Oceania Has any movie made you cry (or always makes you cry???)

Oh, sorry, I wasn't having a go at you.

It's just the film cheapens the Holocaust. Americans, typically, have a larger degree of residual Holocaust guilt that most other nations (Germany included) and so they tend to want to make "inspiring" pieces about the period. One example you could perhaps link in is the Americanisation of the Diary of Anne Frank, which omits the nastier details to make it a, you guessed it - portrait of hope.

E_S

 

Haven't seen it, and I'll never try again.

I tried about 6 times, twice someone wound up in hospital, once the car crashed on the way to the cinema, and people got very ill the other times.

Obviously not meant to see it.

 

If you're going to see it, make sure it at least makes you breakfast in the morning...

E_S

 

Nah, I can live without it, I haven't heard many good things about it anyway...

 

No, didn't think you were. Just observed that you thought I was challenging your opinion. That's all. I've been had a go at too many times not to recognise it.

Yeah, I both agree and disagree. It does definately not tell "the story" of the Holocaust, and I would be hugely disapointed to find someone who based the sum of their Holocaust knowledge on this film (even though I know they exist). But it does present an interesting story that can be taken as part of the larger body of knowledge of the Holocaust. Sure, it's a story of hope, and there were not many moments that could rightly be called representing hope in the Holocaust, but at least on one level it is proliferating the general story of the Holocaust, even if it isn't "the" story. My point is, even though I wouldn't want someone to base their knowledge of the Holocaust on SL, it can still be used as a good introductory tool for learning about that horrible event, and as a film it can be used (as is made obvious by this thread) to highten people's emotional reactions to the Holocaust. Which is a good thing. The Holocaust can never be a non-emotional topic.

 

It's just hard to not feel cheapened watching Shoah versus Schindler's List, since the latter glorifies a slaver.

E_S

 

Indeedy- Being a member of the Nazi party doesn't always put on on Santa's good list, but I dunno- the film showed him to be a bit of an bastard too right? Womaniser- coward, arrogant pig etc...

I know it doesn't show the full extent on his crimes and yes, E-S you're right that it is so the U.S audiences can accept Schindler as a hero at the end, but the magnitude of the films portrayal of holocaust victims and their oppressors was quite staggering and realsitic.

It's a good movie- but yes, Hollywood shines it up a bit (ie: A Beautiful Mind)

and it did make me cry

 

I always cry at the end of ROTS and ROTJ

finding neverland had me crying forever.....

-Mel

 

Yeah, as good as Shoah is, Ender, not everyone wants to watch a 9-and-a-half hour long documentary on the Holocaust.

 

Of course not; it's easier to accept the saccarine that the bitter, no?

E_S

 

I was more implying that it is a little too heavy for your average joe bloggs. Nine-and-a-half hours worth of Holocaust is enough to make anyone want to kill themselves. Seriously.

That's not diminishing its quality, its content or its message, simply its accessability.

 

Well I guess my main gripe is with Snr Spielbergo; I feel that he, as a Jewish director, should have done a more faithful job. Of course, this is probably the result of having a Jewish professor tear the film to bits in Holocaust studies.

E_S

 

Faithful to what, though? He didn't write the script. It's pretty accurate to the book by Thomas Keneally.

Faithful to the Holocaust? Then it shouldn't have been Schindler's List at all, and a completely different film altogether. You can't make a film about survivors if you want to represent the Holocaust in its entirety (if you possibly can).

It's either Schindler's List as it is, or it is a completely different film. I don't see any other way around it.

If you want a Holocaust film to attack, pick The Pianist. While a superb film in its own right, did we need another story of hope and survival in the Holocaust? Surely we only need one film like that, and Roman Polanski could have chosen much more 'accurate' material. But then again, you face the same arguments as I've listed above - if it is a story about 'The Pianist' (i've forgotten his name) then you make that film, a film about survivors. Maybe it shouldn't have been made at all, and a different film should have been made...

It's all very difficult, this history on film stuff. I think the most pertinent question is: Who decides what storys and what perspectives get told anyway? And what impact does it have, ultimately?

 

Mine would have to be, the scene in 'Amelie' where Dominique is reunited with his childhood affects in the phonebooth. I teared up about the first 15 times, and it still gives me goose-bumps to this day. A close second would be the scene in 'Casablanca' when Humphrey Bogart(Rick) first realises that his long lost Ilsa is in his cafe, listening to Sam playing 'it(As Time Goes By)' again.

Most recently, I started blubbering near the end of 'The Notebook', when James Garner's character realises that his Alzheimer's affected wife(played by Gena Rowlands), doesn't recognise him anymore. I almost shed a tear at the start of 'Charlie & The Chocolate Factory' a few days ago when the film was establishing how poor the Bucketts were.

As you may have guessed, when it comes to crying at the movies, I'm an absolute, 'big girls blouse'. I actually enjoy it though, going for the emotional ride. I see it as 2 hours of a healthy form of release and escape. Certainly gets rid of any excess aggression and frustration I might have had during the day. A lot better than shelling out for a 'Shrink', and a damn sight better than going through it in real life. Also a reason why I kinda like watching sad movies by myself... the whole dust in the eye thing gets old after a while.

 

OMG I so cried during that scene and more during the notebook.....

-Mel

 

The Notebook by today's standards is perhaps overly sentimental. Yet there is no denying the power in that particular scene. James Garner was amazing in the way he basically shot sadness, straight through the screen - to the viewer. He deserved the Supporting Oscar that year, just for that short moment.

 

A film has to be pretty skilfully shot to make the average movie goer cry nowadays. So I respect any movie that has that particular power.

 

I dunno about anyone else, but I cried fits at the end of Dr. Zhivago. Maybe that's not so cool....

 

I absolutely agree, with the appropriate background music and actor in the mix as well. Now I'm not saying that Vin Diesel couldn't make me cry, but that would have to do more with his right cross rather than any acting ability.

 

I just watched The Substitute Episode of the Simpsons with Dustin Hoffman, and bawled.

I hereby stand down as the world's coolest man, and pass the sceptre to Leigh Whannell

 

Umm Lord of the Rings... Return of the King

When Aragorn is at the Black Gate thingo... and he goes " for frodo"

i lost it everytime i see that one scene...

 

Indeed. Very cool scene.

The end of Fellowship, with Sam swimming to catch up with Frodo gets me every time. (It's the music!)

Froough Dough!

 

haha yeah Johnnage...

theres a few movies where i tear up...

But Lord of the Rings is the most recent... none after that came out...

ROTS i did a little bit.. but not crying.. just a bit choked up..

 

Hmmm...2001: A Space Travesty made me weep blood. I swear, one of the worst films ever made...

 

//agrees with every word Ender spake on the subject of Schindler's List. Has trouble with films that reduce such a story to nothing more than a tribute to Citizen Kane.

I'm too much of a sociopath to cry at movies. I'm more likely to bawl about a sad passage in a book. Though there have been a couple of exceptions - Gallipoli and Sleeping in Light (final episode of Babylon 5) - that do it to me. In the former, it's the futility of the situation and acceptance of fate, and in latter, it's the music.