Some movies leave a lasting impression on you thanks to one memorable scene.
In “Awakenings,” the 1990 Robin Williams-Robert De Niro acting tour de force, that scene is when Williams, playing the Bronx neurologist Dr. Malcolm Sayer, throws tennis balls to wheelchair-bound patients of a hospital housing victims of the encephalitis epidemic. Mute and barely able to move, these patients instinctively react to catch the balls, inspiring Dr. Sayer to believe these patients had sparks of life inside their incapacitated bodies.
