When I've seen a good movie that has a surprise ending or something bizarre happening that no one would ever figure out from the title, I try hard not to spoil that for anyone else that might consider watching it. I want them to experience the same surprise and emotion that I felt. The feeling of being caught up in the moment and transported to that place in time, is fiction at its best.
However, for someone like me, fair warning that a movie will make me cry, does in effect give me pause when deciding if I want to view it or not. When someone tells me to watch the movie with a lot of Kleenex, I know that something bad is going to happen. I'm not always a very positive person. Yes, the glass IS half-empty. Can't you see that?!
I truly believe that I have probably missed some very good movies just because I was not willing to take the risk. I'm afraid of what it is that is going to make me cry or be sad, I begin wondering. Will it be like "City of Angels" where all of a sudden Meg Ryan is hit by a speeding 18-wheeler while bicycling down a country road, smiling with all the love in her heart for Nicholas Cage? Oh, sorry if that just ruined it for someone. I almost couldn't make it through the rest of the movie. Or will it be horrible still like in "The Green Mile" where the poor weasel-bodied prisoner of a man, who really never hurt anyone, is executed in the cruelest manner so as to make every person in the theater wince in disgust at the sight? Which by the way, sent me out of the theater to wait for an hour on my husband and son to finish the movie without me. Even harder to take are the films that are more like truth than fiction as in "Saving Private Ryan". That was a film I had to watch like taking off a Band-aide. Quickly and without thinking too much about whether to see it or not. From the time the old man went to the cemetery until we figured out the true identity of Private Ryan, I sobbed. That was emotionally draining!
When I know how a movie ends, I seem to worry about just when "the thing" will happen. It makes watching the movie so tedious I have been known to say a pray for God to just let it happen and be over. Such was the case in "The Passion of the Christ". What an emotional roller coaster! We all knew the ending, but I don't think we were prepared for what we'd see in the scenes leading up to the actual crucifixion. It was a mix of horror and disbelief! However, I knew going in that it would be hard to watch. As my husband put it, "it was relentless". I was so relieved when that ride finally came to a halt and I was released back out into my world.
Therefore, when I placed a DVD into the player this afternoon, I did it with a bit of apprehension. It was a flick I've had for a month, but because I was told (by well meaning people) that it would make me cry, I wasn't sure if I wanted to see it or not. My attempts to hide emotion sometimes fail, so I wanted to view the movie in privacy. It was what a lot of men refer to as a "chick-flick". It was a teen chick-flick at that too, so how sad could it be? Right? "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" was a wonderful movie. It did all the things that a good moving story should for me, but most of all it transported me back to being a teenage girl. Different from some teen movies, it did not show the young girls as flippant airheads that only fret over what outfit to wear to the prom. There is a definite message behind the story. The four girls were all a little part of who I think I was and probably still am. So, at the risk of ruining the story for you "chicks", watch it with a box of Kleenex close at hand.
The point behind this entire movie ramble is that once again I am faced with my fear of emotion. One of the characters in the "Traveling Pants" story put it something like this, "...isn't trying not to be sad (about your mother’s death) harder than just letting yourself be sad?" I would have to agree.
6 comments:
City of Angels bugged me because of that. Message in a Bottle is another one that waited until everything worked out between the characters, then killed the guy off.
I've missed a lot of movies that I didn't think I was emotionally up for. Schindler's List is still waiting for me to get my nerve up.
I've always thought the accident was Meg's fault because she was riding her bike with her eyes closed.
I am the same way about Schindler's List. But I did listen to it once, like a radio show. Kim was watching it and I just sat working at a table nearby and didn't watch the picture. That doesn't always work with movies where the characters make too many horror sounds.
Schindler's is a must see ladies. I saw it in the theater as a much younger woman than I am now. It was the first film to make me sob for an hour and effect me on a very profound level. If feeling that kind of emotion scares you...well, I suppose I understand. I've just decided that feeling pain/sadness/hurt is part of what makes me human and to deny it is to not live my life fully. But that's just me.
Well there are different emotions. I'm not scared of an emotion. I'm sometimes scared by what I see with my eyes to be too intense. Disturbing might be a better word. And Yes. the horrors of the Holocaust are so disturbing, that disturbing doesn't do it justice. But I don't have to watch it to know it. Just like I really didn't have to watch The Passion of the Christ to know that He bled, suffered and died for me. I did though and it didn't change what I already knew. I believe we are all very different individuals and have a different tolerance for visually stimulating media. I never will understand how people can enjoy to watch some science fiction. I don't get a thrill out of the 'spook house' at a carnival. I don't get a charge out of being scared. But the human emotions I might have for people that are suffering is very different from the kind of scared I might feel at a horror show. Movies like Schindler's List is about such deep, disturbing and haunting emotions that to know it happened from reading is all that I can tolerate. If that seems like closing myself off to reality, or being scared of "that" emotion, then I diasgree. I know reality and its ugliness. I'd know it even if I were blind.
I welcome your comments and hope this didn't sound angry. Don't ever stop giving feedback.
I'm with you, Mary Lou. It's not that I'm afraid of such images. I can obsess over them if I'm not careful. Paul said to think on whatever is lovely, noble, pure, etc., and it's hard for me to do that when I've let too many pictures of evil into my head. Plus I've dealt with anxiety on a personal level -- connected to some PPD I had after Julia was born -- and I don't need help fueling that because it does come back from time to time. Of course I believe in being educated about these things -- I can quote the numbers from the Holocaust off the top of my head -- I just can't process too much information about it at a time. It took me forever to write those 1947 Texas City blast stories for the Sun because I had to keep walking away from it. It was too much.
I hope some of that made sense.
Oh, yes, so true. I can obsess over images if I let it. I once saw a passing scene from Polterguiest and it gave me nightmares. I don't need some images floating around in my mind.
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