"On the Shoulders of Giants," a documentary that chronicles the history of NYU Langone orthopedics, wasn't originally supposed to be an hour-long feature.
The documentary's director, Peter Sanders, told Becker's that the film was commissioned to be a 30-minute movie. However he suggested turning the production into a feature-length film to executive producers, Kenneth Egol, MD, and Joseph Zuckerman, MD. The documentary would later become one of the four finalists for Best Documentaries at the 23rd Tribeca Festival.
Mr. Sanders became involved with the project after Dr. Egol, an orthopedic surgeon, suggested the project when the director was a patient.
"[Orthopedic surgeons] are unrecognized heroes," Mr. Sanders said. "Dr. Egol will say that you have not met him until you're in dire straits and then, when you do need him, he does the most unbelievable heroic things to make your body work again, to walk again… The pioneers have already paved the way for so many innovations in the last 165 years, and the future of orthopedics is built on that legacy. The future will take NYU Langone orthopedics to places that our imagination cannot even fathom."
Dr. Egol said he had the notion to document the orthopedic history for a few years, and the extra time from the COVID-19 pandemic helped kickstart things.
"We thought it'd be a good idea to start looking at all the luminary orthopedic surgeons in the history of the hospital and write a biography," Dr. Egol told Becker's. "So we spent a couple years putting together about 22 or 23 biographies that we published. In doing that and learning their stories, that's where we got the idea to put it all together and make a [documentary]."
"On the Shoulders of Giants" is as much a history of orthopedics as it is about NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital's growth. The documentary outlines the path from its association with Bellevue Medical College, the Hospital for Joint Diseases and what is now NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital.
The movie highlights orthopedic pioneers including Lewis Sayre, MD, the first orthopedic professor in North America, who worked at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, Marian Sloane, MD, the first female orthopedic surgeon in the U.S. to publish a peer-reviewed journal and J. Serge Parisien, MD, who helped develop modern arthroscopic techniques.
Another unique pillar of the documentary is music. Classical works are weaved throughout the film, including composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonín Dvořák.
One of the prominent works is Dvořák's String Quartet No. 12 ("American Quartet"), which is included throughout the documentary. Its contemplative second movement opens the movie; the upbeat viola melody from the first movement introduces Joseph Milgram, MD, the first chair of orthopedics at The Hospital for Joint Diseases, and the jubilant third movement arises during a segment about orthopedic innovation and solutions.
Mr. Sanders' mother, musicologist Malena Kuss, helped select music for the documentary and she performed Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 2 No. 3 for the film, the director said. The choice to add the iconic Dvořák quartet came from Andrew Coffman, the documentary's editor.
"It's a question of affinities," Mr. Sanders said, explaining the strategies used to select the music. "How do you make a movie? You have a beginning, a middle and an end. You divide each unit, matching emotionally the content of a segment and these contrasts, variations, and repetitions, carry an affinity with the context and drive the narrative forward. You'll recognize the Dvořák "American" string quartet, which is a perfect match for remembering the pioneers. Dvořák was a very good selection that has great affinities with the tone and the style of the film."
Looking ahead, Mr. Sanders is working on an audio and visual project to further explore NYU Langone's orthopedic surgeons and history. Those works will be available on the NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital's website and onsite at the hospital by the end of the year.
At the hospital, the next chapter for its orthopedic legacy lies especially in the physicians it trains.
"The success of our training program, which is now 100 years old, started in 1923 really rests on the dedication of the faculty," Dr. Egol said. "Our primary missions are to take care of patients, but also to train the future orthopedic surgeons. Everybody here who's involved in our department loves teaching, scholarly activity and the pursuit of academic activities. We have the largest residency training program in the country."
With more than 100 trainees coming through NYU Langone Orthopedics each year, their collective reach extends beyond the region.
"Our impact on orthopedics is not only in the people we train, but geographically, is throughout the Tri-state area and expanding into other areas," Dr. Zuckerman said. "We've always said that the legacy of what we do is not necessarily in the patients we care for, although that's important … However, when you look at all the orthopedic surgeons that we graduate, who then go out and take care of hundreds of thousands of patients and do hundreds of operations each year, that is a tremendous cascading effect. We have a tremendous impact on orthopedic care in this country, and that's very important to us."
"On the Shoulders of Giants" is available on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Google Play. It will be added to Kanopy, Vudú Fandango, inDemand, Hoopla, Microsoft, Direct TV and Dish Echostar on Oct. 4. In 2025, the documentary will be available on Tubi, and a Roku streaming deal is pending.
