Monday, December 01, 2014

Rupture: living with a broken brain (Documentary, 2012)


     Rupture: living with a broken brain (2012) Maryam d’Abo and her husband made this documentary intending it to be the story of her recovery. There’s some of that, but mostly it’s interviews with other people who have suffered strokes.

Very well done, not your average medical doc, this movie tries to express the emotional impact of stroke on both the sufferer and the family and friends. It succeeds, because it doesn’t try to be literal. It focusses on the tiny minority (about 3-5% of all stroke victims) who recover a reasonable facsimile of their former more or less normal life. But all of them report that their sense of self, the world, and the people around them has changed. (This is a significant data point for the answering the puzzle of self-awareness.) Life for them has become more purposeful, but not more planned. The purpose is joy; plans often prevent that. Worth watching more than once. ***

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Mice in the Beer (Ward, 1960)

 Norman Ward. Mice In the Beer (1960. Reprinted 1986) Ward, like Stephen Leacock, was an economics and political science professor, Leacock...