Wit (2001)
Dying gracefully is difficult under any circumstance, and nearly impossible without faith. Having to die in a hospital cancer ward only makes it harder, and more normal. Being smart, and rational, and so-called "strong" through it all is admirable, yet no help in the end. There is dwindling hope, and even the hospital staff is largely out for its own survival, defending statistics and research over compassion.
This sounds horrible, and yet this is the truth for many who die in hospital. And for Vivian Bearing, a John Donne scholar of some genius, this is a test of survival and maybe, if possible, comprehension. Both will turn out to be elusive.
Director Mike Nichols and actress Emma Thompson manage a tight masterpiece around this very depressing subject. Both are astonishing, and Thompson goes all out, shaving her head for the production (as did her predecessors for the stage productions of Wit the previous two years). Without question it is Thompson's convincing, virtuosic presence that makes the movie so poignant, and so devastating.
Thanks to Nichols, there are film-making sleights of hand throughout that add to both the artfulness and the richness of the experience. It's odd to think of the film as elegant, but the moving in and out of flashbacks, sometimes with the character out of place in time (once, Bearing is a child at home in a flashback but it is played by the dying woman in a hospital gown) is superbly well done. The closeups on tormented faces, the long long takes as Bearing gives herself to soliloquy, the slipping from one mode to another, from sadness to humor, all of this builds and compounds. By the end, if you are not a blubbering mess, you are probably in shock, and it sneaks up on you. The filming becomes transparent, even with all its effects. Amazing stuff.
Besides, Bearing, who is 90 percent of the film, there are side characters, notably a nurse (Audra McDonald) who truly understands that sliver of existential pain her patient is going through, and a series of doctors who do not. And there is Bearing's former teacher, a much older woman, and a Donne scholar, too, who understands there are more important things in life than even John Donne.
And there is the central character of Donne himself, who pervades it all. Donne, who created a complex literature during Shakespeare's time, famously writing the Holy Sonnet X (Death, be not proud) and writing many "conceits" which were a complex way of dealing with things indirectly. Unfathomable death, of course, is more easily approached roundabout, and Donne's lyrical brilliance in the face of the impossible is exactly what Vivian Bearing thought would help her own confrontation with the end.
Nothing survives, however. Except experience, which is held out here like a trial for those of us willing, and still alive. This is a tough tough movie to watch. It will ruin your night, but it's highly recommended, highly, as great art, as necessary pain.
Dying gracefully is difficult under any circumstance, and nearly impossible without faith. Having to die in a hospital cancer ward only makes it harder, and more normal. Being smart, and rational, and so-called "strong" through it all is admirable, yet no help in the end. There is dwindling hope, and even the hospital staff is largely out for its own survival, defending statistics and research over compassion.
This sounds horrible, and yet this is the truth for many who die in hospital. And for Vivian Bearing, a John Donne scholar of some genius, this is a test of survival and maybe, if possible, comprehension. Both will turn out to be elusive.
Director Mike Nichols and actress Emma Thompson manage a tight masterpiece around this very depressing subject. Both are astonishing, and Thompson goes all out, shaving her head for the production (as did her predecessors for the stage productions of Wit the previous two years). Without question it is Thompson's convincing, virtuosic presence that makes the movie so poignant, and so devastating.
Thanks to Nichols, there are film-making sleights of hand throughout that add to both the artfulness and the richness of the experience. It's odd to think of the film as elegant, but the moving in and out of flashbacks, sometimes with the character out of place in time (once, Bearing is a child at home in a flashback but it is played by the dying woman in a hospital gown) is superbly well done. The closeups on tormented faces, the long long takes as Bearing gives herself to soliloquy, the slipping from one mode to another, from sadness to humor, all of this builds and compounds. By the end, if you are not a blubbering mess, you are probably in shock, and it sneaks up on you. The filming becomes transparent, even with all its effects. Amazing stuff.
Besides, Bearing, who is 90 percent of the film, there are side characters, notably a nurse (Audra McDonald) who truly understands that sliver of existential pain her patient is going through, and a series of doctors who do not. And there is Bearing's former teacher, a much older woman, and a Donne scholar, too, who understands there are more important things in life than even John Donne.
And there is the central character of Donne himself, who pervades it all. Donne, who created a complex literature during Shakespeare's time, famously writing the Holy Sonnet X (Death, be not proud) and writing many "conceits" which were a complex way of dealing with things indirectly. Unfathomable death, of course, is more easily approached roundabout, and Donne's lyrical brilliance in the face of the impossible is exactly what Vivian Bearing thought would help her own confrontation with the end.
Nothing survives, however. Except experience, which is held out here like a trial for those of us willing, and still alive. This is a tough tough movie to watch. It will ruin your night, but it's highly recommended, highly, as great art, as necessary pain.