Awakenings (1990)
Robin Williams: Dr. Malcolm Sayer
Photos
Quotes
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Leonard Lowe : We've got to tell everybody. We've got to remind them. We've got to remind them how good it is.
Dr. Sayer : How good what is, Leonard?
Leonard Lowe : Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It's all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They've forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!
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Dr. Sayer : I'm sorry, if you were right, I would agree with you.
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Dr. Sayer : What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and THAT is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. THESE are the things that matter. This is what we'd forgotten - the simplest things.
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Dr. Sayer : [in job interview] It was an immense project. I was to extract 1 decagram of myelin from 4 tons of earth worms.
Dr. Sullivan : Really!
Dr. Sayer : Yes. I was on the project for 5 years. I was the only one who believed in it. Everyone else said it couldn't be done.
Dr. Kaufman : It can't.
Dr. Sayer : I know that now. I proved it.
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Dr. Sayer : His gaze is from the passing of bars so exhausted, that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the smallest of circles turns, is like a dance of pure energy about a center, in which a great will stands numbed. Only occasionally, without a sound, do the covers of the eyes slide open-. An image rushes in, goes through the tensed silence of the frame- only to vanish, forever, in the heart.
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Leonard Lowe : It's quiet.
Dr. Malcolm Sayer : Yes, everybody's sleeping.
Leonard Lowe : I'm not asleep.
Dr. Malcolm Sayer : [smiles] No. You're awake.
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Dr. Peter 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.
Dr. Sayer : What's it like to be them? What are they thinking?
Dr. Peter Ingham : They're not. The virus didn't spare the higher faculties.
Dr. Sayer : We know what for a fact?
Dr. Peter Ingham : Yes.
Dr. Sayer : Because?
Dr. Peter Ingham : Because the alternative is unthinkable.
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Dr. Sayer : You'd think at a certain point all these atypical somethings would amount to a typical something.
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Dr. Sayer : His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly - . An image enters in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.
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Dr. Sayer : I'm not very good with people. I like them. I wish I could say I had more than a rudimentary understanding of them. Maybe if they were less unpredictable...
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Dr. Malcolm Sayer : She borrows the will of the ball.
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Dr. Sayer : I would like to put the rest of the group on the drug. I realize this might be somewhat expensive.
Dr. Kaufman : When you say "expensive" do you have any idea how much money you're talking about?
Dr. Sayer : Yes, I talked to Ray. I have an estimate, um... The pharmacist says to put all others on the same dosage as Mr. Lowe would be, um, 12,000.
Dr. Kaufman : How much?
Dr. Sayer : $12,000.
Dr. Kaufman : A month?
Dr. Sayer : Yes.
Dr. Kaufman : I can't go before the board with that, doctor.
Dr. Sayer : I was thinking of speaking directly to the patrons.
Dr. Kaufman : The few patrons this hospital has already given what they can.
Dr. Sayer : We'll have to convince them to give more than they're accustomed to giving. Perhaps if they see Mr. Lowe.
Dr. Kaufman : I think you overestimate the effect that Mr. Lowe has on people, doctor. We're talking about money.
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[last lines]
Dr. Sayer : Let's begin.
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Dr. Sayer : Awkward turtles make weird babies.
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Dr. Kaufman : Freud beIieved in miracles, prescribing cocaine like it was candy. We all beIieved in the miracle of cortisone, until our patients went psychotic on it. And now it's L-dopa?
Dr. Sayer : Well, with aIl due respect, it's rather too soon to say that.
Dr. Kaufman : Well, with aIl due respect, doctor, I think it's rather way too soon to say that. Let the chemists do the damage, doctor.
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Dr. Sayer : Do you think a Parkinsonian tremor taken to its extreme, would appear as no tremor at aIl?
Neurochemist : [at the urinal] You talking to me?
Dr. Sayer : Oh, yes. Imagine you accelerated a Parkinsonian hand tremor to the point of immobiIity in the - Suppose there's a patient with Parkinsonian compulsions accelerated: the hand tremor, the head bobbing, ticking, quickening of speech. Might they not aII cave in on themseIves and, in effect, turn a person into stone?
Neurochemist : I don't know. Maybe.
Dr. Sayer : Well, do you think L-dopa would help the situation?
Neurochemist : Dr. Sayers, right? I'm just a chemist, doctor. You're the physician. I'lI Ieave it to you to do the damage.
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Dr. Sayer : What l believe, what I know, is these people are alive inside.
Dr. Kaufman : How do you know that, doctor? Because they catch tennis baIIs?
Dr. Sayer : I know it.
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Mrs. Lowe : What wiIl this medicine do for him?
Dr. Sayer : I don't know what it wilI do for him, if anything at alI.
Mrs. Lowe : What do you think it'II do?
Dr. Sayer : I'm not sure, because it was designed for a totaIly different disorder.
Mrs. Lowe : What do you hope it'lI do?
Dr. Sayer : I *hope* it'Il bring him back from wherever he is.
Mrs. Lowe : To what?
Dr. Sayer : To the world.
Mrs. Lowe : What's there here for him after alI these years?
Dr. Sayer : You. You're here.
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Dr. Sayer : Some things couId reach him, though. The mention of his name, notes of a particuIar piece of music. Or the touch of another human being. But awakenings were rare and transient, Iasting onIy a moment or two. The rest of the time, he remained, as you see him here, in a metaphoricaI, if not physioIogicaI, equivaIent of sIeep, or even death.
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Leonard Lowe : Don't give up on me.
Dr. Sayer : I won't.
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Dr. Sayer : The reaIity is we don't know what went wrong any more than we know what went right.
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Dr. Sayer : What's it Iike to be back?
Leonard Lowe : I thought it was a dream at first.
Dr. Sayer : What made you reaIize it wasn't a dream?
Leonard Lowe : When l spoke and you understood me.
