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       #Post#: 3330--------------------------------------------------
       WIT (2001)
       By: agate Date: June 26, 2021, 2:11 am
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       Wit, starring Emma Thompson, is not a movie to watch if you want
       something to cheer you up.
 (HTM) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243664/
       She plays Vivian Bearing, a highly respected literature
       professor who at 48 is diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  She has
       been told that the cancer may be too advanced for there to be
       much hope, but she undergoes a gruelling series of treatments.
       When they don't work, she has to come to terms with her imminent
       death.
       The title refers to the poet John Donne's use of wit in his
       writings. Vivian is an authority on Donne, and the movie
       includes several passages from his poetry and prose, worked into
       the story.
       A viewer might wonder why such a movie was made. We see Vivian's
       suffering, which is extreme. Sometimes she addresses the
       audience. Usually, though, she is shown interacting with the
       younger of her two doctors, Jason, who happens to be a former
       student of hers, and with Sue, her nurse, who is
       African-American.  There is a brief encounter with her own
       former mentor, an older woman who pays her a kindly visit in the
       hospital when Vivian is nearing the end.
       Aside from these people, Vivian seems quite alone. Since we know
       from what she has said and from what Jason has said about her
       that she was quite prominent in her field, one has to wonder why
       former students and colleagues aren't at least coming around to
       visit, but maybe academics don't visit the sick?
       These are quibbles, however. Emma Thompson gives a magnificent
       performance in what must have been a difficult role, to put it
       mildly.
       One scene was jarring because it seems to be racist. Vivian,
       who, in one of her monologues, has harked back to a time in her
       childhood when she learned the word "soporific," uses that word
       when asking Sue, her nurse, a question--about whether a medicine
       has a soporific effect. Sue replies, "I don't know about that
       but it makes you sleepy."  Then Vivian somewhat condescendingly
       reveals to her that "soporific" means that it makes a person
       sleepy and laughs at her. Sue obligingly joins in the laughter
       but, especially because Sue is African-American (and even if she
       hadn't been), the exchange comes perilously close to portraying
       Vivian as limited by the sort of elitism that has given
       academics and some intellectuals in general a very bad name.
       However, there are still good reasons for seeing this movie. If
       a viewer has been vague about what those "DNR" orders mean--the
       DNR order a person is asked to choose or not choose when filling
       out end-of-life care documents, this movie should clear the
       question up, at least somewhat.
       Some of the scenes in this film will surely make people wonder
       about the advisability of having as much medical care as we now
       have at our disposal.
       Just because it is possible to keep someone alive by using
       extraordinary life-saving measures doesn't mean that we should
       always do that.  The movie makes the point that doctors often
       believe firmly in preserving life at all costs but it argues
       persuasively in favor of sometimes letting nature take its
       course.
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