Cheap Wit (DVD) (Emma Thompson) (Mike Nichols) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Wit

EMMA THOMPSON AT HER GREATEST
Emma Thompson has established herself as one of the great actresses of this or any generation thanks to her superlative work in Howards End, Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility, In the Name of the Father, to name my personal favorites. I wasn't prepared for the powerhouse work on WIT. But WOW--that's the kind of acting that only a handful of actresses have accomplished. It's heartfelt, without being pitiful. It's funny, without being cynical. It's tragic, without being sentimental or melodramatic. In a word: PERFECTION. WIT is the story of an intellecual snob who is dying of cancer and comes to the realization that all her intellect and snobbery means nothing, ultimately. The film takes place in a hospital where Thompson's character, a university professor who specializes in the poems of John Donne, is undergoing an experimental type of chemotherapy that's literally eating her inside out. It's not an easy movie to watch, but in the end you feel transformed emotionally. The scene in which her own university professor reads her a children's book is heartwrenching. I loved this film. It gave me a new perspective on cancer, the suffering patients go through, some of the callousness that sometimes occurs in a hospital setting, and, most significantly to me personally, broadened my understanding of and gave me a new respect for the human spirit, that spirit which transcends pain and fear of the unknown. Thank you Ms. Thompson for this beautiful work of art.

---

One of the finest performances in cinema history
Emma Thompson turns in her finest performance to date and one of the towering screen performances of all time in this moving HBO drama. She plays a college professor named Dr. Vivian Bearing, seen by her students and colleagues as difficult to handle and work with. Suddenly, her dreary, drab life is turned on it's end when she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She handles it well, using the apt title of the film to handle her hardships. As you watch her wither, losing hair, weight but never her humor, she takes you along her life through flashbacks, even disturbing the viewer by putting her weak, cancer-ridden body in the place of her youth between scenes.

The film is shot like a documentary, with many scenes of oddly humorous dialogue, and Thompson talking to the camera as well. She is portrayed as an intelligent woman, well versed in literature and liable to quote random bits of poetry throughout her speeches.

One moment while watching this movie you are chuckling at her wittiness, and in the next you are sobbing into the crook of your elbow. This is one of the few films that I classify as an "ugly-cry" movie, where you lose all shame and begin to weep bitterly as though Dr. Bearing is an old friend. A superb Emmy-worthy performance by Thompson, fine direction, and a terrific supporting cast make this film a true cinematic gem.

---

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,

Doctor Vivian Bearing, a tough, intellectual professor specializing in 17th century literature, takes on the challenge to undergo eight months of experimental chemotherapy and a combination of drugs to battle advanced metastatic ovarian cancer, in which she is in Stage 4, a cancer for which there is no Stage 5. She will also be studied by medical students, her illness being a significant contribution to knowledge. To be something studied, as opposed to a human being, yes, there's the rub, to quote the Bard. But she is a tough woman, never one to shirk a challenge.

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

Most of the story has Bearing's soliloquys, spoken to the viewer from her hospital bed, bald-headed and wearing a hospital gown, describing what she's thinking and feeling, and she does so with wit. One learns of her fascination with words, her past history as a student and academic, how she has preferred research to humanity, and her tough style of teaching, which she got from her mentor, Professor E.M. Rumford. There's a fascinating discussion between Bearing and Rumford, where the original punctuation at the end of Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" included a comma in the line, "death, thou shalt die." In other words, a comma separates life from life everlasting. Yet when Rumford tells her to go hang out with her students instead of going to the library Bearing goes to the library. Later, when a young doctor, Jason, tells her how he's fascinated by cancer due to its smartness, calling it "immortality in culture," it's ironic that she wishes he would be more interested in humanity rather than research.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

As for flashbacks, there are times when we cut to a scene when she's a five year old reading a Beatrix Potter book, that she alternates between her five-year old self and as she is now, bald and in the hospital gown, symbolizing how fragile she seems despite bearing up.

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

She presents her illness in a paradox in the manner of Donne himself, when she says that with her immune system down, everything is a hazard, especially the health care professionals. She isn't in the isolation ward because she has a grapefruit-sized tumor, but because her treatment imperils her health. But she revels in the paradox, seeing it as an intellectual game. But when the cancer spreads elsewhere, she begins to get frightened, realizing her intellectual abilities isn't going to help her, but that she seeks simplicity and kindness, and that makes her regret she had been sympathetic to some of her own students. Fortunately, she finds that in Susie, the nurse, with whom she has a rapport with.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

Juxtaposing this movie with my mother's recent battle with cancer did ring some emotional chords due to similarities. My mother wasn't as open as Dr. Bearing in her feelings when undergoing CT Scans, ultrasounds, colonoscopies, or the IPT chemotherapy. But she too looked for kindness and simplicity, and when a certain hospital worker wheeled her chair to a spot of sunshine on a cold day after a CT scan, my mother realized that maybe she was wrong in being too tough, and that she had hurt some people in her past.

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;

This is by far Emma Thompson's best role ever, but Audra McDonald as Susie lends strong support as the very human and compassionate nurse, who sees Bearing as a human being, not a subject for study. Those who have just lost a dear one to cancer may find this painful going, others will find this a study of reflection one experiences when near the portals of mortality.

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.