Summer New (First Harvest) Moon
An HBO movie that went DVD on Sept. 11, 2001, Wit, directed by Mike Nichols, is many things. It is first a fine drama showcasing the talents of Emma Thompson and Audra McDonald with a very touching and important moment featuring Eileen Watkins. Wit is the story of a middle aged (48) professor of English literature, Thompson, and an expert in the metaphysical poetry of John Donne, diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic ovarian cancer.
The storyline takes her from the moment of the diagnosis through all her 8 cycles of full dose chemotherapy to death. She only has one visitor, Watkins, her Ph.D. advisor, who is with her when she dies.
There is a fine and I suspect very tight interplay between the poetry of John Donne, especially his well known work, Death Be Not Proud, and the dramatic arc of the movie. There is also a damning portrait of professionals so focused on their work, saving humans, that they can’t see the humans in front of them: Thompson’s two oncologists and, ironically, Thompson herself. Another storyline depicts with damning specificity the increasing powerlessness and dehumanizing of hospital patients.
(Marble funeral effigy of John Donne, 1631,
at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, where he
is buried)
The poignant, and they are heart wrenching, moments come in the interaction between Audra McDonald, an oncology nurse, and Thompson. It is not maudlin even in its build up, but the nurse sees Thompson, listens to her, empathizes with her, touches her compassionately and finally initiates a conversation about whether she wants to be a DNR, that is, do not resuscitate.
This is third phase work, viewing this movie. Relative to the theme that I’ve given for my Woolly meeting on July 15th, home and what does that mean to you, it shows the hospital as the anti-home: a place cleansed of personal belongings, choice, simple comforts like, as Thompson says at one point, “…shoes.”
However it may come to us, “gluttonous death” (a Donne phrase) will come and I hope that it can come for each of us surrounded by loved ones, in a place we choose to be.
