THE PHYSICIAN
Germany, 2013, 150 minutes, Colour.
Tom Payne, Stellan Skarsgaard, Ben Kingsley, Olivier Martinez, Emma Rigby, Makram Khouriy.
Directed by Philip Stolzl.
The physician is based on a large historical novel by Noah Gordon, adapted for the screen in a German production by Philip Stoltzl. The film is reminiscent of those long and large spectacles from the 1950s and 1960s, taking audiences into distant times, exotic lands and cultures, opening horizons into the past.
The film opens in England in 1020, in the harsh villages of the mining communities, with a young boy who sees his mother die of the “side sickness” and who cannot be adopted as are his younger siblings because he’s too old. He runs after the travelling Barber who accepts him, especially in his performances, spruiking his wares and medicines. But the young man has a great desire to heal people, and hears of a famous physician in Persia, in the city of Isfahan, Ibn Sina, and decides to travel there in the company of a caravan of Jewish migrants. He becomes a student in Isfahan were rich in his ruled by a self-indulgent Shah who (Olivier Martinez) experiences an uprising against him. Plenty of drama, plenty of action – and a romance where the young would-be physician encounters the attractive Rebecca who is betrothed to an elderly man but…
While the title says The Physician, there are three candidates for the role of physician. At first, it is the Barber, the rough and ready type travelling England, cutting people’s hair, advocating medicines, involved in some kinds of surgery. He is called The Barber and is played with the bumptious energy by Stellan Skarsgaard. The second candidate is the young man, played by British actor Tom Payne, who has a skill for healing, a desire for healing, who goes on his travels, becomes an apprentice, and eventually a master physician. The third candidate is Ibn Sina himself, known in the Western world and in the history of philosophy as Avicenna. He is what is later called a “Renaissance man”, interested in medicine, anatomy, physiology, as well as the deeper philosophical questions. He is played with strong gravitas by Ben Kingsley.
The film is a celebration of knowledge and the acquiring of knowledge. It pays homage to the Muslim philosophers like Averroes and Avicenna who developed philosophical questioning as well as practical applications. One feature of this story is that the three major religions in Isfahan, Muslims, Jews and some Christians, feel that it is against their faith to conduct autopsies. The young student disobeys his master and investigates the inner workings of the human body – to the fascination of his master, and with a practical application for surgery when the Shah himself suffers from “side sickness”.
While the film has a great deal of spectacle, especially the troublesome travel through the desert and the huge desert storms, as well as some battle sequences at the end, the Seljuks rising against the Shah in Isfahan and doing battle (with some sequences in the Madrassa with an imam rousing students to a kind of fundamentalist faith and sense of revolt).
But, the film is mainly drama, the odyssey of the young man, Rob Cole from England who, to the shame of his faith, decides to pretend to be Jewish so that he can travel to Isfahan and study.
There is a very pleasing sequence where Cole returns to England and The Barber comes to the market place in London looking for his usual customers only to be told that there is a hospital, with personal care and a devoted physician. (When one looks at the history of hospitals in the 18th and 19th centuries in England, there seems to have been a great reversion from these breakthroughs in the Middle Ages.)
1. Three cultures, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, 1000 years ago? The religions in their time, the cultures? Contemporary relevance and parallels?
2. A vast novel, adaptation of the screen, characters, the different worlds, the world of medicine and healing, culture, religion, politics?
3. England, the mines, the cold village, the cliffs of England, the channel? The Middle East, deserts, Isfahan, the vast city, its scope, palaces, madrasas, the streets? The different worlds, costumes, décor? The battle sequences and special effects? The musical score?
4. German production, English-language, International cast?
5. The title, with reference to Rob Cole? With reference to Ibn Sina? With reference to The Barber?
6. The setting, 1021, England, the coal mines, poverty and hardship, disease? Adults, children? The dreary life, small food and pay, those in charge? Mrs Cole, the children, love, illness, death? The later images and Rob imagining his mother? The children being adopted, his being too old, his running away, The Barber rejecting him, The Barber and watching the mother die, unable to do anything, Rob running after him? The Barber accepting him?
7. Rob, growing up, The Barber and his continuing with the same words in each village, his skills, Rob and his skills, advice? The story of going to Isfahan and learning? Travel for a year? The cliffs of Dover, the farewell to The Barber?
8. The journey, the hardships, at sea, in the boat? Arriving in the Middle East?
9. Rob and his Christian background, taking this for granted, his desire for learning, to heal people? Travelling with the Jewish group, taking on the name, asking God’s forgiveness, his own circumcision? Praying with the group? Seeing Rebecca during the journey? The sandstorm, surviving, Rebecca disappearing?
10. Going to the school, the arrogant student, Robert thinking he was the master, the discussion with Ibn Sina, then discovering that he was the Master?
11. Ibn Sina, his gravitas, reputation, learning, teaching, philosopher, anatomy, physiology, healing, surgery? His lectures, references, his admiration for Rob? Rob concealing his identity?
12. The Jewish community, in the city, the ethos, prayer? Rebecca arriving, betrothed, the older husband? Rob’s reaction, his love for her, the later meeting, his lust, her pregnancy and the consequences? His friend diagnosing the pregnancy, urging Rebecca to be with her husband, his discovery, wanting to get rid of her, burying her in the sand for her to be beheaded?
13. The students, Robert and his friends, the lessons, in action?
14. The Shah, hedonistic, his rule and his attitudes, women and his harem, the court? Descent in his community, the imam and the speeches, eight, the condemnations, stirring his disciples? The contacts with the militant Seljuks, the negotiations, offering to undermine the authority and for them to attack? The young medical student and his becoming fanatical, radicalised?
15. The Shah, the meetings with Rob, the tolerance? His illness, side sickness? Getting Rob and Ibn Sina, the diagrams, the surgery? His surviving, allowing the Jews to escape, discovering that Rob was an Englishman? His going into battle, his soldiers, the opposing forces, the details of the battles, his sitting on his horse, even dead?
16. The forbidding of cutting up bodies? Jewish traditions, Christian traditions, Islam? Robert and his treating the old man, philosophical about his life, taking his body, the autopsy, the range of sketches, his being found out by the fanatical student, denounced?
17. Ibn Sina, forbidding autopsy, his being arrested, condemned for execution, Robert and his being ashamed, his explaining everything to the Master who
was eager to learn? About to be executed? The reprieve? Going to the Shah? The escape, going out through the eastern gate, Rob returning, the final discussion with the Master, his suicide, regrets at not living and being able to heal and to impart learning?
18. The final escape, the new exodus?
19. The Barber and his arriving in London, no crowd, asking the boy, then told about the hospital, about The Physician and his care for the patients?
20. The film highlighting this heritage from the cultural traditions, especially the role of Islam, medicine being more cultivated in the East than in the West – and thinking of the decline of hospital care over the centuries in England even up to the 19th century?
