Watch Something the Lord Made For Free

Simply Perfect

Simply A Masterpiece

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Highly Overrated But Still Good

What an epic and awesome movie. this film made me cry. Alan Rickman and Mos Def showed a great, outstanding and unforgettable performance. I like the character of Vivien Thomas much more, who supposed to be black, oppressed but well trusted, frank, hard working quiet and loyal at the time of racism. And even he didn't lose his faith and hope even when he was confused and didn't know what to do after leaving work with Dr Blalock " I don't return for you, I love what I do her" " I don't want any praise but I want something fire my enthusiasm " my beloved quotes out of the movie. I wish I could as brave as you to truly find my passion and always stick to it regardless anyone or anything. Dr Vivien you were the action and the whole world was the reaction. RIP Dr Alfred Blalock, Dr Vivien Thomas and Alan Rickman

The film could have stood on its own had it simply been a compelling account of the genesis of an historic, baby-saving surgical procedure. Its treatment of the racial dimension renders it an important film, to match the importance of the lives upon which it was based. From a purely filmic perspective, the disparity of experience and eminence as between Alan Rickman and Mos Def in the acting domain, is beautifully mirrored in the relationship between the Doctor and Vivien. We watch as Mos/Vivien rises in our esteem, as their unlooked-for skill reveals itself in the operating and movie theaters. The subtle, almost off-handed, treatment of the prejudice that obtained at that time in history reveals that racist systems can only exist when the injustices are almost invisible to those on either side of the divide; accepted as a matter of course a hundred times a day. So many of the greatest scenes in this movie involve what is left unsaid, from stifled outrage to touchingly laconic "regrets". The highly emotional (for me - every time I see it) quality of this film is that the viewer knows that now the injustices portrayed are no longer invisible, and that what was unsaid to Vivien for so long was finally said, both in his recognition as a pioneer in real life and the tribute that was this film about a life that, appropriately, speaks for itself.

Apparently Mos Def is a rapper. But alongside veteran actor Alan Rickman, we'd be hard-pressed not to regard him as Rickman's thesp equal.A True Story worthy of movie status. Not another Viet Nam bore-fest or boxer's tragic rhapsody or musician's clichéd biopic, SOMETHING THE LORD MADE addresses an aspect so embedded in our modern culture we take it for granted - the story of the first heart bypass surgeries.Alan Rickman is cardiologist Dr. Alfred Blalock (endowed with that god-attitude intrinsic to most heart surgeons), who arrives at John Hopkins Hospital in 1941 with Vivien Thomas in tow (Mos Def), his poverty-stricken, creative, resourceful lab technician.Blalock and Vivien together create a new discipline in operating on malformed hearts adversely affecting blood circulation. The means by which they arrive at solutions to their biological puzzles must seem simple and obvious to today's heart surgeons, but it was counter-intuitive in those days when the medical profession's idée fixe was that the human heart was so complex that Man should go nowhere near it. It was Something The Lord Made (which presumes - for people who believe "the Lord" had anything to do with the human body at all - that he either didn't make everything else, or that he made the rest of it as simple as a cucumber).The OTHER prejudice in SOMETHING THE LORD MADE is that good old good ole boy standby - racism. Vivien is black, which, in those times only minimally less tolerant than these, meant denigration, deprivation, and prejudiced dismissal at every opportunity. You know, exactly like today. Couple that with the fact he has no medical degree and the race/medical prejudices are off the doctor's charts. Though he had no formal education, the didactic, ambitious Vivien's understanding of medical procedures was so innate he ended up advising Blalock in the operating room (on the special procedures for heart shunts they invented). To the chagrin of the all-white surgeon country clubbers.Movie dramatizes and compresses all the double-prejudices (the heart-operation thing and the black-guy-as-doctor thing). Only those who lived through those times would ever know the gutshock reality. Nothing can truly convey the utter contempt that the ruling white classes harbored for blacks – we can only be reminded by movies that such times existed. In this age when there is still much racism to be overcome, we cannot imagine how frightful it must have been for whitey to accept a black man in the operating room touching his innards. Especially a rapper.Mary Stuart Masterson is Dr. Helen Taussig, another cardiologist instrumental in Blalock's and Vivien's research. These three far-seeing minds pioneered treatment of the "blue baby" syndrome (called tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart malformation that robs the blood of oxygen, causing the baby's face to turn bluish).If we're to believe the end credits, the "blue baby" operations at Johns Hopkins launched the field of cardiac surgery.I spent most of this movie on the verge of tears, for the greatness of these people. (And for the greatness of Mos Def's talent in burying himself in this humble role.) Tempering my admiration - ego, politics, peer pressure. Blalock was a respected white doctor and there were times when he simply succumbed to passive racism for its political benefits. Yet when he needed Vivien most - in the operating room (his oft-repeated question, as he hunched over patients' open hearts without the luxury of turning around, "Are you there, Vivien?") - Vivien was always at his shoulder.In Blalock's defense, the double-whammy prejudice thing has a tendency to overshadow the achievements and courage of the white guy. Blalock did, in fact, forge new methods for heart surgery. Give the honky a little sugar, activists! Both their portraits hang in equal prominence at John Hopkins, and Vivien received an honorary degree for his work; achieving the recognition he neither sought nor cared for, but through the recognition, gaining his long overdue respect. But for Mos Def to win any sort of award for this magnificent performance, well, don't turn blue holding your breath...--Review by Poffy The Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania).

Vivien Thomas co-authored an excellent book, entitled "Partners of the Heart," in which he chronicled his experiences in helping to develop the surgical treatment for "blue baby" syndrome. Toward that end, the movie accurately depicted Thomas and Blalock experimenting on dogs.What the movie did not depict, however, but which Dr. Thomas himself movingly documents in his book, is that in his later years he went on to pioneer open heart surgery for dogs. In fact, veterinarians from around the country would retain him to perform surgery on canines with a variety of heart problems. In a sense, Dr. Thomas gave something back to the creatures that had served him so well in the laboratory.