Bethune

Yesterday and today, I watched "Bethune" (1977) as well as "Bethune: The Making of a Hero" (1990)...both starring Donald Sutherland as Dr. Norman Bethune. However, well before both these films, the National Film Board of Canada produced this documentary about the great man.

Dr. Bethune was a Canadian surgeon who pushed for socialized medicine long before it was adopted in the country. He was upset that the poor often were denied treatment or given second-rate care. However, through the course of his crusading career, he became enamored with communism after visiting the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, he later volunteered his surgical talents with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War and later with Mao and his revolutionary army in China. Sadly, he died in 1939 due to a wound he suffered while operating in China.

Unlike the later versions, this film seems more real, as it doesn't quite elevate Bethune to sainthood...something which was noticable in the later films. So, while it's not such a pretty film (the 1990 version looks expensively made) and is in black & white, it seems like the most realistic of the three movies.

My only reservation is the same one I have with the subsequent films. There is no real discussion of the so-called 'elephant in the room'...that ultimately the same folks Bethune worked with in China ended up with a very murderous regime. Odd they didn't ever mention any of this (mentioning it in an epilogue would have been appropriate) and it's NOT a critique on Bethune himself, as he couldn't see the future (and who could?).