Product Details

• Actors: Spalding Gray, Mike McLaughlin, Melissa Robertson, Alvin Henry, Alyne Hargroder
• Directors: Steven Soderbergh
• Writers: Spalding Gray, Renée Shafransky
• Producers: Caroline Kaplan, John Hardy, John Re, Jonathan Sehring, Kathleen Russo
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• DVD Release Date: June 29, 1999
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000IREC
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #76,338 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Gray's Anatomy" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

If you can manage to suffer through an excruciating series of painful tales of eye trauma, then you might find yourself caught up and swept away in Spalding Gray's filmed monologue Gray's Anatomy. This amusing and capricious film is a bit different from his previous Swimming to Cambodia, which focused on his role in the film The Killing Fields. This time, Gray finds himself experiencing "disturbances" in his left eye, and after he is diagnosed by ophthalmologists as having a "macular pucker," he sets out to find a cure without having to set foot in a New York hospital. Raised as a Christian Scientist and fearing the loss of his eyesight, Gray dramatizes his journey in search of alternative treatments. Along the way, he calls the Christian Scientists' hot line, visits so-called Native American shamans, eye nutritionists, and Filipino psychic surgeons, all in the name of relief. Directed by Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape), the one-man show is injected with movement by his inventive use of sets, lighting, and creative camera angles. The pacing can sometimes be frantic due to Gray's excited dialogue and self-examination, but as a result, it succeeds in holding you until the mirthful end. --Michele Goodson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spalding Gray at his best, August 4, 2000

By	"fastlearner" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gray's Anatomy [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Incredible writer and monologuist Spalding Gray takes us on an incredible journey, around the world and through his soul. Though based on his his attempts to avoid dangerous eye surgery, the story is really about meeting fascinating characters and Gray's own fascinating neuroses. If the idea of a monologue sounds boring to you -- basically Gray sitting and telling you a story -- I especially challenge you to try this out.

While dry, Gray's humor keeps you laughing out loud. You'll find it mesmerizing, and at the end of your own journey through the film, changed for the better. Highly recommended.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Feast for the Middle Aged Male, March 22, 2004

By	Birdman (Minnetonka, MN USA) - See all my reviews

Spalding Gray's death has left us poorer than when we started. How evident this is after viewing this edgy, moving, often riotous monologue directed by Stephen Soderbergh.

A macular "pucker" leaves Gray virtually blind in one eye. Born into Christian Science, Gray leaves the church when his CS practitioner demands he renounce allopathic medicine to receive help. Gray's breathless journeys through alternative healing remind us that we all face mortality at any cost, and that no religious or philosopical system will spare us the inevitability of suffering or dying.

What I loved most about this film were Gray's frequent outbursts of humor -- framed in frustration, delivered in sentences which resonate like poetry in the mind, this guy rages -- quite literally -- against the dying of the light. And I would add that this is a film best viewed late at night.

While Soderbergh's direction is occasionally heavy-handed and self- conscious, it is still creative and ambitious and will never disqualify this film from classic status.

The movie doesn't benefit from the opening montage of "eye horror stories" delivered by subjects who almost lost their sight, and who occasionally make an unwelcome visit into Gray's monologue. Happily, Gray gets 'round them.

The man had a brilliant, brilliant mind and a great heart. Watch this, and the only thing you risk is awareness of his absence, and it is a sad feeling.

I just loved this movie, or should I say: I loved this mirror.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The art of story telling, September 19, 2004

By	Henry Butz (Holbrook, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful example of the 'gift of gab' - that is, the art of telling a story. Spalding Gray has a story to tell - mind you, the plot is not nearly as interesting as, say, a Jedi Knight fighting a battle in a galaxy far, far away. It is not so much what he has to say, but how he says it. If one of your favorite childhood memories includes sitting around a campfire listening to someone spinning a yarn about a headless ghost, then you might enjoy this more adult version of a scary story. Substitute the encounter with a headless horseman with an even more frightening trip to see a doctor to diagnose an incurable medical condition and you may start to understand this movie. It was fascinating listening to his tangential logic, flashbacks, and digressions of a gifted story teller. It is also somewhat of an insight into the mind Spalding Gray, whose favorite story was the life experience he gained by walking around Washington Square Park several times, breathing in all of life's drama.