Icarus Films will be joining forces with Bullfrog Films on Apr. 19 for the DVD debut of documentary filmmaker Manfred Becker’s The Divided Brain.
The story of Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s life-long road to discovery is as fascinating as his theory on right-brain/left-brain functions. He was going about his academic discipline of teaching literature at Oxford University when he asked himself a question … why is the study of literature so much different from that of dance or music or the arts?
For the next 21 years he went from academic research to adding neurology and psychiatry to his academic arsenal. The result was the publication of his 2009 groundbreaking work, “The Master and the Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World,” which took a scholarly look at the scientific research on left hemisphere and right hemisphere brain activity. He then uses that mass of information as an overlay for Western culture and history.
McGilchrist concluded that the left hemisphere had become the nominated factor in society, favoring technology and order over intuitive, creative and imagination. The Industrial Revolution, the growth of cities and the rapid increase in the use of technology, McGilchrist argued, has altered human perception and brain function.
Becker’s documentary, The Divided Brain, examines McGilchrist’s theories through an interaction with the film’s narrator, Seanna McKenna (The Hanging Garden, Stratford Festival: Hamlet, Twelfth Night) and McGilchrist in the form of a Q&A session. These questions are explored through interviews with both pro and con experts on the subject.
A provocative discussion, made all the more-so by McGilchrist’s call for a return to balance, all this in the face of technology’s ever-expanding universe … a whole generation addicted to cell phones and social media. Perhaps hopeless? Perhaps not?
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