Wit is originally based on a play written by kindergarten teacher Margaret Edson, who worked for three years in a cancer clinic and spent half her life in monasteries and hospitals. She embodied in the play what she saw in the clinic and received the Pulitzer Prize as a result. Humility, preferably silent, is the main virtue in the opinion of Margaret Edson. The movie Wit talks about death, in doing so, he violates the optimism of Hollywood’s happy endings, therefore it intends only for the TV screen. This paper aims to discuss the ethical aspects of the film.
On the one hand, the story about the fate of the professor of English literature Vivien Bearing (Emma Thompson) is very touching. Finding herself in a difficult life situation, Vivien shows extraordinary resilience and fortitude. The question “to be or not to be” becomes a matter of her life and death (Kirwan S., 2018). The filmmakers focused on Vivian’s hospital room, where she undergoes eight months of brutal experimental chemotherapy. The indifference of people who seem to have a deeply humane profession of a doctor is shown.
But the clinic has a nurse, Susie Monahan, She is the complete opposite of doctors in her struggle for the patient. In one episode, Susie (Audra Macdonald) shows her compassion for Vivienne when she brings her ice cream and tells her everything about her illness that the doctors were hiding. Vivienne realizes for the first time that her illness is incurable, and Susie suggests Vivienne sign a document to donate her heart. There is an ethical controversy in this episode, although this action can morally support the patient in that she will save someone. And already in the episode when Vivien dies, a completely extraordinary event occurs. Susie fights the doctors to grant her patient’s last wish, thus demonstrating her moral superiority. This scene is the quintessence of the entire film.
Thus, in general, a strong emotional film paradoxically affirms indifference, although the filmmakers initially seem to condemn it. How would you like to die? A strange question, but one that you answer even if you do not want to voice your opinion out loud. In any case, the answer to such a question insidiously suggests a choice. But the professor of philology Vivian Bearing no longer has such a choice.
Reference
Kirwan, S. (2018). “Wit” Edinburgh International Film Festival 2001. Web.