I love Pat Martino. The documentary “Unstrung” is now available and you can find it here.
In 1980 Pat Martino moved his belongings from California to Philadelphia to live with two complete strangers: his parents. As a young jazz guitar virtuoso he had achieved near legendary status during the 60s and 70s, before being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain condition. Surgery had saved his life but wiped his memory. Back in his childhood home, surrounded by the relics of his former life, his father played him his old recordings at full volume and friends rallied to try to coax him back to being the great artist he had been. He could not dispute the evidence; the face in the mirror was the same as the one on the record sleeves but it meant nothing to him. Amnesia had ripped selfhood from his brain and rendered his life meaningless. He was nobody.
Director Ian Knox and Neuropsycologist Paul Broks travel America in search of the soul of the legendary jazz guitar great Pat Martino. Tracing his remarkable return from the depths of amnesia to the peak of artistic achievement, Broks explores the nature of memory, self, creativity and the mysterious brain mechanisms underlying the construction of personal identity. What is the self? How much change can it survive? Pat Martino is an unlikely American hero whose moving story holds meaning for us all.
Here is the trailer.
As always, live in the moment and click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube.
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 am
That sounds like a good watch!
I saw an intriguing ‘Trick’ program once where a shy girl just starting out on piano asked a hypnotist whether he could help her out learning to play. In the space of a week he had her executing a really complex classical piece in front of an sizeable audience. Turned out that the twist at the end of the show was she had already been a concert pianist but the hypnotist had convinced her she wasn’t before she made her request.
The conscious and the subconscious are worlds apart…
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
“Self” is the abduction of a human body.