Bayside resident Mark Metcalf is an actor who has worked in movies, TV and on the stage. He is best known for his work in "Animal House," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Seinfeld."

In addition to his work on screen, Metcalf is involved with the Milwaukee International Film Festival, First Stage Children's Theater and a number of other projects, including the comedy Web site, comicwonder.com.

He also finds time to write about movies for OnMilwaukee.com. In this week's installment of the Screening Room, Mark looks at "Wit" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

WIT (2001)

There is a moment late in the film "Wit" that tells me a lot about Mike Nichols, the director, and why this film isn't more moving and therefore wasn't more successful. It is a wonderful moment between Emma Thompson's character and Audra McDonald's character.

Thompson plays a professor of 17th Century English literature, specifically John Donne, who is dying of ovarian cancer. McDonald is the primary nurse in the hospital where Thompson is trying to recover from an illness brought on by the intense chemotherapy that she has been undergoing, and from the cancer.

There is a misunderstanding about the meaning of the word soporific and when Thompson explains it to McDonald they both enjoy a laugh, at themselves mostly, they let go a little, and it is one of the most human and intimate moments in the film up until that point.

As they laugh in genuine enjoyment of each other, Nichols pulls the camera back, dollies back, out of the room and the curtains are drawn and we are removed from the people and into the cold, sterile hall of the hospital. We are denied the warmth, the affection, the humanity of a shared silliness and the underlying recognition of the inevitability of death and pain.

It is almost as though Nichols himself is embarrassed to be present at such a moment, and he removes himself and therefore us, the audience.

It is too bad. Watching a woman die of cancer -- especially a woman isolated from people and the warmth of companionship, consumed by her own intellect, scholarship, and a wisdom gained, for all we know, only through literature - is difficult, particularly when she is in a cold environment, surrounded primarily by cold care-givers . It is not something that most people would choose to do. They would not choose to watch this film.

Most of what we know about Thompson's character comes from her direct address to the camera. It is a compelling performance, full of wit and wisdom. Thompson also wrote the screenplay with Nichols from a play by Margaret Edson. When an actor talks directly to you, breaking the fourth wall as we say in the industry, they expose themselves in an unorthodox way, but they also put themselves in control of the situation. You hear and see what they chose for you to hear and see. It is their show.

Of course, the director is always in the God-like position of making the ultimate choices. He/she chooses to let you see behind or beyond what the character is telling you. Nichols takes this position when he removes himself and us from the room at the moment that the professor is actually enjoying herself, as much as a person can enjoy himself or herself when they are eaten up by cancer and debilitated by the cure. It seems, at that moment, that Nichols is a God made uncomfortable by human feelings, perhaps by human beings altogether, unless they are in pain. That is not a God that I would want sharing my universe, if I had a choice. And you do have a choice about whether to watch this movie or not.

On the other hand, "Wit" makes dying alone, unloved and unloving, seem a terrible price to pay for a deep intellectual passion for literature. By doing so, it makes me want to build bridges to any that might care well before I slip off into a comma, or dementia, or blithering idiocy, whatever awaits me near the end of the line. So, it has a positive effect in that rather morbid way.

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