36:47,033 --> 01:36:49,666
as the reason they want
to become neurologists.

1729
01:36:49,700 --> 01:36:53,366
He has really made
a generational...

1730
01:36:53,400 --> 01:36:55,500
made a historic difference.

1731
01:37:03,366 --> 01:37:06,600
[ Piano playing ]

1732
01:37:06,633 --> 01:37:15,333
♪♪♪

1733
01:37:15,366 --> 01:37:21,500
-I have difficulty saying
what constitutes home for me.

1734
01:37:21,533 --> 01:37:26,000
I've been 50 years in New York,
but I'm not a citizen here.

1735
01:37:26,033 --> 01:37:28,400
♪♪♪

1736
01:37:28,433 --> 01:37:34,033
I often feel my home
is a mental home,

1737
01:37:34,066 --> 01:37:40,033
in thinking, in medicine,
in physiology, in science,

1738
01:37:40,066 --> 01:37:44,900
perhaps above all in writing.

1739
01:37:44,933 --> 01:37:47,133
When I am absorbed in writing,

1740
01:37:47,166 --> 01:37:53,566
I feel exempted from many of
my own neuroses and problems.

1741
01:37:53,600 --> 01:37:58,100
I somehow seem to be
in another realm

1742
01:37:58,133 --> 01:38:02,800
and a sort of timeless realm,
as well.

1743
01:38:02,833 --> 01:38:05,500
Oops. Sorry. Bugger.

1744
01:38:08,233 --> 01:38:10,433
I don't know whether
you've met my editor, Dan Frank.

1745
01:38:10,466 --> 01:38:11,800
- We met.
- I think Dan

1746
01:38:11,833 --> 01:38:13,100
wants to give you something.

1747
01:38:13,133 --> 01:38:14,466
-So, Oliver, I realized that,

1748
01:38:14,500 --> 01:38:16,500
when I was thinking about this,

1749
01:38:16,533 --> 01:38:19,333
I first started reading you
in
<i>The New York Review of Books</i>

1750
01:38:19,366 --> 01:38:21,733
in the early 1980s,
and when one of the pieces

1751
01:38:21,766 --> 01:38:24,200
from "Man Who"
started appearing there.

1752
01:38:24,233 --> 01:38:26,533
And I realize it's, like, been
one of the greatest things

1753
01:38:26,566 --> 01:38:28,400
in my career as an editor,
is that I've had

1754
01:38:28,433 --> 01:38:30,333
this association with you.

1755
01:38:30,366 --> 01:38:35,166
And I feel like this is just

1756
01:38:35,200 --> 01:38:37,333
one of the finest books
you've ever written.

1757
01:38:37,366 --> 01:38:39,800
-Ooh. Ah!

1758
01:38:39,833 --> 01:38:42,000
[ Laughter ]

1759
01:38:45,766 --> 01:38:48,833
-This is the first one.
Hot off the press.

1760
01:38:48,866 --> 01:38:52,200
[ Laughter ]

1761
01:38:52,233 --> 01:38:55,700
And with my sexy picture
on the cover.

1762
01:38:55,733 --> 01:38:57,600
[ Laughter ]

1763
01:38:59,500 --> 01:39:01,266
-Until his late 70s,

1764
01:39:01,300 --> 01:39:05,466
I think an enormously long
stretch of his life

1765
01:39:05,500 --> 01:39:09,500
was a very eloquent,

1766
01:39:09,533 --> 01:39:13,600
careful groping for respect.

1767
01:39:13,633 --> 01:39:15,833
♪♪♪

1768
01:39:15,866 --> 01:39:19,666
And then Billy came along.

1769
01:39:19,700 --> 01:39:24,166
-In 2008, Oliver and I had
had this little correspondence,

1770
01:39:24,200 --> 01:39:28,400
and I had paid a couple of
visits on my trips to New York.

1771
01:39:28,433 --> 01:39:31,633
But I didn't know he was gay.

1772
01:39:31,666 --> 01:39:33,233
And it wasn't until I moved here

1773
01:39:33,266 --> 01:39:35,100
and we began to see
more of each other

1774
01:39:35,133 --> 01:39:39,333
that we developed
a relationship.

1775
01:39:39,366 --> 01:39:43,733
I think, in a way,
as unexpected for me as for him.

1776
01:39:43,766 --> 01:39:46,700
Oliver had lived
this very solitary life

1777
01:39:46,733 --> 01:39:49,966
and not had
any long-term relationships.

1778
01:39:50,000 --> 01:39:53,033
♪♪♪

1779
01:39:53,066 --> 01:39:55,600
-We started to go out together,

1780
01:39:55,633 --> 01:39:58,500
often to the New York
Botanical Garden,

1781
01:39:58,533 --> 01:40:03,333
which I had visited alone
for more than 40 years.

1782
01:40:03,366 --> 01:40:08,433
It has been a great and
unexpected gift in my old age,

1783
01:40:08,466 --> 01:40:11,833
after a lifetime
of keeping at a distance.

1784
01:40:11,866 --> 01:40:15,600
♪♪♪

1785
01:40:15,633 --> 01:40:18,033
-I remember early on
he took me for a walk

1786
01:40:18,066 --> 01:40:20,700
at the New York Botanic Garden
in the Bronx,

1787
01:40:20,733 --> 01:40:23,900
and he started telling me
about his love of ferns.

1788
01:40:23,933 --> 01:40:25,766
And I asked him why,

1789
01:40:25,800 --> 01:40:29,633
and he said,
"Ferns are survivors."

1790
01:40:29,666 --> 01:40:34,866
And that was his theme...
survival.

1791
01:40:34,900 --> 01:40:37,466
It was the theme of
the "Awakenings" patients,

1792
01:40:37,500 --> 01:40:40,300
their survival, which was
so incredible and moving,

1793
01:40:40,333 --> 01:40:43,466
and which he had
so much to do with...

1794
01:40:43,500 --> 01:40:46,766
and, at the end of his life,
in a way, his own survival,

1795
01:40:46,800 --> 01:40:50,966
in articulating that
and looking back on it.

1796
01:40:51,000 --> 01:40:52,933
-It was amazing
for him, clearly,

1797
01:40:52,966 --> 01:40:57,066
but it was amazing to see
someone in his late 70s

1798
01:40:57,100 --> 01:41:01,633
fall crazily in love

1799
01:41:01,666 --> 01:41:06,766
and solve such a deep problem
that he had.

1800
01:41:06,800 --> 01:41:08,833
Somebody finally told him

1801
01:41:08,866 --> 01:41:12,833
you can love, you can connect,

1802
01:41:12,866 --> 01:41:15,500
and, therefore,
you can begin to complete

1803
01:41:15,533 --> 01:41:18,966
this struggle you've made.

1804
01:41:19,000 --> 01:41:20,966
And the last four years,
I think,

1805
01:41:21,000 --> 01:41:25,500
felt like an enormous sigh,

1806
01:41:25,533 --> 01:41:27,366
in so many directions...

1807
01:41:27,400 --> 01:41:31,133
to his friends,
to his best friends,

1808
01:41:31,166 --> 01:41:34,033
to pretty much everybody.

1809
01:41:34,066 --> 01:41:36,066
He'd found balance.

1810
01:41:38,333 --> 01:41:41,933
-This was the poster
for the event at Julius',

1811
01:41:41,966 --> 01:41:44,200
which is the oldest gay bar
in New York City.

1812
01:41:44,233 --> 01:41:48,666
And they made their
monthly party in May of 2015

1813
01:41:48,700 --> 01:41:50,533
themed Oliver Sacks,

1814
01:41:50,566 --> 01:41:53,833
featuring the photo from
the cover of "On the Move,"

1815
01:41:53,866 --> 01:41:58,000
which is Oliver in
Sheridan Square on his new BMW.

1816
01:41:58,033 --> 01:42:01,900
Over 50 years later, finally
he's able to make the walk

1817
01:42:01,933 --> 01:42:05,566
from this apartment,
arm in arm with me, to Julius',

1818
01:42:05,600 --> 01:42:09,766
to a gay bar, the first time
in many, many, many years.

1819
01:42:09,800 --> 01:42:13,066
[ Siren wailing ]

1820
01:42:13,100 --> 01:42:16,866
[ Horns honking ]

1821
01:42:16,900 --> 01:42:19,733
The night
after he got his diagnosis,

1822
01:42:19,766 --> 01:42:22,500
he took out a little pad,
and he wrote a list,

1823
01:42:22,533 --> 01:42:24,833
and that became
kind of the blueprint

1824
01:42:24,866 --> 01:42:27,266
for the essay "My Own Life,"

1825
01:42:27,300 --> 01:42:30,133
which he literally wrote
within days of that,

1826
01:42:30,166 --> 01:42:33,866
almost in the draft that
appeared in
<i>The New York Times.</i>

1827
01:42:33,900 --> 01:42:39,266
♪♪♪

1828
01:42:39,300 --> 01:42:43,066
-"Three weeks ago, I felt
that I was in good health,

1829
01:42:43,100 --> 01:42:45,866
even robust health.

1830
01:42:45,900 --> 01:42:48,900
But my luck has run out.

1831
01:42:48,933 --> 01:42:52,566
Last week,
I had a biopsy and learned

1832
01:42:52,600 --> 01:42:57,300
that I have multiple metastases
in the liver.

1833
01:42:57,333 --> 01:43:02,166
Now I am face-to-face
with dying.

1834
01:43:02,200 --> 01:43:06,166
The cancer now occupies
a third of my liver,

1835
01:43:06,200 --> 01:43:08,766
and though its advance
may be slowed,

1836
01:43:08,800 --> 01:43:11,933
it cannot be halted.

1837
01:43:11,966 --> 01:43:13,600
It is up to me now

1838
01:43:13,633 --> 01:43:17,900
to choose how to live out
the rest of my life

1839
01:43:17,933 --> 01:43:21,400
in the months that remain to me.

1840
01:43:21,433 --> 01:43:24,600
I have to make the most
of what time I have,

1841
01:43:24,633 --> 01:43:26,633
to live it
in the richest, deepest,

1842
01:43:26,666 --> 01:43:29,333
most productive way I can."

1843
01:43:31,066 --> 01:43:40,433
♪♪♪

1844
01:43:40,466 --> 01:43:42,666
So that's it.

1845
01:43:42,700 --> 01:43:45,533
♪♪♪

1846
01:43:45,566 --> 01:43:47,733
Um...

1847
01:43:47,766 --> 01:43:51,600
I don't know what
the next months will bring.

1848
01:43:55,433 --> 01:43:58,366
I hope I can work and play

1849
01:43:58,400 --> 01:44:02,433
and love and be conscious

1850
01:44:02,466 --> 01:44:08,100
and be myself to the end,
or almost to the end.

1851
01:44:09,700 --> 01:44:12,133
Um...

1852
01:44:12,166 --> 01:44:18,766
I haven't yet given way,
fully, perhaps to emotion.

1853
01:44:18,800 --> 01:44:21,300
Um...

1854
01:44:21,333 --> 01:44:23,166
Uh...

1855
01:44:23,200 --> 01:44:27,133
I see tears all around me,

1856
01:44:27,166 --> 01:44:30,333
but I have yet
to shed them myself.

1857
01:44:30,366 --> 01:44:39,733
♪♪♪

1858
01:44:39,766 --> 01:44:42,400
-The piece of information
that he delivered,

1859
01:44:42,433 --> 01:44:44,933
that he had only
about six months to live,

1860
01:44:44,966 --> 01:44:48,766
was accurate, horrifyingly so.

1861
01:44:48,800 --> 01:44:52,333
And everyone who knew him
was distraught by this

1862
01:44:52,366 --> 01:44:54,833
and wondered
what he was going to do,

1863
01:44:54,866 --> 01:44:58,800
how he was going to react to it.

1864
01:44:58,833 --> 01:45:00,866
-The last time I saw Oliver

1865
01:45:00,900 --> 01:45:04,966
was just about 10 days
or two weeks before he died.

1866
01:45:05,000 --> 01:45:07,100
He was writing, writing
in his characteristic way.

1867
01:45:07,133 --> 01:45:09,666
And I said,
"What are you doing?"

1868
01:45:09,700 --> 01:45:14,833
And he said,
"I'm writing about creativity."

1869
01:45:14,866 --> 01:45:18,800
-It was a visit
like any other visit.

1870
01:45:18,833 --> 01:45:23,400
We didn't talk about his illness
very much.

1871
01:45:23,433 --> 01:45:27,066
It was totally un-morbid,

1872
01:45:27,100 --> 01:45:29,733
remarkably non-stressful.

1873
01:45:29,766 --> 01:45:33,333
Non-emotional. No tears.
No goodbyes. No hugs.

1874
01:45:33,366 --> 01:45:35,766
"This is the last hug
I'm giving you in your life."

1875
01:45:35,800 --> 01:45:37,733
None of that.

1876
01:45:37,766 --> 01:45:39,666
♪♪♪

1877
01:45:39,700 --> 01:45:43,433
-I saw him in May of this year,
and we talked about his plans

1878
01:45:43,466 --> 01:45:47,000
for writing various essays
and writing a book on worms.

1879
01:45:47,033 --> 01:45:49,533
And we talked about
Charles Darwin's last book,

1880
01:45:49,566 --> 01:45:53,433
which happens to be
also about earthworms.

1881
01:45:53,466 --> 01:45:56,866
I left a dying man
in a very positive mood.

1882
01:45:56,900 --> 01:45:59,400
I was uplifted
by my conversation with him,

1883
01:45:59,433 --> 01:46:01,533
strangely enough.

1884
01:46:10,400 --> 01:46:13,400
-When I got the call from Kate,

1885
01:46:13,433 --> 01:46:16,466
I was woken up by a text message
arriving.

1886
01:46:16,500 --> 01:46:20,366
It was 5:00 in the morning.
That Oliver had just died.

1887
01:46:20,400 --> 01:46:23,133
And I found myself, oddly,

1888
01:46:23,166 --> 01:46:28,233
with a great, great swelling,
welling up, of gladness.

1889
01:46:28,266 --> 01:46:32,966
The word I had was not sadness.
It was gladness.

1890
01:46:33,000 --> 01:46:35,900
He'd really pulled it off.
He nailed it.

1891
01:46:35,933 --> 01:46:37,966
He nailed the landing.

1892
01:46:38,000 --> 01:46:41,000
He gave a master class
in how to die.

1893
01:46:41,033 --> 01:46:45,400
♪♪♪

1894
01:46:45,433 --> 01:46:49,800
-"There will be nobody like us
when we are gone,

1895
01:46:49,833 --> 01:46:54,166
but, then, there is
nobody like anybody, ever.

1896
01:46:55,800 --> 01:47:00,266
When people die,
they cannot be replaced.

1897
01:47:00,300 --> 01:47:04,533
They leave holes
that cannot be filled.

1898
01:47:04,566 --> 01:47:08,433
It is the fate,
the genetic and neural fate,

1899
01:47:08,466 --> 01:47:12,533
of every human being
to be a unique individual,

1900
01:47:12,566 --> 01:47:16,233
to find his own path,
to live his own life,

1901
01:47:16,266 --> 01:47:19,733
to die his own death.

1902
01:47:19,766 --> 01:47:23,266
Even so, I am shocked
and saddened

1903
01:47:23,300 --> 01:47:26,100
at the sentence of death,

1904
01:47:26,133 --> 01:47:30,600
and I cannot pretend
I am without fear.

1905
01:47:30,633 --> 01:47:34,600
But my predominant feeling
is one of gratitude.

1906
01:47:34,633 --> 01:47:37,266
♪♪♪

1907
01:47:37,300 --> 01:47:41,833
I have loved and been loved.

1908
01:47:41,866 --> 01:47:44,000
I have been given much.

1909
01:47:44,033 --> 01:47:47,266
And I have given something
in return.

1910
01:47:47,300 --> 01:47:52,333
I have read and traveled
and thought and written.

1911
01:47:52,366 --> 01:47:55,133
I have had an intercourse
with the world,

1912
01:47:55,166 --> 01:47:59,833
the special intercourse
of writers and readers.

1913
01:47:59,866 --> 01:48:03,800
Above all,
I have been a sentient being,

1914
01:48:03,833 --> 01:48:08,200
a thinking animal
on this beautiful planet,

1915
01:48:08,233 --> 01:48:10,100
and this, in itself, has been

1916
01:48:10,133 --> 01:48:13,500
an enormous privilege
and adventure."

1917
01:48:13,533 --> 01:48:18,266
♪♪♪

1918
01:48:28,866 --> 01:48:33,700
-Do any of you know
what the old Jewish toast is?

1919
01:48:33,733 --> 01:48:36,466
L'chaim? To life?

1920
01:48:36,500 --> 01:48:40,533
To you. To you. To you.

1921
01:48:40,566 --> 01:48:42,566
To <i>you.</i>

1922
01:48:42,600 --> 01:48:44,000
Especially...

1923
01:48:44,033 --> 01:48:46,000
- To Oliver.
- To Oliver.

1924
01:48:46,033 --> 01:48:48,933
- All right. Thank you.
- Cheers.

1925
01:48:48,966 --> 01:48:50,533
-To life.

1926
01:48:50,566 --> 01:48:51,900
♪♪♪

1927
01:48:51,933 --> 01:48:55,000
-Everything about Oliver
was extreme.

1928
01:48:55,033 --> 01:48:59,000
He was extremely large
and exciting to be around.

1929
01:48:59,033 --> 01:49:02,400
After a long, chilly swim once
off Long Island,

1930
01:49:02,433 --> 01:49:06,833
we sat on the beach and spoke
about his life and work.

1931
01:49:06,866 --> 01:49:10,933
Oliver said that he saw himself
like a comet,

1932
01:49:10,966 --> 01:49:14,100
hurtling through
the neurological heavens,

1933
01:49:14,133 --> 01:49:17,633
observing things
as he went speeding by,

1934
01:49:17,666 --> 01:49:21,666
constantly in motion
and not bound to a home.