Joseph Sargent (1925–2014)

Something the Lord Made: This movie was unbelievable. It is based on a true story about a rich white doctor and a poor black carpenter. Those in the medical field will most likely know both of these names. The rich white doctor was Dr. Alfred Blalock and the poor black carpenter was Vivien T. Thomas. What made this movie so terrific to watch is it kept you interested and it moved quickly. It was really quite true to the period of time it was set in (About the 1940's)......It covers a 40 year span though and does it effortsly.

MARY STUART MASTERSON plays Dr. Helen Taussig, an intregal part of this story.

SOMETHING THE LORD MADE is a moving story of men who defy the rules and start a medical revolution. Their patients are known as the "blue babies" - infants suffering from a congenital heart defect that turns them blue as they slowly suffocate.

Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) make a brilliant team. But even as they race against time to save one particular baby, the two occupy different places in society. Blalock is the white, wealthy head of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Thomas is black and poor, a skilled carpenter whose dream of going to college and becoming a doctor was ruined by the Great Depression, although he was naturally gifted with the intuition and dexterity of a great surgeon.

Even as they save lives and invent a whole new field of medicine, social pressures threaten to tear them apart. Ultimately, however, Thomas finds his dreams coming true in unexpected ways.… (more)

Christine Lahti portrays Dr. Gisella Perl in this gripping film about her survival in Auschwitz and the many "choiceless choices" that she had to make for herself and the women inmates that she treated while she was there. Director Joseph Sargent speaks "about the agonies that a survivor goes through", "survivor guilt", and that "as a doctor she had to...do things she didn't feel she should do...".
There are interviews with the director and 3 of the actors: Christine Lahti, who portrays Dr. Perl, tells us how she had been fascinated with her life since she was a young girl. Bruce Davison and Beau Bridges who portray the INS officials who examine her to see if she can practice medicine in the United States and focus on the question of whether or not she was a collaborator while in Auschwitz. She admits to having committed 1000 abortions on inmates while in Auschwitz, explaining that the SS would kill pregnant women, or if they gave birth, would kill both mother and child and even everyone in the barracks for harboring them. The film makes you search your own conscience and wonder what you might have done in her situation.… (more)