Daily Dialogue — July 20, 2019

Leonard: It’s quiet.
Dr. Sayer: It’s late. Everyone’s asleep.
Leonard: I’m not asleep.
Dr. Sayer: No. You’re awake.

— Awakenings (1990), screenplay by Steve Zaillian, book by Oliver Sacks

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Hospital. Today’s suggestion by @storyteller621.

Trivia: At one point, this was a film Steven Spielberg considered directing, before passing it on to Penny Marshall. The time he spent on the project did yield one useful outcome for him: Steven Zaillian’s script took several short chapters, each about different patients, and put them together into a linear whole. This brought Zaillian to Spielberg’s attention, and he offered Zaillian the similar task of adapting Schindler’s List (1993), which ended up winning Oscars for both of them.

Dialogue On Dialogue: A nice double meaning to the word “awake” in this hospital exchange.