{"id":20363,"date":"2020-04-23T10:46:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T17:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=20363"},"modified":"2023-09-06T15:57:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T22:57:31","slug":"making-a-film-science-commitment-truth-jim-allison","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/making-a-film-science-commitment-truth-jim-allison\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Film About the Necessity of Science and Commitment to the Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Haney<\/strong> brought all the hats he’s worn into play in making the documentary Jim Allison: Breakthrough<\/em><\/a>. The award-winning filmmaker (he counts a Silver Hugo, an IDA Pare Lorentz Award, as well as a Marine Conservation Award, Genesis Award and awards from Amnesty International and Earthwatch in his multifarious collection of awards), Haney has also been an inventor and entrepreneur, and found some of that inventive, entrepreneurial spirit in his film’s subject, the Nobel Prize-winning, Texan immunologist Allison. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Allison “may not initially look the part of a superman,” wrote Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post<\/em>. “But by the end of this absorbing, gracefully constructed and deeply moving documentary, he will have audiences wanting to join the fan club and get the T-shirt. This is a ‘just see it’ movie, as in: Forget flowery language, redundant synopsis, clever paraphrasing or hyperbolic praise. Just see the dang thing.”<\/p>\n

The heartening film is even more inspiring at this pandemic moment we’re all living in. I asked Haney about searching for medical truth in the age of COVID, as well as about his other life as an inventor of green and medical advances, how he first met Jim Allison, and how Woody Harrelson lent himself to the film.<\/p>\n

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What led you to want to make a film about Jim Allison? How did you first learn of his work and come to know him?<\/b><\/p>\n

Given the polarized nature of American society right now, and the complex challenges we face, I was looking to make a film that united us all \u2013 and by example, inspired us to see how we can accomplish the extraordinary if we work wisely together. Tyler Jacks, who is a good friend, heads the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at<\/span> MIT, introduced me to Jim Allison. Everyone working in Cancer research knows about Jim and his work \u2013 and his blessedly irreverent spirit!<\/span><\/p>\n

Cancer, sadly, has touched almost every family, including my own, and curing it has been the grail of man for thousands of years. The paradigm-shifting insights of Jim Allison put that cure within grasp.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jim\u2019s generosity of heart, his creative thinking, his relentless commitment to using facts to solve problems, and his talent for inspiring a team of other talented and committed scientists, led to a revolutionary solution to one of humanity\u2019s most bedeviling problems.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this sense, Jim\u2019s given us two gifts \u2013 the treatment for curing cancer he invented, and the example of how we can solve other of our most pressing concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you gain his trust and those around him in order to tell his own story so intimately?<\/b><\/p>\n

My strong conviction is that people are smart.\u00a0 Not all of us have the same knowledge but all of us have had to learn whom we can trust.\u00a0 So the way to gain people\u2019s trust is to be worthy of it \u2013 to be trustworthy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jim and his wife Pam, could see that I had done the work to be well prepared, that I was committed to doing my work with as much integrity as they demonstrated with their work and that I cared about getting the story right.<\/span><\/p>\n

What sort of discussions would you love to see PBS audiences have after they watch this film?<\/b><\/p>\n

What a fun question!<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like them to discuss the role of science and the scientific method in building a country we can be proud of living in, and sharing with our children.\u00a0 What does this mean for them?<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like them to ask themselves whom they imagined are the most creative figures in our society \u2013 before they saw the film.\u00a0 And then ask if they see creativity differently afterward.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To the extent they are children, have children or grandchildren or influence children \u2013 I\u2019d like them to ask how they saw the idea of a life in the sciences before the film. And then, how they see it afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n

The drug companies are common villains in our political culture \u2013 and some of them have been egregiously misguided at times. But I\u2019d like them to ask themselves how they see the pursuit of new medicines after seeing the film \u2013 as opposed to beforehand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Folks often think of gifted scientists as studious and dull. I\u2019d like audiences to ask themselves if they see scientists and a scientific life differently after seeing Breakthrough<\/em>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, Jim journeyed from the pain of seeing his mother die, being essentially abandoned by his father at age 11\u00a0 to winning the Nobel Prize. What attitudes helped him on his way? What does this teach them about the journey they can take?<\/span><\/p>\n

Given everything going on right now in our world, with the COVID pandemic, this story is obviously timely. What are some lessons you think people can take away from Allison’s journey to find a cure for cancer that relate to the current quest for a COVID vaccine?<\/b><\/p>\n

COVID certainly brings home to us all the urgent necessity of inventing novel life-saving drugs, making Jim Allison\u2019s story especially powerful.\u00a0 And the FDA, global universities and major pharmaceutical companies which helped Jim on this path will also play critical roles in solving COVID.Jim\u2019s advances were also built on a culture of truth-telling, fact-based work, selfless leadership and a commitment to purposes above the narrow, the greedy and the personal.<\/pullquote><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

But Jim\u2019s advances were also built on a culture of truth-telling, fact-based work, selfless leadership and a commitment to purposes above the narrow, the greedy and the personal.\u00a0 Jim didn\u2019t care about how he looked, whether he made any money or what people thought of him. He cared about doing the right thing in the right way.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does this compare and contrast with the culture of leadership we see before us?\u00a0 Who has focused on the truth? Who has used facts to form conclusions, relied with humility on<\/span> cooperation with others, and genuinely put the public interest ahead of self-interest?\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

My own sense is that the drug companies are racing vaccines into clinical trials and inventing new treatments for those already infected.\u00a0 The health care workers on the front lines are acting in the most heroic possible ways \u2013 as are millions of workers in America and elsewhere who truly keep the lights on and the food flowing.<\/span><\/p>\n

And some political leaders have inspired us with their forthrightness and leadership.\u00a0 Governors in Ohio and New York \u2013 one Republican and one Democratic come to mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether the most senior leaders in Washington have done as well at telling us the truth they knew in December, in keeping the public\u2019s well-being as the first priority and using science and the integrity it demands as to do so, audiences will have to decide for themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

What we do know is that scientists predicted a pandemic like COVID would happen \u2013 which is why there was an office of pandemic preparation established by a previous administration \u2013 and were racing to develop vaccines that could have saved thousands and thousands of lives and avoided agonizing social and economic disruption.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n