COMA (1978: Dir. Michael Crichton)
While HBO is currently mining the themes of free will and artificial intelligence in its TV series adaptation of Michael Crichton' s 1973 film Westworld (see also my previous blog: http://usherontheaisle.blogspot.com/2008/02/cinemas-soothsayer.html), I recently chose to re-visit Crichton's biggest hit as a film-maker and his only major directorial effort that did he did not originate. Coma, the 1977 best selling thriller by Dr. Robin Cook was purchased for film by producer Martin Ehrlichman because he thought it could do for hospitals, what Jaws had done for beaches and deep water. To bring the novel to the screen he wisely chose Crichton, a former Harvard medical student who had written his own award-winning medical thrillers (A Case of Need, The Andromeda Strain) and was in the early stages of a parallel career directing for film and television. Crichton was uniquely qualified to both write and direct the project given his own medical experiences at Boston City Hospital, the inspiration for the hospital portrayed in the book. Like Cook, his friend and fellow author, he was also highly critical of the elitist staff and backroom politics he had witnessed there. This point of view is particularly amplified in both the novel and film by it's distinctly feminist heroine. French Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold was a perfect contemporary casting choice to play Dr. Susan Wheeler, a respected second year surgical resident at Boston Memorial Hospital, who uncovers a conspiracy to kill patients undergoing routine surgery. Bujold, despite her petite form, is an actress who exudes a strong independent nature in all of her roles. Here she expertly navigates the emotional minefield of a chauvinist hospital bureaucracy corrupted by greed and patriarchal power. Skeptics might think her character behaves recklessly, but the audience is with her all the way. Like those who saw the film during its original release, I found myself applauding Bujold's determined belief in her own intelligence as well as her admirably fearless physical courage during the film's numerous nail-biting suspense sequences. Solidly in support is a young Michael Douglas as her ambitious boyfriend and fellow doctor. Added marquee value is also provided by the venerable Richard Widmark, paternal and patronizing as the hospital's chief of surgery. Although Michael Crichton left medicine to become a writer, he continued his fascination with doctors, much later being the creator of the highly successful and critically acclaimed television series ER. Expertly photographed by ace cinematographer Victor J. Kemper (The Hospital, Dog Day Afternoon) and subtly scored by film composer Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown, The Omen), Coma, on its fortieth anniversary, can be seen as Crichton's initial statement on the difficulties that women face in the medical establishment, a problem that still faces a profession largely founded by men of overrated self-importance. Blu-ray
