Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
| Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by |
Matthew Heineman Susan Frömke |
| Produced by | Matthew Heineman Susan Frömke |
| Music by | Chad Kelly Moby |
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Production
company |
Aisle C
Our Time Projects |
| Distributed by |
Roadside Attractions Lionsgate |
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Release date
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Running time
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99 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare is a 2012 feature-length documentary directed by Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke and released by Roadside Attractions. Escape Fire premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, opened in select theaters on October 5, 2012, and was simultaneously released on iTunes and Video-on-Demand. The film was released on DVD in February 2013 and premiered on CNN on March 10, 2013.
Since Escape Fire premiered at Sundance, the film has been mentioned or reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes,New York magazine,Los Angeles Times,Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and other media outlets. The film received generally positive reviews, with an aggregate score of 67 on Metacritic and 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was a New York Times,New York magazine, and Washington Post Critics’ Pick.
In the research phase of Escape Fire, the filmmakers came across an influential speech delivered by Dr. Donald Berwick years before he took office as the head of Medicare and Medicaid. The speech was published as a healthcare manifesto called “Escape Fire: Lessons for the Future of Healthcare.”
Dr. Berwick draws a parallel between American healthcare and a 1949 Mann Gulch fire in Montana. Just as the healthcare system lies perilously on the brink of combustion, the forest fire that seemed harmless at first was waiting to explode. A team of fifteen smoke-jumpers parachuted in to contain the fire, but soon they were running for their lives, racing to the top of a steep ridge. Their foreman, Wag Dodge, recognized that they would not make it.
With the fire barely two hundred yards behind him, he invented an on-the-spot solution. He took some matches out of his pocket, bent down and set fire to the grass directly in front of him. The fire spread quickly uphill, and he stepped into the middle of the newly burnt area, calling for his crew to join him.
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