Awakenings Page #3

Synopsis: Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir of the same title. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer (portrayed by Robin Williams), who, in 1969, discovered beneficial effects of the drug L-Dopa. He administered it to catatonic patients who survived the 1917–28 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe (played by Robert De Niro) and the rest of the patients were awakened after decades of catatonia and have to deal with a new life in a new time. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Genre: Biography, Drama
Production: Columbia Pictures
  Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 8 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.8
Metacritic:
74
Rotten Tomatoes:
88%
PG-13
Year:
1990
121 min
1,954 Views


Glancing at the chart in his hand

SAYER:

Mrs. Cohen?

MRS. COHEN

He•s here?

She smiles, glances around. Sayer hesitates, uncertain who she

means.

SAYER:

I'm here.

(pause)

To examine you.

MRS. COHEN

Oh, no, I'm leaving today. My

son's coming to take me home.

(6 Confused,, Sayyer tries to find a dischargge form amongg the ppappers

on the clipboard. Unsuccessful, he excuses himself from her

and crosses the room to a nurse.

SAYER:

Excuse me. Mrs. Cohen's son.

He's coming today?

NURSE 1

I wouldn't bet on it, he hasn't

for twenty years.

The nurse turns away. Sayer crosses slowly back to Mrs. Cohen,

trying to find the words to tell her. He doesn't have to; his

discomfort does it. Her hand slowly reaches up and pulls the

ribbon from her hair.

v

13. OMITTED .

14. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM/OFFICE-LATER -DAY

Silence. Institutional beige walls. Glass cabinets, locked,

containing medical instruments. A metal examination table with

leather straps.

Sayer alone at one of three old desks in the large room, still

unsettled from the experience with Mrs. Cohen. Eventually, he

gets up, crosses to a window and tries to open it.

It's jammed shut, painted shut perhaps, but finally gives way,

sliding up. He lets the air from outside wash over his face as

he stares out absently at children on an elementary school

playground beyond a debris-strewn field.

MISS COSTELLO O.S.

(a matter of fact)

It gets easier.

Sayer turns to the voice, to Miss Costello, the hospital's head

nurse, a veteran of this place, a woman who has seen it all.

She's standing in the doorway.

MISS COSTELLO:

You don't think it will, but it

does.

A moment and she turns and leaves.

A:

14A. EXT. TENEMENT (LUCY'S) -ESTABLISH -DAY

15. INT. TENEMENT -NEW YORK.-DAY 1

The needle of a Victrola clawing at the endless music-less

innerbandsofa78 ... .* .

Cold eggs and toast and prescription medicine on a kitchenette

table. A puddle of coffee on the floor. Ceramic shards, a

broken cup. .

An old woman on her knees, eyes closed, arms tangled in an

aluminum walker, limp and stiff at once somehow, like the limbs

of a discarded marionette. Beyond her, beyond a threshold, a

shuttered living room. Furniture from another era and the

clutter of a lifetime.

A shadowy figure in a wicker wheelchair near the Victrola.

Another old woman, with spindly limbs, profoundly afflicted and

preposterously still. The back of her head is flat and bald,

the result of lying supine upon it for much of several decades.

On her passive face rest round wire-rim glasses. Insane or

retarded and unaware of the dead woman, she mumbles, just

Rate this script:1.8 / 4 votes

Steven Zaillian

Steven Ernest Bernard Zaillian (born January 30, 1953) is an American screenwriter, director, film editor, and producer. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for his screenplay Schindler's List (1993) and has also earned Oscar nominations for Awakenings, Gangs of New York and Moneyball. He was presented with the Distinguished Screenwriter Award at the 2009 Austin Film Festival and the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America in 2011. Zaillian is the founder of Film Rites, a film production company. more…

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Submitted by aviv on February 09, 2017

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