What Makes You Cry?

I apologize for the delay in posts.  I have two reasons for it.  One, I’ve been trying to get through the series of my tenth favorite show for my favorite TV episodes list (I’m halfway through season three, and I know season five doesn’t need re-viewing, so I should be back to that series by the weekend).  The second, I had a really awful past few days, and while I’m not going to talk about it (don’t you hate when people have “I don’t want to talk about it” Facebook posts and yet they put them out in public view for everyone to see-me too, but I’m apparently going to be a hypocrite here), but suffice it to say I decided to take some alone time to eat cookie dough, cry at romantic movies, and read On Chesil Beach on a beach (if you’ve never read that book stop reading this blog, load it on your Kindle, and come back and share your thoughts).

However, since I’m in this mood, I thought I’d at least make some lemonade out of the situation and talk about a subject that we’re all accustomed to: what makes you cry, particularly in books and movies.  I have said for years, and stand behind this situation, that we all cry at the movies.  Everyone has a movie that they cry at.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen my father cry (I could actually count it on one finger), but the ending of Mr. Holland’s Opus would be what did it.  My grandfather was a World War II veteran and a farmer his entire life.  A man of few words, and certainly none of them sentimental, but when Tom Hanks and crew came back to earth in Apollo 13, I remember looking to my left and seeing him get misty-eyed.  Everyone has that trigger movie.

The question is-what does it take for you?  For me, I’m a sucker for different things depending on the medium.  With something like television, for example, because I’ve been with these characters for eons, I cry at the drop of a hat if one of them has something tragic happen to them.  I remember that I literally started sobbing in the opening scenes of Lost Season 6, and the finale I literally finished off a box of Kleenex (this is not an exaggeration-I had to go into the other room and grab another box).

Film is a slightly different matter, and it’s worth noting, not always consistent.  There are only a few films that I always cry at: The English Patient (the scene with the thimble), The Return of the King (Frodo carrying Sam), and Casablanca (Le Marseillaise) all spring to mind, but it’s very much based on my mood with some other films.  I have famously cried at Sunset Boulevard, and there’s not really a crying scene in that movie.  The thing about a movie is not only is it the mood, but I tend not to cry the first time I see a film, which is different from most people.  Once I become more familiar with a movie, the more I find myself crying.  Life is Beautiful I used to see 3-4 times a year (I haven’t seen it in a couple of years now, so I don’t know how it would hold up), but each time I watched it I would start crying earlier and earlier in the movie, to the point where I once started crying out of a knee-jerk reaction during the opening credits.  And yet the first time I saw it I don’t know that I cried outside of the Offenbach scene.

Finally, there’s literature, which I tend to cry at the least, but when I do cry, it’s probably the heaviest.  I read the seventh Harry Potter book under a sleep-deprived state, but I don’t think it mattered.  When the first death happened on the broomsticks, I was a basket case, and I had some 600-odd pages to go.  On Chesil Beach is a book I’ve read at least a dozen times, and the ending of it I have probably read in the dozens of dozens times, and yet it always gets to me.  (Spoiler Alert) When Edward slowly realizes that not only could he have lived with Florence, but that moment on the beach would forever alter his life in a way that he couldn’t possibly have comprehended until he was much older-it’s absolutely devastating writing.  What makes crying over a book so much different than a movie or a television show is that it all happens in your mind, and so when you cross that threshold into tears, it’s with characters that you’ve created in your head.  Every time I read this book I feel punched in the gut and hope for a different ending, much like Edward must have felt when he recalled Florence countless times through the rest of his life.  This is easily one of my favorite books of all time, and again, I insist that you read it.

My question for you, then, is of course, what entertainment makes you cry?  Do you find yourself soggy-eyed over different subjects when it comes to television, books, and movies?  Share in the comments!