I love having things to look forward to and this morning is no exception. I just found out that Ron Howard is set to direct an adaptation of Jill Bolte Taylor‘s mind-blowing memoir “My Stroke Of Insight” which chronicles her journey back from a debilitating stroke. Deadline Hollywood broke the news this morning:
Ron Howard has signed on to the direct the film, and he wants Jodie as his star. But Foster isn’t formally attached at this point. Howard and his Imagine partner Brian Grazer are producing. The subject matter of the complexities of the human mind puts Howard and Grazer back into terrain they covered in their Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind. In late 1996, the 37-year old Taylor suffered a massive stroke caused by a blood vessel that exploded in the left side of her brain. A Harvard-trained neuro-anatomist, Taylor’s brain function deteriorated in a matter or hours to where she couldn’t walk, read or write, or even recall past memories. It took 8 years for her to mend. Her knowledge of how the brain works gave her the opportunity to experience and write about brain recovery that became at times a mystical experience, as the right half compensated for the damaged left half and infused her with feelings of peace and well-being that she has tried to retain, even after struggling to reclaim her life and standing in the scientific community.
If you haven’t seen it already, this is a speech that Jill gave a couple years back at the TED Conference and it will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It is perhaps the most fascinating story I have ever heard in my life and I think this should be mandatory viewing for every single person on earth. You will never be the same after you watch this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU[/youtube]
