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Awakenings Notes & Viewing

Guide
Why are we watching this film?

Major Assignments
This notes packet/viewing guide
Presentation on your Awakenings character
Awakenings essay

Major Characters
Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams): A research neurologist who comes to work
at the Bainbridge Hospital, where there are many patients who have been in a
sleep-like (comatose) state for 30 or more years.
Eleanor Costello: A nurse at the hospital who supports Dr. Sayer in his work with
the hospitals patients.
Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro): A patient who has been basically asleep at
the hospital for three decades (from 1939 to 1969), who is dramatically woken by
the use of an experimental drug that Dr. Sayer decides to try.
Dr. Kaufman: The head of the Neurology Department at the hospital, who is very
cynical about trying to wake the comatose patients.
Mrs. Lowe: Leonards mom, who agrees to let Dr. Sayer try to wake her son.
Lucy: Another patient at the hospital, who has been asleep since 1926!
Paula: The daughter of one of the hospitals patients, who meets Leonard while
visiting her father and begins a brief friendship with him.

Plot Summary
This is the true story of a well-known neurologist who decided to use an
experimental drug in the late 1960s to see if he could wake a group of patients
that had fallen into a sleep-like state in the 1920s and 30s, due to a horrible disease
that had spread mysteriously throughout the United States. In ways that are still not
understood, this disease, caused by a virus, attacked the brains and nervous
systems of the people who became its victims.
In 1969, Dr. Malcolm Sayer (who, in real life, is the neurologist and author, Dr.
Oliver Sacks), took a job as a clinical neurologist treating various patients at the
Bainbridge Hospital in New York City, even though he had had no experience
dealing with actual people. Sayer is a kind and very caring person who wanted to do
more than just keep this mysterious group of patients alive. He decides to
experiment with a new drug called Dopamine, which had been approved for
Parkinsons disease (another illness that affects the nervous system), but had never
been tried in patients that suffered from this so-called sleeping sickness.
Amazingly, the first patient to whom Malcolm gives the drug, a middle-aged man
named Leonard, slowly awakes from his 30-year sleep.
Soon, Malcolm convinces the hospital that all the sleeping patients should be
awoken with the Dopamine. At first, it looks as if a genuine medical miracle has
taken place. But of course, the patients must face the reality that they have all slept
through most of their adult lives, and that they are no longer the young people they
were when they had last fallen asleep. Even worse, it eventually becomes clear that

Dopamine is not as miraculous as it was first thought, and slowly but surely,
Malcolm, the hospital staff, and of course Leonard and the other patients, must face
the possibility that their long and mysterious sleep could still return.

Directions: Answer the following questions as you watch the film

Awakenings, which addresses the disease of encephalitis lethargica and
the treatment using the drug, Levodopa (L Dopa). At the conclusion of the
movie, you will do research on the disease, its treatment, and the real-life
study conducted by Oliver Sacks.
1. Describe the symptoms of the character Lenny in childhood as well
as adulthood.

2. Why were the doctors hesitant to hire Dr. Sayer at Bainbridge Hospital?

3. Describe Lucys symptoms.

4. What various stimuli make these patients react? (i.e., what reaches
them?)

5. Do Dr. Sayer and the other doctors see eye to eye on how to treat
these patients? What do they disagree on? Who agrees with Dr. Sayer?

6. The older doctor says these patients arent thinking. The virus didnt
spare their higher faculties, he says. Dr. Sayer asks how he knows
that. The older doctor replies, Because the alternative is unthinkable.
What does he mean by that? What effect did this point of view have on
these patients diagnosis and treatment? Relate this to mental illness
in general.

7. Why does it bother Dr. Sayer that Lucy was drawn to the window rather
than to the drinking fountain?

8. The EEG indicates what about Lenny?

9. Dr. Sayer uses an unusual technique to assess his patients. What is it?

10.

What finally moves Burt?

11.

What does Dr. Sayer think is wrong with the patients?

12.

What needs to happen before Lucy can walk to the window?

13.
Why does the poem, The Panther, have special significance for
Lenny?

14.

What is L-Dopa? Which disorder was it used to treat?

15.
Why does L-Dopa awaken Dr. Sayers patients, even though
they dont have classic Parkinsons symptoms?

16.
What are the various psychological reactions the patients have to
their awakenings?

17.
What Parkinson-like symptoms does Lenny exhibit when he
develops tolerance to L-Dopa?

18.
One doctor describes Lenny as being paranoid. How does Dr.
Sayer explain this?

19.
What ethical questions are raised in this movie regarding
treatment? What is your opinion?

20.
What is the second awakening Dr. Sayer refers to at the end of
the movie? What does this suggest about the treatment of mental
patients?