“Awakenings” – The summer miracle of ‘69 now on 4K UHD
- Bill Kelley III
- Dec 31, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 1
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Robin Williams plays the soft-spoken and eccentric Dr. Malcolm Sayer, who discovered that using an experimental drug could possibly awaken Leonard Lowe, played by Robert De Niro. In the 1920s, Leonard and five million others worldwide had been afflicted by what was labeled “sleeping sickness,” encephalitis lethargica.
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“AWAKENINGS”
4K Ultra HD; 1990; PG-13 for mature thematic elements, and brief strong profanity; Digital copy via Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), DirecTV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Verizon (4K), Xfinity (4K)
Best extra: Archive “Making of” featurette
THE SUMMER of 1969 was revolutionary, groundbreaking, and extraordinary.
It started in late June when the Stonewall riots supporting rights for LGBTQ people began in New York City. A few weeks later, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin of the Apollo 11 crew walked on the moon. And in the middle of August, nearly 400,000 young people attended the chaotic and fantastic Woodstock Music Festival in a farm field in Bethel, N.Y.
Also, during the hot summer, a young neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, started treating his patients who had survived a 1920s pandemic of encephalitis lethargica. It had afflicted five million worldwide and was labeled “sleeping sickness.” Most of the patients had been in a catatonic state for decades, imprisoned in their frozen bodies, as a series of lesions formed in their brains.
Dr. Sacks gave them L-DOPA, a new experimental drug for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. Nearly overnight, around 80 patients were “awakened.” Many walked for the first time in 40 years. One key patient was Leonard L., a name Sacks gave to one patient in his 1973 non-fiction book “Awakenings.” “He retained all of his intelligence,” Sacks says during an interview at the World Science Festival with CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. “He gloried in the effects to begin with and became exuberant and almost manic and then ran into problems, as all of the patients,” the doctor said. “But the summer of ‘69 was a wonderful lyrical sort of time, for him and all of the others.”
(1) The Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, subs for the Bainbridge Hospital. The real story took place at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx. (2&3) Dr. Malcolm Sayer arrives at the hospital for what he thinks is an interview for a researcher in the Neurology Lab. But, Dr. Sullivan (John Christopher Jones) and Dr. Kaufman (John Heard) correct him that the position is for a staff Neurologist. (4) The first “sleeping sickness” patient Dr. Sayer examines is Lucy (Alice Drummond). (5&6) Frustrated with his first day on the job, Sayer opens the window in his office to get some fresh air. The view offers a glimpse of normal life outside the chronic hospital.
In the fall of 1989, the late director Penny Marshall (“Big,” “A League of Their Own”) and screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List,” “The Irishman”) adapted Sacks’ memoirs. They changed Dr. Sacks name and personality to the soft-spoken and eccentric Dr. Malcolm Sayer, played by Robin Williams, and focused on 15 patients. “This is one of his best performances, pure and uncluttered, without the ebullient distractions he sometimes adds – the schtick where none is called for,” the late Chicago Sun-Times and “At the Movies” film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his four-star review of “Awakenings.”
Marshall and Williams had been students together at the Harvey Lembeck acting workshop. Penny’s older brother, Garry Marshall, created the TV series “Mork & Mindy” that skyrocketed Williams’ career in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
In the script, Dr. Sayer arrives at the hospital without any experience with mental patients, yet boasts five years of research trying to extract one decigram of Myelin from four tons of earthworms. Now working with the frozen and mute patients, he finds a way to reawaken them, takes them on journeys outside the hospital, and develops a close kinship with Leonard.
An excellent list of co-stars includes Julie Kavner as the kindhearted nurse Eleanor Costello, Penelope Ann Miller as Paula, who can’t believe Leonard is a patient, John Heard as the hard-nose head administrator Dr. Kaufman, Ruth Nelson as the loyal mother, and legendary Swedish actor Max von Sydow “(The Seventh Seal,” “Three Days of the Condor”) as Dr. Peter Ingham.
Robert De Niro was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Leonard Lowe. The story opens with Leonard’s childhood, when he’s stricken with the illness as a young teenager and then transferred to the hospital in his early 20s. The five-month production was filmed at the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, New York. “Awakenings” received a 1991 Best Picture and Best Writing Screenplay Oscar nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
(1&2) Dr. Sayer and nurse Eleanor Costello (Julie Kavner) help Lucy up so she can try to walk to the window. (3) Dr. Sayer meets Leonard Lowe and his mother (Ruth Nelson).
EXTRAS
The 4K disc includes all of the brief bonus features:
“Making of” featurette (6 mins.) Narrated by the late voice-over artist Hal Douglas, who provided the voice for thousands of studio featurettes, movie trailers and TV commercials from the 1980s to early 2000s. He said, Dr. Sayer was drawn to the patients who were “human statues.” He vowed to not abandon them as the “living dead” and solve their mystery. It includes interviews with Marshall, De Niro, and Williams, who said it was “a two-month miracle.” De Niro spent some time observing and made videos of the patients and got “their interworks,” the director says.
“Archive Interviews with Cast and Crew” (9 mins.) Features De Niro, Williams, Marshall, and co-producers D. Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, who both agree that Sacks’ involvement in the production was essential. “It’s a true story of the very intuitive doctor, who looked at the patients and said, ‘They are alive inside, and if I can wake them up, I can bring them back into the world,’” Lasker says.
(1) Dr. Sayer tries strobe therapy to see if it affects Leonard’s brain waves. (2) The doctor convinces Leonard’s mother that giving him L-DOPA could reawaken him from his frozen state. (3-5) After several doses, Leonard “retained all of his intelligence,” and embraces his mother and introduces himself to the staff.
VIDEO
Sony Pictures scanned the original 35mm camera negative (1.85:1 aspect ratio) in 4K, captured by Marshall and Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek (“Amadeus,” “Ragtime”). It’s an obvious upgrade in resolution over the Blu-ray that had been sourced from a 2K master, released in 2011 by Image Entertainment. The 4K enhances the film grain at a much higher organic level, while providing more detail from paper documents, hospital signs, facial characteristics, and the overall New York Cityscape.
Sony also provides the standard HDR10 and the bonus Dolby Vision for a wider spectrum of colors and contrast levels, especially deeper blacks without losing detail in the shadows.
AUDIO
A nice surprise, Sony upgrades the six-channel DTS soundtrack to the more enveloping Dolby Atmos with environmental effects and the subtle score from Randy Newman (“The Natural,” “Toy Story”) using a small, orchestrated ensemble with woodwinds, strings, piano and electronic keyboard. The dialogue-driven storyline is front and center with plenty of clarity.
Over the last five years, Sony had considered “Awakenings” for its Columbia Classics 4K collection, but it never made the cut within its five volumes. This 4K release makes up for the void, with its story of courage and rebirth.
— Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
(1-3) Dr. Sayer takes Leonard on a day trip, including to the Williamsburg Bridge over the East River, where, as a child, he carved his name into the park bench. Leonard finds freedom in walking into the water.
SPECS
100 GB disc
TRUE 4K mastering
Captured on 35mm film stock with spherical lens (1.85:1 aspect ratio)
Video bitrate: Averages over 80 Megabits per second, with a running time of 120 minutes
Box office: $52 million worldwide, with a production budget of $31 million.
Academy Awards: Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Writing, Screenplay based on Material from Another Medium.
National Board of Review: Best Actor winners tied, Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, and Top Ten Films.
Metacritic: Critics 74 percent, User score 8.1
(1) The great jazz sax player Dexter Gordon plays patient Rolando. He died just months after his performance. (2) The awakened patients prepare to go on a day trip. (3) Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), who was visiting her father, bumps into Leonard in the hospital cafeteria. (4) After several months, Leonard starts to show major side effects from taking L-DOPA.
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