Like the Terminator asked in T2 “Why do you cry?” there’s many a good reason to shed occasional tears of both sadness and joy at the cinema. But it must be a guy thing though because I can only remember doing so up to the age of about ten and then having a thirty five odd year dry spell (with a few misty patches and only the occasionally rain shower) until my fifties. Now the heavens open more regularly than I would really like to admit.
Like a lot of people I was regularly traumatized by Disney at an early age. I can remember sniffling along with my mother and sister to Dumbo and Old Yeller ,then being sent so far into shock by the senseless shooting of Bambi’s mother that I couldn’t cry at all.The only other time I can remember a cinema audience being so stunned into silence was when Morgan Freeman opened the box in Seven.
I also developed an irrational hatred of garden spades and Scottish accents after watching “Ring of Bright Water”. It felt like I had been stabbed through my six year old heart when I saw Midge die. Come to think of it my mother really liked putting her kids through the wringer because there was another similarly harrowing tale called “Run Wild ,run free”. I really hate to see animals in any kind of torment so King Kong (the original B&W) was also a properly torturous watch for me. Tears toppled from my chin like Kong off the Empire State at the end.
But on the positive side my emotional development was pretty much stunted and deadened by the likes of such endless TV violence such as Tom and Jerry that by age ten I'd given up getting upset so I cannot remember any other tears being shed other than that of joy when I first saw Star Wars. I didn’t sob but was surprised to find my eyes glistening when the credits burst onto the screen after the medal ceremony, just with the sheer magical wonderment at what I’d watched.
Then it was three odd decades of being like Arnie, I understood why people cried but it was something I could not do. Then in the last few years the flood gates forced themselves a fraction open, but in a manly way I’d like to think, you know, the kind of stone carved statue weeping where if somebody didn’t actually spot the tear silently trickling down the cheek nobody would have a clue I was actually upset or had anything other than a slightly heavy cold.Thank god for 3d glasses these days.
I kind of blame TV again ,but this time for overly sensitising me to unhappiness. Band of Brothers and the Pacific are hard to watch because of the true veterans recollections, whilst the fiction deaths of Dr Green in ER and Laura (Madame President) of BattleStar Galactica killed me like the series at the end.
Cinemawise Pixar picked up where Disney left off with “Up” and “Toy Story 3“,but they pale in comparison to the effect that “The Green Mile” “Gran Torino” and “War horse” had on me. Amazingly two Mel Gibson films make it onto the "scenes to be cautious of" list, with “Signs” and “We were Soldiers”. When the General broke so did I and that surprised me. As did Jason Bourne who scored an impressive double hit in “The Bourne Supremacy” with his girlfriends early death and his confession right at the end. Skill O! And Rivers apparent sacrifice for Simon in "Serenity" scored a near choke when I saw it first time.
I left the best (worst?) till last . I’ve watched “Schindlers List” once and once only . Never again. Once was enough. I will NEVER watch “Marley and Me” as I read the book and only managed to get through the last chapters on a saline drip in order to stop me dehydrating.
Like a lot of people I was regularly traumatized by Disney at an early age. I can remember sniffling along with my mother and sister to Dumbo and Old Yeller ,then being sent so far into shock by the senseless shooting of Bambi’s mother that I couldn’t cry at all.The only other time I can remember a cinema audience being so stunned into silence was when Morgan Freeman opened the box in Seven.
I also developed an irrational hatred of garden spades and Scottish accents after watching “Ring of Bright Water”. It felt like I had been stabbed through my six year old heart when I saw Midge die. Come to think of it my mother really liked putting her kids through the wringer because there was another similarly harrowing tale called “Run Wild ,run free”. I really hate to see animals in any kind of torment so King Kong (the original B&W) was also a properly torturous watch for me. Tears toppled from my chin like Kong off the Empire State at the end.
But on the positive side my emotional development was pretty much stunted and deadened by the likes of such endless TV violence such as Tom and Jerry that by age ten I'd given up getting upset so I cannot remember any other tears being shed other than that of joy when I first saw Star Wars. I didn’t sob but was surprised to find my eyes glistening when the credits burst onto the screen after the medal ceremony, just with the sheer magical wonderment at what I’d watched.
Then it was three odd decades of being like Arnie, I understood why people cried but it was something I could not do. Then in the last few years the flood gates forced themselves a fraction open, but in a manly way I’d like to think, you know, the kind of stone carved statue weeping where if somebody didn’t actually spot the tear silently trickling down the cheek nobody would have a clue I was actually upset or had anything other than a slightly heavy cold.Thank god for 3d glasses these days.
I kind of blame TV again ,but this time for overly sensitising me to unhappiness. Band of Brothers and the Pacific are hard to watch because of the true veterans recollections, whilst the fiction deaths of Dr Green in ER and Laura (Madame President) of BattleStar Galactica killed me like the series at the end.
Cinemawise Pixar picked up where Disney left off with “Up” and “Toy Story 3“,but they pale in comparison to the effect that “The Green Mile” “Gran Torino” and “War horse” had on me. Amazingly two Mel Gibson films make it onto the "scenes to be cautious of" list, with “Signs” and “We were Soldiers”. When the General broke so did I and that surprised me. As did Jason Bourne who scored an impressive double hit in “The Bourne Supremacy” with his girlfriends early death and his confession right at the end. Skill O! And Rivers apparent sacrifice for Simon in "Serenity" scored a near choke when I saw it first time.
I left the best (worst?) till last . I’ve watched “Schindlers List” once and once only . Never again. Once was enough. I will NEVER watch “Marley and Me” as I read the book and only managed to get through the last chapters on a saline drip in order to stop me dehydrating.
