View image Kari Sylwan plays the maid who comforts a dying woman (Harriet Andersson) in Bergman's "Cries and Whispers."
One of the most prolific and intelligent contributors to the comments section of the blog is Solomon Wakeling. I wrote in curiosity, asking to know more about him. He replied that he is a 24-year-old law student from Australia, and that one of his problems is, "I read too many books." There was one thing he said that I felt I needed to write about in the blog: "I find your work is filled with an essentially humanitarian philosophy, dealing with concepts like redemption."
The first half of his statement I hope is true. The second part is certainly true. Let us set aside all of the films that are essentially entertainments (although they have their uses and pleasures, too). I am thinking now about the remaining titles, which deal seriously with human lives. The ones that affect me most deeply are the ones in which characters overcome something within themselves or the world, and endure.
I'm often asked which movies made me cry. Without making a list (I hate lists of movies, which are so reductive), I'd have to reply that the deliberately sad films, the "weepies," rarely make me cry. What gets to me are the films about goodness--about people acting bravely or generously or in self-sacrifice. Consider a film like Spielberg’s "Schindler's List." Its hero was not a great man in his own eyes, and his actions were at least partially self-serving. But with all of his imperfections and flaws, he set about to save a group of lives, and succeeded. That he succeeded is secondary to his effort, which was the main thing, although I confess that in the emotionally devastating final shot (showing those who would not be alive were it not for him), I cried. I was moved so deeply that they lived because of this one strange, eccentric, driven man.
Consider Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby." Many were deeply offended by his action at the end. I myself disagreed with it on philosophical and personal grounds. I think he did the wrong thing. But he was certainly doing what the young woman desired, or thought that she desired, and I think he did it against his own wishes. He did not personally want her dead, or approve of euthanasia for that matter, but thought he was acting on her behalf. He was doing for her what she could not do for herself. What he did was consistent with the beliefs he had held up for her throughout the film. It was, for that man in that context at that moment, the right thing. So it's much more complicated, but, yes, I was moved. In all the frailty and fallibility of our poor human lives, he found the nerve to do what seemed to be merciful.
Or look at Kurosawa's "Ikiru," about an old bureaucrat who has spent his days in the meaningless shuffling of papers. Faced with a medical diagnosis meaning his own death, he tries at first to deny and escape. Finally, with the end approaching, he determines to achieve at least one good thing out of all the hopeful projects that found their ends by disappearing in his office. He wants to establish a little park for children. He succeeds, and at the end, in the falling snow, he is seen sitting on a swing in the park, dead. He has accomplished his good deed.
Consider, too, Bergman's "Cries and Whispers," the most emotionally devastating film I have ever seen. It was about a woman dying of cancer, and joined in her final days by her sisters, their husbands, and her maid. The sisters and the husbands were deeply disturbed, flawed, even evil. The maid, who had been patronized by them all through her life, felt pure love for the dying woman. There is an astonishing scene (only Bergman would have conceived it) where she bares her breasts and takes the dying woman to her heart, and comforts her with warmth and sympathy. It is the nudity that affected me most deeply: She was trying to remove all barriers of convention or modesty or shame, and to offer up her flesh itself to the dying woman, to say there was nothing she would not do for her. This gesture moves me even if I think back on it.
Having already included Bergman's "Winter Light" in the Great Movies collection, I have lately been revisiting the other titles in Bergman's trilogy about the silence of God: "Through a Glass Darkly" and "The Silence." Few other directors have been more drawn to the fundamental torments that we share (Dreyer, Ozu and Bresson are often mentioned along with him). These three films are notable because of their difficulty of redemption. Because of madness or obstinacy or obscure psychic wounds, their characters find it so difficult to achieve. Their are buried in their misery. But there is a force within them that keeps on trying, keeps on reaching out, and I think Bergman's subject is that desire we feel, that hope, that is perhaps contained within the concept of God.
At the end of the day, films like these are what persuade me to be a film critic. My job is to call attention to them. They need not be so deeply serious, but they need to have that human generosity and goodness. If I were to say that even "Juno" belonged on the list, would you understand?
...as far as films that made you cry, I'm surprised you didn't reference TESTAMENT. In your 1983 critique of it, the first thing you wrote was how it will make the viewer cry, because you did (twice, if I read it correctly)...
Help! I think this question tracks well with the post!
I will be teaching my first University course ever this Spring on Religion and Film. I have the following movies on the tentative syllabus: Ikiru, Bringing Out the Dead, A Trip to Bountiful, Being There, Cinema Paradisio, The Wind Will Carry Us, Babette's Feast, Fast Runner, The Last Temptation of Christ, St. Matthew's Passion, The Hawks and the Sparrows...
Does anyone have any suggestions or emendations?
I thank Soloman Wakeling for putting into words what has always brought me back to reading your film criticism! I appreciate your "humanitarian philosophy." And Roger, I agree that imperfect characters desiring, hoping, striving for something beyond themselves can make for some of the most meaningful and powerful films. I do understand why you would include Juno on your list.
Personally, I have had a hard time appreciating certain films because of my own philosophy. "Seven," for example. It is a slick movie, well made, disturbing, engrossing. The friends who saw it with me 13 years ago thought it was a great film. And I hated it. I was immensely disappointed with it. I felt the film didn't justify itself. The ending did not honor all the suffering the characters and audience endured.
I just went back and read your review of "Seven" from 1995, and the last few lines struck me:
"Good as it is, it misses greatness by not quite finding the right way to end. All of the pieces are in place, all of the characters are in position, and then - I think the way the story ends is too easy. Satisfying, perhaps. But not worthy of what has gone before."
A movie’s ending cannot only be unworthy of went before, but it can actually ruin the entire experience for me. What bothers me about "Seven" is that it fundamentally misunderstands the medieval concept of the "seven deadly sins." And I blame the screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker, for that.
When I saw the movie, I was studying "Canterbury Tales" in high school. The cops, particularly Morgan Freeman's character, delve into "Canterbury Tales" and other classics for clues into the killer's mind. The killer is supposedly reading these works for inspiration too. If only Andrew Kevin Walker had been in my English class!
My understanding of the seven deadly sins is that pride is the root, the greatest of them all. Pride comes from a desire to be God in some way, to know God's secrets (or "Goddes pryvetee" in Middle English). Therefore the killer's ultimate sin is pride, not envy, as he confesses at the end. His character is tragic because of this misunderstanding. But the audience doesn’t get to see that. He is simply a smart, sick monster.
Even if the killer is unaware of his own pride and mistakes the sin of pride for something more akin to vanity in his "pride killing," I hoped that the screenwriter would at least show some awareness of the medieval idea of pride. I believe he should if he’s going to bring "Canterbury Tales" into his script. Walker’s attempt to humanize the killer by making him guilty of envy is a nice try, but it misses the real tragedy of the killer and, truly, all murderers. They try to be God by taking someone else's life in their hands, and that is their downfall. It's pride.
On reflection, perhaps if "Seven" were not as graphic as it is I would have given it a pass. But as it is, it fails my high school English class.
Well, no film has actually made me cry but there's plenty that make me feel like I'm just seconds away from bursting into tears. There's...a couple of odd ones. Like The Wedding Singer. Yes, I said it. The bit where he sings the Grow Old With You song. Shameful.
Also:
Magnolia (the last frames when Claudia smiles - Aimee Mann's Save Me plays a big part in this.)
Field of Dreams ("Hey dad?")
Once (Pretty much the whole movie, though more specifically the music shop scene and the end.)
Dancer in the Dark (My friend and I refuse to discuss or rewatch the movie to this day because it upset us both so greatly. Bjork is just so extraordinary.)
And this isn't a movie, but...the last episode of the second season of the UK Office. ("She said no, by the way.")
Lastly, this is the first time I've commented here and I'd just like to give a big thanks to Roger for the blog and 40 years of superlative film critcism. It's beyond great to have you back.
All those films got to me too, and it's true that any genre of film can be moving if it's done well. I agree that goodness is generally more moving than just a horrible, bleak view where nobody wins. "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Sid and Nancy" are very good films, but they didn't really move me.
Another thing to address is that films have to earn their tears by not being too pushy or lacking in intelligence. I want a film to really engage my thinking and make me ask questions about life; I can't stand films that are too obvious. "The Shawshank Redemption" or "Dead Poets Society", to me, are not moving because they are trying so hard to move you. I feel the same way about "Forrest Gump" or "Braveheart." "The Passion of the Christ" was not moving to me because there was no intellectual property to the film- just horrific violence. To me that's depressing rather than moving.
Another thing to consider is that ridiculous films can be moving too. Space aliens may be ridiculous but look at "E.T.". It's moving because it reminds us of our childhood imaginative mind, of talking to stuffed animals or having GI joe battles in the backyard, how a child can just jump into this fantasy land so easily and how fun that was. But moreover, I find it moving because it is a testament to the power of the film medium to do this, to make us believe in the ridiculous and actually move us. Peter Jackson's "King Kong" had a similar affect on me. It's not as moving as 'E.T.' but it has that same 'wow' magic. "Wow, I can't believe I'm getting choked up over a CGI gorilla" in a huge multiplex with popcorn on my lap.
I love all kinds of movies, and of course I love Ozu and Bergman and Kurosawa as much as anyone, but it's amazing how occassionally a big-budget event movie can be so affecting. It's rare, very rare even, but when that happens it's great.
To comment on the moment in "Cries and Whispers", where the maid presses Agnes to her breast- that to me is a level of moving that is almost beyond tears. It's such a powerful image that we can't allow the tears to distort our view of it- it's too much. I agree completely that "Cries and Whispers" is, even among Bergman's films, completely overpowering in a way really no film is.
You know, when Robert Altman and Berman died, I was sad, but I didn't cry. I feel like they left this world having produced so much, having really lived up to their potential and having changed the medium. So I didn't cry, I celebrated them and toasted them and knew I had to watch "Nashville" or "Shame" again soon.
Thanks Ebert - you're the best, man.
Eric
I think too of Erick Zonca's _La Vie Rêvée des Anges_ / _The Dreamlife of Angels_.
The most tender scene is when Élodie Bouchez's character is at the hospital all night, standing watch over a comatose woman who's apartment she's renting, a woman she has never met, yet whose diary she has been reading. Exhausted, she falls asleep in the chapel. Woken, she is told that the comatose woman has not died after all. How fickle the spirit of life is, yet how enduring too.
Perhaps the most dazzling, liberating sequence is also the quietest, when she starts to write the woman's dairy for her, continuing that life. Last, I cannot help but well with tears at the closing shot where she goes to work in the electronics plant and the camera pans from her to another woman working, then another, and so on, set to a pop-song with what sounds like harpsichord. That will to live and that tragedy of what her life will be like at first are breathlessly sad and honest. Redemption yes, but far from grace.
The list of films in this post are amoung the most powerful that I have seen, adding The Shawshank Redemption and Saving Private Ryan.
As for films that would be good for a religion in film class, I would suggest One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. When I took a class in religion in film my professor showed Minority Report which I thought was a great film to grapple with Free Choice and Determinism.
Hi Roger and all,
I'm a first time poster on here, but Roger, I've felt like a friend of yours through your writing for years. Thanks so much, and it's great to have you back.
I haven't seen "Cries and Whispers"--yet. But the description of the scene you're talking about immediately made me think of the last image in The Grapes of Wrath **spoiler alert** when the sister, having just lost her baby, instead breastfeeds a dying man to try to revive him. It ends by saying she had a "mysterious smile" on her lips as she did it. I've often thought the mystery in that was the baffling human condition--how we can redeem ourselves through acts of incredible generosity, even as we're also the barbaric ones who have caused us to get into the straits in which we need those incredible acts.
I wanted to say that this thread has inspired me to seek out some more films like the ones Roger is talking about. I've become complacent recently. Having a stressful life, I've been avoiding films I think will be too 'heavy' lately and going for the entertaining ones. Not that that's an awful thing, but this thread has reminded me that I'm probably cheating myself out of some really cool movie experiences.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Today I watched Spielberg's E.T. for the first time in a few years and it moved me to tears just like when I was a little kid. It's not a perfect movie but it's perfect enough. As a Christian I find Bergman's honest approach to Man's search for an intangible God very powerful and comforting-how wonderful that his characters should find peace in their devotion to each other.
A movie that I found absolutely devastating, and one that I would recommend for any class on film and religion, is "Breaking The Waves," by Lars von Trier.
"...the deliberately sad films, the "weepies," rarely make me cry. What gets to me are the films about goodness--about people acting bravely or generously or in self-sacrifice."
Precisely how I feel as well, Roger. Thanks so much for this post. I confess I haven't seen most of the films you've mentioned (yet), but I hope to remedy that one day.
One film I have seen that brought me to tears was Grave of the Fireflies. You know the deaths are coming from the beginning of the film, but there is so much character and story about those two children told in the film that when the deaths come, you realize just how poignant they are. It is sad, yes, but also beautiful because of the sacrifices involved. It's possibly the most powerful animated film I've seen.
I love your inclusion of Ikiru, a film that really moved me as well. Another scene that always gets me is when he sings.
I recently watched Ulee's Gold, and your post immediately made me think of that. Almost every character in the movie goes through some sort of change through the course of the move. In particular I was so pleased by the way Peter Fonda's character, the stoic Ulee, goes through the process I am foreseeing my top three favorite movies (I don't really order movies, I just know I like them more than any others) becoming a top four.
My heart was pounding when I saw "Cries and Whispers" for the first time. The part that gets me is the ending frame. It was the most moving portrayal of hope that I've seen.
A few comments mentioned Ozu already, but I can't help but mention my favorite film "Late Spring." The father character and what he does for his daughter is something I will always remember.
I have to say it. I hated Cries and Whispers. Hated hated hated Cries and Whispers. I can enjoy a slow and placid film, but I was bored absolutely to death by Cries and Whispers. The deadeningly dull details of the characters' lives. The husband's unrealistic reaction when he discovered his wife had lacerated her vagina. The complete lack of real warmth and humanity. A tissue of lies? Nay, a tissue of boring.
While I cry for several reasons when watching films I find myself falling into categories you've described, Roger. To me one of the great tearjerker passages of any film in recent memory is the passage in "Antwone Fisher", when Antwone meets his mother. It's a journey to find himself, to forgive those who harmed him and to "forgive himself" (as Washington's character said to him) and that scene was the representation of that character's journey. Not to mention how beautiful the scene itself is. I couldn't stop crying for a good ten minutes after that scene, because from that scene we roll into the passages of true discovery and joy for the character. I started crying because I was moved by the character, and I continued to cry because I shared in his joy and happiness. I know it's a passage that struck you as well, Roger.
Recently the ending of "Once" left me in tears because of one character's selfless gesture of gratitude. I cried for the gesture and how moved the other is by it, and the movie only emphasizes the feelings of those two characters without making it into anything else. Movies that overreach don't move me. But movies about characters who reach out beyond themselves do.
I can hardly believe you addressed this subject today. "The Killing Fields" was on TCM last night. I was so deeply affected that I felt compelled to watch the end of the movie over and over on YouTube all day today. I can't remember the last time I saw something so beautiful. Combine that with Haing Ngor's life story, I was in tears all day.
I must disagree with Arran above who feels Braveheart is not moving. For me this is a very moving film. The violence in Braveheart is integral to the story..Wallace's wife is executed by the English commander and this is a turning point in his life, guiding him on his path as revolutionary and freedom fighter. To say there is no intellectual property makes me wonder if we saw the same movie..For me the speech made by Wallace to the assembled Scotsmen about Freedom is one of the most moving and rousing speeches I have ever heard on film. One of the reasons for this is that it is based on the Declaration of Arbroath(Or Scottish Declaration of Independence) which was submitted by Robert the Bruce to the Pope in 1320 a few years after Bannockburn. That declaration formed the basis for the American Declaration of Independence as it was a declaration for the common man and for freedom..I urge you to check the original declaration out and then with that background review the Wallace speech in Braveheart. I think that if you do that you will see Braveheart in a whole new light and see intellectual merit where you did not before..
One line that is particularly moving but somewhat unique is "Tell me, tell me that I've been a good man" from Saving Private Ryan. Although the scenes of the sacrifices of the main characters are moving, that one line, perhaps because we all feel guilt for the sacrifices others have made, I believe is particularly powerful.
Redemption:
The most excruciating movie I have ever seen is Fargo (and I mean ex-cruciating!.) I will never see it again. Here in one film: (1) banality of evil (2) seemingly radical evil and (3) banal goodness. How is it possible that the women cop redeems (while drinking coffee and donuts and making simple correct choices) that stark blood- against- snow evil? She is good in such simple things and yet so vivid. It reminded me of Augustine's point that evil is always privation, lack and it can never actually compare to the life, being and fullness of goodness.
Pan's Labyrinth:
Not to chose the lure of sacrifice or using another person as a means to another end even at the cost of losing eternity....
Endo's Silence:
I am eagerly awaiting that one!
Very interesting stuff here... a "humanitarian philosophy and dealing with concepts like redemption" animate Roger Ebert's work.
Ebert says,"What gets to me are the films about goodness--about people acting bravely or generously or in self-sacrifice."
I feel I understand that. Thinking back, at this moment I remember "The Elephant Man" made me cry. I do think it was the compassionate doctor (Anthony Hopkins) that got me. And the scene when Merrick was at a theater and he received applause. Merrick seemed such a gentle soul and the way he appreciated the small amount of kindness he recieved was moving to me after he suffered so much.
The other one that popped into my head was -I feel a little embarrassed to say it-- "Forrest Gump". It's a silly movie, but at the end when all of a sudden it is in real time after him going through his whole life story, which added so much weight to what then happens, it connected with me. Seeing the way Forrest reacts to discovering he's a father and the wedding when he and Jenny are on the lawn and Lt. Dan and his wife meet them. When Forrest tells Jenny that she was always with him wherever he was and their are those beautiful shots. And then after Jenny dies and Forrest is talking to her about their son. Well that got me. I admit it.
There are others that now come to mind, but those are a couple. Anyway.
Having been a fan of his reviews for some time I definitely believe that a humanitarian philosophy is present in Roger Ebert's work.
I would understand about Juno.
I'm extremely, embarrassingly, pathetically manipulable by even bad movies (not that Juno was one). I will always cry during scenes of parent-child reconciliation, for example, even as I smirk at the obviousness of the mechanisms by which my reaction was achieved. I really don't like the movie Titanic, but it's hard not to cry at the thought of babies drowning in freezing water. Or to take two movies already mentioned as examples, I'm as likely to cry during a movie like The Wedding Singer as during Magnolia. But this sensitivity, if I can call it that, means that the "good" movies (the artful movies, ones meant to illuminate some aspect of the way we live, etc.) really take residence in me, even wound me. This might be good and it might be bad, I'm not sure.
I'm taking a long break from Six Feet Under right now because of a particular scene in season 4 in which a character buries his wife with his bare hands and then, having finished, howls - a whooping, animal sound, over and over - at the sky as the camera zooms out and shows him smaller and smaller. It sounds over the top, and it is, but I was so invested in that character and his situation that the scene truly disturbed my sleep. After that, every time I looked at the Six Feet Under DVD case on my coffee table I had to look away.
The first movie that ever made me cry, like really break down, was a documentary called "The NBA at 50." Near the end of the film, they show some of the greats retiring, and the tears totally snuck up on me. But I think it's something that goes along with what you're saying, Roger. It was that they persevered as long as they could and were forced to face the reality that they simply couldn't play the game anymore. They had succeeded, but the dream was now over.
For me, I have always tended to choke up on films where there is some great human beauty for which the characters struggle against great odds. Brokeback Mountain will always get me. Running on Empty is another example. Ikiru would be in my list too, as would The Killing Fields. The last scene from Breaking the Waves as well.
But the one movie that gets me more than any other - I can't watch the preview without needing a pause - is Hoop Dreams. I'm losing it right now just thinking about it. Clearly, I'm a basketball fan, but it's the most real and remarkable story I've ever seen on film. I'm moved by its existence.
The film which immediately entered my mind while reading this post is "Five Easy Pieces;" the first time I saw it I remember being entirely drawn in, and always on the verge of emotion. It was not, however, until that very final shot that I felt all that feeling cave in around me and began to weep. There are many films which are obviously trying to elicit tears, some very good, but I think the most potently emotional experiences as the ones we can't see coming. Who didn't expect a heart-breaking end to "Brokeback Mountain" (don't get me wrong, a great, great film, but...) or wondrous redemption at the end of "Field of Dreams"? "Five Easy Pieces" hit me like a bolt from the blue, though, I think because I didn't realize how much I was connecting with Jack Nicholson (and Karen Black) until that final scene.
I would also like to add that Kieslowski's "The Double Life of Veronique," "Blue," and "Red" all move me remarkably deeply, not only for their tragic/redemptive qualities but also for the sheer beauty of the films. It is rare that beauty itself can lead me to tears, but Kieslowski could do it.
I completely agree, "Juno" certainly belongs on this list. One other film which deserves mention and for which I am eternally grateful for its inclusion in your Great Movies collection is "Grave of the Fireflies". This film has the ability to move me as no other film has before or since. I've recommended it to almost everyone I know. Some automatically reject it the minute they find out it's animated/anime. The ones who were willing to give it a chance usually end up loving it. It stays with them, it haunts them just as it has for me all these years.
A friend of mine taught "Grave of the Fireflies" in a class at university last year upon my recommendation and found his students emotionally devastated by it. Some found it unbearably depressing because it offers no redemption. I advised my friend to ask those students to watch the movie again and ask themselves what they get out of it. Do they feel a desire to bomb a nation, any nation? To view the "enemy" as evil, faceless monsters to be annihilated? If so, I've lost my argument. But if they are left pondering the lives of Setsuko and Seita, or they are left with that final image in the movie of the spirit of Seita staring directly at them, asking them to consider even for a moment (and I think the fact that they were so affected by the film and were able to discuss it so passionately does show this) then the movie is redemptive. Its redemption lies in the power of art to immortalise those two children and to make us experience and consider something which we are all too happy to overlook. Your inclusion, Mr. Ebert of this wonderful film in your Great Movies collection therefore adds to the film's redemptive powers and for that I am grateful.
I discovered Ikiru through your Great Movies section, which had only begun to be featured, at least online, for about a year at that time.
It was by far my favorite film, and still is. His stubbornness, his willingness to do something good in spite of everyone's apathy, felt so human at its core. It's difficult for me to even describe exactly what it is that makes it so special for me, but I'm glad you brought it to my attention. When I try to think of a film that depicts "goodness," though, no other film comes more readily to mind than this one.
Another film that affected me deeply was After Life (1998, a.k.a. Wandâfuru Raifu). What surprised me was it took one moment of sweetness toward the end, and I went from simply being moved to experiencing a rush of emotion.
And this may seem weird to some people, but one of the movies that makes me wistful just thinking about the sacrifice one of the main characters makes in the movie Wo Hu Tsang Long (2000). Knowing that the hero of the story had striven his whole life to achieve spiritual perfection, and then instead of using his last moments to secure his place in the afterlife, he expresses his unspoken love for his long time companion, sacrificing eternity to speak this truth that he had been holding in his heart for so long...
Pi doesn't make me cry necessarily, but it's about that struggle for understanding, for breaking through the barrier, that appeals to me so much (and Aronofsky's film seems so malleable that I can get different things out of the film every time I watch it...).
All of these films deal with mortality, and humanity's struggles to comprehend this world and do something bigger than ourselves for the sake of others in the limited time we have. To me there's nothing that says "humanity" more than that.
Despite it ranking on IMDB's #2 of all time, very few people in the world rank Shawshank Redemption their favorite movie of all time. To which after many years of not having a truly favoriite movie, I can answer, not only is it my favorite, but the final scene where Morgan Freeman (coincidence) finally making it to see his good friend, no matter what, I am always overcome with emotion, which can come in goosebumps, tears, and at times, even a good cry.
I love this discussion because as Roger has mentioned Soloman Wakeling in the entry and his spot on analysis of his reviews. I can't help think about why I come here week after week, and fish through the archives on a regular basis. Roger's reviews help me overcome much of the macro-negativity that the in-aggregate review sites like IMDB, and Rottentomatoes tend to offer. I don't want to waste my time with poor films, I don't think anyone does, but rarely have I been dissipointed when Roger gives a generally perceived nagative movie movie a 3* rating, and explains the humanitarian issues and character transformations.
I can go on and on, but to you Mr. Ebert I thank you for your love of humanity though your love of film.
many thanks both to you and to Mr Wakeling, who has hit it on the head - I always thought I preferred your commentary to others because of a general mid-western unpretentiousness - though intellectually the equal of the east and west coasters who wear their merit badges on their sleeves, yet not forgetting the whole point is to engage a story on its own grounds and then to step outside it and engage it on one's own grounds - and after it all, to enjoy - I guess that's all true enough but Wakeling has seen more deeply - perhaps it's because of your catholic upbringing (apparently less troubling to you than to others) which brought a sense of calm understanding to "Passion of the Christ" vs. the uncomprehending horror of most others? - I saw it also, to a degree, in your former colleague, Gene Siskel, so perhaps it comes from a sense of rootedness in an ancient tradition (whatever one's relation to it is at present) - it makes me want to read your autobiography and ask, "is there redemption in Darwin?" - again, thanks
Call me gauche, but I actally found the ending of The Last Samurai extremely moving. Of course on the macrocosmic level, the entire concept of the film is somewhat, I don't want to say offensive, but it's certainly something. But on the microcosmic level, on the level of the individual characters and the drama they play out and the arc that the protagonist goes through, I found it a very moving and satisfying experience, and I've been moved to tears at the end almost every time I've watched it.
Another movie that always breaks me down is Saving Private Ryan, a movie which is in some ways about the entire western civilization trying to find redemption.
And of course Schindler's List has to top my all time tears inducing list.
Mr. Ebert,
I completely understand your inclusion of JUNO... as I was reading the journal entry, in the back of my head, I was scouring through films and asked myself "Do any recent films qualify for me?". Instantly, I thought of JUNO and was very pleased to see it mentioned.
For me it was a combination (or culmination) of many different factors; the characters who I grew to love and admire, the song being played by Pauley Bleeker, the sentimentality of the moment (and still not overdone) as well as the style being exhibited by the director, Jason Reitman (the final shot has no cuts and runs for a good 3+ minutes). The tears that I shed were truly tears of joy!
Another fairly recent film that had a tear-inducing effect on me was the under-appreciated DONNIE DARKO. The choice of self-sacrifice that Donnie makes to save the pain, humiliation and death of people in his life, both those that he loves and those that he doesn't, couldn't be easy for anyone... yet Donnie sits in his bed and smiles, knowing what is to be his fate. Beautiful cinematic moment.
After just viewing Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" for the second time, I was moved by it all the more. It dealt with death in a very comforting and philosophical way. I'm not sure if Altman knew this would've been his last film but he couldn't have gone out with a more perfect message.
i have to comment on the above posters statements regarding Seven ; I don't disagree with the opinion of liking or not liking the film . However your reasons given do not seem to be fair or to understand the point of the movie .
I have always been of the opinion that you take movies for what they are . If you go see Zombie Holocaust , you don't compare it with The Seven Samurai , you compare it to all the other sleazefest exploitation movies you've ever seen. ( not that i am comparing Seven to sleaze ) .
Remember movies are made for the general public ( generally ) and therefor only ask that the audience have a perfunctory knowledge of the subject matter ( in this case the seven deadly sins )The fact that you were in the midst of studying said subject matter probably made you over analytical and less open to the theme of it .
If you are an astro physics major and watch Star Wars , if you find yourself sitting there chuckling under your breath at the stupidness of light sabres haven't you missed the point of the movie ? Seven was not about teaching us the nature of the seven deadly sins , but rather about the lengths that people will go to express their selfish will , that monsters in the dark are just ,at their root,people like you and me that have jobs . The sins are almost there as a comparison between the wrath of God and the Wrath of man . Man's wrath seems worse sometimes ...
Roger I totally agree with you. I rarely cry or am moved to cry by films that simply feature sadness. I am almost always more moved to cry by films that show people sacrificing themselves, facing insurmountable odds and fighting for good no matter the cost. Films like these make me cry.
The scene in "Spider-Man 2" when Spidey stops the train from going off the rails and is sapped of all his strength and is then lifted on the hands of the train passengers and protected by them almost always moves me to tears.
Also, some of the final scenes of M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" in which ordinary people find greatness in themselves to protect Story move me to tears.
I definitely agree that simply showing something sad onscreen doesn't usually work as much as some of the things I have listed above.
King Daevid, for your Religion and Film class. I'd recommend Chasing Amy. His failure to forgive her for having a threesome with two guys leads to their breakup. a profoundly Christian concept.
But I have an odd situation. I cried at Schindler's list and think it's a good film. But I remember I also cried at Free Willy(I was 10 then). More. So are tears of childhood meaningless and superficial? Are my tears at 19 more meaningful than those at 10? Or is Free Willy a better film than Schindler's List? Half in jest but still...
When it comes down to movies in which people are in search of redemption, i always remember mystic river and the hours. i think these two movies could be in my "emotionally devastating film" list. to both of them, i could only think that, no metter what, those people could never find redemption. Actually, there's another movie, a brazilian movie, called "LavourArcaica". I think the english title would be "To The Left of The Father". It is the, for me, the best brazilian movie of all time. It is imperious, demanding of all our emotions when we watch it. Everyone should see this movie. Rober, have you seen it?
Your description of what it takes for a movie to make you emotional is spot-on to how I feel. This is exactly why I always enjoy reading your reviews - you can put into words what I (usually) feel, in a way I never could.
As for other movies that can evoke an emotional response, another that immediately jumps to mind is 'Pan's Labyrinth'... for the same reasons you mention in your essay. Those last few minutes get me every time... even hearing the music outside the movie still gets me choked up.
One movie with a similar theme that never fails to take my breath away is my favorite Martin Scorsese film, “The Age of Innocence”. The two lead characters, played by Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer, have the possibility of living in a relationship most of us would be lucky to ever experience, but they decide not to act on their emotions purely out of the kindness of their hearts. It’s true that a union between them would result in them being publically shamed and marginalized for the rest of their lives, but the real reason for their sacrifice is that they couldn’t bear to burden others with that shame. The last few minutes, where this becomes clear, and where an even deeper level is revealed by the story when we find out that “someone [knew of the sacrifice], and pitied”, are some of the most overwhelming scenes of any movie I’ve ever seen.
And I think I understand the “Juno” reference. It’s clear that the girl’s decision of what to do with the baby breaks her heart, but she makes it because she knows she will provide both the baby and someone else in the story with a lifetime of stability and deep emotional fulfilment by doing so.
Another suggestion for the Religion and Film class: "Sweetland," a tiny film about a small, rural religious community in the 1920's. A mail order bride arrives and is going to marry one of the farmers, but when they realize she is German rather than Norwegian, everything gets complicated, since Germans were known to be evil back then.
I don't see a review of it on Roger's website - it may have come out while he was in the hospital. Roger, if you read these comments, you should check it out. I thought of EbertFest when I saw it on DVD.
I would also include "Hoop Dreams" which was the first movie that made me cry in the theatre and the first movie that came to mind when I read the blog entry.
"It's a Wonderful Life" is not an original choice for this category but I like the forgiveness it has for many of its characters and the self-sacrifice that motivates so many of the actions in the movie.
I will also admit to having cried over reviews Ebert has written about movies I love such as his review of "Man in the Moon."
Gunter--Re 6 Feet Under, keep going. The serie's finale is one of the most reaffirming and joyous endings I've watched on TV.
I find I haven't seen many of these films posted about here. While I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that, I agree whole heartedly with the underlying principle.
I think I find that principle at work in more "intimate" films: "Liam", "Remains of the Day", "Lost in Translation", "Moonlight Mile", "The Trip to Bountiful", "13 Conversations About One Thing", "American Beauty".
I can watch movies for just entertainment (although I now pick and choose this very carefully; my time and attention are not to be squandered on dreck), but the ones that stay with me, that I think about later and often wonder about the future of the characters within them are the ones that contain some element of a working through to grace or redemption on the part of one of the characters.
I found this same principle working in my fiction choices. I need courage, fortitude and honesty on the pages: the characters must ring true, the events must cohere within the parameters of that world. I can find that integrity in a murder mystery--I am not necessarily talking about Literature. Given that, I am left with a question: if we consider fiction and film to be art, are they more closely related in a substructure or mythical way than perhaps we are usually aware of? Is it enough to say that I like that film or this novel because of the humanitarian generosity contained within it or do these forms of entertainment appeal to us because of deeper factors? I'm familiar with Jung's collective unconscious--is that what's at work here?
I hope that was clear. I didn't mean to change the focus from films. I just noticed the similarity of my choices in film and books and wondered if others here had as well. And could this nature of things translate into art, dance, music? Just a few thoughts...
I don't even care that this'll sound corny, but Spock's death scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Kirk's eulogy still kill me. I felt ripped off when the next movie totally nullified the whole thing, but at the moment Spock's sacrifice was noble and real.
How could it not be understandable that "Juno" also belongs to such a list? But it should be said it may be to each one a very different thing exactly what makes it understandable. I have my very own memories of which movies brought me to tears, and it surprises me that the first ones I thought of were not the truly, overtly dramatic pictures, if one can say such a thing, but the ones so innocent in their own making, sometimes I suspect not even the writers and directors are aware of how much they´ve have said. Nor could or should they - understanding is not the same as knowing, taking control of something, but, I suspect, is responding to what is seen in the manner in wich it asks us, demands us to respond. I cried at the very end of Jean Pierre Jeunet´s "A very long Engagement" as if I were myself in love; Takashi Koizumi´s "After the Rain", written by Kurosawa, is so unconditional simple and straightforward it´s overwhelming; Marc Foster´s "Stranger than Fiction" belongs to the gallery of exact, perfect movies side-by-side with "Groundhog Day"; Yasujiro Ozu´s "Grave of the Fireflies" is nothing short of unbearable. That, or I´m corny and sentimental by nature.
This was NOT Jodie Boyer's comment. It was Jason's comment:
"Very interesting stuff here... a "humanitarian philosophy and dealing with concepts like redemption" animate Roger Ebert's work.
Ebert says,"What gets to me are the films about goodness--about people acting bravely or generously or in self-sacrifice."
I feel I understand that. Thinking back, at this moment I remember "The Elephant Man" made me cry. I do think it was the compassionate doctor (Anthony Hopkins) that got me. And the scene when Merrick was at a theater and he received applause. Merrick seemed such a gentle soul and the way he appreciated the small amount of kindness he recieved was moving to me after he suffered so much.
The other one that popped into my head was -I feel a little embarrassed to say it-- "Forrest Gump". It's a silly movie, but at the end when all of a sudden it is in real time after him going through his whole life story, which added so much weight to what then happens, it connected with me. Seeing the way Forrest reacts to discovering he's a father and the wedding when he and Jenny are on the lawn and Lt. Dan and his wife meet them. When Forrest tells Jenny that she was always with him wherever he was and their are those beautiful shots. And then after Jenny dies and Forrest is talking to her about their son. Well that got me. I admit it.
There are others that now come to mind, but those are a couple. Anyway.
Having been a fan of his reviews for some time I definitely believe that a humanitarian philosophy is present in Roger Ebert's work."
John's comment about "scenes of parent-child reconciliation" brings to mind Robert Redford's seemingly forgotten (despite a Best Picture win) "Ordinary People." I think that film speaks straight to the heart of anyone who has grown up in a middle or upper class American family. True, there are some weak moments, mostly in the very Hollywood pcychotherapy scenes (despite Judd Hirsch's fine acting), which resort to the "big moment of revelation" device and other clichés. Nevertheless, the film is one of my favorites. The sibling rivalry, the superficiality of most of the social interactions, the main character's feeling of being at odds with his suburban world: all these elements are perfectly combined and portrayed, leading up to one of my favorite endings in any movie. Those final few shots in which Conrad (Timothy Hutton) says, "I love you, Dad," and his father (Donald Sutherland, in one of his finest, warmest performances) replies, "I love you, too," are totally devastating, to use Mr. Ebert's word. It is not terribly clever dialogue, to say the least, but to hear such simple, direct, heartfelt words spoken between these characters releases most, if not all, of the tension of what has gone before. Then they embrace each other, the camera pans out, and Pachelbel's Canon swells on the soundtrack. What a perfect moment.
I saw someone early on mention "Six Feet Under" as something that devestated them. I agree 100 percent. The final episode drained me in the same way the death of a family member has. As a matter of fact, I would very much love to know Mr. Ebert's opinion of the show as a whole. I think he would have some illuminating commentary.
Come to think of it, there are a lot of quality television shows that I would like to know Mr. Ebert's opinion on. Perhaps someday, he might share with us his opinions on "Six Feet Under", "Sopranos", "Lost", etc.
It might make a very neat addition to his already excellent website! ;-)
I believe that Atom Egoyan's magnificent "Exotica" (and "Sweet Hereafter too) need to be mentioned.
What I like about your style, in reviewing movies is an attention to the art of great film-making, which is truly great storytelling, just as is great literature, theatre, or art of any kind. I see that Roeper wants to go to this format of "see it" or "don't see it", and to me a film is more than that. I think you could say a movie is bad, but still lightly recommend seeing it. The true purpose of a great review is to critique a film's artistic merit. There are movies I watch that I would say are forgettable, but enjoyable, and then there are films that are truly masterpieces worth seeing. Some films you don't even particularly enjoy seeing, but they are such greats work of art that one's life gains new insights through having seen it. That's what great movies are. They're not just pointless, mindless entertainment, but great storytelling that leaves us with richer lives, and a better understanding of the world around us - or at the very least a better understanding of just how little we really know.
I find it very appropriate that this was the first thing I read after watching "Lars and the Real Girl" a movie that perfectly exemplifies what you're talking about. I've been an avid reader of your reviews since recieving your first volume of "Great Film" essays as a gift and have found that each one of the films analyzed in the book tends to deal with grace recieved or grace averted, but always the search for grace in spite of our imperfections and foibles. "Ikiru", "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", and "Floating Weeds" are just three of the films that embrace these ideals. I owe the discovery of these films to your "Great Film" essays. They continue to be an aid in creating small scale film school and humanities class with my friends and family. Thanks so much for those essays as well as sharing your film credo with us.
"Come to think of it, there are a lot of quality television shows that I would like to know Mr. Ebert's opinion on."
Mr. Ebert has stated on several occasions that he hardly ever watches TV. I wish he did. Then again, I would also love to read his opinions and analysis of politics, religion, or the relative benefits of a carbon tax vs. the cap-and-trade system.
I suppose there is only so much we can ask of him.
(BTW, Roger - barring another debilitating accident, are we going to see you in Toronto this fall? Pleeeese?)
Remembering the tears at the end of Schindler's List brings to mind the powerful ending of Lee's Malcolm X, and how I cried and nearly stood in the theater to declare in aspiration that "I am Malcolm X".
I'm curious about that too, Jeremy. Has Roger seen the Wire? What shows does he like?
The end of "Six Feet Under" is amazing. I too would love to hear Roger's opinion on some of the amazing T.V shows of late. I think a few televised programs have begun matching great films in quality and depth.
A movie that moves me to tears just thinking about it is "In America." The last scene absolutely kills me. "Say goodbye to Frankie, Dad." Ohhhh man. The man is finally letting go of his son's death. He's crying for the first time in at least a year, and I'm crying right along with him. Movies like "Schindler's List" or "Braveheart" or even "Ikiru" have definitely made me cry, but for some reason "In America" is the big one for me.
Mike S:
That movie exists on its own for me. Spock's sacrifice really got to me when I first saw the film, and it still does. Good call, not embarrassing at all!
Some have called The Elephant Man manipulative or inaccurate, but I don't think an accurate portrayal of his life is necessarily the point. I think if you look at him as a victim of a specific disease then it becomes difficult to defend the movie's decisions, but if the audience identifies with him and his isolation in some way, like I feel I did, then it becomes greater than its surface. That's a deeply affecting movie, I agree.
I have to mention the lost and overlooked "Ladybird, Ladybird", from Ken Loach. Like most of his films from before 8 or 10 years ago they're all sort of lost on VHS. I found it and it's haunted me ever since. It's basically about a woman who is her own worst enemy. She's got 4 kids by apparently 4 different guys. It's fascinating to watch her struggle and never quite get things together. I just lost it the first time I saw it, and it had everything to do at the time with the fact that I'd recognized people like her out of the hard lives that I came from, but that I was fortunate enough to have gotten out. Movies about hard lives, the working class, and day-to-day endurance fascinate me to no ends.
Then I discovered Mike Leigh and it was the same feeling. "All or Nothing" is very special. Timothy Spahl as the father in that is spectacular. I discovered those films from watching "Siskel & Ebert". It's funny, but it was at about that point that I realized that other countries could tell working class stories better than us a good deal of the time. Something about being able to evoke "the struggle" in a very pure way and without comment.
And I have to mention also, "Half Moon", by the director who made "Turtles Can Fly" and "A Time For Drunken Horses". I thought "Half Moon" was going to make it over here like the previous two, but it just fell off the radar. It's about an old Kurdish musician on his way to play one last concert in Iraq, if he can make it there. It's essentially a road movie, and it could almost play on a double-bill with "the Band's Visit". There's a bus, a band, checkpoints, detours, a looming war from the west, and one of the most haunting scenes I can remember from the last few years about a "village of 10,000 lost voices".
Yup, there's nothing like a movie "that's really about something" as either Siskel or Ebert would say about once every couple weeks or so.
interesting stuff, i too find that "weepies" leave me very cold and feeling slightly manipulated...i often have the experience of watching a "sad" film and finding myself surrounded by sniffling people at the end, while i am still dry eyed. happened with "la huitieme jour", "forrest gump" and, despite what a lot of people above say, "shawshank".
the climactic scenes of "paris, texas" and "the deer hunter" usually bring me very near to tears...i thinkk these films, and others that have the same effect, do so by creating a crescendo of intense "emotionalness" without actually telling you that you should be crying, like more manipulative films do.
as for religious films, i would say that "the seventh seal" is probably the best film that deals explicitly with all the big religious issues...but more recently, i thought the religious ideas knocking around "there will be blood" were also interesting in the light of the materialism/spiritualism debate. let us know what you do pick in the end.
The first movie I cried at was "Robin and Marian". None of the thousands of films I had seen previous to that made me cry, but when Sean Connery shot the arrow out the window of the tower and said, "Where this arrow falls, plant us there and leave us be," I just lost it.
The most crying I have done at a movie was when I finally saw "West Side Story" last year. I was bawling like a little girl! I'll never watch it again!
-Ralphie
Looking at the screen shot you've chosen for this blog, I can't help but be reminded of Michelangelo's Pieta. The poses are parallel, the camera lingers on this, and I can't believe I haven't noticed this before. I can't say whether or not this was intentional on Bergman's part, but I think now - maybe it was. At any rate, the emotional resonance of the sculpture endows the act with a larger gravity. Just a thought.
I'm always surprised by the films that bring me to tears. Or maybe it's more fair to say I remember and love best the movies that surprised me in the way they brought to tears. I expected to cry at "Schindler's List" (which I don't mean as a knock on that film--but I'd have been disappointed if I didn't weep at a three-hour epic about the Holocaust). Instead I'm thinking of movies like "You Can Count on Me," which made me cry at the end only because I'd gotten to know and love its characters so well--because each of them was crying for different reasons, and I cried with each of them for the same reasons. And then there's my favorite film of all time--Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter." I cried twice during that movie--once during the school bus crash (when I was supposed to) and again at its extraordinary ending, which manages to find an incredibly complex vision of redemption amidst the wreckage of the town's memory.
I'll also never forget the first time I cried at the movies--at the end of "Broadcast News." I was a teenager, and identified pretty strongly with Albert Brooks' character. That he didn't end up with Holly Hunter's Jane was devastating to me--but not as devastating as understanding why. That was the first time I really saw how beautiful it is that a smart movie, about "real" characyers, can defy convention. And it hurt like hell.
Let me add to the chorus: I wouldn't have gone to see "Broadcast News" if Roger Ebert hadn't urged me to. Ditto "Sweet Hereafter" and "You Can Count on Me." Thanks, Roger, for these and a hundred more--
Dear Mr. Ebert, thank you for this wonderful blog. I tend to be an Ebert loyalist because you write better than any other reviewer out there. I'm ashamed to admit that last year I wrote the Answer Man asking if you ever cried at movies and if you thought emotions hindered your objectivity. Of course, you didn't respond because those may be the most stupid, moronic questions that column has ever received! Of course, you are moved by films; you are not a movie-reviewin' robot. You're a fragile human being with a gift for opening up the beauty of films for the rest of us. When it comes to criticism, I suppose the bigger question should be is it possible ever to look at art objectively? And wouldn't there be something flawed in a person who claimed that he or she could?
The scene in "Cries and Whispers" that made me cry was the last one, with its sudden articulation and vision of a brief and fleeting moment of peace and happiness. And gratitude. You're shown a blissful moment of transcendence, and as a viewer you get to feel it, too. In a movie of devastating pain and loneliness, an ending scene that recalls a past moment of beauty and unity -- between the sisters, between Agnes and nature, Agnes and God (or the concept of God). That scene wrecked me. I've never been so surprised by a scene in any movie. "I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."
And I see how "Juno" would fit on the "list". Its ending, too, is one of transcendence, in which irony is dropped for sincerity.
The very last scene of About Schmidt, when Jack picks up the drawing by the little boy, always manages to find a tear in my eye. It's such a small token of appreciation from the child, but this moment fills my heart with overwhelming joy every time I see it. I think the build-up to the revelation of the drawing, in the context of the scene and the movie as a whole, is so perfect that we as an audience are crying even before we see Jack's reaction shot. (On another topic, a friend of mine who didn't like the film complained that the inclusion of the real life sponsor-a-child hotline before the end credits was cloyingly insincere, but I thought the film would have been faulted to not include it!)
Also, Cool Hand Luke, when Paul Newman starts to play guitar, gets me choked up every time.
And cheers to the member who mentioned that final scene from Ordinary People!
Like you and others here, I tend not to get emotional when the movie is blatantly "set up" to trigger that emotion. That said, Steven Spielberg has made me weep more than any other director (perhaps no more so than at the end of "Saving Private Ryan," when Ryan asks his wife if he has led a good life). I'm amazed that no one has mentioned Scout's recognition of Robert Duvall in "To Kill A Mockingbird" with the line "Hey, Boo," which makes my eyes water every time I think about it. Finally, the end of "Brief Encounter," when Celia Johnson's husband tells her that, whereever her sadness has taken her, he is glad that she has returned to him, is one of the bravest and most touching lines of dialogue I have heard in the movies, and it gets to me every time.
And thank you, Roger, for continuing to expand the scope of cinema for me and countless others.
I would like to thank you for introducing "Ikiru" into my life through your Great Movies series. When I finished the movie I wanted to be a better person, and set about doing it. I may not be 100% successful, I am still too lazy sometimes, but I'm working on it. The image of Kanji on the swing and the women who show up to pay tribute to him are forever etched in my mind.
Jason:
I agree with you re "Ordinary People", another picture tailored to a smaller scale. "The Accidental Tourist" is in that same vein, IMO.
What kind of pictures are these called? More intimate, smaller? I don't know the terminology, but those are the ones I appreciate most. I don't need or want grand spectacle--Ben Hur or massive CGI stuff leaves me cold.
I am so easily caught by movies--I cry at any tearjerky scene, even when I know (and resent) that I'm being manipulated. I cannot watch horror of any type due to the fear I feel (I am not entertained by fear). Oddly enough, I do not laugh easily at comedies and get irked by poor timing or false premises in comedic films. But to see a film such as "Little Miss Sunshine" that show whole, flawed characters coming into themselves and celebrating that--that's both funny, poignant and redeeming (and one of my favorite films) and I can laugh freely--or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the film has earned my laughter.
"Working Girl" is another one. "Age of Innocence" is slightly grander, but that movie stunned me--the tension fraught in each scene with Leland(?) and the Countess... and then the devastating ending. Juno fits right into this type of film for me. Her disillusionment regarding the "dad" to be and her subsequent solidarity with the "expectant" mom were quite moving. Luckily for me, there are lots of these films (but not as many as I'd like!)
Lloyd Miller: was your rxn to the finale of 6 Feet Under due to the series ending or the events of the finale? Most people I've discussed it with are filled with hope and loss--a bittersweet mix, but with hope primary. That was not your rxn? I'm curious as to why, but reluctant to post spoilers here.
Before I have a Lindsay Lohan celebrity meltdown, can I correct a minor error. My name is spelt with three o's. Though not even remotely Jewish I have a lovely Jewish name, chosen by my Father because of its three syllables which he thought musical, and by my Mother because it means "peace". We all bear the burden of our family history: this is mine.
I think a blog takes a while to develop, but in your case you already have a built in audience. The dynamics of the medium are different from traditional publishing, more immediate, more chaotic. I will watch with interest how it develops. I was a little surprised to think I might have done anything of note, but there we are. I hope and expect soon enough I will become inconspicuous again amongst a deluge of thoughtful contributors.
I loved Juno. I went to see it with a friend of mine who is very anti-abortion and a friend of hers. After reading your review I thought she might be interested because you wrote that Juno decides to keep the baby. Whilst they seemed to disapprove of much that was in the film, being committed Christians, they saw that it was sweet "in the end" and I feel like I did a good deed. They laughed, too, and you can't hide that.
I spoke to a friend of mine who is about Juno's age to see what she thought and she said she liked it but thought that Mark was going to hit on Juno, and instead after that point he just disappears from the story. This didn't bother me as I tended to fill in the blanks myself, but I think it's a valid observation. The movie peers over the abyss, steps back, then goes in another direction.
Chan Marshall's version of "Sea of love", coming at the close of the film, is a song I am familiar with and associate with the past. I'm not safe anywhere. I don't know if I cried but I was certainly moved, and more than that, won over.
I was also moved listening to Courtney Love's commentary on "The People vs Larry Flynt". That might sound like an odd place to look but in terms of redemption, or at least, building a new life, it showed me a little of how this strong and intelligent woman has survived. She said: I don't want to be that person anymore. I know what that is like. Then listening to the "About a son" documentary there is a single moment when you hear her interrupt Kurt, asking him to make a bottle for their daughter or some kind of domestic thing like that, and it was deeply sad, knowing what was to come.
Ebert: So sorry!
Enduring and redemption don't affect me in the same way. I consider them happy endings (among the few truly happy endings) and though I am often uplifted perhaps even inspired by them, I rarely am moved to tears. What moves me to tears is the particularly poignant moments of recognition--especially tragic recognition. The first one that comes to mind is Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (and Abre Los Ojos, of course, but Crowe's version hits me harder). At the end David Aames meets his customer service representative and his nightmare is explained to him. There is a moment at which he realizes that the life he wanted with Sofia never actually happened, that he is still grossly disfigured, that he committed suicide and is currently frozen and experiencing a virtual reality, and that hundreds of years have passed and his best friend and true love are long dead. It all comes to him and the audience at once and it is all almost too much to handle. I think I actually start to tear up when a second minor moment of recognition occurs. His psychiatrist (the performance of a lifetime by Kurt Russell) is still fighting, trying to believe or assert his own existence. But he is an figment of David's imagination and eventually succumbs to this. He's imaginary even within the imaginary construct of the movie itself but his becoming conscious of this fact is as real a moment as anything I've ever seen on film. And then, to top it all off, David's imaginary Sofia appears to him. They are both now aware of what has occurred and that their life together had happened entirely within David's mind. It doesn't hurt that Penelope Cruz has never more stunningly beautiful than she was against the backdrop of those Monet-painted skies, but the moment when David looks into her eyes and she (who is in fact a part of David's mind speaking to himself) gives him a reassuring look and gives him an ambiguous wave (a definitive hello and just as definitive goodbye). This is when I break down. What appears here to be a happy ending is extremely tragic to me. All of David's hopes and dreams, as real as they have been in this world, have been extinguished in a way and he's been abruptly placed on the precipice of a new world where he is going to have to find new hopes and dreams. Incredibly wealthy in his old life, his funds have dwindled down to nothing in this one. Not only will the world around him be different but he has never known the kind of life he is about to face. He'll have to forget his old life as much as he can just to survive in this new one. And this fact descends on him and the audience all at once. That's the kind of movie moment that actually moves me to tears.
I can be moved to tears as much as anyone else on this blog by a well written/acted scene. But I find that what really starts my tears flowing is well written or chosen music. And it doesn't have to be soft piano and violins overlaying a tragic scene, either (although that does work, I'll admit). Something that stirs the crowd to emotion, be it happy, sad or angry.
Examples:
The moment when the static crackles and the orchestra swells as "Apollo 13" breaks past the radio blackout. Even though you know history has already recorded that the astronauts survived, you still feel that leap of joy.
When Jessie the Cowgirl (voice of Sarah McLachlan) wistfully sings "When She Loved Me" during "Toy Story 2." You feel her pain more through the song than you do the images on screen.
James Horner's stirring theme when Ripley is escaping the planet before the bomb goes off; then the same music again as she's trying to escape the pull of the airlock. It's a successful theme: I've heard it used in more than one action movie trailer.
I don't usually cry during movies (although I tear up a lot), but two movies have pushed me over the edge and turned me into a human waterworks. The first was "United 93," both because it took me back in time to one of the most emotional days I've ever lived through, and also because like Roger, I find self-sacrifice incredibly moving, and those people sacrificed everything they had to save God knows how many hundreds of people.
I also cried during "Do the Right Thing." I knew how it would end before I saw it, but Lee did such a good job showing how blacks and whites could get along (for all of their differences, Sal and Mookie obviously care about each other) that even when people were destroying the pizza shop, part of me still hoped that maybe - just maybe - things would still work out in the end. Of course, they didn't, so I cried.
Great call on "You Can Count on Me," Christopher Coake. Speaking on a personal level, it is a film which I connect with deeply because it so nearly reflects my own relationship with my sister (with the roles reversed, and without a child); the end of the film beautifully captures what our love for each other is all about, and I almost get choked up just thinking about it.
I also feel we would all be remiss if nobody mentioned "City Lights." Who can't relate to (and be deeply moved by) the sad, lonely tramp, knowing all too well how imperfect he is, being accepted all the same by the woman he loves? It is a story that's been told a million times (mostly recently in every Judd Apatow film), but never with such a blend of joy and melancholy as Charlie Chaplin could produce.
Just a few comments:
The ending of American Beauty usually gets me...and I'm talking about Kevin Spacey's voice-over, how he sums up his life in a few sentences. I think because I was a Boy Scout, I love that line about looking at stars...but what kills me is the delivery of the line "and the first time I saw my cousin's Firebird." It's a joyous memory, but unlike looking at stars or meeting your wife, it's pretty unconventional.
Also...Adaptation. I know that Charlie Kaufman is pulling our leg with Donald's big speech at the end, but really...I think Kaufman (in real life) means every word that Donald says. Just that smile Donald has the entire time kills me...ahh, usually the last ten minutes of that film or so I'm pretty bad. It's so...heavy.
Truth makes me cry. Even a fleeting glimpse of it turns me into mush, and has an adverse affect on my objectivity in regarding a film on its own terms.
Take, for example, the 1999 remake of The Out-of-Towners. Ostensibly, it's not a great flick, but a couple of scenes moved the crap out of me, and they still do. Seeing off their daughter to college in NYC, Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn have a wonderful scene, where, each one, surreptitously, tells their daughter to give the other parent a big hug, since they are not taking the whole thing too well. As if that wasn't enough, the two then come home to an empty nest, and just go through the motions, trying to avoid the void. Those two scenes get to me. They are understated, and acted with sincerity (and seem somewhat incongruous in a film that also features John Cleese in drag, strutting his stuff to Donna Summer's Bad Girls). You could use those two scenes in a better film with the same premise (a has-been middle-aged exec tries to prove to himself, and his wife, that he still has a lot to offer the world), and end up with a wonderful companion piece to No Country For Old Men. No kidding.
King Daevid MacKenzie,
I encourage you, strongly, to consider adding "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "Tender Mercies" to your class lists. Quite different from one another, but both excellent and sincere portrayals of faith on film. In which characters wrestle with sin and redemption, guilt and grace. Wishing you success in the class.
By the way, isn't it Solomon Wakeling, as in the Biblical figure, and not Soloman?
I am going to have to write in polite protest to Tom Schorsch's comments on the movie "Seven" as I feel he has overlooked the point of the film and unfairly criticized it based on a thematic misunderstanding.
The final words in the film are Det. Sommerset's voice over stating "Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part." Call me crazy, but I find this to be an incredibly noble statement and in it we can find the humanity so many find to be absent from this film.
The idea is that evil, pure evil, exists and will poke its ugly, destructive head into our lives on this planet. We are not safe from monsters simply because we declared them to be fictional. There is a presence on this planet that can and will destroy many of us without warning, without explaination, without remorse and, worst of all, often times without justice. John Doe in Seven personifies this menace, whatever it may be.
However, what the line by Sommerset implies is that in spite of this, it is still a worthwhile pursuit to attempt to bring some peace and some balance and some sense of "goodness" to the world even if it feels like a futile effort. Yes, the film ends inarguably on a downright ugly and depressing note. But it's important to remember who the main character of this film is and who we, the audience, are meant to relate to, and that is the character of Sommerset.
In the beginning of the film, we find the aging detective on the brink of retirement and wallowing in apathy, regret, and general disdain for his profession. He feels he has made no difference in his line of work as a police officer, and he is worn down by years of being exposed to the absolute worst of human misery and suffering. By the end, though, he has decided not to retire and quotes the afforementioned line.
The world is not a fine place, he argues, and almost challenges you to defy that assertion. But, by saying the world IS worth fighting for, he is stating that the achievement of peace is intrinsically less important than the pursuit of it, and this is something we all, as fragile bodies on a hostile planet, must accept in one way or another. Just because we face the horrors of mortality in all its forms does not mean we should relent and stop trying to overcome them. Whether we do that with a smile on our face or a stone sour grimace is irrelevant, so long as we keep doing it.
Mr. Schorsch is misguided in thinking we are meant to sympathize with the John Doe character. Some of us may agree with his opinions, but not his actions. That is what divides charcters like John Doe and even Det. Mills from Det. Sommerset. Sommerset knows the law and ultimately believes in it, even if he is convinced otherwise. He understands that, as an inhabitant of this planet, he can not put himself above others and act impulsively out of personal spite, unlike Mills or John Doe who both pass the point of rationality and fall victim to the deadly sins.
If Sommerset, as the protagonist of the film, had gone down the same path, then I would agree that this was an ugly and nihilistic film. But I do not see it that way. I feel this film and the character of Det. Sommerset reminds us that it can be just as honorable and noble to endure the slings and arrows of misfortune and go on fighting for a greater good even if one derives no satisfaction from it.
I loved this post, and am totally in agreement with you about the movies that made you cry (Ikiru in particular. Seeing that movie affected my life and my worldview in ways unimaginable for me previously. Really).
There are other films that touch me deeply, to the point of bursting into tears. Foremost among them are two Spielberg films: AI and ET, the ending of which still has me crying like a little child. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Spielberg. I find his movies tacky, shallow, and full of cliches. But man, he can move me to tears like no other director can. In the case of AI, for instance, I can't see the movie again because it effected me and touched me so deeply.
Just this week I saw another movie whose ending touched my heart and brought me to tears - Kosturica's Ungerground. The third part of the movie, and in particular the ending, had me in tears.
I'll admit to shedding a tear the first time I viewed The Color Purple (when I was 9 believe it or not), Silkwood (Meryl Streep singing "Amazing Grace" usually does the trick), and Imitation of Life. But I hate to admit that I ALMOST cried watching Fried Green Tomatoes (more than a couple time actually), and the oh-so-colorful Steel Magnolias...okay okay -- and Lady in the Water, but those were tears of joy...that is was finally over.
I loved this post, and am totally in agreement with you about the movies that made you cry (Ikiru in particular. Seeing that movie affected my life and my worldview in ways unimaginable for me previously. Really).
There are other films that touch me deeply, to the point of bursting into tears. Foremost among them are two Spielberg films: AI and ET, the ending of which still has me crying like a little child. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Spielberg. I find his movies tacky, shallow, and full of cliches. But man, he can move me to tears like no other director can. In the case of AI, for instance, I can't see the movie again because it effected me and touched me so deeply.
Just this week I saw another movie whose ending touched my heart and brought me to tears - Kosturica's Ungerground. The third part of the movie, and in particular the ending, had me in tears.
One of my most treasured experiences at the movies was made possible by reading your work over the past several years. This one regards the Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne film "Le Fils" - "The Son" (2003). At that time, I was a high school graduate and attending University was a year away. Your four-star review described the film's stylistic technique and the first few scenes down to its barest means. You explained how one would have to be "open to simplicity, depth, maturity, (and) silence" to appreciate it.
Midway through the review, you instructed that I must stop reading and only continue once I saw the film. Its funny how personable a reader becomes with a man he has never met. So I closed the review and sought after a movie theater showing "The Son". There were none.
Two months later, having not forgotten the title, "The Son" was made available for two days at the Pacific Cinematheque, an art house theater where I saw Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" for the first time. I had no idea what expect outside of what those first few paragraphs.
The film had me enraptured for the first half-hour, it was all build-up, until the reason the carpentry teacher (Olivier Gourmet) was so interested in the new student (Morgan Marinne) was made clear. The statement by the teacher's ex-wife (Isabella Soupart) in the gas station hit me hard. And from there on, I could not stop crying.
Following the Gourmet character so acutely and being unable to comprehend what is really on his mind transported me. I was deeply moved by his gestures to teach the young man a trade. A young man who unsuspectingly caused him paralyzing grief in the past.
It was heartening to share the yearning of the teacher to understand and possibly forgive the young man. The attempt at redemption against such cruel and grounded reality was immensely heroic. Even more so as the temptation of revenge teetered so close to tragedy. I loved these characters and the anticipation of their next actions tore my heart.
In the last twenty minutes of the film, I was balling my eyes out to the extent of covering my mouth to keep from screaming out my sobs. Once the film stopped, I walked out after the credits feeling sobered and beyond reach simultaneously. I felt an intoxication only a great work of humanistic art can provide. "The Son" became one of those few films that define me as a person. It helps most when times are tough.
Later that night, I came back home and read the rest of your review.
Ralphie, you're right about the end of "Robin and Marian," and I don't even think it's a very good movie. For me it's when Robin says "the sheriff fought bravely today" without a trace of irony.
A common response throughout this thread is a refusal to be moved by intentionally tear-jerking or "manipulative" films. Everyone's threshold for that is different. I choked up a bit at the end of "Schindler's List" but "Saving Private Ryan," just a few years later, didn't move me.
I think "cold" directors, who don't try to move you, can end up being the most moving because you don't feel manipulated. Kubrick, Malick, Peckinpah, David Lynch, Michael Mann, and even David Mamet have made me moist-eyed.
HAL 9000 getting turned off;
Barry Lyndon telling the story to his dying son;
Pocahontas' cartwheel at the end of "The New World, set to Wagner;
The two brothers finally meeting at the end of "The Straight Story" ("You drove all the way here? On that?");
Pacino and dying De Niro holding hands at the end of "Heat" ("I told you I was never going back");
The embrace at the end of "Redbelt;"
...and, of course, the end of "The Wild Bunch," in which the men have nothing to show for their evil and wasted lives except to say that they died rather then break their word to each other...that gets me choked up just thinking about it.
Roger: I agree - "weepies" rarely make weepy, yet films where the characters perform some act of self-sacrifice or bravery, those are the ones that get to me. I'd add one more category, and I have a feeling you'd agree, and that is films where characters display a profound sense of camaraderie. I'm thinking of the "Tiny Dancer" scene in Almost Famous - I just watched it again recently and I cried like a baby. When I analyze it, all I come up with is that camaraderie, the CONNECTION those characters feel at that moment.
"Million dollar baby" reminds me of a woman I met in a mental hospital a few years ago. She was Indigenous. The first time I saw her she had a black eye. I asked her if it was my fault, thinking in my delusion that the authorities had beaten her as an example to me. She said no, it was self-inflicted (a fact which is difficult to believe and then more difficult to explain), and my eyes began to well up. Later I threatened her, still thinking she was somehow working against me. Well, that's a black mark against me.
Still, we became friends, I spoke to her a little about Indigenous politics, asked her if this was Dharawal country and told her in all sincerity that I thought the rainbow serpent (A figure in Indigenous myth - it made the rivers and the canyons during the dreamtime) was protecting me. She said she had seen "Million Dollar Baby" and wanted to become a boxer. I think what she wanted was not to have the shit beaten out of her anymore. The world is unkind: whilst I was there another patient raped her.
Mystery of mysteries, whilst we were there a double rainbow appeared in the sky. I thought it was a single rainbow because the walls of the observation ward blocked my view. I can see now that such experiences are worth the year of study it cost me to lose my mind.
It's funny... I watched both Hoop Dreams and Ikiru for the first time on the same day my freshman year in college. I think I cried in both... but especially in Ikiru. I cry everytime I see that scene of him swinging in the snow. Grave of the Fireflies always gets me as well, and the end of Brokeback Mountain, especially when Heath Ledger's character breaks down.
The most recent film that almost bought me to tears was, oddly enough, Wall-E. I got so emotionally invested in the characters that *spoiler alert*at the end when, after Eve repairs Wall-E, she almost loses his personality and self, I honestly thought that Pixar would buck the trend and put a down ending to the film.end spoiler
In fact, it was the first Pixar film that as an adult I could emotionally connect to. Not to say that the others haven't, but there was something special and different about Wall-E that made a much more emotional and human movie. I think the human issues it brings up, as well as the excellent way Wall-E and the other robots were antropomorphised into something very affable and loving. It certainly belongs on the same level as the classic Studio Ghibli animated movies in terms of adding that humanistic level to animation... I just hope this isn't Pixar's magnum opus, and that it's a path to more films of that same caliber and angle.
It's funny... I watched both Hoop Dreams and Ikiru for the first time on the same day my freshman year in college. I think I cried in both... but especially in Ikiru. I cry everytime I see that scene of him swinging in the snow. Grave of the Fireflies always gets me as well, and the end of Brokeback Mountain, especially when Heath Ledger's character breaks down.
The most recent film that almost bought me to tears was, oddly enough, Wall-E. I got so emotionally invested in the characters that *spoiler alert*at the end when, after Eve repairs Wall-E, she almost loses his personality and self, I honestly thought that Pixar would buck the trend and put a down ending to the film.end spoiler
In fact, it was the first Pixar film that as an adult I could emotionally connect to. Not to say that the others haven't, but there was something special and different about Wall-E that made a much more emotional and human movie. I think the human issues it brings up, as well as the excellent way Wall-E and the other robots were antropomorphised into something very affable and loving. It certainly belongs on the same level as the classic Studio Ghibli animated movies in terms of adding that humanistic level to animation... I just hope this isn't Pixar's magnum opus, and that it's a path to more films of that same caliber and angle.
I didn't cry at any point until the end of "Life is Beautiful." And then I couldn't stop.
I was inspired by your post to look up the term "humanitarianism," and I was intrigued to find that it means a concern with -both- the "welfare and happiness" of people, a positive category, and the "alleviation of suffering," which is the negative valence that I had always attributed to the term. I had always understood that idea in the sense of the "humanitarian intervention," that dinosaur from the Clinton era, in which people are protected or saved -from- something. But the impossibly open notion of "happiness" gets us beyond human rights and necessity; indeed, it joins those political states with the realm of the personal. For me it is that conjunction which is at the heart of your criticism: the nexus of our own lives with the larger world.
A difficult question: what, exactly, does it mean to be "moved" by a film? What is happening to us when we empathize with a character's experience, fictional or non-fictional? Not saying I have an easy answer here. But I feel like this is what you were getting at when you said you didn't go for "weepies," which aim for a kind of comfort, or entertainment, in pathos. Instead, it's like you're suggesting there might be a -model-, an ethics, that the greatest films don't shy away from.
I think about your discussion of Nicholas Roeg's "Walkabout," which I recently had the pleasure of re-viewing at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. Here what is moving is not so much the overcoming of a great challenge (escaping the Outback), which in the end occurs quite matter-of-factly. Instead it is the -failure- of the characters to connect that is so devastating.
It is devastating because it rings true. This "ringing true" is the quality that separates great films from all others. That, for me, is what is moving, and not necessarily humanitarianism. I am not certain, however, that I can explain what this quality would mean. Something about the "true" has to remain open and unknown, so that new works of art can re-define what that is.
I feel redundant for even mentioning this film, but I've never cried so hard at a film as the first time I saw CITY LIGHTS. I think on it whenever I feel hopeless about the evil that the human race is capable of. The ending is so beautiful and sad. It makes me cry and laugh with so much emotion that I don't know quite know what to do with myself.
Another film that devistated me was ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. I don't understand how anyone who has ever been through a difficult break-up could be unaffected by that movie. Joel recalls the tender moment in which Clemintine bares her soul to him in an extremely intimate moment that is only shared by two people with a deep connection - even if that connection was fleeting. It's something that only they shared, and she chose to share it with him. He begs to hold onto just that one memory and realizes that through the pain she caused him, destroying the memory of her would also destroy a part of him. That film was the beginning of my own personal journey in forgiving an ex of mine that really hurt me. While the credits rolled, I felt as if I had been punched in the gut, and I didn't want to leave the cinema.
To piggy-back on a previous comment, I have also wondered on Mr. Ebert's thoughts on television. I always claim to dislike television in general, but there are a few shows which are exceptional pieces of art and/or social commentary: THE WIRE, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, and ROME, just to name a few.
What do you say, Roger? I would love to see a blog entry or two on your thoughts concerning quality television. As a fellow Chicago resident, I've enjoyed your writing for years and years, and it's great to have you back and writing often! =)
In a movie not known for its emotional subtlety, Randy Quaid's kamikaze attack on the alien mothership in Independence Day always makes me tear up.
Quaid knows he's basically been a loser his whole life. He realizes he has this one chance to redeem himself. So he takes a last look at the photo of his kids, says goodbye, and does what needs to be done, sacrificing himself in the process.
I'll throw in my slightly embarrassing movie that still makes my eyes tear up...
Iron Giant. Hist 'Superman' flight at the end just gets me.
The scene at which my eyes annually well up is in the old "Miracle on 34th Street" with Edmund Guinn as Saint Nick. In an early scene he's serving as Santa Claus at Macy's when a little Dutch (I think) war orphan is brought to him. She's sad because she misses her homeland and because no one can speak Dutch with her. Her face is a monument to despair. Nick takes her up on his knee and begins to speak Dutch to her and her sadness is transformed into joy. She has a link to what she has loved. They sing (presumably) a Dutch Christmas song together and her transformation is complete.
I live my life in earnest desire of making a difference in someone's life just like that scene.
Roger, you have helped influence the way I see the movies. I listen to your comments, your reviews, I’ve gone back and watched you and Gene in The Balcony Archives and what I have gotten from you, ever since I started reading your reviews in 1992, is an insight into the world of films that I don’t get from any other critic. The best thing I get from you is a nudge toward films that I might otherwise never have even been introduced to.
In 1992, when I became a regular viewer of “Siskel and Ebert”, and all incarnations thereafter, I was encouraged to break out of the mold of following the flock into the weekend’s gigantic new opening. I became interested in films that few people had seen, I found myself having to really search to find Being John Malkovich, The Scent of Green Papaya, City of God, Brother’s Keeper, The Three Buriels of Melquiades Estrada, Almost Famous, Belle de Jour, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control and believe or not Citizen Kane. I don’t see these films because you simply recommend them but because your insights inspire me to want to reach further in my moviegoing experience. I don’t just want to be entertained (although junkfood is nice every now and then), I want to take something away from it that gives me a new perspective on humanity. That’s what art is supposed to do.
There is something in particular that I have to thank you for. Without you, I might never have heard of a beautiful Japanese film called Wandâfuru raifu (or After Life) which chronicles several newly-dead people who arrive at a small mid-station somewhere between life and the eternal lodging. Examining the prospect of memory and of the one single moment that we would like to take with us across the Heavenly threshold it opened my mind to the idea of how feeble and empty our lives are without the experience we take with us. They say “you can’t take it with you” but if we have our memories, we don’t really need anything else. I don’t cry at the movies but that film gave me an perspective on this brief life that was more emotional that just about anything I had ever seen before.
I'm glad you mentioned Bergman. I just discovered him recently, believe it or not, and watched "The Silence" and "Fanny and Alexander" last week, with "Through A Glass Darkly", "Winter Light" and "Cries and Whispers" coming in the mail via Netflix this next month. I wish I had become familiar with his work earlier -- it certainly makes a lot of other movies appear trivial in comparison. I thought the sick sister's death scene in "The Silence" was unflinchingly raw - she stopped breathing twice and asked God not to let her die like this.
Two scenes that I've always found incredibly moving and raw are Robert De Niro in the jail cell in Raging Bull, slamming himself into the wall and cursing his existence, and, of course, Brando saying goodbye to his dead wife in "Last Tango."
The second time I saw Juno I was moved to tears. I may have been the first time, as well, but I don't quite remember how emotional I was during that first experience. I remember when Juno pulled off the road and broke down weeping, in a scene I'm sure everyone remembers. The first time I just prayed that she wouldn't kill herself. I felt as if I were in the car with her, and wanted to console her but could not.
[SPOILER]
The absolute humanity of the ending was the most moving part of the whole film, as I can recall. When I saw she and bleaker in the bed together, their tenderness made me cry. I longed for that kind of relationship myself.
I try to remember when it was that I saw it first. I know that the second time someone whom I loved deeply had recently broken up with me. We must have still been together during my first viewing of the film, for looking back I think I felt more secure at the time. That would clearly explain why seeing it the second time was so touching for me. The film shows true love. It is enviable for those who don't have it, and rings true for those who do.
When I was younger I remember many films moving me to tears. The Crucible, with Winona Ryder, was probably the most embarassing moment of crying in my life. We were wathcing it in 9th grade during english class, and at the end I cried a little pool of tears on my desk. Worse yet, I walked to the front of class to grab a tissue only to turn around and have everyone looking at me...
That is not to say that movies do not move me tears at my age now. Indeed I am still young, and regret to say that I have seen none of the films (other than Juno) you mentioned. More recently, Grave of the Fireflies made me cry to no avail. Thinking back to it still moves me.
Good to have you up and running again, Roger. I have really enjoyed the comments about the moving parts of moving pictures. I am surprised that no one has mentioned the role that the background music plays in eliciting tears. A few examples:
The moment at the water pump in The Miracle Worker when Helen finally makes the connection between objects and words. Music by Laurence Rosenthal.
The final moments of Ben-Hur. Music by Miklos Rozsa.
Scout meets Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Music by Elmer Bernstein.
Homecoming GI husband and wife reunite after the war in The Best Years of Our Lives. Music by Hugo Friedhofer.
The echoing cries of "come back" by young Joey in Shane. Music by Victor Young.
Elliot and ET say farewell. Music by John Williams.
The examples are endless.
When Ben Kingsley says the list is an "absolute good" -even thinking about it right now- my eyes well up with tears.
Thanks.
I'm curious if you cried during the Notebook, a standard "weepie". That movie can make a stone cry^_^
In terms of my most emotional and moving moment in a film, I would have to say "Rocky". The fact that A flawed "bum" of a character with nothing climbs to greatness by sheer will alone is moving enough, but what really twists my emotions(even while i type this) is the relationship between Adrian and Rocky and how in those final words you see a man complete. This is not because he won a fight, but because in all of the loneliness that has plagued his existence he finally has someone to come home.
Oh man...now I have to go watch it again.
Juno broke my heart. I can't wait to see it again.
This post made me think of films that have made me tear up, and I feel compelled to mention one about which I disagree with Mr. Ebert's review.
I love 2006's Superman Returns. There are certainly legitimate reasons to dislike it, if one does, but I think there are three reasons to be moved by it.
In the early scene of the aircraft on which Lois Lane is aboard hurtling toward a fiery end, there is a blur out a window, a flash of blue and red, and the camera records the look on Lois' face -- I read it to be a moment of shock between grasping impending death and recognizing the return of a powerful savior, long gone and unexpected. It is perhaps 2 seconds of footage, and it moves me. It reminds me of the true nature of redemption: it cannot actually be earned. The man set free on bail is the one redeemed, not the one who paid the bail.
In another scene Superman holds an enormous sinking ship suspended above the waves. Even though he's Superman, he only has two hands, and looking down knows that he must trust his romantic rival to hold on to and protect everything he loves. "Do you have them?" he asks, before letting go. There is a vulnerability in that question that moves me.
Lastly, near the end when Superman is in the hospital, and crowds of well-wishers wait outside for news, the camera briefly shows Superman's adoptive mother, Mrs. Kent, having come from Kansas to stand anonymously in the crowd and unable to come to and comfort her son because of his secret identity. That moves me. If the movie had made much of it, I might have felt manipulated, but the woman is simply briefly shown without comment, and as a parent it is a real punch in the gut (I'm sure if they'd let her in she'd have pointed out the obvious -- open the damn blinds and let some sun on this man).
A lot of people don't like this particular Superman movie, but those three scenes and a couple others are the reasons that I do. If those themes were portrayed as subtly in a movie that didn't happen to be a CGI-laden comic book film, they would probably be better appreciated.
Scenes in films that "get me":
"Moonlight Mile", near the ending when the boy reunites with the girl, with Van Morrison's Sweet Thing on the soundtrack. I wasn't expecting the song so it got me.
"Ordinary People", the climatic conversation between Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch (guilt and redemption). There was a similar moment in "Good Will Hunting".
Most of Cameron Crowe's films get to me. I kind of grew up with them. Memorable moments: the break up and make up in "Say Anything", the Tiny Dancer "you are home" scene in "Almost Famous".
"Cries and whispers" is devastating, it was scary, sad and unforgettable. It still haunts me when I think about it.
"Dancer in the Dark" ruined one entire weekend for me, really. "Breaking the waves" did the same on another occasion. Would somebody give Von Trier a hug?
"You Cant Count on Me" is a great movie, very underappreciated in my opinion. Also "Wonder Boys" is very touching, maybe not enough to bring you tears, but very human.
I just bought "Ikiru" but I haven't watched it, yet.
Thank you Roger, you have been an inspiration. Greetings from Mexico.
For some reason or another, Stranger than Fiction always makes me tear up at the end. Just the sacrifice that Will Ferrell character makes, knowing that doing the right thing here will end it all just when things were getting interesting in his life. Emma Thompson's scene after this is also particularly devastating as she commands this man's life with her typewriter. Plus I just love the movies message at the end about how the small things in life are where we find the real pleasures. I know it seems strange to walk out of a Will Ferrell movie crying but something about this film just struck a cord way down inside of me. It's a wonderful movie.
Thanks for all the great suggestions for the film class.
Weepies always make me cry and my old taciturn Dad too. I am glad. Stoic old midwesterners need to cry too! The movie that got me the worst was "Dead Man Walking"--I sobbed so hard the person in the seat in front of me thought I was laughing and said "f-you!" I think that Debra Winger's film deaths have made me cry the most (between Shadowlands and Terms of Endearment.)
I also always cry when I see a Trip to Bountiful... I think that I might miss my old Michigan farm.
J
Oh, my God! There are too many! Ack! "Shadowlands," "The Hours," "Lars and the Real Girl," "Juno," "Sophie's Choice," "Philadelphia," "Brokeback Mountain," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "Away from Her," "The Lion King," for God's sake! One I can't even type the name of without tearing up is "Rang-e khoda" (The Color of Paradise), from Iranian director Majid Majidi. When the little blind boy Mohammad grieves over having been abandoned by his father--well, any film-lover not sobbing needs therapy. And the final scene, with its tiny flicker of hope, is, for me, one of the most beautiful, pure symbols of redemption I've ever seen in film.
The very end of The Truman Show recently had me in tears for some reason. I guess I was just caught off guard by such a quiet and pitch perfect moment.
great post roger.
it really calls attention to something so mystical and misunderstood but pivotal when it comes to great filmmaking which is a hair different from what your post was about but, the idea of movies inspiring emotion, heartfelt emotion to the point of shedding tears is very rare in those not addicted to melodrama.
Million dollar baby strikes a chord with me because it is a film that brings the emotion of the film, from two different plot line, to a head at the same point. From the line of eastwood we have the pain of a man who forces himself to do what he's done for himself (figuratively, and he's seen the consequences), and then we have the line of swank which is of someone caged after she'd already smelt and seen freedom. So it works on the those two levels beautifully and also on a more subtle third note which is her actual death.
This is a topic that, as an aspiring screenwriter and movie critic, I am absolutely intrigued by.
It seems so simple to just kill the main character at the climax of the movie to create emotion and create "tears"for the third act, but I've found that never works. The way to create this true human emotion is almost ambiguous there seems to be no rule. Some people say that it's the idea of knowing that something will happen that you don't want to happen. this works great in million dollar baby with the euthanasia. but it doesn't work in american beauty, why not?
And when I say crying or emotion, I'm not talking about a tear in the eye i'm saying shedding tears which I find is different.
There are a lot of movies that bring a tear to my eye but there are so few that have me truly shedding tears and inspiring real emotion.
Great post, feel better and keep writing.
best
Did anybody mention to Kill a Mockingbird? "Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."
The only movie that ever made me cry in the theater was In America. I fought it as best I could and then realized I didn't have to fight it because it was dark... and then the lights came on.
Another one that gets me- Ken Burns' Baseball... the part where Red Barber talks about Jackie Robinson.
Gates of Heaven nearly brings me to tears... the deathly quiet montage of the pet tombstones. I think of that scene everytime someone accuses Errol of making fun of his subjects.
I love Ikiru (and I might have seen it because of your review Roger) but it doesn't make me cry. It somehow makes me perfectly at peace with death... we're here for a while, and then we're gone, but we live on in a sense though our prior actions.
As long as your making non-list lists Roger, I have a suggestion- the movies that you could watch every night. I remember you mentioning somewhere that there aren't many of them. You mentioned La Dolce Vita, I believe Citizen Kane (maybe I heard it in your Kane commentary) but I forget what else. I'd be very interested to hear more and maybe others would too.
For me it's very simple. Life is Beautiful ... when the allies liberate the camps (after the the father, played by Roberto Bengini, has been killed) and the little boy believes that he has won the game and received a tank. I bawled like a baby in a packed theater -- along with what sounded like 20-30 other people crying and not one person getting out of their seat. Totally unreal feeling.
Once again, Mr. Ebert articulates what I couldn't: that the films which make me cry aren't sad per se, but rather contain 'human generosity and goodness' so secular they span faith and time.
What made me cry? The small but daily sacrifices of parents and doctors, the total sacrifices of soldiers and innovators, of men and women who do *good*:
Wings of Desire [the bicycle man];
All Quiet on the Western Front [the dying man reaching for the butterfly];
Pelle the Conqueror [Max von Sydow giving up];
The Day the Earth Stood Still [Michael Rennie takes one for the human race];
The last Blackadder [over the top, boys];
The Big Chill [Glenn Close crying in the shower];
Lovers, always ill-fated, in Yimou Zhang films [Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern];
More ill-fated lovers in 'Witness';
Mark Rylance in anything;
Ebenezer Scrooge's [or the animated Grinch's] repentence;
And as we all know, if Casablanca were made today, Ilsa would not have boarded the 'plane, or perhaps she would, leaving Rick and Sam and Victor and Captain Renault aux menage-a-quatre.
Gods bless the cinematic not-so-happy ending!
Once again, Mr. Ebert articulates what I couldn't: that the films which make me cry aren't sad per se, but rather contain 'human generosity and goodness' so secular they span faith and time.
What made me cry? The small but daily sacrifices of parents and doctors, the total sacrifices of soldiers and innovators, of men and women who do *good*:
Wings of Desire [the bicycle man];
All Quiet on the Western Front [the dying man reaching for the butterfly];
Pelle the Conqueror [Max von Sydow giving up];
The Day the Earth Stood Still [Michael Rennie takes one for the human race];
The last Blackadder [over the top, boys];
The Big Chill [Glenn Close crying in the shower];
Lovers, always ill-fated, in Yimou Zhang films [Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern];
More ill-fated lovers in 'Witness';
Mark Rylance in anything;
Ebenezer Scrooge's [or the animated Grinch's] repentence;
And as we all know, if Casablanca were made today, Ilsa would not have boarded the 'plane, or perhaps she would, leaving Rick and Sam and Victor and Captain Renault aux menage-a-quatre.
Gods bless the cinematic not-so-happy ending!
Humanitarian is an unusual label for a film critic and it perhaps requires some explanation. It is this paragraph from the review of "In my country" which first led me to think of Ebert in these terms (I haven't seen the film).
"I confess I walked into the film with strong feelings. I've spent a good deal of time in South Africa, including a year at the University of Cape Town. I had the opportunity to discuss the commission with Archbishop Tutu. I believe the transitional period in South Africa is a model for an enlightened and humane reconciliation with past evils."
From this I began to see a consistent methodology and approach to human beings within his work. It is there in his recent discussion of Abu Ghraib. When I mentioned redemption I was thinking of what he wrote about "Malcolm X". "Watching the film, I understood more clearly how we do have the power to change our own lives, how fate doesn't deal all of the cards."
But perhaps reconciliation is a better word. A few years ago discussing the problem of suicide terrorism I came up against the argument that you can't change them and make "nice people out of fascists". It occurred to me then that whilst some people cannot be redeemed, because their crimes are too great, they can still change. This is a problem I've been working over in my own writing and fiction.
As a film example I think of "The Woodsman". I think the scene where Bacon's character sits and talks with the little girl and then declines the opportunity presented, is one of the most powerful scenes in any film. When he says "Go home, Robin" I was deeply affected. This is a character that cannot be made good. Society will never forgive him. He may as well take this opportunity but he decides not to. Even at the pariah stage moral questions still present themselves.
This speech in Annie Hall:
"After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken.' And, uh, the doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' The guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs."
Along with the closing montage, kills me. It's perfect.
The recent underrated gem "SWEET LAND" shocked me with its...well...sweetness and the enduring legacy of redemptive love at the conclusion. A film that rewards the patient viewer, and in its end scenes...gets me but good. Every. Single. Time.
It deservedly won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, and though it did good box office for a film that was only in an independent limited release, I know that more people need to discover this charmer that Alan Cumming needed to produce (and be a supporting actor in) and started Elizabeth Reaser's ascendant career. (She has some new Fall TV show coming.)
Folks...any of you contributing to this column's subject, you owe it to yourself to view this lovely, unobjectionable film as you all seem to be people who are receptive to films that bring out emotions, sometimes when you least expect it, and in the quietest way, this film will no doubt do it for you.
The trailer is here: http://sweetlandmovie.com/clips/trailer.htm
And the overall website is obviously http://sweetlandmovie.com. Worth finding on DVD, and the wider the screen, the better.
No, I don't work for Fox Video, who put out the DVD. I just want to spread the word on this one.
"Walkabout" is a film I grew up with; another perfect film for a child, despite the nudity and violence. I saw it again recently too and realised that there is not a single plausible scene in the film. The notion that a person could or would drive from Sydney Harbour to the outback with their children, still in their school clothes, for a picnic, is absurd. It would probably take days - real children would complain and ask questions, not sit down in the midle of nowhere on a blanket. In a time in Australian history when a great deal was happening in Indigenous politics, civil rights, land rights, etc, it presents us with a pre-1788 Aborigine who seems to have been totally preserved from the outside world. Is this even possible? To an extent, perhaps.
These are minor quibbles; the film works on its own terms, despite its premise.
David Gulpilil is Australia's greatest actor and all credit to Nicholas Roeg for discovering him. He won some kind of Australian film award a few years back(probably an AFI) and when he accepted it said: "I earned it". There is a lot more in that statement than at first glance.
His work in "The tracker", "Rabbit Proof Fence" even as far back as "Storm Boy" is superb. These are interesting, complicated characters with somewhat divided loyalties -more loners than tribal.
Sweet listening to Jenny Agutter's commentary on the DVD, after many years. It did make me sad after all, the film is a time capsule of her youth. It is about loss - a lost world.
New Zealand film "Rain" is a tear-jerker. Very well done, based on the novel by Kirsty Gunn, I think her first, and it kind of has that feel to it. The first half evokes Antonioni and L'Avventura. Spoilers: at the end the little boy drowns and the girl tries to save him. What made me sad was how this is handled - she counts and says "breath" out loud as she would have been taught in swimming lessons. This is truthful, observant, heart-breaking. I love New Zealand cinema, it has an elegance to it which I envy.
Yikes! I doubt Mr. Ebert spends much time reading the forums but in case he does, I want to warn him to IGNORE everyone who suggests he watch TV shows. Here's why:
In film, novels, and drama, you have a character with a flaw, who confronts a situation that requires him to overcome that flaw. If he overcomes his flaw, we have a happy ending, if he doesn't, it's sad.
TV shows start out the same, but instead of the character ultimately overcoming his flaw or being overcome by it, we are subject to hours upon hours of that flaw being played out in every possible variation, in season after season after season. Why? Because it is the nature of profit-motivated TV to stretch things out as long as possible.
TV shows do provide insights, but it's the same insight week after week, in slightly different form. TV characters do change, but the time commitment required to witness that change is ridiculous. And, despite the quick-cutting and shakey camerawork, the pace of these changes and advances in plot is glacial.
I've seen about 3 hours of "BattleStar Galactica" in which precisely nothing happened except for the characters to debate the same questions from slightly different angles. I've seen 30 minutes of "The Shield," and the central question of the show was asked (probably for the millionth time): "the cop is a corrupt sociopath, but he catches the bad guys!" (ditto "24," which asks the same question, and could probably be reduced to "6"). I finally saw 2 hours of "Lost," in which the characters get off the island, only to decide that they need to go back to the island.
Life's too short.
Being "moved" by a film, for me, means that a last puzzle piece falls into place. For a moment, I catch a glimpse of the best nature of humans (or a peek into their worst frailities), but it's laid bare. And it just is--there is no (or seems not to be) a sneering camera, a laughing camera, a smug one etc--that glimpse is allowed to exist for however short or long it lasts. Perhaps a better way to say is that I no longer feel like a voyeur; I feel I am in that scene. The walls have collapsed and I am that character for just a second. I find I catch my breath in wonder at these times. These are the films I think about afterward, sometimes for years. I almost don't want to deconstruct those films in fear of analyzing away that magic.
Of course, that is just one interpretation of "being moved". Being moved is not always so grand or deep. Sometimes it's as simple as Harry and Sally or The Incredibles triumphing. But I usually don't characterize that as "moving"--I just like those movies.
Hi Roger. Like many, I want to thank you for your years of movie reviews. I do not always agree with you, but I feel like I know you well enough through your reviews that I can tell when we will disagree in advance. This speaks to your consistency and clarity of voice.
One of the movies that I must confess moved me to tears was The English Patient. I'm not sure if it was just a guy thing, or not, but I felt so moved by the story that he tells. I saw it with my Dad, and we were both in tears at the end. Talking about the movie after with my Dad is one of my favorite movie memories.
It is interesting what separates us, when it comes to what makes us cry. I agree that you have a humanitarian philosophy.
I wonder if crying is as subjective as laughing as I read these posts. So much of the time there are different things which appeal to our sense of humour, but also--what triggers the tears to flow? I contend that this may be as subjective as what makes us laugh.
There are plenty of tear-jerkers out there. I agree with your assessment of "Cries and Whispers"--truly one of the best films I have seen--and absolutely devestating.
Sometimes the reason for tears can be traced beyond the movie to the lives of those acting.
To watch River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho (in the more emotional scenes), already brought tears from me, but now it is enhanced by his premature demise.
There are a lot of Bergman films which draw tears for me. His portryal of the human condition is in many ways unsurpassed.
Then there are the other films...
I find I tear up every time I watch "The 400 Blows",
Another obvious one is "My Dog Skip"
most obvious: "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
I cry at the ending, but it is partly because the whole portrayal of small-town life, and its desparations, has been so accurate...
another tear-jerker for me is "Stand By Me"--several scenes are so poignant. A recent tearjerking moment is at the end--when the character played by River Phoenix is revealed to have died--as his picture fades away from the scene.
There are tears of joy and sentimentality too:
at the end of Cinema Paradiso (Theatrical Verson) when the old kissing scenes, spliced together, are replayed--this almost always gets me choked up.
Maybe I am a softy...
Hello Roger~
Thank you so much for keeping great movie writing alive.
**** Spoiler Alert ****
I feel that the most moving moment, especially in terms of the qualities of self-sacrifice and redemption, has to the devastating moment at the end of Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” when the bells sound out from heaven proclaiming Bess’ (a marvelous Emily Watson) sainthood. Now, I am not a practicing catholic, although I did attend catholic school from K-11, but these notions of sacrifice were much more amplified at least for me as I sat in utter awe towards the end of the movie, partly due to the reawakened musings that I used to practice during those long Sundays at church, with the trappings of suffering filtered through the colorful stained-glass.
During the movie, which is almost like a torture in a way, we watch the heroine, who may or may not be mentally-ill, offer herself up to both god, whom we see she plays both parts during isolated conversations, and her husband, who is filled with mind-altering analgesics and self-pity and urges her to sleep with other men, with such blind faith that it is so painful at times to watch. As we watch Bess slide down the social scale in the eyes of her fundamentalist community, the feelings to protect her are what seem to overwhelm and drive us till the end and not look away or leave the theater (which, when I saw it back in 1996, that’s exactly what some people did).
What is so moving at the end of “Breaking the Waves”, at least for me, is von Trier’s ability to make such lofty notions of suffering and redemption palatable. Although he has the magic of the movies to make heaven ring its bells for Bess, and to cure her husband, he also has a Hitchcock’s sense of controlling sadism as well, which can be interpreted as very god-like especially in the Christian canon.
What moves me then? It’s twofold. I think it is the notion that Bess has given so much, has followed blindly, has suffered to the point of sadness, and we have walked the entire way with her and not understood, and ultimately we could not help her, and even become hardened to her actions towards the end. I also think it’s the fact that von Trier is strong enough to proclaim what he believes in with an entire feature film and does it with that very cunning grin of his; the CB Demille of Dogma. But when the bells ring at the end of the movie and JS Bach’s “Siciliana - Sonata BWV n. 1031” plays over the credits I felt elation and sadness because I wanted Bess to be saved, but I wasn’t expecting it in such a numinous manner.
I guess you can take the catholic out of the church, but not the church out of the catholic.
The final shot in "Ikiru" is one of my favourite shots in the movies. I didn't cry but I felt extremely fulfilled.
Another film that comes to mind is "Hoop Dreams" which I've wanted to see for years and finally had a chance to after buying the Criterion edition. I absolutely love Arthur Agee and the scene where he talks about to Steve James about writing that essay on butterflies. It's a beautiful film and Arthur's courage, determination and transformation is something to behold.
"Hoop Dreams" is a film about REAL people. I realise the actors I tend to connect with emotionally are people like Paul Giammatti. I like that he isn't your typical movie star but plays your everyday guy. His performances in "American Spendor" and "Sideways" are touching and heartbreaking. The scene in "Sideways" when he is talkin to the Virginia Madsen character on the couch and they are talking about wine and Miles talks about the Pinot grape and says that its a hard grape to grow and that it need constant care and attention gets me every time. It's a warm scene and you realise Miles might very well be talking about himself.
Others have mentioned "Antwone Fisher"( a film based on the life of a real person as well ). There wasn't a dry eye in the house after that played. Denzel Washington has proven himself to be a truly classy filmmaker. I've recently seen "The Great Debaters" and found the film to be almost as inspirational as "Antwone" and made with the style of a mature filmmaker. I look forward to his next directing project.
I have cried during many, many movies, but there is only one that gets me every single time. That is "The Deer Hunter".
The part I don't think I will ever get passed is when John briefly starts crying while making the eggs. His character has been 100% cheerful for the entire movie, he's doing everything he can to try to hold the group together, and in a sudden and unexpected instant, he breaks down. That he stops so quickly makes it even more powerful. He is trying so hard.
The most surprising scenes that have made me cry: the final scene of "Terminator 2" when Arnold is hanging onto the chain, about to terminate himself, and he gives the "thumbs up" sign. The final scene of "A Prairie Home Companion", when the angel comes to the diner for her next case...and then you think that Altman died not too long afterwards, and he knew he was dying when he filmed that shot, and that maybe he was filming his angel coming for him.
The most surprising thing that made me cry though was Roger's review of "A Hard Day's Night", in his Great Movies Collection..the ending always gets to me - "oh what a lovely springtime"...
"Dead Man Walking"
I saw it in a film class for controversial flms. I "wept like a grandmother" and then I walked across campus into the dressing room of our theater and wept some more.
I suppose in the end I am very moved by Christian love. Though I don't think that that must be displayed by a Christian.
“. . . a force within them that keeps on trying, keeps on reaching out . . .”
Roger, this phrase struck me. Maybe it’s apt not only as a depiction of the humanity to be found in Bergman’s characters, but also as a depiction of the humanity that such characters stir in the viewer.
To (hopefully) illustrate: watching Michael Apted’s “Up” series of documentaries, I can’t say I’ve ever been moved to tears (although, as the “weepies” may suggest, tears aren’t the only way, nor perhaps even the best way, to measure the depth of a film’s emotional impact), but I have been deeply, profoundly moved, and more so with each successive installment. For me, the effect is similar to what I feel after reading, say, some of Chekhov’s best short stories — a strangely visceral hollowed-out sensation, as if my internal organs have all sidled up against the wall to clear space in the room for the people I’ve just encountered on the page or screen. It’s a feeling of quiet, attentive listening, of observing and thinking about these other people with the same closeness, care, and sympathy I would normally accord myself. I’m not sure what I’d call this reaction. “Sadness” is too one-dimensional a term, “thoughtfulness” too shallow, and “empathy” too coolly clinical.
To return to your phrase, I wonder what you’d say to the idea that maybe some films stir within the viewer a certain sort of reaching-out toward their characters (or, in the case of documentaries, their subjects) that is analogous, perhaps, to the maid’s gesture you describe from “Cries and Whispers.” Call it an aching appreciation of shared humanity?
Another note. A lot of people have been mentioning “Ikiru,” but I don’t think anyone’s mentioned the moment that choked me up (it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, so I hope I’m recalling it properly): the occasional sustained close-ups, during the funeral service, of the main character’s portrait. Something about the inability (as I remember it now) of the funeral-goers to sufficiently comprehend the main character’s behavior, coupled with the static muteness of the portrait, really began to get to me, after awhile.
I’m a first-time commenter but a steady reader of yours for several years now, and I can’t say how grateful I am for your criticism thus far and how much I look forward to what you have yet to write. Stay well.
I have to take this perfect moment to make a note regarding Bergman's Cries and Whispers.
Let me first say that this is a powerful film, one that captures so truly the need and desire for something, whether it be for love, for attention, of for desire.
I do find it interesting, though, that when this film is talked about, one rarely ever hears another speaking of the incredible moment of liberation by one of the characters, Karin. Sure, the scene is mentioned, but is it really LOOKED at? You have a woman who breaks a glass at the dinner table. At that moment, true realization comes to her; she sees her chance for something, whatever it may be, and she takes it. She picks up the piece of glass, and remains quite still, even while her maid undresses her. Her eyes seem to be off in another world. Then, very slowly, she takes the glass shard, and cuts herself with it, and in a place no one should ever truly experience a pain like that.
Now, what I find so interesting is the stillness of this woman. As she is being undressed, yes, her eyes are still, but focused. What she is doing here is thinking, contemplating, the action which is about to occur. She herself is making up her mind, thinking whether it be a good idea, or not. She is also waiting for the moment Anna leaves the room, waiting to be to herself. She is so still, and the reason is this: She does not want to distract herself from what she is about to do. She wants not to think of the world's view of her, eyes glaring at her menacingly. If she did, she would not have the ability to complete the action. Therefore, she is still to keep herself in the same frame of mind, without letting her mind realize what a terrible act she is about to commit to herself. When he does is she walks slowly into her bedroom, a look of delight on her face, because she has made herself feel proud, made it so she feels as though it was the absolutely correct thing to do. I can only imagine that, later, she completely regretted it, that sh realized what she had done, and thatm if she was a believer in God, she would have been on her hands and knees. Unfortunately for her, she has no one to turn to.
I would say that if there was a scane in that film other than the one you mentioned that would make me cry, it would be this one. It is such a sad portrait of a woman; a monster, yes, but a woman who is trying to keep her mind to herself, attempting to not have to reach out for help, as she wants no one to care for her. It is something buried deep in her own mind, in her own humanity, that drove her to such an act. That, I think, is one of the most sad instances of all.
Savvy
Ebert: Thanks. I had never seen that scene in that way.
"TV shows start out the same, but instead of the character ultimately overcoming his flaw or being overcome by it, we are subject to hours upon hours of that flaw being played out in every possible variation, in season after season after season. Why? Because it is the nature of profit-motivated TV to stretch things out as long as possible."
P., I'm inclined to agree with you. Even those shows that have moments of grace and transcendence tend to ruin them by going on too long and often undoing most or all of the good they showed, simply for the sake of having some new novelty to show. (Also, as was mentioned in an article I read recently -- can't remember where just now -- they tend to follow a flawed philosophy of romanticism that means constant change in order for the characters to follow their whims, which means we hardly get to see anything of value achieve any sort of permanence.) It's a shame, really. I can think of several shows that would have been about a million times better had they ended after two or three years.
I've cried at a lot of movies, a lot of which have been mentioned. Here's a few more.
"In America" not just the final scene but the earlier one where the girl is saying how she was the one holding the family together.
"The Apartment" Shirley Maclaine running from Fred MacMurray to Jack Lemmon because she understands Lemmon's sacrifice.
Several scenes in "Bridge to Terabithia," but especially the very last scenes with the boy and his little sister.
"Dekalog," especially "Thou Shalt Not Steal"
Paikea on stage in "Whale Rider" crying because she thinks her grandfather has abandoned her.
The boy being reunited with his family in "Empire of the Sun," when you realize that he has lost his childhood.
Margo Martindale's segment at the end of "Paris Je T'Aime." The story of the African man from the same film.
And, of course, "Stranger than Fiction," where our hero finally reaches out for love by giving her flours. (At first, I thought he was giving her flowers and cried anyway. Then I realized what he'd given her, and cried again.) And later on, when he realizes he'll have to sacrifice himself and the writer realizes that she can't let him do it.
I cry with little provocation, so perhaps I'm not a helpful contributor to the discussion. Since this movie has yet to be mentioned, though, and because it is the most overwhelmed with tears I have ever been in a movie, I will mention "Spanglish." I have a soft spot in my heart for any movie in which a friendship remains platonic despite temptations for something else, when friendship is all that's appropriate. And that part of the movie was emotional. But it was the resolution of the mother daughter relationship between Flor and Cristina that most profoundly waylaid me. I was at the movie with my daughter and the relationship that I saw on the screen so reminded me of her relationship with my wife, that I could literally not control my reaction.
Of course, that movie also, on a lighter but no less profound note, had one of the best movie lines of all time, when Cloris Leachman's Evelyn told her daughter, "Lately, your low self-esteem is just good common sense."
I think it is an essential element to good art in general. It's funny too. It even makes its way into trilogies like Star Wars, this image of redemption.
I have to say that there are very few films that make me cry. In general, I don't like to feel manipulated by movies, and I'm an experienced enough viewer to see most set-ups coming miles away.
I think that is one reason why I can see films of redemption being able to provoke tears, if particularly well done. Of course, those are tears of a different sort than the typical "weepy" film.
Of the weepies, the only one that I remember catching me off guard and provoking tears was "Terms of Endearment". What can I say, I didn't know much about the film going in and it really caught me.
There is a 2005 Russian film, "The Italian" (Italianetz) directed by Andrei Kravchuk, that moved me to unexpected tears as well.
Many of these other films mentioned in the comments didn't do it for me. I agree with the mention of "Almost Famous", although it didn't make me weep, it did come close as it. I was more emotionally moved by "Hearts in Atlantis" than "Shawshank Redemption", which seems to be getting frequent mention.
Just want to echo everything that everyone has said about "Ikiru". I'd been meaning to see that film for years, and it did not disappoint at all.
A couple of movies/scenes that I'll mention:
- The end of "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"
- "Junebug" (One of those films that I didn't just like, I *believed* it. So much truth in the characters and their interactions, and Amy Adams is just stellar as someone who is hopelessly naive, but perhaps wiser than anyone else in the film.)
- The closing credits of "Only Yesterday" (Everyone talks about Miyazaki, for good reason, but let's not forget Isao Takahata, and this beautiful "coming of age" film. The closing credits, in which the main character finally reconciles with her younger self.)
- "Wit" (Especially the scenes with the young nurse who is the only one to show mercy to Emma Thompson's character, and the final scene with her old teacher and the storybook.)
- "The Twilight Samurai" (This film has one of my favorite male characters, a reticent warrior who is perfectly content being a simple, humble father and family man.)
- "Save The Green Planet" (Kind of an odd entry, I suppose, but the scenes in which we see everything in his life come together and explain his current state generates such feelings of empathy for me. And the closing credits are a killer, as well.)
- "Failan" (A wonderful Korean film that's all about the transforming power of grace and love, even from beyond the grave.)
With "Schindler's List" I'm most affected by the scenes involving children. The one where the little boy diverts attention of the Nazi soldiers and then says "I will put you in a good line." and it packs a punch, because we know there are no good lines. The scene where children squabble over hiding places like mice. The scene where the children run away from the transport trucks and the guards chase them and have to pick them up with their arms. How can you kill a child once you have held it in your arms?
Most of all the scene where Schindler tries to explain why the children are essential workers, because they polish the inside of shell casings, and yanks one of their arms so that he can show the guard their little fingers, as if to say: here, look, damn you. That is Spielberg. That is what he does with the whole film. The film has a desperate edge that seems out of character from his public persona. It is this desperation that betrays his soul.
I don't know a better film, and, in a strange way I don't know that any of his other films even approach it. "Munich" has one similar scene of suspense involving the little girl on the telephone, and it acts as a short essay on why extra-judicial killing as pursued by Israel is fraught with peril, but the rest of the film doesn't have the same sense of mission. A.I. is beautifully done and the more familiar I become with it, the more I care about it, but I wonder if perhaps this comes simply out of a sense of duty to Stanley Kubrick.
Otherwise his films only responsibility seems aimed at pleasing an audience. With a film like "Schindler's List", hardly a crowd-pleasing subject, he had to use all his power and skill to keep the audience on side, and it worked. When I bought the DVD the woman at the counter told me the film was very powerful. She remembered it and it got to her. The film reached a lot of people. Clearly all his popular success is what allowed him to make such a film, but surely by now he could make anything he wants?
"Grave of the Fireflies" was the first thing that popped into my head reading this post; I'm not sure I can think of any other film which makes me remember it with such wistful heartache and sadness. A wrenching experience, but one I'm glad I had.
And along those lines, there are three scenes in Disney's "Lilo and Stitch" which never fails to make me cry; the scene between the older sister who knows her younger sister is about to be taken away, followed by Stitch's realization that he has only caused them trouble and subsequent departure (Lilo: "I'll remember you. I remember everyone who leaves."), and his anguished night alone in the jungle. It sounds silly when written down, but it gets me every time.
I really wanted to post, though, to say that whether or not television characters have closure, or whether the plots are endlessly circular and spun-out, it doesn't mean that there aren't moments of true humanistic perfection in them. At the end of the second season of the US "Office" there is are two scenes between two people who have been lying to each other and themselves about their feelings for years, and one is ready to be honest and the other is not, and with an amazing economy of simple dialogue the two very talented actors make you feel every part of their sad, ordinary lives and the gap between them.
(And in looking at the three things I've mentioned, I think it must be the bond between two people which moves me most, romantic or not; two pairs of siblings, and two people who have never had a romantic relationship but are bound to each other nevertheless.)
And the Clinton comment actually hits close to the bone. I feel a deep yearning for that era, the nineties, knowing that it is irretrievably lost. It is a period less comprehensible to me than many others and I think it is because of the sense of an unknown future that it had, which we no longer have. The cold war was over, there was a new corporate culture, a new style of feminism, gay rights were on the rise and technology held a lot of promise. Since September 11 the years have all been the same. I don't wonder about the future because I know next year will be exactly as it was last year.
Schindler is very much a nineties hero: hard-edged, shrewd, corporate, hiding his compassion behind his style. He works for me now, just like films like "Farewell my Concubine" and "The Crying Game" worked for me back then.
Of course I am not blind and I can see that Bill Clinton is a far less impressive figure than he once seemed and don't respond to him on partisan or even political terms. I saw him interviewed about Rwanda not long ago and he said he simply didn't know you could kill a million people with machetes in so short a time. Well, ditto, but its our job now to know these things.
A lot of my yearning for nineties feminism is easily personified in Hillary Clinton. Again, I am not blind, she is the wrong candidate. Obama will win for the simple reason that Americans are tired of feeling bad about themselves (as it was in my country). The honeymoon will last a little while but the cynicism and bitterness of the age will linger and soon America's democratic populace will reapply pressure to him and try and squeeze out some harder truths and more difficult leadership. He will bend or he will break, we don't know yet. The election isn't even the point. The Republicans will easily reinvent themselves: the horrible and difficult questions raised by the Bush Presidency have not been answered by the Democrats. Hell, the horrible and difficult questions raised by Lyndie England have not been answered by anyone. There is room for a philosophy, for moral arguments, for a capable right-wing candidate. Losing is the best thing for them: it gives them an excuse to break with their failures.
I look at my short history and note that I graduated from High School in 2001, which is when the world I knew ended. The nineties was the world I was accustomed to, it was the world I knew and could have functioned properly in. If I trace it back for enough I can see that I chose to study law probably because of Tom Cruise in "The Firm" and "A few good men". I wanted to wear a suit and run around with a briefcase. I think had the world not taken the turn it did, with the rise of the internet and of terrorism and war, I would have done well in the corporate nineties world. I could have had some of Cruise's bravado. "Intelligence" whatever that means (probably strategy, knowing when to say the right things and when to say nothing) would have saved me then. It doesn't save me now: I'm too embedded in the moral storm of the past few years. It owns me, has its claws in me, will continue to push and to shake me until I acknowledge it. Until I do something about it.
Now I watch "The Verdict" and think to myself, that isn't me in twenty years, that is me in six months. Except there is no redemption in that film: I look at it with my cold, law students eyes and think: no, the jury is not the law, you can't tacitly ask them to ignore the rules of evidence to hide your incompetence, the case will be over-turned on appeal. That is what the ringing telephone at the end means to me. It is the ringing of conscience, the ringing that produces a preposterous statement like "I read too many books" because I think in my conscription and slavery that I ought to be spending my spare moments reading the Commonwealth Law Reports, the Family Law Act, the Constitution.
Yes I long for the good in the world, wedged somewhere between suicide and idealism. Truth is I don't feel like I might have at 24 and at the top of my game - and I have never said this to anyone - I feel like a retired person. I feel like I am ninety years old. I feel like death is not so improbable within a few years, a few months. I have emotions no-one my age has the right to have.
How did I get to this point? From High School I drifted for a while, at nineteen fell in love with the most intelligent but troubled woman I have ever met, tried to understand her point of view until I couldn't anymore and then left her. She made me suffer and I made her suffer. Since then I have been reluctant to look much further than the surface in women because I know that below that there is an ocean of hurt, of responsibilities I don't dare take on unless I mean it. I don't want to touch a woman too deeply lest I create ripples, as in a pond.
Mental illness comes, not with a bang but a whimper, and one can't get out of one's mind that this is environmental rather than organic and that there is something astutely cruel in creating an environment in which brutal medication is the only way to function. It has to be because everyone you meet is on them. Everyone you meet suffers as you suffer and even madness loses its prestige.
A film like "Lost in translation" cuts close to the bone, capturing all the emotions of travel, but also of the friendships one makes through insomnia. I went travelling, hoping vaguely to die in Paris, but death seldom comes at convenient times. One wakes up again alive and the world is still an unhappy place and there is work to be done.
Yes - every year is the same. There will be horror, violence, suffering, war this year and next. In 2004 when the boxing day Tsunami hit I thought of Job and yet God holds no comfort; he is simply conspicuous by his absence, as he has always been. This was a moment when I, and everyone else needed a break, but there are no holidays in this life anymore. There is no time off. Even when I am at rest I am at work.
So yes, I cry at movies when I see virtue. It hurts even deeper when I see fun, youth, happiness. In "Lost in Translation" Charlotte says "We should never come here again because it would never be so much fun." But of course it wasn't quite so much fun, and if it had been, the film would be unbearable. I am caught somewhere between Charlotte and Bob Harris. Had the film shown that other, happier world that it hints at, it would have broken in me in two.
I have a friend who gets teary-eyed from just the trailers of Wall E, apparently because loniless is too understandable and, almost always, far too understated.
Since redemtion is basically birth, without plescera, it pretty easy to be moved by it. But I always disliked movies that spent their running time painting the characters trail towards redemption. I find it a little unfair, and a little deceiving. Truth is, redemption is a lot more sudden. You can't plan it. Otherwise you're just lying to yourself.
For the record I strongly disagree with
Solomon Wakeling.
Great Television always has the power to be more emotional because viewers have more time to connect the the characters and storyline. Thats years versus hours. I've watched LOST for years than there have definatly been episodes were nothing really happened but, on the other hand that show has the incrediable ability to explore, experiment and suprise the audience.
Plotwise The Season 3 finale were Jack leaves the island only to realise its his destiny to go back, may have been the most essential, but it would have been sapped of most of its impact if we had not spent 3 years there, thinking we'd need get back home.
Likewise a Battlestar Galactica movie, would just have the time to blow up Caprica, stick some exposition spewing cyphers on a ship, and race the Cylons to earth as quickly as possiable. But everything that device was used to explore:religion, politics,the war on terror, free will...would be lost with montages of people shooting robots in space and vice versa. And sometimes those episodes were characters debate politics are the most intense (a scene from this year were Roslin and Lee are arguing about the war completing ignoring the other Quarm member begging to discuss a healthcare plan still rings as one of the shows most biting pieces of commentary yet). The series best episode "Downloaded" had nothing to do with the search for earth,nor did it contain a single shoot-out, its contribution the the series main narritive could have been summed up in minutes. It was an extremely effective character study for too long overlooked characters.Watching Sharon struggle to adjust to the Cylon way of life after believing she was human for years and 'Caprica' not knowing what her place was now that she was in love with one was a fascinating as the show will ever be
The need to produce upwards of 20 episodes a year can over inflate narritives, (I'll take most mediocre dramas over the same episode over and over of CSI), but movies have this problem aswell. Thats why their are Multiple James Bond,Planet of the Apes, Lord of the Rings, Star wars,Batman,Spiderman and Harry Potters
Based on Wakelings breakdown of LOST/Battlestar only the final ones matter at all.
Great Television (well today DVD boxsets) are worth your time, if you are willing to invest more in it.
With your comments about the subject of redemption, I'm slightly surprised that your past reviews of "The Spitfire Grill" and "Man on Fire" were not more favorable - redemption very much (IMO) an underlying theme in each.
And maybe "Groundhog Day" is the movie with the most concentrated underlying theme of redemption - the protagonist must relive a day over and over and over, until he realizes his mistakes, and takes the opportunity he is given to get it right, and moves on.
A must-see for any discussion on Religion and Film is Lawrence Kasdan's "Grand Canyon". A delicious, meaty treat.
I appreciate the mentioning of You Can Count On Me. I love that movie, it moves me every time.
The movie I'd like to mention is Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet.
There is a revelation scene that begins very modestly (a mother cleaning a daughter's messy room as the daughter sits on the bed) and ends in such emotion and truth. The family the movie centers on is tremendously amusing the whole movie - teasing each other, bickering, managing the teenage daughters' mood swings - but once we know what the family has gone through, we recognize the effort it must take them to stay so spirited.
Seeing it for the first time at the age of 22, the film opened my eyes, as Roger mentions in his review, "to the sorts of things children do not realize about parents." I often cry thinking about it.
Michael
I was a teenager when I first saw Running on Empty and I lost it over the scene where the Christine Lahti character asks her father to take her son. This is the first film that I can remember moving me to tears.
I could not stop sobbing at the end of In America, which is probably my favorite film of the last few years.
Finally, the film Magnolia provided me with the most emotionally draining experience that I ever had watching a film. I had so much empathy for every character and I was in tears for the last hour of the film. The scene where the cast sings along to Aimee Mann's song "Wise Up" was such a cathartic moment.
Roger, let me add to the chorus of praise for your body of work. It is because of you and Gene Siskel that I love film. I have been watching and reading your reviews since age 12.
Films that make me weep include: "The Yearling," "Old Yeller," "Au revoir, les enfants," "Glory," "Of Mice and Men," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Killing Fields," "The Atomic Cafe," "Charly," and "Ikiru."
Having volunteered for an animal shelter, I think what shows a person's compassion and courage is the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions and show consideration for weaker beings. While most people no longer have to shoot their pets and can resort to humane euthanasia, I find too many people are too squeamish or irresponsible: They'd rather dump their unwanted pets in a park or in the country sure that someone will take care of them. Most people will not be on a battlefield and have to make decisions that will result in life or death of a person, but many people make decisions every day that result in the death of animals and sometimes you do decide to put an animal down because it is sick or in pain and because you do love them. That is never an easy decision and one that I have made.
There are so many reasons (race, religion, level of intelligence--perceived or actual) for people to distance themselves from others and yet people do reach out across those barriers. "Of Mice and Men" and "Charly" make me cringe because I remember times when I was unkind or wasn't brave enough to be kind to someone who was developmentally disabled. Sometimes, as in "Au revoir, les enfants," the betrayal is wordless and even unintentional. Yet there are consequences, some that we may never know of and some that we unfortunately shall learn too late.
I have watched "The Atomic Cafe" in both Japan and America and the reaction was very different. There was little to laugh about in Japan, particularly if you have visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not even my Japanese friends who understood English well laughed. Quite a contrast from American audiences and perhaps that is part of the problem.
"To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Killing Fields," and "Glory" remind me that there were and are people who were willing to cross lines of race, sometimes at great cost. With "The Killing Fields" also knowing how Dr. Haing S. Ngor died and that he died just a half an hour away from where I live adds to the poignancy of that movie. Of course, living in SoCal, I've known people who fled either Cambodia or Vietnam to live here.
I watched "The Killing Fields" again recently because I thought of what is happening now in different areas of the world. "The Killing Fields" and "Charly" now seem dated, but I think the message is not.
These movies made me think, remember and consider where I am now and what I could have and what I can do better to redeem myself.
Thank you for publishing Mr. Wakeling's comments, and I agree with the person who commented that Mr. Wakeling put into words what also draws me to your columns. You have always addressed those topics that make us essentially human, and I have been proud that the world holds people such as you who express outrage at films that deny hope and humanity--those reviews are some of my favorites that you have written. What has meant much to me in film has been the response that film evokes in other viewers in the theatre--the last responder mentioned "The Killing Fields." When I first saw it here in Tulsa, after Dith Pran sings a lullaby to the child of a Khmer Rouge chief, a Cambodian immigrant down front in the theatre continued it as the rest of us listened in silence and wonder. I wept later in the film for Dith Pran when alone and seemingly hopeless, he first sees the refugee camps across the Thai-Cambodian border and realizes that he has found his way to freedom. And after promising myself I wouldn't cry at "Schindler's List" (because I had read on the Holocaust for years and thought I had read and seen everything), I too wept when the freed Schindlerjuden climbed over the hill and because the actual survivors who then placed stones on his grave. And one unlikely film--the second Karate Kid. My father had died a few months ago, and Ralph Macchio's character told how he had held the hand of his dying father and told him he loved him--and I realized that in doing that with my own father, I had done enough. Thank you for encouraging the films that validate and honor our humanity--and for standing up to the filmmakers who, in the name of edgy novelty and "daring," make the films that deny and destroy what gives hope to life. I think redemption is the great theme of this life--thanks for pointing us that way as you guide your readers in viewing film. Film is art, or at least, it can be. Art must in the end reflect the truth of the human experience. That experience is not only suffering and sorrow, but hope and redemption. Thanks for reminding us of that.
There's no predicting what gets me emotional in a movie or tv show. Generally it tends to arise from something character based, in my case.
There are some scenes which consistently get me weepy, and I put them on as a sort of cathartic kind of cleansing.
The "Tiny Dancer" scene in Almost Famous always gets me. That scene remains perfect to me, even after dozens of viewings. To see the bandmates come together in their mutual love of something as simple as a song, well, heck, like I said, it gets me every time.
Several scenes in the remake (yeah, I said it!) of King Kong (2005) get me. I can't defend it, except to say it worked, whereas nothing in that awful Titanic movie worked for me in the least. Go figure.
As for tv, well, the Jimmy Smits death episode of NYPD Blue, wow, that was a heck of an episode. Seeing all the characters I loved breaking down at the death of one of their own, phew...
The final British episode of The Office (The 2-part Christmas episode), wow, that one is tv perfection to me. I've never seen a tv show come together in the end as well as that one does. After maybe 100 viewings, those final 10 minutes still get me teary, but I'm at the point now where I try to hold off on watching it as much so that when I do, it'll affect me a little more.
Crying is a difficult emotion to get from an audience. Myself, I only cry in the movies when I am moved to tears and this has only happened five times.
I was profoundly moved by the final moments of Schindler's List when the surviving Jews and their families return to Schindler's grave.
I was also moved by E.T. but not the death scene, it is the moment when the alien hugs Elliot for the last time and the camera pulls back - there's a certain finality in the notes of John Williams score that grabs me.
In It's A Wonderful Life, when George Bailey returns home to find that all of his friends have given back to him for this lifetime of sacrifice to them.
I'm sort of alone in being struck by the final scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy realizes that "There's No Place Like Home". I think it's Judy Garland's performance in that scene but is just so genuine.
In Forrest Gump when Forrest returns home to his mother's bedside and quietly leans toward her and asks "What's my destiny, mama?". After traveling the world to find his purpose he returns to his source of love and common sense to find the answer.
As I have been sitting here writing this, I have noticed a common bond. What these moments have in common is the connective power of home, of returning to something. Maybe that says something about me, maybe it says something about the movies. I don't know.
I must say I’ve a certain fascination with any film’s capability of taking a non-living entity, say an automaton, and transfiguring it into a denizen of emotional capacity so convincingly we weep for it’s turmoil and give a quiver of our lip at it’s demise.
I wonder if it’s the soul of the object that makes us care, or is it the familiarity of the human emotion it exhibits? It would be incredibly simple to merely dismiss the situation with a shrug and an indifferent, "Meh, they can build another." -- but we don't. At least I don't. Thus I feel a curious wonder when my eyes mist over during a heartfelt moment involving these droids of cinema.
Some Examples are evidenced below:
A battered Iron Giant turns to his only friend and says, “No following”, – a callback to a more lighthearted moment in the film that brings an unexpected heartbreak, before he flies off to his own destruction to save the lives of those who would destroy him. (Talk about a self-sacrifice).
A heartbroken EVE, when her Wall E does not respond to her efforts and pleas to remember who he is, puts her dispirited head to his and begins to sing very, very softly, and delicately gives him one final kiss goodbye (one of the most emotionally poignant moments in an animated film I’ve ever seen).
The Terminator destroys himself for to save all of humanity. Tell me one person who didn’t at least get a tiny itch in their throat when he gives the thumbs up, burning, submerged in liquid death, the booming soundtrack soaring majestically in the honor, the tears and visible heartache of the humans who came to trust and love him streaming down their dirtied faces.
I think it shows a fascinating psychological revelation on the gift of humanity to care for something that shows soul, or heart (They must have heart, for I saw no one crying when General Grievous burst into flames...maybe that’s another topic of discussion).
If your alarm clock started talking to you about it’s dreams, would you still throw it against the wall in the morning?
James Alexander - The comments you refer to are not Solomon Wakeling's, but, instead, they belong to P.
The name of the commenter is the one underneath the comments, not the one above. Just sayin'.
I'm so glad to see these posts, and your "redemption" response, because it's exactly how I've felt about you and your reviews. You enjoy movies more than any other critic I'm aware of--you do have such a fine appreciation for the humanity in them. I was particularly impressed with your sensitive and heartfelt review of Lost and Delirious a few years back. That capped it for me. I felt oddly proud of you for that one, not that I personally had anything to do with you or that review. But something about the your appreciation for what was good in that film, and your honesty about your reaction felt simply heroic to me--it touched me deeply. I know that several other lesbians felt the same way about that review, and I hope you know that it meant a lot to many, many people.
here are a few key scenes on film that have made me cry and will continue to do so no matter how many times i see them. in fact, coming back to add this part, just typing the following paragraphs brought me to tears.
1. in "the searchers" when john wayne picks up natalie wood after chasing her. we're certain he's going to kill her because she just isn't little "debbie" anymore. instead of putting her out of his misery, he says, "let's go home, debbie."
2. in "to kill a mockingbird" when a few friends are in gregory peck's house tending his injured son. scout scans the room and sees robert duvall as boo radley. few scenes can say so much with as few words as we - and she - come to the realization that it was boo who saved her brother and all their prejudices about boo were wrong. then she quietly and tenderly walks over and holds his hand.
3. in "hook" at the food fight scene, there's no food. robin williams starts a war of words with rufio and pretends to sling food at him with a spoon. then suddenly, a splat of something colorful and creamy hits the boys face. at that point we realize that "pan is back!"
4. disney's "lilo 'n' stitch" when stitch rescues her from a holding tank on an alien ship. a theme running through the film was that family is special. stitch - an outcast throughout the story - takes her from the alien ship and says, "nobody gets left behind."
5. at the very end of ET, when his ships flies off and leaves a rainbow trail.
For me, two movies just devastate me. One is the astonshing Au Hasard Balthazar, with its phenomenally transcendent ending. I cannot even think of that ending without tearing up. And the second, is the little French gem Ponette, where little Ponette attempts to dig at her mother's grave to try to be with her.
And from television, the scene where Xander Harris withstands the fury of a Willow Rosenberg who has gone completely dark after the death of her lover Tara Maclay- Willow, mousy little Willow, is at the point by far the most powerful woman in the world and in such pain that she attempts to end it to stop everyone's suffering- and Xander, armed with nothing but his love for his best friend, withstands her anger, her magic and her fists, to save her. Buffy the Vampire Slayer tells truth like few shows ever have. Silly name, deep show. ( I would also include Sophie's arc from In treatment as greatly moving).
The true test of a pure emotional moment--crying--in a movie --to cry-- at the same event in the same movie, over repeated viewings.
There are a few for me--some previously mentioned-
1. During "It's a Wonderful Life"--when George Bailey's brother provides his toast--
"To George Bailey--the richest man in town."...at that precise moment the crowd
in George's living room let's out a loud cheeer. It is that moment that brings many of us to tears ---year after year.
2. Oridnary People has two moments--when Mary Tyler Moore's character has an emotional moment on the 18th green and yells at Donald Sutherland..."I don't know what people want from me anymore." You feel her pain and see her life slippy away.
3. Again in Orddnary People-during the final scene when Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton talk on the patio. The entire scene is moving--but the look in Donal sutherland's face during the final shot is shared heartbreak:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIMVS90HOn8
4. "Running on Empty"...Christine Lahti and Ken Hill during the lunch scene. It all is moving--but the moment that Lahti's character leaves the table and they show Ken Hill/The father's face and his uncontrollable expression of pain and heartbreak is tremendously moving and acting without parallel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz6196-iU4U
I'll admit, I cry often at movies at the kind of thing Roger mentions.
One that caught me by surprise was "3:10 to Yuma". The main character's wounded heart and his relationship to his wife and son were particularly powerful to me.
But this: I wasn't crying at the end of "Grave of the Fireflies". I was sobbing. I've never had a film hit me that hard.
I tend to cry at movies too. I cried when Spock died in Wrath of Khan, when Ilsa chose Victor Laszlo in Casablanca, when Holly Golightly sang "Moon River" in Breakfast at Tiffany's, when Mrs. Wallner testified in Judgment at Nuremberg, when Sister Luke learned of her father's death in A Nun's Story.
And yet there are movies that work very hard to create that emotional wrench but, at least for me, never do. E.T. was nothing more to me than an extended commercial for action figures and peanut butter snacks. Titanic disgustingly exploited the slow, agonizingly painful deaths of 1,500 real human beings in order to tell a tired, formulaic love story. Juno made me want to jump through the screen and drag that poor girl to an abortion clinic.
Interestingly enough, I cried the third time I saw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I think the first two times I saw it I was so focused on the action and the music that I completely ignored the love story between Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien; but the third time, when they're in the cave at the end and Li Mu Bai says, "I have just one breath left, and I want to use it to tell you I have always love you" I couldn't hold it. I burst into tears and starting sobbing like my father does at war movies.
Usually, it's the small moments that hit me hardest, most of them involving a small gesture, a character giving something of himself for the benefit of another. While I find the finale of It's A Wonderful Life satisfyingly schmalzy, it's the part earlier in the film -- when George Bailey tells the woman at the bank that her account's still good, she can pay him back when she can -- that affects me most deeply. Jack Nicholson showing up at that hotel in Terms of Endearment (and the line that follows: "Who would've thought you'd turn out to be a good guy?") kills me. The mailbox full of orange Tic Tacs in Juno. The last line in Avalon, father to son: "He came to America in 1914."
But it's a scene in Almost Famous that makes me cry every single time: Kate Hudson waving a hand at Patrick Fugit on that bus, as if she's casting a spell. "I have to go home," he tells her. "You are home," she says. It's not just the fictional story there that moves me, but also the generosity of the filmmaker for giving us this moment.
A lot of Almost Famous gets to me, the whole film is an emotional journey.
I also get emotional, believe it or not, in a scene in The Godfather. It is the scene in which Vito tells Michael that he wanted a different life for him, that he wanted him to be a man of importance but not within this criminal world. The old man realizes that this mob world us about to change with the induction of drug and he doesn't want Michael to be a part of it. "I never wanted this for you", he tells his son, "I always thought that when it was your time that you would be the one to hold the strings. Senator Corleone. Governor Corleone. Something.". His voice expresses a great deal of wisdom and regret.
These are characters that we have come to know, come to care about and the fact that this is the last time that Michael will ever speak to his father makes it more emotional. I don't cry at this scene but I feel it.
The one that took me by surprise recently, was Ratatouille!! I chocked when Victor Ego tries the dish and is immediatly transported to his childhood...
I often shed a tear at movies, most recently at Wall-E when we think he may have forgotten about EVE. Why do I so often feel emotionally manipulated by these extended and recurring scenes in a movie? I mean, often I love a movie that I shed a tear at, but it seems there is a formula that can be used with music, theme, and pacing that almost reeks of calculated emotion.
By the way, here's a tip if you don't want to be seen crying at a movie where clearly all of your friends are not emotionally connected... tilt your head slightly away from them, and a tear will only form in the eye that is not facing them. It only works for the random tear or two, and obviously cannot help you if you begin sobbing :-)
Movies that have made me cry:
All of Brad Bird's films - The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille
Once
No Country For Old Men - weirdly, the last time I watched it, the final scene really got to me.
American Beauty
Black Snake Moan
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Lord of the Rings - The unwavering FRIENDSHIP of Sam for Frodo, all he does for him, is heartbreaking to see.
Into the Wild
Magnolia - others have mentioned this, but I think it is the perfect example of everything that was talked about. The final shot, in which Claudia smiles, is like a wave of grace and hope and redemption that washes over everything. The film is so consumed with people who need to change course in life, and if you want to get spiritual, we have a very dynamic act of God, which shakes these people to their core, forcing many to re-examine themselves. Or at least, it is a sign that everything that has come before is now changed. Things are different. The fact that Claudia can smile, after so much pain, is, I believe, a sign to us that redemption and healing and goodness are possible for everyone. No one is beyond it. Because if she can learn to smile, then perhaps we can as well. It gets me EVERYTIME I see it.
No one mentioned Sounder with that great final scene. That film and those characters move me deeply.
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is the only movie I've ever cried during. I'm glad the theater was dark and no one noticed but even if it wasn't I probably still would've shed a quick manly tear or two. Watching the movie on one level is about what I imagine seeing Citizen Kane was like before it was like, you know, Citizen Kane. Plus, it never shamelessly panders out dramatic bits trying to get every last bit of moisture out of you. It treats you like an adult expecting that you can grasp the severity of the situation and that sort of maturity on the part of the film makers, Julian Schnabel and company, is enough to make me get a little misty eyed. Of course, you also have an amazing true story written by a guy who really did overcome massive obstacles. It's an amazing achievement.
I've noticed Juno, a personal favorite, and some other comedies being mentioned a lot. Maybe the crying was due to all the laughing.
Wonderful post, and I would like to expand on your notion of good people being led to sacrifice: The most devastating films to me are those in which good people deny themselves of happiness, often inexplicably (because, after all, no real answer would really ever make a difference). Even more so than emotionally draining films like "Grave of the Fireflies," "Ikiru," or "Deliver Us From Evil" in which good people have horrible situations thrust upon them, there is something that draws me to films in which sadness seems to be the curse of a good person's own choosing. As if they have no choice but to condemn themselves for some unspoken crime which is never clarified but hangs over their souls like lead weights.
"Leaving Las Vegas" is an obvious (and great) example; "Remains of the Day" is also one that never fails to move me to tears, nor does "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," in which two utterly decent people are driven into some sort of hellish oblivion because they have denied themselves the right to be content merely with each other. Happiness seems right in their grasp, but they lose it because they can't seem to bring themselves to believing they have a right to experience it on its own terms.
I also think this is why Bergman remains the saddest of all directors; "Cries and Whispers" and "Saraband" come immediately to mind as pieces in which the characters become their own judges, despite the storyteller's indications that they do not deserve their own condemnation. Speaking of Bergman, have you seen "Keoma," the surreal, oddball spaghetti western reworking of "The Seventh Seal" in which a war-weary halfbreed chooses death and plague as his only company seemingly because they are the only constants he seems to believe in? Not a great film, but compulsively watchable for the mesmerizing character in its center. Even John Wayne's Ethan in "The Searchers" is this kind of character, and that film indeed articulated the question better than any other with its opening song: "What makes a man to wander, what makes a man to roam? What makes a man to leave bed and board, and turn his back on home?" It is significant that the theme song doesn't answer this question, but concludes with a heartbreaking retreat: "Ride away."
Now having read Kirsty Gunn's novel "Rain" and watched the film a second time I can see now that Christine Jeffs, the screenwriter and director, has added so much to the characters that it is an entirely new thing, whilst staying true to its tone and purpose. The book was published in '94 in London by a relatively young (then 34, if my calculations are correct) New Zealand woman; that fact alone fills me with wonder at a different world. The writing is full of confidence and she has a mastery of style and effect, but it is not a great or important novel. It is what purports to be: a promising first novel. The terms of reference are so small that it is unlikely to linger in your mind (but it has). It is the kind of book you find in a public library and read the whole way through in an afternoon; I might have read it before and simply not remembered it.
I remember in her journals Sylvia Plath recieved a rejection letter saying that every time there is downpour poems come in across the nation titled "Rain". This is the best thing you can say to a writer. I think someone ought to have said that to Kirsty Gunn, and yet, I am glad her talent seems to have progressed uninterrupted. The book is evocative, tied to family and nature, but not false or affected as in a contemporary Australian novel. It has no intention of being a national book, there is no gratuitous use of colloquialism, the world it creates is so small it could be anywhere. The book doesn't have a subtext. It isn't conscious of war, politics or sleaze (unlike the film, which understands sleaze all too well). It tells a story about a young woman growing up, her experience of loss, and that is all it does. No-one seems to have taken this woman and tried to shake her up and make her tell a different kind of story, to make her think about plot or marketing or audiences. Her writing is the purest literature I have ever found. Nothing intrudes upon it. Nothing takes away from it or adds to it. The words are like memories, and many of them are doubtless real memories.
So much must have happened to me that I linger over a book and film like this. It is an openly sad story and, true to the theme of this thread, it didn't make me cry. Perhaps it is because I wasn't trying hard enough: the second time I almost cried. As I get older art seems less abstract and I am conscious that it is created by real people and reflects their feelings, their hopes and wounds. It is not for the fictional characters that my heart goes out but to the person who imagined them, for the real hurts that inspired them and for the healing that art makes of it. It isn't the kind of healing that takes the pain away but it does something else to it, like prayer. If art depicts sadness it is because someone was once sad. I want to know who that person might be. I want to know what makes them nurse and care for their pain as they do, to apply thought and craft to it.
The film's undisguised purpose seems to be to document the beauty of (then) 14 yr old Alicia Fulford-Wierzibicki. It is built on observation - small observations, but most of them true. I loved that the children in the film are fully incorporated into the adult world, attending their parties, mixing their drinks. This is still possible in NZ and parts of Australia: it is a feature of a relaxed, unobserved world. The film doesn't sexualise the girl but simply invites you to look at her and recognise what is there. Every shot shows the stars in her eyes. Never for a moment did the film lead me to believe that she was anything other than a child. She has a child's curiosity and the film made me feel her curiosity, as well as her Mother's concern for her - there is an effective moment where she stalks up to a man at a party and says "Don't give her any more alcohol."
True to the novel she is finally seduced, and never for a moment did the film make me think she was old enough to know (quite) what she was getting into. Her lover is portrayed astutely: he seduces without seeming to, simply by passively obeying her child's commands. The final act happens, as it must, off-screen, but you see in her troubled face in the ensuing scene that it was more than she bargained for. She learns something about men, about the world. It isn't enough to really hurt or disturb her but enough to end her childhood tranquility, to put an end to what would have seemed endless.
The novel made me respond slightly differently. In the film the budding eroticism is there all the way through and has the quality of a fait accompli (this is, after all, a staple theme of arthouse cinema, and is calculated in a way the novel is not). The novel deliberately diverts from anything erotic so when it comes, washing over you and yet built mostly of subtle allusions, it feels like something both private and necessary to her; her world is otherwise too small and empty, and like the film made me feel like growing up is the best possible thing that could happen to her. If she forces the issue, before her time, it is bad but not so bad. If I shouldn't feel this way, according to official standards, it doesn't alter the fact that I do. There is no pause in the story of this girl's life to allow for me to editorialise. It is too full of honest conviction and even oblivious that there is an 'issue' here. The only issue it knows is what the girl wants. She consents to the point where it even seems to be her own idea (true to life). It made me oblivious for a little while and that is its magic, the victory of its style, its seduction and persuasion.
The film is more circumspect, more guarded, like a parent. The one scene I don't like in the film is where the two children cut out pictures from pornography and run down the hill giggling. There is nothing like this in the novel, such a scene would have been beyond its imagination, an intrusion on the idyll and isolation of their world. The point, I suppose, is that innocence draped in (or exposed to) sleaze is still innocent. This is something children might do but it seems a little too contrived. It works for a little while but not quite long enough for me to avoid the thought that the world isn't quite so harmless, not anymore, not ever. Though the girl comes out relatively unscathed from her adventures she might not have. Christine Jeffs knows this and its in every other moment of the film. In the translation it has acquired a subtext, like a burden, like a necklace.
The tragedy of the ending evolves from the characters and is not simply imposed on the story. The girl makes a small mistake with great consequences but she has done nothing so wrong to attract any blame, to create the preconditions for redemption. "Things happen, that is all." she writes. They do, and will, and the film convinced me of the promise still left in this girl's life.
The finale of "Dances With Wolves" makes me cry almost every time.
What's always fascinated me about film is the medium's capacity to make us not only empathize with the characters, but feel what they feel. Often this is most pronounced in darker films. Many people have talked about Magnolia, but I think it has gone unmentioned that most of the characters in this film are people we would never dare associate with. Claudia's a depressive and neurotic addict. Her father, the talk show host, is a child molester. And Tom Cruise's character is a messagonistic loon. But, as the opera, (as you so appropriately put it), unfolds we see why these people act the way they do. We see they have deep scars from the past. Claudia was abused, Tom Cruises character was abandoned by his father and forced to take care of his dying mother all by himself, and William H. Macy's character was a child star, but his parents exploited him and robbed him of his money.
After watching this film with one of my friends he said something to the affect of, "God, it never really occurred to me before, but everyone, even the crazies we meet on the street have a past."
Magnolia, to me, is one of those films that not only has a beautiful burst of redemption -- at the end when a smile forms on Claudia's face -- but has the capacity to redeem us, the viewer. To show us that people often have reasons behind how they act and cause us to look at people in a different light in the real world. Maybe even cause us to show compassion for them.
I think what makes your reviews so extraordinary is you bring more to the review than academic criticism; you bring hope, understanding, and compassion for mankind.
Someone above mentioned Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I clearly remember my feeling of awe when Michelle Yeoh's character pursues Ziyi Zhang's character across the rooftops near the beginning of the movie. My heart was pounding, it took my breath away. It was a moment of pure escape into another world, and surprisingly, it moved me to tears. But the film that affects me more than any other is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I treasure re-watching it every few years. When I do, it inhabits my thoughts for a long time after. The journeys of the characters resonate so raw and true with me. At the end, when Tomas and Tereza drive their old truck down the muddy road in the rain and the scene fades to white, I feel that I'm watching something that is strangely sacred. Their lives end in an instant when their entire being has been distilled into a moment of pure love and joy. This is excruciatingly sad and beautiful to me, and my tears flow from a very deep place - maybe my soul?
I first watched Magnolia a couple of weeks after I attempted suicide--not the smartest move I've ever made, but it helped so, so much. I was a broken-down wreck, so watching all these other broken-down wrecks make connections and see the light in the dark was kind of cathartic for me. Redemption, forgiveness...yes. The part where they all sing along to "Wise Up" had me in pieces.
For the most part, those movies that have touched me the most deeply are those in which someone denies himself what he most wants - out of principle, honor, or the love of another person. Whether it is the Nick Nolte character returning to his wife at the end of THE PRINCE OF TIDES, whether it is Gerard Depardieu covering for Bronte (Andie MacDowell) in GREEN CARD, whether it is Sarah Miles in THE END OF THE AFFAIR at least temporarily choosing God and her vow over Bendrix and then the shared understanding between her husband and Bendrix as they care for her as she dies … it always seems to me that it is ordinary people making the more noble choice, doing what they ought rather than what they desire, that moves me. Now a senior citizen, I recall that the first passage from literature that struck me as a high school student was that of Sidney Carton going to his death in A TALE OF TWO CITIES: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done before.” Sacrificial love has been the leitmotif of my deepest viewing and reading experiences. For that moment, I feel that I am in the presence of the holy.
The only other consistent, though less frequent, reaction of tears – and they are tears of a different quality - that I’ve had at the movies is to those films that unerringly reflect back to me my life’s circumstances. Years ago, while living in a difficult marriage, the carnage wreaked upon the young boy in KRAMER VS. KRAMER shook me to the core and reminded me that, for better or worse, I needed to try to make a difficult marriage work so that my children would not be torn between feuding parents. I not only cried during the movie, but throughout the hour-long drive home.
And just recently, the movie AWAY FROM HER had a similarly wrenching effect. Friends who had recommended the film rejected my fear of seeing it, saying that it was not painful. I, who have an 87 year-old mother in the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s, listened to them – and to my deep regret. It was not just a story for me, as it must have been for them. It was my life. I cry rarely at movies, but at this movie, I sobbed, grateful that there was only a handful of people in the theater. My heart literally and physically hurt. I did not need to be told about the pain of watching someone you love lose who they are in the most humiliating ways; I see it everyday. I hope never again to experience at the movies the pain that this movie brought to me.
So, it seems to me that we are talking about two types of tears here: one, a type of sadness brought on by a sense of the numinous, of people making sacrifices which cause us to be encouraged about human nature. Tears of hope and wonder. The other kind, tears of pain so deep as to be unimaginable. There is a type of joy in the first; there is naught by agony in the second. And, oh yes, there is a third, the tears of laughter, as mentioned by a previous writer about the montage of clips at the end of CINEMA PARADISO, or of Mary’s “hair gel” in THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY or of the woman ordering “whatever she is having” in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, or the entirety of COLD COMFORT FARM.
Thank God for the movies where we can experience tears of hope, tears of utter grief, and tears of joy. And thank God, also, for you, Roger, who have helped me discover movies that have deepened my experience as a human being, that have made me think about life, and about my life. Your recommendation to see AFTER LIFE has caused me to value the preciousness of moments and the significance of choices. When I go to that way station between life and eternity, I want to have so many moments of wonder, mystery, and love that making a choice about my eternity will be impossible!
I didn't have the time to read every single comment, and to be honest, I have this kind of self-defensive thing that happens, where I tend to forget which movies have setting me crying, until I see them again. That said, here's two I don't think anyone has mentioned, "My Life As A Dog," the ending I mean, when the boy finally is able to face his overwhelming sense of loss, and partly articulate it in his own weeping, and, oddly, "Iron Giant," which is all about redemption and self-sacrifiice (absolutely dynamite traditional symphonic score too, which greatly adds to the emotion of the piece).
Thank you Roger Ebert for so often articulating what I feel about movies, and (often) what I would say myself if I were as good a writer.
Two recent films that have affected me are Kicking and Screaming (1995) and Conversations with Other Women (2006). Having recently graduated college and probably on the verge of my own ‘quarter-life crisis’ Kicking and Screaming perfectly illustrates the heartbreak and nostalgia of a post-collegiate life. It is a great example of the struggle in reconciling the idealism of youth and the looming on slot of unfulfilled expectations for which the reality of adulthood unjustly yields.
The second film, Conversations with Other Women truthfully explores the tragedy of lost love. The scenes in the hotel room are exceptionally heartbreaking because of the obvious love still felt between the man and woman. I suppose Conversations With Other Women like Kicking and Screaming are both “meditation(s) on the inevitable adjustments of adulthood” as Mr. Ebert so aptly noted in his review for this film. Perhaps, this is the reason I responded so strongly to both films.
On a final note, this may sound strange but I’ve always been comforted by the horror genre, in particular the trope of the ‘final girl’. Being a survivor of assault myself, I’ve gained a great deal of empowerment in watching the ‘final girl’ overcome evil. Films like Silence of the Lambs and The Descent are specifically good examples of this.
This has been a great discussion and I'm impressed that so many people mentioned "Ordinary People". It's a great script and one we use frequently in our acting classes, especially the scene between Conrad and Karen in the restaurant (their first visit since the hospital).
What has made me cry...
"Ordinary People" in the final scenes between Conrad and Doctor Berger
"Philadelphia" when Andy's brother hugs him goodbye for the last time in his hospital room and when Miguel kisses his fingers one at a time
"Longtime Companion" when the three friends imagine life with all their dead lovers, friends and family dancing and hugging on the beach
"The Best Of Youth" as the brothers pour out their grief over their dead father in the middle of a busy street (please see this movie!)
"Terms Of Endearment" when Aurora returns to her hotel (after spending the day with her cancer-stricken daughter) and finds Garrett sitting on the stairs. "Who'd have thought you'd turn out to be a nice guy" she smiles then breaks down in his arms
"The Deer Hunter" during the singing of 'God Bless America' (someone else mentioned this scene, to my delight)
"One True Thing" (another singing scene with Meryl Streep) with the community and family surrounding their dying mother and singing "Silent Night" at the Christmas Tree Festival
and of course, one of the great cinematic endings I've ever seen...
"Brokeback Mountain" as Ennis adjusts the old plaid shirts from their summer on the mountain, tears up and closes the closet door leaving us with the view through that trailer window of the windy plain. I wanted to cry in the men's room, but it was filled with men doing the same. I had to get to my car where I promptly broke down for about twenty minutes.
Ahhh, that felt good.
Thanks Roger!
Ok.
I just watched Jarhead on July 4th, and I gotta say I let a few tears loose at the end of the film, when the ex-Marine(?) jumps on the bus and proudly proclaims "Welcome home Marines. You did it clean. You made us proud." Everyone kinda looks at him not really knowing where he's going with this...ah, I can't explain it fully, but something about that character is so heartbreaking and it gets across in about 30 seconds. There's something very real and very, very sad about a man like that.
Wow! This "Redemption" column should never be retired. Reading these, (and thanks for my previous post on SWEET LAND), made me remember my devastating cinematic emotional moments:
- Both BREAKING THE WAVES and DANCER IN THE DARK. 2 similar endings that reach into your gut, and leave you agape. Von Trier: cinematic sadist...or genius? You decide.
- Absolutely the gift of the kissing film-clips in CINEMA PARADISO. And like many people have posted, there's something about when there's a collective shared experience that gets to me. CINEMA PARADISO also does it for me as it simply shows what a movie theater can do for people in a village...and all through life.
- DEAD MAN WALKING, when an absolutely horrible man comes to an epiphany in the final moments of his life. I haven't seen the film since it first came out, but even now as i write this, remembering Sean Penn's performance at the end, and Susan Sarandon reaching out for him......lordy!
- HAIR, my most favorite underrated movie musical. After an imaginative and whimsical look at the 4 hippies befriending an Okie on his way to Vietnam while in Manhattan...how the film moves me to pieces when they think they're seeing him for the last time in the Nevada desert before he goes off to war and he finally has his romantic moment with the girl of his dreams, and no words are spoken...just extremely happy faces that soon turn hesitantly hopeful, and a simple acoustic guitar and harmonica playing over it.
- ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. To that lovely piano moment on the score, when both Joel and Clementine briefly revert to when he's a little boy with a cape and she in her cowgirl uniform takes him by the hand as he's crying...not only did I pretend to be Batman when I was a boy and played with my next door neighbor girl similarly...but who among us doesn't have the child that we were inside of us??
- CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, when Roy Neary looks back at everyone before stepping on that Mothership with a look on his face that combines happiness, amazement, and a little bit of "What the hell am I doing??", and as John Williams great score soars as Roy is about to do just the same...Melinda Dillon wipes away a tear and smiles. (Wow...I'm verklempt just typing this!!!)
- WEST SIDE STORY, when at the finale Natalie Wood heartbreakingly cries out "Don't you TOUCH HIM!!!"
- The third act of THE CHINA SYNDROME.
And oddly enough....
- YENTL!! Something about the stirring lyrics when Streisand's character leaves behind her restricted life for a new liberating one in America, and she's on the boat having left behind the possible love of her life. And this epiphanic moment makes her realize her late beloved father is no doubt looking down at her, and she can "see him".
My girlfriend at the time gently punched me and said "You're crying at this, and you didn't cry at TERMS OF ENDEARMENT????"
Simply because, us guys put our defenses up when we hear a film will be emotionally powerful, and that's what I did with TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. A great film, and a killer goodbye scene.....but I was ready for it.
What I think we all love the most is when films, like YENTL, or an upbeat adventure or comedy or romantic-comedy...or even a damn commercial....gets us unexpectedly.
We hate them as we look for a tissue, but we love them deep down for stirring our soul.
Bergman is a genius and his films are amazing for exactly the kinds of reasons you mention here. I actually first rented Cries and Whispers junior year of high school based on a review in one of your books. What a beautiful film. Love the silence of god trilogy too, and so many of his other films, especially Fanny and Alexander. Ikiru is a great choice for this list. I LOVED Million Dollar Baby, and I think its power comes from how strongly drawn the characters are. They seem like real people, so you feel what happens so strongly. Lots of people are mentioning ET, and the scene that gets me is when the bikes fly at the end. It's just like a beautiful childhood dream. That one had me outright balling a few years ago, which is funny because I never found it particularly tearjerking as a kid. It's a shame that Spielberg felt the need to altar his own film, and make the original cut so hard to find. The scene that gets me in Schindler's List is when Oscar Schindler is talking about all of the other lives he could have saved. It really just makes you think about the preciousness of every human life. Among relatively recent films I would have to mention Dancer in the Dark (a film ultimately about the beauty and importance of fantasy in a harsh world) and Magnolia, a film which truly embodies the concept of human warmth and compassion - which is probably why it's so gloriously uncool!
What about "Cider House Rules"? I watched that at home one day alone, except for my six-month old son. The care that the characters showed for each other really got me going. I'd burst into tears 30 minutes later just thinking about its tender and happy/tragic ending. I don't know if its overly sentimental or not, but for me there was a truth there. Must have been the thought of those little orphans needing a family!
The very end of "The Seventh Seal" - is very moving. The whole lot of them parading up the hill as if all is lost but maybe it isn't that bad after all. I remember a discussion a bunch of people were having 20 years ago about whether they would try to survive in the event of a nuclear attack - some said no, but someone very wise said, "Wouldn't you have to try anyway?" Isn't there something worth preserving even if things get 20x worse?
I suppose when I think of movies that make me cry, the first that comes to mind is "Ikiru," a movie that I believe I was introduced to thanks to your Great Movies article on it. I have only been able to watch the movie about three times since discovering it several years ago. I find that I need to be in the right mood for such an emotional undertaking. I suppose that what gets to me is the desperation of the main character to leave some sort of mark on the world. Here is a man who has done nothing but follow the herd his entire life, and in facing the end he realizes that his life has truly meant nothing. I suppose it speaks to something present in most, if not all of us. The drive to do something great, to accomplish at least one thing that will make the lives of others better. To leave our mark on the world. Now that I'm writing this, I suppose that the reason I have trouble watching it is that it makes me aware of the fact that I have not done as much as I could to leave my own mark on others.
Sometimes redemption can be a more subtle element in a film. Rififi is an example of this. Its recipe is a slice of noir, a chunk of heist and a dash of redemption. In the end, the main character named Tony is redeemed by essentially sacrificing himself to save a young boy. Although this facet of redemption is very lightly underscored at the very close of the movie, it is nevertheless tangible and significant. As Roger said in his review, "Tony reveals a nasty streak of cruelty against a former mistress, and is quite capable of cold-blooded murder, but by the end he seems purified by loss. His character believes in honor among thieves, and his lonely vengeance against the kidnappers provides the film with its soul." Very well put, and it goes to show that redemption doesn't have to be the major theme of a film. It could be that little ingredient that adds substance to what would otherwise be merely a piece of stylized entertainment.
There are two movies to this day, even though I've seen them at least half a dozen times each that make me cry: "Hotel Rwanda" and "Crash."
Two scenes in "Hotel Rwanda" in particular. When the UN forces keep the Rwandan refugees from joining the Catholic missionaries during the evacuation, and the priest argues on the Rwandans behalf. And at the end when Don Cheadle's family readily adopts the children of their dead friends. The sheer "goodness," as you put it, of the missionaires and Paul Rusessabagina(sp?) in an environment of sheer chaos and destruction is almost too much to bear, all the more so because we know it was real.
**Possible Spolier**
In "Crash," when Michael Pena's daughter jumps in front of him as Shaun Toub fires his gun, I cried...in public...I'm talking sniffling, snot-dripping, full-on waterworks, cried in the middle of the theater. I'm a 23-year old, 250lb male. At first I teared up because I thought she was dead, then I lost it when she turned out to be alive and consoled her father. The absolute belief she had in her impenetrable, invisible cloak, the love that drove her to protect her daddy, the relief and joy of her father, the shame of the shooter, and the unspoken, implied possibility of divine intervention was a perfect storm of emotion that ripped me to shreds.
I just finished watching "Cries and Whispers" (I ILL'ed from the library). I am still in a bit of a jumble, but now also want to see more of his work. How I got this far in life w/o seeing Bergman's films, I don't know. So much religious imagery(the house has a cathedral hush and at her death, Agnes is in the crucifixion position etc) but with natural themes (the exterior shrouded in mist, the roses and the watercolor Agnes does). So much red--like a stream of blood or rage flowing with the women eddying in its midst like blank spaces and the men acting as punctuation marks.
I'm at a loss to say who is more tragic: Karin or Marie. And I was strangely reminded of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Karin resembled Eliza in her rigidity and fear of affection; Marie could be Georgiana:she's got the soul of a courtesan and makes a retention ditch look deep. How came these women from the figure of grace and serenity that Agnes describes? Is that the misfortune? Or is the real tragedy when the sisters finally say goodbye--Karin has been touched and is seeking reassurance, and it is only then that her sister plays her hand and hurts Karin as much as Karin hurt her earlier?
I have one remaining sister. I have had sisters die. This movie skirted mighty close to some sibling dynamics I'd rather not think about. I would find it almost too painful except for the last word from Agnes when they are on the swing. How many times like that does one person get in a lifetime? Perhaps it is enough. I feel that Agnes, unlike either sister, was blessed in her awareness of the absolution of that day.
lm glad to hear i wasnt the only one who choked up at wall-e'
Yes, I understand why you would add Juno. I think another film that belongs in that meaningful motley menagerie (clever,me?) is actually an animated film from Japan called Grave of the Fireflies. At the moment I have no idea if you've ever seen it, but one of the creators eventually founded Studio Ghibli. It's the saddest movie I've ever seen. In fact, I've only been able to watch it once, it was so painful. Yet I can't get rid of it, because I know a masterpiece when I see one.
For those who don't know, (spoilers will abound here) it takes place during and after WWII, where a brother and sister lose their mother to the American fire bombings. They stay with relatives at first, but they are so resented the brother is determined to care for the sister himself. They find a cave and the brother does what he can to provide for her, which sadly, isn't much. He resorts to stealing, even though it's clear he has somewhat of an inheritance from his mother.
The pain we feel was not only from the sister dying, but being an unwilling participant in watching. We know that it is the brother himself who ultimately causes her to starve to death. I am uncertain as to why. Is he too proud to ask for help, or is it that he thinks he can't, or does he simply not know any better, being young himself? I suppose it's up to each of us to watch and decide.
Thanks to Roger and WShedd for suggesting 'The Italian'.
I was trapped in another city by airport fog, missing a family wedding, and rented 'The Italian'.
Had to watch the ending twice because of audible bawling [from me].
For everyone who posted here, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and rent it.
And thanks for reminding me re: 'Iron Giant' and 'Hearts of Atlantis', and would add, 'Tous les matins du monde' with Gerard Depardieu and son, when she gets the slippers out of the trunk.
I promise you'll be at least a little choked up at the end of "Cyrano de Bergerac", even if you don't understand French (English subtitles are available).
And I second the mention of the love story between Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which made me love Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-Fat for all time.
I discovered your blog on the cnn website in an article regarding "At the Movies". I have to tell you that your blog is much more informative, interesting and engaging than anything I have seen lately.
This blog is great, and you sir, are an excellent guide on the craft of film making.
There is much in this blog that one can learn and enjoy.
On the subject of movies that made me cry, the scene in "Pursuit of Happyness" where Will Smith sleeps with his young son in a BART bathroom, made me cry, as did the moment when he discovered that he had a job at the brokerage firm.
A great film that made me feel awful: Akira Kurosawa's "Ran".
Keep up the blogging!
May you achieve immortality!
Regards,
cy unpingco