Wit - A Matter Of Life And Death - Emma Thompson

A scene from Emma Thompson's award winning 2001 film Wit. This is an up close and personal look at the trials and tribulations of a cancer patient. It is a beautiful film, but very hard to watch in several places. Still, it is full of warmth and love as well, a testament to the human spirit. The film is adapted from Margaret Edson's play. The main character Vivian Bearing is an acclaimed and uncompromising English professor who is moved to reassess her life as an aloof intellectual by the indignities and dehumanizing experiences she suffers during her cancer treatment. The English professor turns again and again to her academic specialty, the metaphysical poetry of John Donne, his 'holy sonnets', in an attempt to make sense of her trials, and hopefully, eventually, make peace with herself, her life, and her imminent death. Her final days are observed by a young intern who is a former student of Vivian's and who finds faith only in his research; a nurse who is the only one in the hospital who cares for Vivian's condition; and the head research doctor who is more interested in his test results than Vivian's personal concern with matters of Life and Death. In the end Vivian discovers that her beloved mentor was right. It's not about Wit, but about Truth. Death Be Not Proud - John Donne Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not soe, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe go, Rest of their bones, and souls delivery. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, warre, and sickness dwell, And poppie, or charms can make us sleep as well, And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.