American Film Course 2

Film Handout/Notes for AWAKENINGS

STUDENT COPY

Discuss the following questions with your partner:

- What is a coma?
- How do you feel about taking an experimental medicine?

BACKGROUND INFO:
Movie Synopsis:
Based on a True Story. 1990. Robert De Niro, Robin Williams. Directed by Penny
Marshall. A new doctor finds himself with a ward full of comatose patients. He is
disturbed by them and the fact that they have been comatose for decades with
no hope of any cure. When he finds a possible chemical cure he gets permission
to try it on one of them. When the first patient awakes, he is now an adult having
gone into a coma in his early teens. The film then delights in the new awareness
of the patients and then on the reactions of their relatives to the changes in the
newly awakened

Setting 1: 1920s, New York

Setting 2: 1969, New York, NY, The Bronx, Bainbridge Hospital

Vocabulary
● Paralysis - loss of ability to move
● Coma - A state of deep unconsciousness that lasts for a prolonged or
indefinite period, caused esp. by severe injury or illness
● Neurologist - brain doctor
● Chronic hospital- MS, Turretts, Parkinson - chronic conditions do not get better
● “The garden” - nick name for the chronic ward because all they do is feed and
water them.
● Dementia of unknown origin - mysteriously lost brain function
● Atypical - unusual or unlikely
● Encephalitis - infection of brain and nervous system caused by a virus. Some
people never recovered and got Post Encephalitis Syndrome
● Post Encephalitis Syndrome - survived a serious infection of the brain,
otherwise normal people became paralyzed and “frozen” a years after infection
● Trance - paralyzed; staring off into space
● L-Dopa - drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease
● Experimental drug - medicine that we do not know if it works or not
● Side effects - A secondary, typically undesirable effect of a drug or medical
● treatment
● Mental Patient - slang word for person who is “crazy”
 ● Awakenings. An act or moment of becoming suddenly aware of something

Characters
● Leonard Lowe - little boy in the movie who gets sick at age 11 and later comes to
hospital; first patient to get experimental drug (Robert DeNiro)
● Dr. Malcom Sayer - brain research doctor, absent minded, kind.
● Lucy Fishman - first patient Dr. Sayer sees. She has no response, no
comprehension Dr. Sayer notices she is not as helpless as others think she is.
● Nurse Eleanor Costello - kind nurse who helps Dr. Sayer.
● Paula - Young woman who visits her father. Leonard likes her.

Part 2: Discuss these questions with your partner.

● How is Dr. Sayer different than the other doctors at Bainbridge Hospital? Give
three or four words to describe Dr. Sayer.
● What do you think it is like to be Leonard?
● What do you think about Dr. Sayer’s ideas and methods?
● Why do you think the other doctor seems to oppose Dr. Sayer’s ideas?
● What does he hope the medicine will do?
● If the medicine does work, what are disadvantages? What are the advantages?

BREAK FOR 15 MIN

Part 3: Discuss these questions with your partner.
● What would it be like to lose 30 years of your life?
● What was happening when Leonard looked at the photo of himself and then looked
in the mirror?
● “I’m afraid to close my eyes.” Why does Leonard say this?
● Leonard had culture shock. What did he miss while he was asleep?
● Why did the hospital staff give their paychecks to the hospital?
● What do you think the “f-ing” miracle is?

Part 4: Discuss these questions with your partner.

● What challenges do the patients face with their new life?
● How is Dr. Sayer’s personal life similar to his patients’ lives?
● “You didn’t wake a thing, you woke a person”. Explain this quote.
● What should happen to the people now that they aren’t frozen?

Part 5: Discuss these questions with your partner.

Discussion questions -
● Leonard is involved in the documenting of the problems the faces.Why does
Leonard want to be involved in his medication changes and the research?
● Why does Leonard tell Paula he wants to stop seeing her?
 ● Describe how Dr. Sayer feels about Leonard. What is the nature of their
relationship?
● Was the L Dopa treatment a good treatment? Yes or No.

Interesting quotes -
● “When my son was born healthy, I never asked why I deserved this perfect child.
But when he got sick, you can bet I asked why.”
● “You told him I was a kind man. How kind is it to give it and then take it away from
him?”
● At the end of the movie, Dr. Sayer is telling the hospital donors that the most
important thing from this study was that they learned that different things that
matter... that there was an awakening of the doctors’ perspectives on how to treat
patients. How do you feel about this statement?

Writing questions:

PLEASE WRITE A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE FOR HOMEWORK. THIS IS YOUR

OPINION AND YOUR FEELINGS, NOT A PROFESSIONAL REVIEW OF THE MOVIE.
YOU CAN WRITE ABOUT ONE OF THE INTERESTING QUOTES. HERE ARE SOME
QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO CONSIDER WRITING ABOUT:

What is the saddest part of this story?

What did Dr. Sayer learn from the summer of the awakenings about himself?
Tough choice... do you think its better to have awakenings like this or to never have had
them? What would you want for yourself.