THE KNICK on HBO.. 5*

[+ tassojunior]

Great news for those who are out of binge-worthy shows after a year of lockdown... Steven Soderbergh's critically-acclaimed 20-hour The Knick that was originally made to revive HBO's Cinemax (it didn't) has finally made it to both HBO and HBO Max. About a famous hospital in NYC in 1900, the scripts, acting and directing are 1st class. It does make a point of showing in bloody detail surgical procedures a lot so be prepared. (i keep my finger on ff). Otherwise it's based on "the father of modern surgery" William Stewart Halsted who discovered cocaine as an anesthesia, became addicted to it, and, as was the practice, was gotten off of it with heroin. WIRED Story

 

Today Rolling Stone has a big story celebrating the wonderful show's finally escaping the quagmire of corporate media reorganization.

 

The Knick is among the most visually striking series ever produced in America, with Soderbergh — serving, as usual, as his own cinematographer and editor — using handheld cameras and shooting everything with natural light. Episodes could have huge spectacle, like a story about the Knick’s doctors trying to escape a race riot, or be unbearably intimate, like an episode where Thackeray goes through withdrawal during a national cocaine shortage(*). And each episode could be unspeakably gory, as the cutting-edge medicine of the year 1900 looked like a second cousin to barbarism by 2015.

 

ROLLING STONE REVIEW

 

 

[+ tassojunior]