The Empiricist
Selected in 2011 by the FilmDemic Screening Series to screen in Los Angeles, New York and other cities across the USA. Now its script is available for you to read here:
I, Richard Hartmann, am above all, two things, one, an Empiricist, that is to say, a firm believer that knowledge arises from experience, and two, a person with a very real interest in the process people undergo as they’re about to die. Hospitals satisfied me for a certain time, but the situation was always the same, and how could I confirm my hypothesis if I was unable to take control of the sample and the environment in which the process developed? My frustration grew until I was forced to leave a project incomplete for the first time in my life. Clearly it was time to take the next step, I would carefully choose my own patients, creating my own environments and conditions patient by patient, year after year until I reached my own conclusions. I observed, analysed and studied, you see? My method was standard my procedure, not so. But I was ready to end it, this was going to be my last experiment. I’d had enough, it no longer interested me, in the end… yes, it’s always the same, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance, last breath and death. Mystery solved. How disappointing. I just couldn’t believe that this was what would happen to me, yet maybe I was just living in my own denial. The human kind revolted me. And then… she appeared, my queen, I always knew that true love arose from the admiration. She was utterly perfect. A single moment of fear and then no more, no phases, nothing. She became the goddess of dignity… and died as such. I’m so in love. I can’t take my eyes off her. But Love confuses and alters your purposes, I guess, and now I don’t know if I continue this to complete my study or to find her once again in the eyes of another. You showed me that it is possible. You reconciliated me with mankind. Oh, Elizabeth, I owe you so much… I need to find you again… Maybe tonight…
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