"Because I'm a Nurse"
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 11:46PM We didn't get a proper theme week celebration off the ground for National Nurse's Week but it comes to an end today. Here's Andrew Kendall, who can't let the moment pass without shining a light on his favorite movie nurse. - Editor
Sure, The English Patient is really the story of the (not English), László Almásy, Hungarian explorer, but Binoche’s Hana is central to the story. She opens and closes the film, after all. After its wordless desert prelude the film really opens with her on duty towards the end of World War II.
Her first nursely duty, giving a kiss to an ill soldier, is perhaps not very auspicious. It’s a sweet moment, though...
“Would you kiss me? It would mean such a lot to me.”
Very soon she'll meet the badly burned Almásy, see her close friend (a fellow nurse) blown up by a stray bomb, and receive news that her family back home in Canada are probably dead. Things aren't going too well for Hana. And it's because of her the eponymous patient ends up at the beautiful monastery which becomes the main setting for much of the film. She has little to live for and sees the badly burned Almásy as a distraction from her troubles. For isn't that what nurses, like so many caregivers do, put their patients' needs above their own?
Early on, Almásy, with his brain addled hoarsely talks about the sad in his ears and then asks for a cigarette, which Hana refuses. “Why are you so determined to keep me alive?” he wonders.
“Because I’m a nurse.”
It's one in a series of note-perfect line-readings from Binoche in this fim. (Her I don't know anything is stil a cherished one.) But it's not just a great line-reading, its' central to so much about Hana. Because, that line, is accompanied by one of my favourite cuts in The English Patient. From Hana's surety of her purpose in life, to a shot of her playing hopscotch, isolated and alone, in the monastery.
The import is profound, and sad, without taking care of people, there’s nothing for Hana.
And because The English Patient occurs in two timelines it needs two climaxes. We get the first, romantic one, of realising just how Katherine’s death. Then comes the tragic climax of the Patient's relationship with Hana: death-by-euthanasia.
It’s not quite elegant but euthanasia hasn’t been as emotional on screen before, and the simple image of a sobbing Juliet with the syringe – in a morbid way – is really lovely.
It is, of course, almost paradoxical that this nurse’s significant moment is actually ensuring her patient dies but I always see The English Patient’s end as signalling the end of Hana’s role as a Nurse. She’s done all she ought to do, the war is over, and as she jumps into that van at the end looking at the sky, there’s a sense of change imminent. And she seems happy about it.
Nursing is a noble impression, yes. But Hana probably realises, like the greatest nurses, thatsometimes the patient that needs your utmost attention is yourself.
Nurse’s Week comes to an end today (the 6th to the 12th) and I couldn’t let it come to a close with shining a light on my favourite nurse from my favourite movie.
Reader Comments (16)
The English Patient is by far my favorite film, based on one of my favorite novels. Every frame, word, and sound is a work of art. The light flashing on Hana's face as she rides away in the truck is simply stunning.
For favorite Binoche line readings, I nominate "Bach? He's German" and her subsequent laugh, "it's raining!" and "I must be cursed". Binoche earned that Oscar.
I love any excuse to revel in the beauty of "The English Patient", and the timelessness of Binoche's performance as Hana. Lucky Ralph Fiennes, Kristen Sott Thomas in the desert and Juliette Binoche in Italy, 2 luminous women caring for him. A well deserved Oscar for a dedicated nurse.
It's a hell of a performance, but, you know, it's a HUGE category fraud case? She should get a lead nomination along KST, Watson, McDormand and Blethyn (Keaton is clearly the weak link).
I'd love this line-up, in spite of the fact the one of the top 5 best performances ever was there but didn't have a chance to win...We all love McDormand, but, come on, this was Emily Fucking Watson.
I worship this movie. I think "the heart is an organ of fire...I love that, I believe that" is almost certainly my favorite of Binoche's line readings in the film.
This is a very fine performance among other fine performances in a movie I wasn't wild about.
For some reason when I read the headline my first thought was of Montana Moorehead, played by the divine Cathy Moriarty in Soapdish and her bursting onto the restaurant set during the live final show and declaring she was there because she was a nurse and was following the "Nurses Oath!" followed by some craziness where they were going to do a brain transplant. Obviously I was surprised when I looked further!
She did NOT deserve that Oscar. I'll see you in your nightmares, Charles O.
Oh my god joel6 if I had thought of Montana Moorehead I totally would've written up a post about Montana Moorehead for this series! "SHE COULD BLOW AT ANY MINUTE!" Brilliantly funny performance.
LOL @ Lauren Bacall, posthumous blog commenter
It was one the last great Oscar shocks right up there with Marcia and Adrien.
Oh nonsense. Everyone's favorite nurse is Nurse Ratched.
Montanna Moriarity in Dearh of a Salesman
Beautiful film i loved the monastery i wanted to be riding that swing up close to the ceiling
Binoche is so lumlnous.
thank you
good site
thanks
good site
thanks