I finally got my chance to when a restored 3D version was screened at New York City’s Film Forum in December 2001.

When it was originally released in theaters, the 3D fad had passed, and only a 2D version was shown, so audiences never saw the movie Hitchcock really wanted them to see. But I deliberately avoided Dial M For Murder after learning that Hitchcock intended it to be viewed in 3D. In college, I went through a period where I rented every Alfred Hitchcock movie I could find at my local video store. I studied comic book art converted to 3D by Ray Zone, and in high school I drew anaglyph 3D images by hand using red and blue colored pencils. Growing up, I loved 3D photos and illustrations, and eventually made my own. There are times when I literally pause to look around me and marvel at this. The fact that human brains (and those of many other mammals) can take two slightly different flat images - one delivered from each eye - and turn them into a multi-layered world rich with textures and depth and space between objects absolutely amazes me. I have always been an “intensely stereoscopic person,” a phrase I borrow from Oliver Sacks, who described himself the same way. The mere fact that 3D cinema was possible excited me. If the technology existed to make a movie that immersive, I couldn’t understand why every film wasn’t made in 3D. When I saw a diving mask sinking underwater just inches in front of my face, I felt like I could reach out and grab it (forgetting that moments earlier it was worn by a character who was just eaten by a great white shark). Occasionally a movie like Jaws 3-D came out, and I was amazed. I grew up in the 1980s, when 3D movies were uncommon, but not forgotten. Unfortunately, the technology of the time left audiences with headaches, and 3D movies quickly faded from mainstream into a long period of novelty. The New York Times called the movie “puerile” and “crude” but audiences loved it, launching a first wave of 3D films. In 1952, while Oliver Sacks was in England studying medicine at Oxford, the first 3D feature film was released in America: a jungle adventure called Bwana Devil. I realized that if anyone knew the answer, he would. I had a specific question about neurology and vision and I couldn’t find the answer myself. It was a reply to a letter I had written him. Sacks did not write to me out of the blue. In November 2002, Oliver Sacks wrote me a letter.ĭr. But there’s one thing he wrote that means more to me than any of those, and until now nobody but me has ever read it. Sacks’s most well-known books are compilations of medical case studies, he also wrote autobiographical books about the disorders that afflict him personally, and two memoirs, including the recently released On the Move about his early years in 1960s America after growing up in England. Sacks has remained an influence in culture and popular science. Ever since his book Awakenings was adapted as a major motion picture in 1990, Dr. He is a frequent voice in science programming on television and radio. His case studies have been adapted into feature films, documentaries, and even a ballet and an opera. Neurologist Oliver Sacks has written a dozen books about the strange things that happen when people’s brains don’t work quite as they’re supposed to.

Bwana devil 3 d