Awakenings - videos, teasers and stills from filming
All videos, teasers and footage from the filming of the film "Awakenings"
Awakenings (1990)
Timing:
2:0 (120 min)
7.774/10
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What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Oliver Sacks' memoir "Awakenings" (1973).
- The film is based on real events that occurred in 1969–1970 with the neurologist Oliver Sacks, who later wrote a memoir about them. Harold Pinter also wrote a play, “A Kind of Alaska,” based on this book. The epidemic of Economo's lethargic encephalitis, causing catatonia, did indeed occur in 1917–1928; the drug “L-Dopa” is also real.
- Oliver Sacks served as a consultant during the making of the film.
- De Niro and Williams observed Dr. Sacks and real patients in the hospital for a long time before beginning to create their characters.
- During the filming of a scene where security guards try to prevent De Niro's character from leaving the hospital, Robin Williams, awkwardly swinging his elbow, broke Robert De Niro's nose. According to De Niro, his nose was already broken, and the blow, strangely enough, straightened it.
- In one of the film's scenes, Lillian T., a truly sick patient with lethargic encephalitis and the only one of Dr. Sacks' patients still alive at the time, appears.
- Vin Diesel can be seen among the hospital staff; the film was his first appearance on the big screen, but he is not credited in the film.
- Director Penny Marshall considered Bill Murray for the role of Leonard Lowe, but ultimately abandoned the idea, believing that audiences would expect a comedy with Murray, not a drama.
- Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) prescribes the drug levodopa (L-DOPA) to patients. Robin Williams himself used the same medication to treat the symptoms of Parkinson's disease shortly before his death in August 2014.
- When Lucy stops while walking to the fountain, it's visible that she is standing on a green square and stripe on the floor. When Malcolm calls out to her, "Lucy, come here," Lucy stands in front of the green stripe on the floor, on the green and light square. Afterwards, the doctor calls to the elderly woman again, and she is standing on the green square and stripe, as before.
- At the beginning of the film, when the nurse states her willingness to help, Malcolm (the doctor) lowers the window of his car to about shoulder height. With changes in shots, it is noticeable that the window position changes – when filmed from inside the car, the window is rolled down completely, and when filmed from the nurse's side – it is lower than it initially was.
- The film is based on Oliver Sacks' memoir, "Awakenings" (1973).
- When Lucy stops walking towards the fountain, it's visible that she's standing on a green square and stripe on the floor. When Malcolm calls out to her, "Lucy, come on" – Lucy is standing in front of the green stripe on the floor, on the green and light square. Afterwards, the doctor calls to the old woman again, and she is standing on the green square and stripe, as before.
- Filming took place from October 16, 1989, to February 16, 1990.
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