''Gray's Anatomy'' is an 80-minute
concert film
A concert film, or concert movie, is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian.
Early history
The ...
directed by
Steven Soderbergh in 1996 involving a dramatized monologue by actor/writer
Spalding Gray. The title is taken from the classic human anatomy textbook, ''
Gray's Anatomy'', originally written by
Henry Gray
Henry Gray (1827 – 13 June 1861) was a British anatomist and surgeon most notable for publishing the book ''Gray's Anatomy''. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25.
Biography
Gray was born in Belgrav ...
in 1858. It was shot in ten days in late January 1996 during a break Soderbergh had from post-production on his previous film, ''
Schizopolis
''Schizopolis'' (also known as ''Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis'') is a 1996 surrealist experimental comedy film with a non-linear narrative written and directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Plot
Although the film does not have a linear plot, a struc ...
''.
The monologist film is about Spalding Gray, the main character, who is diagnosed with a rare ocular condition called
macular pucker
Epiretinal membrane or macular pucker is a disease of the eye in response to changes in the vitreous humor or more rarely, diabetes. Sometimes, as a result of immune system response to protect the retina, cells converge in the macular area as t ...
. After hearing all of his options, such as
Christian Science,
Native American sweat lodges, and the "Elvis Presley of
psychic surgeons", and the dangers of what surgery could bring, he decides to go through the other forms of medicine provided. This in turn takes him on a journey around the world and steers him away from surgery more so because of religious reasons, often in a dramatic and humorous fashion.
This was the fourth and last of Gray's theatrically released monologue films, following ''
Swimming to Cambodia'', ''
Monster in a Box
''Monster in a Box'' is a monologue originally performed live on stage by the writer Spalding Gray then subsequently made into a 1992 film starring Gray and directed by Nick Broomfield.
A follow-up to Gray's earlier work, '' Swimming to Cambo ...
'', and ''
Terrors of Pleasure''.
The film is available on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
. A remastered version was released by
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...
on DVD and
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
in June 2012.
Cast
Spalding Gray was raised in Rhode Island and attended school in Massachusetts. Gray's style as an actor was influenced by Allen Ginsberg, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and the American Autobiographical movement. He mostly worked in experimental theater. In 1977, he co-founded the Wooster Theater Group in New York City. Two years later he performed his first monologue: ''Sex and Death at the Age of 14''. In the '80s Gray traveled to Thailand where he won two Independent Spirit Awards for the film ''
Swimming to Cambodia''. He appeared in several independent films in the '90s before ''Gray's Anatomy'' was published.
Critical reception
Janet Maslin of the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
gave a positive review, calling it "''A chatty, colorful, nicely sardonic account of how a crisis led Mr. Gray to assess his medical state, consider his mortality and take one more funny, self-dramatizing look at the eccentric world around him''."
Desson Thomson of
the Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
also reviewed the film positively, stating "''Gray's Anatomy finds Spalding Gray turning a bout with a bizarre ocular condition into a dizzying, absorbing odyssey of the neurotic mind.''"
The Digital Fix described ''Gray's Anatomy'' as "very witty and a pleasure to listen to. As he passes fifty, Gray starts to worry about his own death before he finds the sight in his left eye is becoming distorted. Learning that he has a macular pucker, Gray seeks out alternative therapies, including mass nude encounters in a sweatbox, a raw-vegetable diet and a trip to the Philippines to meet a psychic surgeon."
On the other hand, the ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
'' described ''Gray's Anatomy'' as an unremarkable story. "There's something intrinsically insincere about the whole quest. This creeping sense that Gray isn't really interested in anything he's talking about – that he, alone, is the subject of his own obsession gives ''Gray's Anatomy'' a distasteful edge."
The ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' described ''Gray's Anatomy'' as "demonstrating that fully stimulating the senses isn't the same as fully engaging them. The film begins as ordinary as could be and then continues with scenery changes, lighting effects, and moody music."
References
External links
*
''Gray’s Anatomy: The Eyes of the Beholder''an essay by
Amy Taubin
Amy Taubin (born September 10, 1938) is an American author and film critic. She is a contributing editor for two prominent film magazines, the British ''Sight & Sound'' and the American ''Film Comment''. She has also written regularly for ''The V ...
at the
Criterion Collection
{{Steven Soderbergh
1996 films
Films directed by Steven Soderbergh
Human eyes in culture
One-character films
1996 comedy films
Films scored by Cliff Martinez
1990s English-language films
American documentary films
Concert films
American comedy films
British documentary films
British comedy films
1990s American films
1990s British films