Awakenings (1990)

Penny Marshall’s Awakenings (1990) is a movie that is hard to describe. This is partly because it is based on the real life of Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote a book about his experiences in a chronic hospital in the Bronx. The movie focuses on events that takes place in the summer of 1969, when a new doctor (named Dr. Sayer in the film) joins the hospital staff. Dr. Sayer, played by Robin Williams in one of his best performances, is quiet, introverted, and shies away from physical contact. He spent the five previous years working with earthworms, and is sorely lacking in clinical experience.

Dr. Sayer eventually becomes interested in the case of a man named Leonard and about a dozen other patients who all seem to be trapped by the same disease. It turns out that they are all victims of the “sleeping sickness” epidemic of the 1920s, which has left them immobile and unable to speak. In the film’s prologue we see Leonard as a boy when he encounters the first symptoms of his strange condition. He is played as an adult by Robert De Niro in a masterful performance as a man who has been trapped in his own body for thirty years.

The state of these silent patients appears hopeless until Dr. Sayer discovers that many of them will catch a ball that is tossed to them. It leads him to theorize about a body’s simultaneous motor impulses canceling each other out, and spurs him on to find ways to break the deadlock. He is helped in his efforts by the gentle nurse Eleanor (Julie Kavner), who befriends Dr. Sayer and has faith in him even when he is doubted by his skeptical colleagues.

Leonard becomes the focus of Dr. Sayer’s efforts after he receives written consent from Leonard’s mother (Ruth Nelson), who has spent her entire life taking care of her son. Earlier in the film an aged doctor (Max Von Sydow) who has studied the cases of patients like Leonard states that “the virus did not spare their higher faculties,” because “the alternative is unthinkable.” We discover that he is wrong when Leonard uses a Ouija board to communicate with Dr. Sayer, referencing a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that effectively describes Leonard’s current condition.

After a new wonder-drug called L-Dopa becomes available, Dr. Sayer is able to prescribe it to Leonard, who eventually “awakens.” One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when a restored Leonard greets his mother. Randy Newman’s music gives us one of the best so-happy-I-could-cry moments I have ever seen. But observe Dr. Sayer in the background, the sole witness of this joyous reunion. As described by Roger Ebert, the movie has “sequences of enormous joy and heartbreak,” and how Dr. Sayer responds to them reveals the heart of his character, which is always at the center of the film.

It is at this point in the film that my role as an observer ends and my emotions take over. I feel empathy for Leonard, I identify with Dr. Sayer, and I begin to experience the same emotional highs and lows that they do. Penny Marshall’s direction of the film doesn’t call attention to itself, but quietly pulls the viewer in, absorbing us with its story.

After the success with Leonard, the other patients are put on the new drug which “brings them back.” Many of them have been “on hold” for years. It is hard to view this movie without thinking of the implications of what Leonard and the other patients have gone through. Think of all the mundane things we take for granted, all the “human connections” we fail to appreciate, all the experiences we have every day that Leonard and his fellow patients are cruelly denied through no fault of their own. One patient, played by George Martin (the actor, not the music producer), reacts in a way I think most of us probably would. “I feel old, and I feel swindled,” he tells one of the hospital workers. (Close observers will note the touching way his story develops.)

Leonard, on the other hand, is eager to embrace his re-introduction to life. It becomes clear to him that people need to be reminded what life is about, that we take too much for granted, that we have forgotten how good life can be. This happens around the time he meets Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), a young woman who comes to the hospital to visit her father. For the first time in Leonard’s life, love and attraction begin to take effect.

The Oscar-nominated screenplay is by Steven Zaillian, who wrote the screenplay for Schindler’s List, and also wrote and directed Searching for Bobby Fischer and A Civil Action, all of which are based on true stories. They are all stories about human nature that do not fit any standard Hollywood formulas and cannot be easily described.

The film follows the realities of life right up to the end, which is to say there is no tidy little happy ending. It is introspective, inviting us to reflect upon our own lives. We are also left to admire the work of De Niro and Williams, and to remember the characters we have grown to love and care for. Characters that remind us what “life” is all about.

Introduction

I started to write a few essays on movies two years ago. I had hoped to gather them together as some sort of “movie journal,” and even wrote an introduction as a way to gather and focus my thoughts on the subject. It seems appropriate to share that introduction here.

October 2, 2006

The first movie I ever went to was Star Wars. I was only a month-old baby in my mother’s arms, but I can still say I was physically there, even if I don’t remember. My earliest memories of movie-watching are of the Star Wars films. They had such a profound influence on my life. Not only did they begin my love for movies, but the music of John Williams almost single-handedly gave me the desire to become a composer.

I love movies, pure and simple. I’ve always been fascinated with them, watching one as often as possible. As far as I can tell, film is the only art form that includes all the arts, in some form or another. (Think about it.) For this very reason, movies are my favorite form of storytelling.

The movies that made my list of “favorites” are ones that moved me in some way. I’ve lived with some of these films my whole life, while some are fairly recent additions to the list. The one thing they all have in common is the way they swept me up into the story and made me forget that I was watching a movie. The events in the story were happening to me, my emotions were engaged, and my intelligence wasn’t being insulted. These are the movies I love to talk about.

The following essays are an attempt to do just that. They are a record of why I love these movies, how they made me feel the first time I watched them, and why I will watch them again. That first impression goes a long way. I liked all these movies the first time I saw them. But many of them have become—for me—much deeper, more moving, more thought-provoking, more powerful than they were upon my first viewing.

I could never hope to convince another person to love movies the way I do. But I can try to explain why they have an effect on me, and what it is that I like about them. These essays are not necessarily an argument for these movies as they are my personal observations of them, and an accounting of my reaction to them. Some of the best conversations I’ve had with friends have been when a movie inspired within them the same thoughts and emotions that I had experienced. Watching movies has taught me so much about human nature. But it’s taught me even more about myself, my tastes and desires, my likes and dislikes, and my dreams.

And so it begins...

This blog is the result of a growing curiosity to see what would happen if I became a little more vocal, so to speak, about “the arts”: music, movies, books, theater, photography, etc. Friends had previously encouraged me to write movie reviews for the local paper, but I just didn’t see it happening. On a blog, though, I could write about not only current movies, but also old favorites. Writing about other arts subjects just seemed like the next logical step.

So we’ll start with movies. I made a list of favorites (which is extremely difficult to do with any subject) and I’ll just work my way down the list, and we’ll see what other subjects come up in between.

But let me be clear: Everything posted on this blog will be subjective, but comments, contributions and differing opinions are welcome. When I say that something is “one of my favorites,” it does not translate to mean “I’m right and you’re wrong.” I will try to present my thoughts in such a way that it means “I enjoyed this, and these are the reasons why.”

At this point it seems appropriate to include a quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld (don’t worry, I can’t pronounce it either): “We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.” I am as guilty as anybody. But I truly believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions.

As for the blog title, I got the phrase from “Easier to Be,” one of my favorite songs by Lifehouse. It just felt right.