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March 15, 2005
Cry
Crying at the movies. It’s a tricky business, isn’t it? We all do it, even if we blame the tears on dust in our eyes. Whether it’s the dying grandmother, the fated lovers, or the 10-dollar admission charge, there’s something about the silvery images floating across the screen that pull us into their sorrow-filled web.
No one seems immune from the inevitable tear-shedding, though different people cry at different films. For some reason, every girl I have ever talked to cried at A Walk to Remember, yet I felt nothing more than slight nausea (I blame it on having just had my wisdom teeth pulled, but on further review, it was probably from the bad acting). Weepies like Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman have the emotional pull to make people cry just by describing them. It’s true; I’ve seen it with my own shocked eyes.
And, ladies, despite their protestations, men cry at movies, too. They’ll try to hide it, but when the fulfilled sports dreams and father-son catch scenes show up in Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, I’ve noticed more than one guy reaching for the tissues. My own grandfather, a man whose favorite pastimes were fishing and hunting and who was a farmer all his life, sat next to me during Apollo 13 and was misty-eyed as the space shuttle plunged back to Earth. There’s no one who has escaped the glorious burden of the movie-induced tear, no matter how much they fight the urge.
In fact, in the last year, there were two particular tearjerkers that popped up in cinemas across the country - one that I did cry at and one that I was just groaning because my popcorn was burnt: House of Flying Daggers and Million Dollar Baby.
Baby, the tale of an aging female boxer who fulfills her dreams of success, is a supposedly heartwarming tale that gained much press as the “Best Picture” of the year when it won four Oscars at the recent Academy Awards. It has all the elements of a good tearjerker: pain, suffering, and being lifted from the gutter to climb the ladder to success, but it lacks a real emotional core, which is why I found it impossible to sob along with the woman sitting in front of me. Hilary Swank’s boxer is too saintly to know what to do with, and Clint Eastwood’s character remains a mystery throughout, so when the emotional climaxes come swelling at the end of the scenes, they don’t have any sentiments to draw back on č the poorly drawn characters may be suffering, but as I don’t care about them, I can’t find it in myself to empathize.
And now, just so you don’t think I have a heart of steel, I will admit here and now that I cried at the end of House of Flying Daggers. Within the zingy dazzle of the fighting choreography and the almost impossibly beautiful costumes and sets lies a movie that should’ve been taking home Oscar’s top honor. A tender, tragic love story lies at the middle of this epic, and, without giving away too much, there are some heartbreaking scenes at the end that will certainly increase Kleenex stock. By all means, go see it.
As Flying Daggers and Million Dollar Baby prove, not all tearjerkers are made equally. However, they both go to show that film hasn’t given up on that old adage “they make us laugh, they make us cry.”
Posted by msveum at March 15, 2005 02:01 PM
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