Awakenings is a 1990 drama film based on Oliver Sacks' memoir of the same name. It tells the true story of Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and played by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa. He administered it to catatonic patients who survived the 1917-1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe (played by Robert De Niro) and the rest of the patients were awakened ...
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Awakenings is a 1990 drama film based on Oliver Sacks' memoir of the same name. It tells the true story of Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and played by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa. He administered it to catatonic patients who survived the 1917-1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe (played by Robert De Niro) and the rest of the patients were awakened after decades of catatonic state and have to deal with a new life in a new time.
Directed by Penny Marshall, the film stars Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, John Heard, Ruth Nelson, Julie Kavner, Penelope Ann Miller and Max von Sydow. The film has a cameo from jazz legend Dexter Gordon (who died before the film's release) who appears as a patient and then-unknowns Vin Diesel and Vincent Pastore play an hospital orderly and a psyche ward patient.
Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) is a dedicated, caring physician with some social issues who...
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