So, it’s official, I am turning into a Big Wuss.It seems that, the older I get, the more emotional I get. Things which once rolled off me like a… rolling… thing that’s… on me (maybe I’ll come back to that simile) now seem able to wound me to the very core.
It’s a sign of growing older, I know it is.
See, when we were fourteen or so, this movie came out that was widely advertised as being the most heart-breaking motion piccie of all time. No, it wasn’t one of the famous ones like ‘Love Story’, in fact I remember it quite well. It was called ‘The Last Snows of Spring’ and it was pretty crappy by any standards.
But people did cry, maybe they felt obliged after all the adverts. In among all this cinematic weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth sat us, laughing our heads off, joking, giggling and poking each other in the ribs.
This tragedy crap meant nothing to us. And why would it? We were kids, we'd never known any tragedy.
I believe that we are most touched by drama which deals with things which we have experienced ourselves.
It’s not a rocket-science theory really. Here’s an example:
When I was about seventeen, I put my hand through a window (‘long story, I’ll tell you sometime). You can sometimes get away with putting your hand through a window but pulling it back out again at speed is liable to do you some considerable damage and, in my case, it did. The other day, twenty-eight years later, I was admiring the scars which are still clearly in evidence around my wrist. The point is, up until I did that silly thing, I could happily watch people go through glass panes, in movies and on telly, all day long. Immediately after that, and for ever after amen, I have winced and shuddered whenever I see it happen. The experience had become personal to me to an extent that now I could be touched and even shocked by seeing it dramatised.
It’s true of pretty much everything, I think.
Take the only movie to ever make me cry, really blub like. Before I tell you what it is (and you pack up and leave) let me explain that the first time I saw this film I hated it. Really. Although the lead actor won an Academy Award for his performance, I found the whole thing forced and obvious. That was back in 1994.
Unimpressed. Deeply. Me.
Then I saw it again in 2004. I’ll tell you the truth, I saw the second half of it, on television, late one night. I hated it again, easy. That celebrated ‘Opera’ scene just does my head in (sorry Tom, it just does) 'load of old... but then the last scene came on… and it reduced me to a wreck.
A Wreck.
The film was ‘Philadelphia'. If this rings a bell with anyone, I did discuss it briefly before in the middle of a movie meme. Anyway this final scene shows (OLD MOVIE SPOILER ALERT) the family party after the main character’s funeral. On the TV in the room there are videos of the guy as a kid, playing around, looking sad. And that’s what got me. I had a boy the same age as this little dude in the movie. No matter how hard I tried, he would grow up and see the world for the harsh place it often is. The world would hurt him. It was beyond my control. And there it was - the life experiences that I simply didn’t have back in ’94 came up and kicked me right in the ass in good old ’04.
Oh and Neil Young’s moving soundtrack song possibly threw me off over the edge.
And now, as years subside, I can feel myself getting worse. I have more life experiences with each passing day, you see. More reasons to blub.
Just last week I was watching the last part of the BBC’s fine new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. Seeing Anne portrayed as a wonderful testy vivacious teenager, criminally robbed of her liberty and life – well, it spoiled my day. What really threw me was the information at the end which said that the only survivor of that hidden household was Anne’s father – who lived until 1980. What a weight that poor man he had to carry through his life.
When I was seventeen, I wouldn’t have got any of that.
But I think I’m starting to now.
(PS: Are there movies that have reduced you to a blubbering mess? I'd be interested to know)
