And yet there was nothing orthodox about his upbringing. The documentary, filmed by director Ric Burns, shows Oliver at home – still happiest amongst his periodic table-emblazoned cushions and socks and even his periodic table bedspread.ĭescribing his family as typically Orthodox Jewish middle-class (their house in Kilburn, North West London, is today home to the British Psychotherapy Foundation), Oliver explains that from an early age 'it was understood that I was going to be a doctor'. Oliver also had a lifelong love for the periodic table, claiming it stood for order and stability, but also 'for imagination, mystery'.
According to his publisher Roberto Calasso, Oliver's childhood friends were minerals, metals and plants – a situation echoed in the movie Awakenings where Robin William's doctor finds solace in New York's Botanical Garden. Perhaps as a result of Michael's unpredictable behaviour, Oliver retreated into the safer world of inanimate objects. As his nephew Jonathan Sacks remarks in the film, 'Michael was one of the reasons why Oliver did what he did professionally.' Yet his illness was to weigh heavily on Oliver for the rest of his life. 'A sense of shame, of stigma, of secrecy' entered the family's life, says Oliver, which only served to compound the fact of Michael's condition.įor his part, Oliver 'closed the doors…against Michael's madness' – entirely sympathetic to his condition but scared of being swept into the ensuing chaos. Oliver (pictured) left Britain to live in Canada, before moving to San Francisco after his mother declared him 'an abomination' on discovering he was gay Though he was to die just seven months later, he appears on screen having lost none of his enthusiasm for medicine nor any of the eccentricity that had characterised his past 82 years. It's just one of the fascinating details to emerge from Oliver Sacks: His Own Life – a forthcoming documentary which was filmed shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer in January 2015. What is surprising, however, is that it took the release of a Hollywood movie for Sacks to finally be embraced by a medical profession that had previously ignored him. Unsurprisingly, the film earned numerous plaudits including three Oscar nominations. Starring Robert De Niro as patient Leonard Lowe who 'awakens' from a 30-year catatonia, and Robin Williams as the doctor who temporarily cures him, it introduced the world-at-large to Oliver Sacks – the brilliant real-life neurologist on whom Williams' character was based.
When the film Awakenings was released in 1990, it was an immediate hit with critics and moviegoers alike.
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