DEATH be not proud

If you have not watched the movie, The Wit, I recommend it.
HBO Films presents this movie adapted by Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize winning play. Featuring Emma Thompson who practically carried the movie all by herself - one of her best! An avid English scholar and professor in poetry, she is diagnosed with last stage of cancer and the entire show is shot in the hospital. It is pretty intense and profoundly reflects on the issue of death.

If you love words, you'll love this movie. Just a sample of some of the cool lines from this production:
"It is not my intention to give away the plot," Vivian Bearing announces near the beginning, "but I think I die at the end. They've given me less than two hours." Cause that's the about the length of the show!
Throughout, Vivian finds, the doctors study and discuss her body like a text: "Once I did the teaching, now I am taught. This is much easier. I just hold still and look cancerous. It requires less acting every time."
One thing that keeps coming up in this movie is the question "How are you doing/feeling?" I could identify with this as many folks I've met here are in the habit of saying "How is it going/ how are you doing?" which in fact is nothing more than a 'Hi'. I find it quite irritating because I never really know if I should respond to such a question or treat it as a statement! I much prefer a simple Hello.

And of course there's this theme sonnet made famous (I just hope I've not given too much away):

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

'Death be not Proud (Holy Sonnets: X)'
By John Donne (c. 1572-1631)