Few scenes in movie history have the emotional impact on me that the scene in which Bearing's mentor reads The Runaway Bunny to her has. I've seen Wit three times and each time, I can't stop crying once she starts reading the story. There's just something so incredibly sad about having this dying intellectual in the most horrible pains listening to such a sweet, simple children's story. Anyone else who was profoundly moved by this particular scene?
shareCried as well, the scene made the movie one of my favourites. Although I agree it is difficult to watch it more that once. Unforgettable.
I have just watched it and am feeling just as you did about that scene. It was amazing I jumped on the net to try to get a copy not realising it was a telemovie...what a tragedy that such an astonishing film will not have the distribution it deserves.
shareThey did release it on DVD. I know because I do own a copy. Along with the Runaway Bunny which I plan to read to my son. I have been thinking of that seen of the movie for the past week or so.
shareI'm late to this board, but it was a slug in the gut for me as well. For me, it was because the Runaway Bunny was a book from my childhood, a book my mom read to me before I could read myself. It was a great symbol of the cycle of life and how the disease and her treatment had infantalized Bearing, and how absent her mother or someone who should have cared for her were at that desperate time.
shareI just saw the movie on DVD and found the Runaway Bunny scene very moving. I used to read the book to my kids when they were very small and it always used to make me, the Mommy, choke up reading it. I do find it odd however that the professor turns out to have a great-grandson (for which she had to be married and have a child herself, which would be rough on a woman prof. of her generation) and that she didn't get him the book long before his fifth birthday. But her explanation of the story was wonderful, wonderful.
shareI cried and cried at the reading. I do intent to get a copy of this book. The thing is, the simple details of this unfolding story punctuate this journey so well. The children's book, the various flubbs on the part of the doctors..I feel that the directors (Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson) had very real and personal experience with the journey through cancer treatment and the ultimate and final conclusion.
I remember your eyes were bluer than robins' eggs. My poetry was lousy you said...
Just one thing i would like to add.
There is a scene in the movie where Emma is in her bed and she starts freaking out and says once or twice, "I want to hide." And then the whole point of The Runaway Bunny was that there was no hiding from god.
That's all =)
hey, thehellpenguin, that's a great bit of insight that I totally hadn't picked up on. thanks.
*files it away to ponder on later*
I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back.share
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Two years later isn't too late to respond, is it? :D
Yes, I thought the Runaway Bunny was a brilliant answer to John Donne's Death Be Not Proud. And that whole scene was a relief valve for the almost unbearable pressure, pain, sadness and fear that was building up to it. Finally, finally she didn't have to be strong anymore. Finally she could let go and cry like a baby, to be comforted by her mentor.
My mother passed away from cancer a few years ago. I managed to keep it together and not cry all the way up to this scene.
One more thing, I liked the way the younger doctor always loudly slammed the clip-board into the rack at the foot of the bed. It jarred my nerves, which was probably the point. It was a nice touch that demonstrated his attitude pretty clearly.
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They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.
Add me to the list of people this scene made cry! Reminds me a lot of the 'Goodnight Moon' scene in Playing By Heart.
"I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad, and it's depressing." -Tara
I cried HARD during that scene. HARD. The mentor sits in bed with her and hugs her. I totally lost it.
And also the scene when the nurse rubs lotion on her hands even though she's unresponsive.
That movie is a cold knife in the gut.
my first movie! http://youtube.com/watch?v=my02KOICn64
Eileen Atkins is just amazing -
how can someone just say ´there, there´-
and make you want to cry - great talent
I found this scene really had me bawling, as the tears had already started when the nurse that actually treated her like a human being rubbed lotion on her hands. what a powerful film.
shareThis is all the more poignant, when it happened just after Jason the doctor asked her, "What did they teach you in nursing school?", who unlike the nurse, treated the patient as mere guinea pig.
share