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On Life, Death and Wit

October 15, 2013 •

Wit_film

Emma Thomp­son deliv­ers the per­for­mance of her life in Wit, a film released in 2001.

Although the story line goes to dra­matic extremes, Emma’s per­for­mance rings painfully true, with lines that are painful but com­i­cally bril­liant…

Emma’s char­ac­ter lies in a hos­pi­tal bed while under­go­ing chemother­apy. She deliv­ers an affect­ing mono­logue as a stage 4 can­cer vic­tim, star­ing death in the face. Com­pletely bald, with sickly make-up and an ugly hos­pi­tal gown, she reflects on her career, the val­ues she lived by, and how she chose to inter­act with other peo­ple in her life. Has she made the right choices?

Emma plays a demand­ing Eng­lish pro­fes­sor who spe­cial­izes in 17th cen­tury meta­phys­i­cal poetry. She recites pas­sages from John Donne (“Death be not proud”) while mus­ing on life, inter­ac­tions with stu­dents, and how to pre­pare her own end-of-life story.

Her deliv­ery of Don­ne’s poetry is del­i­cate, highly nuanced and affect­ing. Her analy­sis of his work assumes a well-edu­cated audi­ence with an exten­sive vocab­u­lary. (This film is so unlike Hol­ly­wood-style, low­est-com­mon-denom­i­na­tor deriv­a­tive plots!)

Learning How to Suffer

Emma’s char­ac­ter has been a noted scholar, a teacher whose uncom­pro­mis­ing stan­dards far exceed most col­lege stu­dents’ abil­i­ties or moti­va­tions. She prizes intel­lec­tual rigor and hard work, with no sym­pa­thy for stu­dents who do not under­stand the sub­ject mat­ter, or who fail to deliver assign­ments on time. There’s a painful scene where she humil­i­ates a foot­ball player who has no clue what this poetry is all about…

As the film unfolds, the shoe is now on the other foot: Emma’s char­ac­ter must con­front what it feels like to be depen­dent upon dri­ven, demand­ing researchers with no com­pas­sion for their human sub­jects. To dra­ma­tize this role-rever­sal theme, one of her for­mer stu­dents will play a key role in her treat­ment.

The film opens with the heart-rend­ing scene when she learns that she has stage 4 ovar­ian can­cer. The doc­tor informs her while using dense, incom­pre­hen­si­ble med­ical jar­gon. She tries to parse his mean­ing, trans­lat­ing from the Latin roots of words that she knows… (The doc­tor’s deliv­ery sig­nals the audi­ence to expect that research demands will trump patient care/caring, a theme that con­tin­ues through­out Wit.)

Because there are no proven alter­na­tives, the doc­tor per­suades her to par­tic­i­pate in a research pro­gram, one that entails a highly aggres­sive form of chemother­apy, with well-known and quite hor­ri­ble side-effects. He gets her to sign the release form with­out mak­ing sure she under­stands the side-effects that she may encounter (such as liver necro­sis.) You later dis­cover that the researchers are sim­ply try­ing to dis­cover how many rounds of ther­apy the patient can endure before death wins the bat­tle…

Dur­ing this key scene and through­out the treat­ment régime, the oncol­o­gist and his ambi­tious research assis­tant dis­play a ruth­less lack of empa­thy for what ter­mi­nal can­cer means to the patient. They do not want to hear about the suf­fer­ing their research trial is inflict­ing upon her — they insist on con­tin­u­ing treat­ment well past the point when it’s obvi­ous to every­one that the aggres­sive chemo can­not save her life.

Wit is a one-sided story, told from the point-of-view of the patient under­go­ing a can­cer treat­ment pro­gram at a research insti­tute. Its char­ac­ters are mono-dimen­sional — task-focused research doc­tors unable to dis­play com­pas­sion or deal effec­tively with a patien­t’s emo­tional real­ity.

Finding Compassion

I’d like to imag­ine that Emma’s story is unusual — that most hos­pi­tals (includ­ing research cen­ters or teach­ing hos­pi­tals) employ peo­ple who are com­pas­sion­ate, able to engage with patients’ feel­ings when they must deliver painful or life-threat­en­ing news.

Thank­fully, Emma’s char­ac­ter is cared for by Suzie, a nurse who takes time to inter­act with her patient. Suzie has the strength to acknowl­edge and respond to Emma’s suf­fer­ing. She knows how to cel­e­brate those small moments worth cher­ish­ing.

Emma’s inter­ac­tions with Suzie and a deathbed scene with her men­tor (for­mer aca­d­e­mic advi­sor) pro­vide the soli­tary notes of lov­ing kind­ness in this tragi-comic film.

It does not need to be that way.

My niece died two years ago at age 21, after a 2‑year bout with an aggres­sive nerve sheath can­cer. My niece’s sit­u­a­tion was the polar oppo­site of what Emma’s char­ac­ter faced. My niece was blessed with a lov­ing fam­ily; cared for by an empa­thetic med­ical staff that went out of their way to cel­e­brate her life, death and all the things that made my niece so spe­cial.

In the decade that has passed since Wit was released, I hope that the med­ical com­mu­nity has become more skilled at find­ing the right bal­ance between pro­fes­sion­al­ism and com­pas­sion. It is, as the film so deftly notes, a mat­ter of life and death.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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