Awakenings: Difference between revisions

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Directed by Penny Marshall, the film stars [[Robert De Niro]], [[Robin Williams]], [[John Heard]], [[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|Julie Kavner]], Penelope Ann Miller, and [[Flash Gordon (Filmfilm)|Max Von Sydow]]. The film has a cameo from jazz legend Dexter Gordon (who died before the film's release) who appears as a patient, and a then-unknown [[Vin Diesel]] plays a hospital orderly.

A documentary [[Awakenings (documentary)|by the same name]], featuring interviews with Dr. Sacks and his real-life patients was produced by British television company Yorkshire Television in 1974.

* [[And I Must Scream]].: There is one exchange that expounds the true [[Fridge Horror]] of the catatonic situation:

{{quote| '''Dr. Ingham:''' Most died during the acute stage of the illness, during a sleep so deep they couldn't be roused. A sleep that in most cases lasted several months. Those who survived, who awoke, seemed fine, as though nothing had happened. Years went by - five, ten, fifteen - before anyone suspected they were not well...they were not. I began to see them in the early 1930's - old people brought in by their children, young people brought in by their parents - all of them complaining they weren't themselves anymore. They'd grown distant, aloof, anti-social, they daydreamed at the dinner table. I referred them to psychiatrists. Before long they were being referred back to me. They could no longer dress themselves or feed themselves. They could no longer speak in most cases. Families went mad. People who were normal, were now elsewhere.<br />

'''Dr. InghamSayer:''' They'reWhat not.must Theit virusbe didn'tlike to be sparethem? theWhat higherare faculties.<brthey />thinking?

'''Dr. SayerIngham:''' WeThey're knownot. whatThe virus didn't forspare athe fact?<brhigher />faculties.

'''Dr. InghamSayer:''' Yes.<brWe />know what for a fact?

'''Dr. SayerIngham:''' Because?<br />Yes.

'''Dr. InghamSayer:''' [[Fridge Horror|Because the alternative would be unthinkable.]] }}?

{{quote| His vision, from the constantly passing bars,<br />

has grown so weary that it cannot hold<br />

anything else. It seems to him there are<br />

a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. }}

{{quote| As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,<br />

the movement of his powerful soft strides<br />

is like a ritual dance around a center<br />

in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. }}

{{quote| Only at times, the curtain of the pupils<br />

lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,<br />

rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,<br />

plunges into the heart and is gone. }}

* [[Downer Ending]] -: Sort of. {{spoiler|Basically, everybody given the drug eventually reverts back to their catatonic state no matter how much the dosage is increased.}}

* [[Film/Tear Jerker|Tear Jerker (Film)]]: The scene where Dr. Sayer watches the home videos he and Leonard filmed {{spoiler|showing Leonard's gradual deterioration back to catatonia}}.