Hollywood's Handicap

Introduction

The selected Hollywood movie and a novel that will be discussed in this research paper are “Anthropologist from Mars” and “At First Sight.” Anthropologist from Mars has been written by Oliver Sacks and the movie called “At First Sight” was directed by Irwin Winkler and was produced by Rob Cowan and Irwin Winkler.

At first sight is a Hollywood movie, which was released in the year of 1999. This movie was released based on an essay known as “To see or not to see” in a book called Anthropologist from Mars. His book discusses cases where the individuals have different diseases. The essay was said to be inspired by the real life story of Shirl Jennings. The two stories complement each other since one is based on the other. The specific chapter which is of interest from the book called Anthropologist from Mars is “To see or not to see” which discusses blindness and likewise the movie highlights blindness.

Plots

Both the stories discuss about a man named as Virgil who has been blind since childhood and as young as the age of three. He is a small town based masseur by profession and massages his customers. Once a woman named as Amy comes to have a massage and avail his services. Amy lives in New York and is a stressed up Architect who decides to get a massage done. The massage was so effective that Amy starts crying and in the process falls asleep. As she gets up, she wants to thank the man who did it since she had never slept so peacefully. Upon meeting the person, she comes to know that he is a blind man and has no vision. Amy maintains a contact with him and later it was Virgil who asks her out on a date. After some dates, they fall in love with each other. Amy tries to know more about the Virgil and tries to know about his blindness. He explains that the last thing he had witnessed was something fluffy. Amy used to describe whatever Virgil wanted to know about and feel it. Amy used to describe the horizons as something that can be seen but can never be reached.

Amy, out of sheer love, wants the best for him researched about the condition of Virgil and in the process comes to know about a surgeon who performs a surgery to cure blindness. She contacted the surgeon and the surgeon after knowing the condition of Virgil suggests a surgery. Amy explains everything to Virgil and she convinces him to get the surgery done. Virgil, after constant convincing finally agrees to what his girlfriend had to say. The surgery takes place and turns out to be successful. A person who all his life used his four senses to create an image of the world and was comfortable in it since it was the image that he had held for 45 years of his life. As soon as he gets his eyesight, he is overwhelmed with the ...