The Crying Game
Everyone's doing it, probably because they've got Miers/Plame-lash. And it's Friday.
Shakespeare's Sister asks:
What movie scenes always make you cry?
For the sake of exactness, I poked around the IMDB to find some examples of specific scenes that make me blubber. In no particular order they include:
Helen Hirsch: My first day here, he beat me because I threw out the bones from dinner. He came down at midnight and asked for them. And I asked him, I don't know how, I could never ask him now, I said, "Why are you beating me?" He said, "The reason I beat you now is because you ask why I beat you."
Paul Varjak: You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.
Richard M. Nixon: Always remember: others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: I told myself it was beneath my dignity for arresting a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for a bit of fuel will destroy a city. That was the first time I ever saw by brother, but I knew him and I knew I would disobey the party. Perhaps it was the tie of blood between us, but I doubt it. We were only half-tied anyway. Indeed as a policeman I would say, get hold of a man's brother and you're halfway home. Nor was it admiration for a better man than me. I did admire him, but I didn't think he was the better man. Besides, I've executed better men than me with a small pistol.
Jake Tyler Brigance: ...The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.
and I know this one's trite, but ...
John Kinsella: Is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: It's Iowa.
John Kinsella: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.
Ray Kinsella: Is there a heaven?
John Kinsella: Oh yeah. It's the place where dreams come true.
Ray Kinsella: Maybe this is heaven.
See also
The part that makes me cry is when the little girl chokes on the hot dog and Burt Lancaster crosses the divide to become Dr. Lancaster and wacks her on the back, instantly killing her. A real tear-jerker.
Posted by: norbizness | 14 October 2005 at 13:07
Truth be known, I must be one cold-hearted mo-fo because movies almost never, ever make me cry. I once sat through The Color Purple, Terms of Endearment, and Beaches completely dry-eyed. I think it's because of my failure to suspend disbelief.
That may have changed since becoming a parent. The last time I cried in a movie was when I saw Fahrenhiet 9/11. When the mom who lost a son in Iraq was reading the last letter she got from him, and again when she stood in front of the White House asking "Why?" I bawled like a baby. I know that was the intent of the director, but what can I say? He got me.
Posted by: Terrance | 14 October 2005 at 16:16
Thank you, Terrance - I couldn't think of a movie that made me cry but that part of 9/11 did it to me.
It's not that I don't cry at movies - I cry at Kodak commericals - but I don't see a lot of movies and I just couldn't think of one that made me cry.
Posted by: eRobin | 14 October 2005 at 18:10
Norbiz, it will cause me a hernia if you don't explain to me immediately or sooner what that's from. It sounds so fucking familiar.
Posted by: Auguste | 15 October 2005 at 03:02
It's "Field Of Dreams" and he doesn't kill her
Posted by: Pete | 15 October 2005 at 13:19
I'm sure there are loads as I'm a soppy SOB ,
but a few that spring to mind that bring a tear to my
eye are.
"To Kill A Mocking Bird" where Atticus is leaving the
court room after the guilty verdict and all the coloured
spectators in the gallery wait and stand for him and the Reverend tells Scout "Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."
City of Angels
Seth: "I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One. "
"Shindlers List" towards the end where Schindler
realises he could have done more and has a minor breakdown and the Jews he rescued give him the ring.
"Von Ryans Express" where Ol'blue eyes is shot down at the end.
Posted by: Pete | 15 October 2005 at 13:46
"Harvey", when Jimmy Stewart agrees to get "that operation" just to cheer up his sister. Then again, I often choose to watch Harvey when I am depressed.
Posted by: Njorl | 17 October 2005 at 03:48