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The Current Transcript for February 22, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

They were doing their very best under inhuman circumstances like the city was, like the community was. It was too cold and it was too much, but they did their very best.

MATT GALLOWAY: When the so-called freedom convoy rolled into Ottawa a year ago, set up tents, flags and a hot tub and refused to leave, the city's then chief of police took much of the blame for misreading the protest and not moving it out. The Emergencies Act was invoked, Sloly resigned and the protest ended. In 30 minutes, Peter Sloly is here to talk about mistakes made, the suggestion he was made a scapegoat for police dysfunction, and whether he thinks Canada is any better prepared for the next threat it faces. Also this morning, CBC News anchor Harry Forestell was 53 years old when the tremors in his hands were diagnosed as a symptom of Parkinson's disease. Last fall, he was wide awake when surgeons drilled into his skull and implanted a sort of pace maker for the brain to stop the tremors. Coming up, Harry joins us to talk about reporting on his own treatment and the remarkable change in his life that deep brain stimulation has brought. And later.

SOUNDCLIP

To stage protests within the museums that, you know, your work is dependent on, you know, there are career risks. There are the fact that taking on a billionaire family with unlimited resources, they can come after you and who have literally an army of lawyers.

MG: The Oscar winning filmmaker Laura Poitras is drawn to what she calls troublemakers. Her latest Oscar nominated documentary is No Different. She's here in an hour with the story of the renowned photographer Nan Goldin and how she took on the Sackler family, major donors to the art world and whose company, Purdue Pharma, is synonymous with the opioid crisis. We begin, though, with a rehab hospital in Lviv, teaching Ukrainians to be unbroken in the face of a year of war. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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UKRAINE HOSPITAL

Guest: Dr. Hnat Herych,

SOUNDCLIP

[distant air raid sirens]

MG: Listen carefully. In Lviv, Ukraine, and pretty much every day, you hear this.

[distant air raid sirens fade up]

MG: The distant hum of an air raid siren. The sound of war is close, even if the front lines are a thousand kilometres away. No one really reacts, and the day carries on as usual.

[man singing and playing a guitar]

MG: A young man plays his guitar on a street corner in the old city. It's snowing a bit, so he's bundled up in a parka and took. Kids and adults are gathered around. They're dancing.

[guitar playing and singing fades up, crowd cheering]

MG: Life goes on in Lviv. Outside of the Old City, it's a busy day at the local hospital. Nurses are bustling about. Patients are checking in and out. Here, it's harder to forget that this is a country ravaged by war. Doctors take the stairs. There's always a Line-Up of injured people waiting for the single elevator. They're on crutches or in wheelchairs, all people injured in the war. This hospital had to pivot a year ago. It's now a trauma centre that's treated thousands of Ukrainians, both soldiers and civilians.

[people talking, stairs climbing, elevator sound]

MG: Dr. Hnat Herych is chief of surgery.

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Now we are in the surgery department where we have the patients with the multiple injuries. Mostly, it’s the injury of the abdominal cavity, chest and extremities. And we will see the patient who has the very difficult injury. He has the serious injury of the right lower extremities that we need to do the amputation to stop the bleeding. And there was no possibility of reconstruction because he lost most of his leg. And also, this patient has very serious burns of all parts of the body and especially of the face. So his name is Ilya. It was the 2nd of September.

[Ilya speaking in his native language]

DR. HNAT HERYCH: So he was near Kherson. And it was evening and there was some operation with the tanks. It was only two tanks of Ukrainian forces, and they go on the road with that two tanks. They started fighting. And shooting on some targets with the tanks was their mission, but while moving these two tanks away, they didn't see the mines. His tank was blown up. He was inside the tank when he started to understand what happened. He saw that his leg was broken and he started to open the tank. Cabin was closed to go out from the tank. This is also an interesting case because most soldiers that are in the tanks in such situation, they unfortunately died. And this patient, even in this situation that he has very serious burns and fracture of the leg, he saved himself. And after that, the help came. So he’s saying that everything is incredible because he understands that in close future, he will already have a possibility to use the prosthetics and start walking. So his dream is to live a normal life. He wants to be a sportsman. And his dream is to come in into Ukrainian national Paralympic team and win some medals in the running competition. It's really incredible things when you see the patient on the operation table with critical bleeding or when you have the symptoms of clinical death, when the heart stops beating in your hands and you have a possibility to save the patient. And after some time, you see how this patient are working or start to live normal life or even go back to the army to protect Ukraine. Independence is very important to us.

MG: Dr. Hnat Herych is chief of the surgery department at the Multidisciplinary Clinical Hospital of Emergency and Intensive Care in Lviv. He's also head of surgery for the Unbroken Program, a national rehabilitation centre established over the last year. And he's with me now. Doctor, Hello.

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Hello.

MG: That's a remarkable story. As you said, one of the things that's incredible is that you see patients who are at the verge of death and that you're able to bring them back and they're able to go out and continue to live their lives, in some cases, to continue to defend the country. What is that like for you?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: You know, at that moment, it's our mission and it's now our front. So we doctors especially, we are the surgeons, and we understand that we are not the soldiers at this moment, but we help our army, we help our nation in this way to defend us from the terrorism that come in our land.

MG: What sort of injuries are you seeing at the hospital?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: This war is very modern because the both sides use very modern equipment. Like I mean the weapons are modern weapons. And that's why the weapons make very serious damage of the human body. That's why we see the multiple injury, the patient with injuries, probably all of the parts of the body starting from the head and finishing by the legs, injuries of the internal organs. Mostly, the shrapnel weapons gives very serious defects of the soft tissues and also of the bones.

MG: And so what have you had to do to adapt the hospital from what it used to be so that you can treat those sorts of injuries?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: It's not so easy, truly, because we are the civilian hospital and we have no big experience before the war to work with the war injuries. But the war injuries, war trauma, it's very specific because this patients need specific operation, but we have a short time to teach it. A lot of doctors from different countries that supported in Ukraine, the military doctors help us with that. We work with the U.S. doctors, Canadian doctors, and we very fast started to work with such type of injury. The first experience that we had is the experience of massive casualty hospitalization, because just few weeks after the war started in Ukraine, the Russian strikes with rockets very nearby our hospital, only a few kilometres, and we have nearly 100 patients with the very serious injury at the same moment in the hospital. And that was our first experience of such a huge, massive casualty hospitalization. Also, we were the first hospital in the country that started to use the whole blood to save the patient from the massive bleeding because it wasn't alive in Ukraine before. And also now we work mostly with the patients who are evacuated by the front lines from the east and from the south of the Ukraine.

MG: Are you able to get supplies to do that work that you're trying to do?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: We have a very big problem with the supplies because when the war started, we have a little bit more at that moment. A lot of Ukrainian drugs factories are stopped because of the war. And they were in the east of the Ukraine. And our supply that we have, it's coming from the best countries. But 100 percent, there is no enough supply and we need more, especially the specific surgery supplies that are used under specific surgery operations.

MG: When the patients come in to see you and when you are able to speak with them, what sort of stories are they telling you about what they have been through, about what this war has been like for them?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Oh, it really is very dramatically because we heard already hundreds and thousands of stories, because from the beginning of the war, we treat already more than 6000 patients. The story was different. What we can say is that we see the patients with injuries in the different age. So we see the small children, we see the adults, we see the old patient, we see a lot of militaries. The most dramatically is the story when all the family are injured, or the young children lose their parents and have a serious injury and staying like alone in the hospital in the different city, they lose their houses and everything. So I think it's the most dramatic of stories.

MG: What's the hardest part of that for you? I mean, you're a doctor, but you're also a human being who's living through this as well. And so what's the most difficult part of that for you?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Of course, you know, it's very difficult to hear and see every day the suffering of my nation, of my country. But, you know, we need to be professional. And we understand and I understand that we cannot concentrate on that. We need to do our job and help our country, our army and our nation to fight for our independence and our freedom.

MG: I mentioned that you are the head of surgery for the Unbroken program. What is that? How would you describe what the unbroken program is?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: So before the war in Ukraine, we don't have such institute as the rehabilitation centres because Ukraine never took part in huge war conflict and never attack no one's country. So we didn't have such structure. And after the Russia attack, the Ukrainian territory, we have thousands of victims. And we understood that this patients need some specific surgical treatment, traumatology treatment, reconstructive treatment, post-operative care and specific rehabilitation with the high needs of prosthetics for some of them. That's why we traveled to a few countries, the US and UK, and we see that very good in this case is this post-War and inter-war cases work the system of National Rehabilitation Centre that can care about the specific categories of patient. That's why we started to make our project to build the National Rehabilitation Centre in Lviv City. It’s the city in the west of the Ukraine, not far away from the Polish border, and it's now the medical hub of all of the Ukraine. And we wanted to build this rehabilitation centre to give the patient prosthetics and give the patient mental help in one place and adapt this patient after this very, very serious war injury to normal life.

MG: What does that word unbroken mean to you?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: This word unbroken, it means that we’re Ukrainians at this moment.

MG: Can you tell me more about that? Because I think people who have gone through a war for a year and have seen the scale of the destruction that you've described would find it difficult to remain unbroken. And so for you, what does that word mean?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: For me, it means when the militaries, when our soldiers lose both legs and I coming after the operation to the ICU room and the soldier asks me, doctor, when can I have the prosthetics and come back to the frontline to fight for our independence? For me, it’s the Ukrainians that with their hands stop the Russian tanks. And for me, it's all the nations that have smallest army, smallest territory, smallest population who stop the evil for all of the Europe and for all of the democratic world.

MG: I mean, this goes back to what we started with. What is it like when the soldier says that to you? I mean, how do you react to that?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: You know, sometimes it's really emotional. And it's difficult to hear. But when you hear this, it's a huge, huge pride for my nation and for my people that are really unbroken. And that's why we use this word, because this word unbroken describes how staying and standing our nation right now.

MG: What is life like in Lviv right now? You said in some ways it's become a big humanitarian hub. And we know that a lot of people, it's far from the front lines, but a lot of people are coming through Lviv. What is it like in the city right now?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: The city is in the west of the Ukraine, near the Poland. And so sometimes we have attack of civilian infrastructure by the cruise missiles bullet of the civilian object. But the city became like maybe the biggest and the hugest humanitarian hub in Ukraine, especially the medical humanitarian hub. It’s the third line of evacuation patients. So here is a lot of the high specific hospitals that help our victims. Here is a lot of the place where humanitarian help comes from the Western countries that support Ukraine and transit to the front lines and the places where are now very intensive war.

MG: And you mentioned that you have been working with doctors from around the world. A year into this, what support do you want from the rest of the world when it comes to the work that you're doing?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: You know, it's very impressive when you see right now in our department working, like American nurse, and this guy just called me from the U.S. We never know before. And he said, I hear something about you. Can I come? I want to help you. And he already stayed for one month in the department and help us. So it's very incredible that in the world, a lot of people that want to help, they understand in what situation we are now and for what principles we are fighting for.

MG: He just called you from the United States. You didn't know him. He said, what can I do to come and help?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Yes. Yes. Yes. And now he is in our department and helping us more than one month and wants to stay, you know. So we have doctors from Sweden, from the UK. A lot of doctors come to us from the US, from Canada. We operate with Canadian surgeons, the patients in Poland. So there is a lot of good countries and very good people that are supporting us. But the most important is that we need also the strong support of the governments of the whole democratic world to finish this war and win.

MG: How are you holding up? Just finally, I mean, this has been a long year and you're right in the middle of it. How are you holding up?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Thank you. It's really not so easy because we don't remember when we have free time, you know, to maybe relax. But we don't think about this. And we need to work and help our nation, our soldiers to defeat the country that wants to destroy our democracy and occupy our territory.

MG: And you're optimistic that you will win?

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Yes, 100%. The good always wins and the evil always loses. So it will be hundred percent. And I think we together with all democratic world will win.

MG: Doctor, thank you for talking to us about the work that you're doing. Stay safe and take good care.

DR. HNAT HERYCH: Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.

MG: Dr. Hnat Herych is chief of Surgery Department at the Multidisciplinary Clinical Hospital of Emergency and Intensive Care in Lviv, Ukraine. Tomorrow, CBC senior correspondent Margaret Evans will be here. She's been reporting on the war in Ukraine. And she will speak with two people that she met a year ago to find out how the war has changed them and their outlook on life. That's tomorrow on The Current. Your CBC News is next. And then, a conversation with the former chief of police in Ottawa, Peter Sloly, on the convoy a year later and the protests that cost him his job. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

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PETER SLOLY

Guest: Peter Sloly

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, the story of the artist Nan Goldin and how she took on the Sackler family, a family whose name is linked to the deadly opioid epidemic. Plus, an intimate conversation with Harry Forestell. He's the host of CBC News New Brunswick, and he has undergone a procedure called Deep brain stimulation to treat his Parkinson's disease. He was awake for this surgery. He'll tell us all about it. But first, Ottawa's former chief of police responds to the Emergencies Act report.

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PAUL ROULEAU: Had police forces and governments better anticipated and prepared for the extent of political and social discontent exacerbated by COVID 19 pandemic, and had they collaborated more effectively, there could have been a different response to this unprecedented situation.

MG: That’s Justice Paul Rouleau, the man who headed the Public Order Emergency Commission that conducted the inquiry into the Emergencies Act. The Federal government invoked the Act to help clear protesters who were occupying Ottawa's downtown core last winter. The next day, Ottawa's chief of police, Peter Sloly, resigned. While Justice Rouleau lays equal blame for the escalation of events at all levels of police and government, he also wrote in his report, “It is all too easy to attribute all of the deficiencies in the police response solely to him. That would be unfortunate and indeed inconsistent with the evidence. Some errors on chief Sloly’s part were unduly enlarged by others to a degree that suggests scapegoating.” Peter Sloly, former chief of police for the city of Ottawa, joins me now. Peter Sloly, good morning.

PETER SLOLY: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Did you feel like a scapegoat?

PETER SLOLY: That's an expression that I've heard people from across Canada share with me when talking to me over the last year. That includes police leaders, public officials, elected officials and journalists. And I wasn't surprised that Justin Trudeau used similar language here.

MG: Did you feel like a scapegoat?

PETER SLOLY: There was certainly a lot of misinformation and disinformation. And a lot of it was aimed unfortunately at the police service I was leading and me as the chief of that police service.

MG: Who was doing the scapegoating?

PETER SLOLY: Well, I think that came from a number of levels across society. Unfortunately, there were folks that were more interested in the early days of trying to figure out who to blame as opposed to how to figure out how to resolve the situation, which ultimately was resolved safely and lawfully.

MG: Do you feel like you were scapegoated by the federal government?

PETER SLOLY: As I said, there is a lot of different entities at play, Matt. And unfortunately, some of our lesser qualities got in the way of our better qualities as Canadians. And ultimately, as Canadians, we did come together and resolve this situation safely and lawfully.

MG: Justice Rouleau mentions errors that you took. And he says your acts, however well-intentioned, undermined the chain of command and caused confusion. When you look back on those weeks in the national spotlight, do you accept blame for that, for undermining the chain of command?

PETER SLOLY: I'm not sure what Justice Rouleau means by undermining the chain of command. Certainly, the chain of command, I am the chain of command as the chief of police. In terms of what I think I interpret his language to be, there are rules and best practices in emergency management situations that are followed, and when followed, work more optimally. This was an unprecedented situation that overwhelmed literally all aspects of our police service and the national policing structure. And so there were times, yes, that we had to use unorthodox methods. And I think in some of those times, they did not work, and they undermined the effectiveness of the operations. But there was never an intent to do anything other than the best thing we could do to serve and protect the Canadians that were directly impacted by this national security event.

MG: What do you think personally your biggest mistake was in what happened a year ago?

PETER SLOLY: If I had a do over, it would be the early communications around trying to find the right language to describe what was happening on the streets of the city in the nation's capital. I think today, even today, people are still struggling. Was it an occupation, a fortification, a demonstration, an insurgency, a national security event? And I think you could go through a thesaurus list of words. And that was my challenge, trying to convey what was happening internally to our members, to our board, to the mayor, to the province, to the country, the federal government. And it was difficult. And yeah, I wish I had more clarity of language. And I think Justice Rouleau’s report provides better language and certainly in hindsight, better context as to what was taking place.

MG: One of the things he points out is that in some ways, the Ottawa Police Service and you yourself misread what was going on, that you thought perhaps this would be a shorter protest than it was, but that you had access to intelligence as early as the 13th of January, a week before the first trucks arrived, that this could extend past the first weekend. In the Justice’s words, that people were booking hotel rooms for 90 days, that the protesters lacked an exit strategy. He wonders and writes, “It was unclear if the chief of police or other senior officers had read those intelligence reports.” Had you read those intelligence reports saying that this could last for weeks and weeks?

PETER SLOLY: Yeah. Matt, just to be clear, there's a difference between information and intelligence. And I don't think your viewers need to know all of that. There was lots of information in the days leading up to the events that transpired. There was no direct intelligence in any of the reports that specifically said this is going to be a multi-week long event, an occupation not just of the nation's capital, but border control points. Had there been that clarity, and I think this is where Justice Rouleau is very clear, if the entire national security entity had understood the intelligence around what was taking place in the months leading up to and the weeks leading up to, there could have been different actions taken. And we were no different than any other agency. We had some information, but not complete information. We had some intelligence, but not definitive intelligence. And we prepared as best as we could, and then we responded as best as we could after what arrived a year ago.

MG: Do you think you misread that, though? He points to a report from the OPP dated January the 13th, again suggesting that the protesters lacked an exit strategy, that there were hundreds of vehicles from numerous convoys participating, that individuals with fringe ideologies were joining the movement. Again, this is a week before the trucks arrived. Do you feel like you missed that?

PETER SLOLY: No, Matt, we didn't miss it. But I will say that literally every intelligence report around every major event that we've managed successfully and safely in this city and other cities in Toronto, when I was a deputy chief there, had those same elements. And those are not unique elements. Very few protests have very clear and well-defined exit strategies. Every protest has fringe elements, and every protest has people that will be just passersby and those that'll be dedicated and stay in some cases for days and weeks and months. But again, I come back to it, Justice Rouleau’s Ultimate recommendations. His reflections are there. His ultimate recommendations are Canada lacks a national security framework, particularly around national threat Intelligence. I spoke about that in testimony. I made a recommendation that I think is reflected in Justice Rouleau’s report, that we need a proper national security, national threat assessment mechanism that doesn't exist. That was a structural deficit that's on nobody's back that has existed for decades. And we need that. We needed it a year ago, we need it now, and we certainly need it going forward.

MG: One of the things I think that people across the country found it hard to understand was that as this protest went on and the trucks didn't move and the protesters settled in and they put up the hot tub and had the pig on a spit and the late night parties and the honking of horns that went on all night, Why police let this go on. What was your rationale for the way that you handled the protest?

PETER SLOLY: Well, again, I know the examples that you've just given of the more frivolous elements of what was happening here in Ottawa and other parts of the country certainly drew the attention of the public and the media. And I understand that and accept that. But I want to be clear. It was very clear to me and it remained clear in all of the threat assessments that took place after the events unfolded here and in Coutts, Alberta and in Windsor. In every one of those locations and other locations I haven't mentioned, the risk of a police action that would lead to a confrontation that could not only spark violence at a specific location, but then lead to cascading violence across the country, that was a very clear, real and present risk throughout the entire three week episode. And so it's not just simply, you know, pulling on one strand of hair and maybe tugging that out, oh, got rid of the pig roast. You could do that and you could have a confrontation here that could lead to blockades at other interprovincial and border crossings. It could lead to violence in other city centres. And so we were very acutely aware of that. We did all we could, including extensive enforcement, but we couldn't address all the issues that were causing public angst and anger.

MG: You've acknowledged that some members of your force were supporters of the convoy. Were you undermined by members of your own force in enforcing the rule of law?

PETER SLOLY: There were certainly sympathetic elements within my police service, as I suspect in every police service, as I suspect in every organization, including CBC. I think that's a given. There were millions of Canadians that were sympathetic and actually supported the events that were taking place here and across the country. It is certainly very concerning and very damning that it would happen within a police agency. And whenever I became aware of any member of my service who was involved in supporting the actions here, I took immediate action myself. I caused investigations to happen. And I believe some of those members have been convicted, although I don't have line of sight anymore. But I want to be clear about another thing. The vast majority of the members of the Ottawa Police Service are good, decent, law abiding, effective professionals. They worked extremely hard in extremely dangerous circumstances for extensively long periods of time, and ultimately safely and lawfully resolved the events here in Ottawa and contribute to the end of the national security crisis.

MG: You ultimately had to leave your job. You resigned. And Justice Rouleau wrote, “Chief Sloly felt his efforts to carry out the mandate to address issues of systemic racism, misogyny and a lack of community trust that brought him to lead the Ottawa Police Service in 2019 had been undermined throughout his tenure by a small but very influential element within the Ottawa Police Service.” Do you think you were undermined by racism within the force? Were you set up to fail?

PETER SLOLY: Matt, It's the second time you've asked. So let me try to be even more clear. I was significantly undermined as the police chief with a change agenda. I've again experienced that in almost every form of career and work I've done over the course of my life. It was very difficult in this period here and no doubt contributed to some of the difficulties that we faced in managing the circumstances here. But it was, as you said, a very small but influential group of people who have unfortunately created elements of a negative and toxic culture at the Ottawa police service. And again, they exist in other police services and other organizations. Some of that became the grist for the mill that was spread through rumour campaigns that unfortunately led to some of what Justice Rouleau has attributed to scapegoating. And so yes, it affected me internally. It affected how others outside, including public officials at all levels of government, viewed my actions and the actions of the Ottawa police service, and unfortunately contributed to an extended period of suffering and stress for Ottawans here in the city and Canadians across the country.

MG: We're out of time, but I just want to ask you finally. Are we any better as a nation, any better prepared to deal with the next threat that we face a year after?

PETER SLOLY: I think we're marginally better, Matt. But the real proof will come from the recommendations that the justice has laid out. Unfortunately, I have not seen clear enough language in the document, nor do I understand how the document has legislative requirements on provincial, federal and municipal governments to actually implement those recommendations and more importantly, work together in the implementation of those recommendations. And unless they are implemented significantly and continuously to improve, I don't think we're much more than marginally better. We are expecting and hoping that we don't see another trucker convoy. But I think the recommendations speak to a broader set of threats that still exist in the environment that may or may not involve trucks or vehicles of any kind. And unless we implement those recommendations, we are still significantly at risk.

MG: Peter, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

PETER SLOLY: Thank you very much.

MG: Peter Sloly, Ottawa's former chief of police. He's now a visiting fellow at Massey College.

[calm piano]

HARRY FORESTELL

Guest: Harry Forestell

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. I'm Matt Galloway. Every day, More than 30 people in this country are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Across Canada, according to Parkinson's Canada, there are more than 100,000 Canadians living with the disease, including the CBC's Harry Forestell. Viewers in New Brunswick, of course, will recognize Harry as the host of The Supper Hour newscast. And those of us right across the country will know him for his 35 year long career in journalism. In 2015, Harry was diagnosed with Parkinson's. And although there are no known cures, there are some life changing treatments. And he's been reporting on his own story. Harry, good morning.

HARRY FORESTELL: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How are you doing?

HARRY FORESTELL: I'm doing really well, thank you. Really well. I feel like to a certain extent, to have my life back, like I'm in control again.

MG: That's the best news I could hear. You were diagnosed with Parkinson's when you were 53 years old. Tell me about getting that diagnosis. What was that like?

HARRY FORESTELL: I guess at the time, it was more of a relief than a shock. I was noticing that there were slight changes in my motor ability as early as 2013. And my wife and I had talked about the possibilities of the diagnosis being Parkinson's or something perhaps even more dramatic like Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, which is fatal. What they say about Parkinson's is that you will die with Parkinson's, but you won't die because of Parkinson's, which is some small relief, I guess. But it was a life changing experience, no question. At the age of 53 and in the subsequent years, to feel my body beginning to slow and become more mechanically difficult to manage was hard to take.

MG: Can you describe that becoming more difficult to manage?

HARRY FORESTELL: Yeah. Well, Parkinson's is an insidious disease. It strikes your brain long before you know it. Back when I was in my twenties, for some reason, the cells in my brain that produce dopamine started to die off. I don't know why, but I know I didn't notice until I was in my early fifties. And the consequence of that is that as you lose the ability to produce dopamine in your own brain, dopamine is an important hormone, but also an important neurotransmitter that sends messages to muscle groups in the body. And as you lose that control, that ability to produce dopamine costs you the ability to control those muscle groups, and you begin to tremor and shake. You also begin to freeze. Your gait changes. Walking and swinging your arms becomes something that you are very conscious of. And simply walking down a hallway becomes difficult because you become so aware of the walls around you that you're not sure you can make it to the end of the hallway, if you see what I mean. So you tend to freeze. Your elbows and shoulders become more ratchet-like as you try to move them. It really is a debilitating disease that robs you of your ability to move unconsciously and smoothly through life.

MG: There are drugs that you can take to help with the progress of the disease, but the drugs have side effects as well.

HARRY FORESTELL: Well, that's right. One of the most effective drugs is levodopa. It’s what they call a precursor drug. And it's given to the Parkinson's patients to help them with their mobility issues. And what happens is the brain takes the levodopa, turns it into dopamine, and that helps replace what you're losing naturally in your brain. The problem with levodopa is it has its own side effect called dyskinesia. If you've seen Michael Fox on television, you'll notice he swings his shoulders a lot. He moves, he gyrates and twists and twerks a lot. That isn't because of the Parkinson's. Most of that is the result of the drug, the amount of levodopa he's taking to control the Parkinson's. And dyskinesia in itself is an annoying side effect. It's not debilitating necessarily. It certainly wasn't in my case, but it meant that there were many things that I couldn't do naturally or easily without all the swinging and twerking. It was no fun.

MG: And so the next stage in your journey through this is the surgery that you had late last year, which is deep brain stimulation. In some ways, people have described it as having a pace maker implanted for the brain.

HARRY FORESTELL: Yeah.

MG: this is a six hour surgery and you're awake through it?

HARRY FORESTELL: Yeah. Six hours in total. Awake for most of it. I want to set this up by saying that I grew up around hospitals. My mother was a clerk in a hospital. So, you know, they are not foreign places to me. I was a medical reporter as a freelancer for CBC many years in Europe. So the idea of going into hospital to have this done to me was quite interesting. I was curious about what it would be like and whether it would work.

MG: That's a true journalist speaking.

HARRY FORESTELL: Yeah. Yes. Exactly. I wanted to have that story that I could share with other people too. So when it was determined that I was suitable for deep brain stimulation, because not all Parkinson's patients are.

MG: Right.

HARRY FORESTELL: We can get back to that a little later. When it was determined I was suitable for deep brain stimulation, I went in knowing that I was going to have my skull opened up have a couple of holes drilled in and a couple of wires inserted, but I didn't know what that was going to feel like. And, you know, I did know that there were no pain receptors in the brain, so I wouldn't have to have an anesthetic For the insertion of the probes. It's still a very strange experience knowing that somebody is fiddling about in your brain sticking wires in.

MG: I should think so. What was it like?

HARRY FORESTELL: Well, gosh, it's hard to explain. You know, they put this cage on your head to hold your head immobile, right? Because they don't want you thrashing around while they're trying to thread through this wire through the grey matter. So there's a sense of being immobilized. But also, I'm talking with the surgeons as they're going along. And at one point, my throat was dry and I asked one of the nurses for some ice. And I could hear one of my surgeons behind me say something like, yeah, can I get a little bourbon with mine, please? And a few minutes later, I asked for more ice and said, yes, and can you give me a shot of bourbon with that? And the surgeon behind me said, he can hear me? He heard all that? I didn't realize that I was talking that loud. So there's a continuing conversation I was having with my surgeon throughout this. And they're also using that as a means of assessing whether or not the probes are going into the right place, whether I'm having the right reaction as they try to aim this electrical probe to the right spot. So it has its greatest effect.

MG: And clearly they did, because you shot a video of what happens post-surgery when you turn this device off. People can see it on the CBC website. You can turn this device off and on with your phone. Can you just, I guess, briefly describe the difference that it makes because it's remarkable.

HARRY FORESTELL: Well, you've seen it, Matt, and it is remarkable. And in fact, the first time I saw it, it was quite emotional for me. Even though I had done it in front of a camera and I knew what was coming, to actually see it was very emotional. And the thing is that these two probes that are inserted in the brain emit tiny electrical pulses. And for some reason, researchers still aren’t clear exactly why they either override or interrupt the more corrupted messages the brain is sending through a lack of dopamine to the parts of the body that end up showing the symptoms of tremor. The electrical pulses applied on a regular basis interrupt that and prevent it from happening. So when I turn off the deep brain stimulation that's going on, even now as you're speaking, when I turn that off, I am overwhelmed. My body is overwhelmed by tremors and shaking in a way that is quite dramatic. But what is most dramatic is when I turn it back on and those electrical charge just start firing again, the tremors go away immediately.

MG: So within a matter of seconds.

HARRY FORESTELL: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And it really is remarkable. And I'm so fortunate to have had the kind of diagnosis and treatment I've had and to be able to go through this because not everyone can. And I mentioned earlier, Matt, there are some people who aren't well-suited for this. If you have what doctors call co-morbidities or other illnesses that come along with the Parkinson's, you may not be suited for deep brain stimulation. You have to have a good reaction to levodopa. If levodopa doesn't really give a dramatic improvement in your condition, then it's very likely deep brain stimulation won't either. So there are other efforts, other methods that they can utilize to help your digestion of levodopa and its utilization to be better.

MG: Just in the last minute or so that we have, what was it like? As a journalist, you don't want to be the story, but you did really good work in this because this is an important story to tell. It's not about you, but it's about a treatment in some ways. What was it like to report on yourself?

HARRY FORESTELL: It's tough. You know, I think you just have to sort of suspend the focus on you and just go ahead and tell the story as though you're a character in the story. You sort of have to get outside yourself. And the motivation for that for me was in what you said when you introduced me here, 100,000 Canadians living with Parkinson's in this country. That number is expected to double. The number of people with Parkinson's would double between 2011 and 2031 in this country. And that is a huge burden on health care, on those people and on their families. You know, I can't say enough about my wife and how much she has done to manage my daughters and me as my daughters are growing up. And as I was going through this challenge, you know, she's had much more of a burden to share than I have. So the idea of telling this story, this is what I do. This is what I love doing. I love telling stories just like you. So to be able to do that and be able to do it with an intimacy and an inside view that most people don't get, that's the goal. That's my dream.

MG: Well, it's an amazing story, but I love that the story ends in some ways with you back on television.

HARRY FORESTELL: Well, that's the thing. I've been back for two or three weeks now, and people here in New Brunswick and right across the country have been so welcoming. It's great to be back.

MG: Your viewers are lucky to have you and I'm glad to talk to you. Harry, thank you very much.

HARRY FORESTELL: Take care.

MG: Harry Forestell, the host of CBC News New Brunswick at six. You can see his whole story on the CBC News website. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current and we're back in 90 seconds. Stick around.

[Music: Theme]

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LAURA POITRAS

Guest: Laura Poitras

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[people protesting]

MG: That voice that you hear there leading the protest is the artist Nan Goldin. It was 2018 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. And back then, the wing where they were protesting was named for the Sackler family. The Sackler family made their fortune with the drug company Purdue Pharma, and the Sackler name became synonymous with Oxycontin and the opioid crisis. By the end of the protest, hundreds of orange plastic pill bottles were bobbing in the museum's famous reflecting pool. The campaign against the Sacklers and the artist leading it are now the subject of an Oscar nominated documentary. The film is called All the Beauty and All the Bloodshed. Laura Poitras is the film's director. Laura, good morning.

LAURA POITRAS: Hey, good morning.

MG: Congratulations on the nomination.

LAURA POITRAS: Thank you so much. It's great that you play that clip because actually tonight in New York, the Met has invited us to screen the film inside the Metropolitan Museum. So it's kind of like full circle. So we're really excited. It's kind of extraordinary too. They have a big theatre. There'll be hundreds of people there. And, you know, it will be a really special night for us.

MG: That’s quite a turn after being almost thrown out of the museum for shooting such a thing.

LAURA POITRAS: Exactly. Exactly. They didn't actually get permission when they did the protest.

MG: That was an amazing scene in the film. Can you just describe, I mean, I mentioned the hundreds of pill bottles floating in the reflecting pool.

LAURA POITRAS: So yeah. Okay. You know, a bit of back story. So Nan Goldin, as you said, so she created this organization called PAIN, which stands for Prescription addiction intervention now, to draw awareness to the Sackler family and their role in the overdose crisis and their sort of reckless promotion of their drug Oxycontin. And they decide to form this direct action group, which is somewhat founded on or very much founded on the work of Act Up, which is the organization that protested government inaction on the AIDS crisis. And they started doing these spectacular direct actions inside of museum spaces. And the first one was at the Met. And there, they took these prescription bottles and put these labels, things like side effects, you know, death, and put Richard Sackler’s name on them. And went into the museum, brought hundreds of these pill bottles along with a bunch of cameras and a bunch of banners and did this protest followed by a die in. And that was in, as you said, in 2018. And they chanted 100,000 dead. And actually, by the end of the film, they're chanting 400,000 dead, I mean, if you want to understand sort of the scope of the overdose crisis.

MG: Why did you want to make this film about Nan Goldin, but also this film in particular about Nan Goldin?

LAURA POITRAS: Right. Yeah. I mean, there are so many reasons. I mean, the first is I was very taken by the fact that Nan was using her power as an artist who's collected by all these museums to confront them. People don't always do that, confronting the institutions that they actually work within and depend upon. That she was taking that risk, that was the hook for me. It kind of aligned with some of my previous films. And then there was just, you know, Nan's artwork and, you know, the range of it and the emotional depth of her photography and her slideshows, which has been a work that has inspired me for as long as I've been making films. So that and the opportunity to also collaborate with Nan was really exciting for me.

MG: How would you describe her work? For people who don't know, I mean, what would be the way that you would sketch that work out for people?

LAURA POITRAS: You know, that's such a good question. I mean, people use words like raw intimacy, that it's about gender and sexuality and queer identity, that it's deeply personal. Nan photographs people that she's in relationships with. That could be her friends, her roommates, her lovers. She often has repeating people that she photographs over many years. So sort of portraits of people over time. Her work is often presented in slideshows. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a slideshow with hundreds of slides that are edited to music, and just tell a story about the, you know, difficulty of relationships, gender relations, intimacy, violence.

MG: As a filmmaker, what is it like to work with a photographer like this? I mean, she's asked about what photography means to her, and she says it's a way of being.

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah. I mean, she talks about, you know, art and photography, you know, as a sort of survival mechanism, in that she was coming out of a very difficult experience with her family and the loss of her sister who committed suicide and actually not even speaking, and that the camera gave her a voice. And I think it's a lifeline. And, you know, she also talks about a way to sort of walk through fear. So I think that film is also very much about the power of art as a tool to survive and to build relationships.

MG: You could have just made a documentary and it wouldn't be just a documentary, but it could have been just a film about Nan Goldin and her work. But as you said, there's something about her taking action in a world where she could have faced consequences that you found really intriguing. Tell me more about that and how you see that fitting into… I mean, your previous Oscar winning film, Citizenfour, was about Edward Snowden and the mass surveillance program that he helped to expose. There are other films that you've done that are about people stepping into the breach. What's the through line there?

LAURA POITRAS: So I mean, the through line is following an individual who's taking action and oftentimes taking enormous risk to confront abuse of power and injustice in the United States. So that could either be a U.S. global mass surveillance or the sort of pharmaceutical companies in the United States. And I'm interested in telling stories that are grounded in individuals but are larger critiques of society. What I don't want to do is make something that's just individualistic, you know. And so there were certain things I didn't want to do in this film. I wanted it to be a larger critique of society. And for me, the hook was the fact that she was doing this, confronting the institutions that gave it like a dramatic through line. But then, you know, the real heart of the film is, you know, Nan and her personal story.

MG: She takes that action at great risk. I mean, again, the people that you've documented are all involved in risk. For her, she's speaking out against these galleries that wanted her work. And she talks about do you think, you know, she could be drummed out of the art world? Will my career implode? What was the risk that she was taking in speaking out the way that she did?

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah. So yeah, I do tend to follow people who take risks. They all kind of like fall into categories of troublemakers as well and righteous. I mean, you know, as an artist, you know, to stage protests within the museums that, you know, your work is dependent on, you know, there are career risks. There are the fact that, you know, the bigger risks are taking on a billionaire family with unlimited resources that can come after you and who have literally an army of lawyers. But the end of the sort of legal case that the Sacklers are fighting, they were spending $30 million a month on legal fees. I mean, that's a vast amount of money.

MG: I mean, part of this is about her place in the art world. But why do you think it was important for her to target this family through their philanthropy?

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah. I mean, I think it's basically asking museums to like, okay, you need to look at the contradictions here, right? I mean, there is this sort of whitewashing of money, you know, through this sort of toxic philanthropy. And she cares about museums. And the members of her organization really care about these spaces. And it's really problematic when there's such a direct connection between this sort of mass death and this money. And that's just not acceptable in museum spaces. And the other thing is that, you know, the film is about the failure of the society in a larger sense, right? I mean, this is something that, you know, there should have been criminal charges brought against the Sackler families. There should have been political interventions. I mean, this is not a crisis that began yesterday. This was first known in the early 2000s. So we're talking over two decades that's been known and reported on that people were getting addicted to Oxycontin, and that Purdue Pharma, which was owned by the Sacklers until recently, their response to it was just how to sell more of it, you know. So it's both about exposing the contradictions within cultural spaces and museum spaces, and also pointing out the failure of government.

MG: I mean, being cancelled is this phrase that takes on a larger than life kind of resonance now. But was there the possibility that in the art world, her speaking out could have led to her cancellation, that she could have found herself on the outside of that world because of their prominence in those gallery spaces?

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah. I'm not sure that I would use that sort of framing. I think she took risks for sure, but I think probably that that wouldn't be the description I would use.

MG: What's the word that you would use?

LAURA POITRAS: Well, I mean, it could be just yeah, retribution. You know, people don't stop buying her work. She doesn't get shows anymore. I think it would happen a little bit more, you know, under the radar. Let’s put it that way.

MG: She does this for a bunch of reasons. But I mean, obviously, at the heart of it is a very personal reason. And she writes this essay in Artforum magazine that is incredibly powerful and kind of galvanizes people around what she is trying to do. I want to play a little bit from the film when she reads from that essay. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

NAN GOLDIN: I survived the opioid crisis. I narrowly escaped. My relationship to Oxycontin began several years ago in Berlin. It was originally prescribed for surgery. So I took it as directed. I got addicted overnight. In the beginning, 40 milligrams was too strong. But as my habit grew, there was never enough. I went from three pills a day as prescribed to 18. The drugs, like all drugs, most effect. So I picked up the straw. My life revolved entirely around getting and using Oxy. Counting and recounting, crushing and snorting was my full time job.

MG: Laura Poitras, what struck you about that essay?

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah, I mean, again, it's brutally raw and honest, right? I mean, this is actually her first action. She published this in art form. Right after she came out of recovery, the sequence of events, she came out of recovery and she read Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article about the Sacklers.

MG: Which led to his book. Yeah.

LAURA POITRAS: Which led to his book and was appalled like, how is it that the Sackler name that I've been like walking past inside of the Louvre and, you know, the Met is responsible for the drug that I've just survived an addiction from? And I think it galvanized her. And, you know, by publishing this, I mean, kind of like it's a declaration, like I'm coming after you. And I think she knew that she had a certain authority. Like I think that's what's important to understand about Nan taking on this action. She knew that because she has power within these museums and because she herself could speak about what it means and what it feels like to have an Oxycontin addiction, that she had an authority that very few other people had, and that she was going to use it, you know, strategically, that power. So yeah, it was very personal for her. But also, like all of Nan's work, I mean, she makes work about her experience and from the most intimate level. So she had experience with this and she leveraged it against the Sacklers.

MG: Do you see those actions as part of her work in some ways? Because she's using arts to make the point as we saw with the floating bottles, with the scripts that are tossed on the ground, that there is art that's part of that. Do you see that as part of her work?

LAURA POITRAS: You know, it's an interesting question. You know, most of the members of PAIN, they have different certain things in common. All of them have experience with addiction, either a loss of a loved one or they themselves have had addiction. And they also are largely artists. So they understand about sort of the power of art. And they really did do these actions to be, you know, spectacular and sexy. And they wanted the audience members who were the viewers at the museum spaces, to draw them into the actions, and then also that they would be photographed. And they were widely circulated. I mean, they were on the front page of most newspapers. And so they were very media savvy. And, you know, I think Nan did describe PAIN as her practice during the first year and a half. And I do think that they have a sort of performative element. But I do think there's a difference between the actions and Nan’s artworks.

MG: It just feels as though, I mean, part of this is a huge part of her own recovery in doing this work as well.

LAURA POITRAS: Sure. Yeah. I think she would agree with that.

MG: Yeah. You mentioned Act Up earlier. And I think anybody who sees this film and sees what she and the members of PAIN were doing and the floors of those galleries, would see a parallel between her work and what was happening in the eighties in terms of AIDS activism. For people who may not be familiar with Act Up, just remind us what Act Up was doing at that moment and why they were taking that approach.

LAURA POITRAS: Right. I mean, so Act Up emerged in the midst of the HIV AIDS crisis and the complete inaction of the government to address it. And they started doing these very confrontational direct actions that were sometimes at the FDA in Washington. And, you know, they did lots of die ons and, you know, they caused trouble and they were like, we demand the government to do more. And they were successful. And Act Up is very much a part of this film for a number of reasons. One, they inspired Nan's organization, PAIN, but also Nan in the eighties organized an art show in New York City which she invited all of her close friends who were living with… Some had died from AIDS. And it's a show that was very much celebrating gay and queer sexuality. It was not shying away from that, even though there was this huge cultural backlash and homophobia at the time and, you know, very confrontational. And then was also acknowledging the legacy of her friends that she was losing. The toll of the AIDS crisis, it's kind of hard to imagine today, you know, And so it's very much part of the film, both in terms of the genesis of the film and how the film unfolds. We spent a lot of time on this show that Nan created called Witnesses Against Our Vanishing. And we also meet David, the great David Wojnarowicz at that point in the film.

MG: The confrontational nature of this tactic, part of it is about getting action. Part of it is about tackling kind of stigma head on as well. And you saw that in the eighties during the AIDS crisis. You see it again during the overdose crisis where there are a lot of us and them. It's them that have this addiction. It couldn't possibly be us. Why was that so important, do you think, to take on head on?

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's about, you know, no victims here and, you know, confronting power. And all of Nan's work is about tackling stigma, you know, and talking about things that the society places stigma on and saying like, no, I refuse to take on that society's shame and I'm going to redirect where shame belongs. Shame actually belongs in the big pharma, the companies that are, you know, criminally promoting their drugs. That's actually shameful. And, you know, she's done that throughout her work if that's about, you know, queer sexuality, trans representation, drug addiction. You know, to destigmatize those things is a through line throughout Nan's work.

MG: What was it like to see her make gains in this? I mean, because in just a few years, you have major museums and galleries refusing Sackler donations, peeling the Sackler name off the walls of some of those rooms. How important was that?

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. I mean, for me, as a filmmaker who does make work about political issues, I'm always, you know, wondering like where the tipping points, right? You know, there are often times people are protesting and things don't change. And then something happens and there is this tipping point where things can't really quite be the same as they were. And, you know, I think we saw it with Nan when she first did the protest at the Met. There was silence. And then at the Guggenheim, silence. And then the National Portrait Gallery said, You know what? We're going to turn down this money when she threatened not to do a show with them. And then once they said, We're not going to take money, then they taped it at the Guggenheim and the Met. And that's like it gives you chills to see like, oh, that this kind of persistent activism can have an impact is powerful. And yet, on the other hand, it's still a story about impunity, right? In the end, the Sacklers haven't really faced accountability, right? They haven't been charged with that, at least not yet. They haven't been charged with criminal behavior. And they should have been.

MG: And the family members have said that, you know, they have regret for the opioid crisis. But they deny that they have personal responsibility for it.

LAURA POITRAS: Yeah. I mean, just watch the program Dopesick if you want an inside look at how the Sackler family behaved. I mean, these were many of them medical doctors. It's a private company. And they were sitting around the boardroom and they saw that people were getting addicted and were dying from overdose. And their response to it was, how do we sell more? I mean, you know, the truth that the film reveals is that there are different types of justice systems, and that billionaires have a different justice system than other people in society.

MG: A representative for the family of Mortimer Sackler said they have no comment on this. They told us they had no comment. Have you had any response from the family or from their foundation?

LAURA POITRAS: Oh wait. So you reached out and they said no comment?

MG: We did and they said no comment.

LAURA POITRAS: Interesting. Okay. Well, you know, we, of course, reached out to, you know, ask them some questions. And that's at the end of the film. We asked them about… What they did is so that their company, Purdue Pharma, once they started feeling that there was pressure both from the press and investigations, they decided to siphon all of the resources out of the company. And it went into other companies and off shore and then they declare bankruptcy, and the company declares bankruptcy. And so we asked them about that. And, you know, they gave us a comment of how they did pay taxes off the money that they siphoned out of the company and provided some other comments. But we haven't heard from them since then.

MG: we also asked Purdue Pharma for comment. And they talked about how they're concluding their bankruptcy proceedings, including a settlement that they say would deliver “over $10 billion of value for opioid crisis abatement, overdose rescue medicines, and victim compensation.” How do you think that's being received by Nan Goldin and the members of PAIN?

LAURA POITRAS: Way too little to way too late. I mean, this deal is so corrupt. I mean, it comes with unprecedented immunity, unprecedented immunity for the Sackler families and their associates and companies. You know, it's nowhere near justice.

MG: What do you think it's going to take to recover from this crisis? Because the sacklers in many ways have been drummed out of the art world. One of the reasons why they ploughed money, and this comes out in Patrick Radden Keefe’s book and in the film as well, that they ploughed money into the art world to try to gain a degree of respectability, but certainly notoriety and fame within those spaces. They've been drummed out of those spaces by now. What do you think it will take to recover from a crisis that continues all these years later?

LAURA POITRAS: Well, here's the thing. I mean, you know, this society, the United States I'm talking about, not Canada, has a problem with historical amnesia. And we do not tend to reckon with wrongdoing, atrocities and criminal behaviour from our past. And because we failed to do that, we often repeat things. And, you know, I could go on a long list. I mean, the war on terror was one of the darkest chapters of U.S. history. We still have Guantanamo Bay prison still open right now as we speak. There are people who've been there since 2002, have never been charged with a crime. You know, that is not a society that’s sort of dealing with its problems and its crimes in a way that it can avoid repeating them. You know, So I think that we need accountability. I think the Sackler family should be charged criminally. And there is still time for that to happen.

MG: What did you learn about Nan Goldin in making this film? An artist of extraordinary renown who you learn even more about in watching this. What did you learn from being around her?

LAURA POITRAS: You know, I mean, so much trade. I mean, so much about art and the relationship between art as a means of survival. And I love the way that she talks about how she photographs people and giving them agency in that process. She photographs her friends. And if there's something that they feel like uncomfortable about revealing, she'll respect that. I think that's amazing. And, you know, I think I also learned that, you know, she goes to places that like emotionally are incredibly brave that most people don't go to in their most intimate relationship. And she does it in her artwork and in this film. And, you know, that's really rare. And I can definitely say it doesn't come easy. It comes at, you know, enormous personal sacrifice.

MG: It's an enormously powerful film. Congratulations.

LAURA POITRAS: Thank you. I appreciate that.

MG: Laura Poitras is director of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. It is one of the films nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards. Oscar night is the 12th of March. That is The Current for this Wednesday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. We’ll leave you today with the story of one of the hottest debates in classical music. The question How fast should Beethoven's Ninth Symphony be played? Some argue that Beethoven's notations show the playing, the whole symphony should take upwards of 70 minutes. Others, in particular, the conductor, Benjamin Zander, believe the piece is a sprint, not a marathon. And so this weekend, he will lead two performances in Boston and New York where the piece will clock in at under an hour. It's not as though he has somewhere else to be. The reason that he thinks this is that Beethoven was basically entirely deaf by the time the symphony was written. And therefore, Zander believes the metronome markings cannot be trusted. Slow and steady or a rush to the finish? From a 2018 recording of the Philharmonia Orchestra, here's a bit of Benjamin Zanders interpretation of the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

[“Ode to Joy” by Benjamin Zander/orchestra]

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