Sundance 2011 Kicks Off with Early Sale of 'The Music Never Stopped'

January 5, 2011

By Christine Spines

• Tweet
• Share
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Share
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Share
• Email

The Sundance Film Festival got off to an early start today when Roadside Attractions scooped up the theatrical distribution rights to the festival’s opening night film, “The Music Never Stopped.” Based on The Last Hippie, an essay by Dr. Oliver Sacks, the film follows the shifting relationship between a father (played by “Juno’s” J.K. Simmons) and his estranged son (Lou Taylor Pucci), whose memory has recently been damaged by a brain tumor, leaving him unable to distinguish past memories from present. With the help of a therapist (Julia Ormond), the son learns to reengage with the world — and his father — through his visceral connection to ’60′s rock & roll super bands, especially the Grateful Dead.

“‘The Music Never Stopped’ brings to vivid cinematic life the true story of Gabriel, the patient I wrote about in The Last Hippie,” Dr. Sacks told Word & Film upon hearing the news that the film had been acquired for distribution. “The film is a moving testament not only to the love between a father and his son, but to the almost miraculous power of music to heal a damaged brain. Remembering music, listening to it or playing it is entirely in the present, and, while it lasts, it can bridge even the abyss of extreme amnesia or dementia. Music can be more powerful than any drugs. I am thrilled that this new film, with the music of so many seminal musicians of the 1960s, tells Gabriel’s story in a new way.”

Sacks originally published The Last Hippie in An Anthropologist from Mars. the same anthology of essays that included the piece upon which the The 1990 Robert DeNiro-Robin Williams film, “Awakenings,” was based on Sacks’ memoir which shares the same title as the film. In fact, the neurologist offers fascinating insight into into the creative process, in this brief and moving essay about his experiences working with Robin Williams to deepen his understanding of the nuances of amnesiac behavior by taking him through the psych wards.

For anyone unfamiliar with Dr. Sacks’ approach to studying the mind, his entire body of work provides a series of fascinating windows into the inner workings of the human brain and the unique and innovative methods he employs to help severe amnesiacs reconnect with reality. Music has always been one of Sacks’ most effective tools in accessing the damaged links between mind and emotion. Sacks has written extensively about music’s power to help us understand and ultimately heal the most damaged and mysterious parts of the mind. “William James referred to our ‘susceptibility to music,’ and while music can affect all of us — calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize and synchronize us at work or play — it may be especially powerful and have great therapeutic potential for patients with a variety of neurological conditions,” writes Dr. Sacks in his most recent book, Musicophilia. “Such people may respond powerfully and specifically to music (and, sometimes, to little else).”

Kind of makes you wonder what Dr. Sacks might find if he did a similar study of film’s impact on the human brain.

Photo of Oliver Sacks © Elena Seibert

Heading to Sundance this year? Plan your trip with Fodor’s Park City Travel Guide.

Tags: An Anthropologist from Mars, Awakenings, Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks, Relationships, Roadside Attractions, Sundance Film Festival 2011, The Last Hippie, The Music Never Stopped