The Long Road

Shawshank Redemption, Voices of a Distant Star, Grave of the Fireflies, Stepmom, The Subtle Knife, Godel Escher Bach - The Golden Braid, 2 girls 1 cup, the Shanghai Acrobats, my account balance 9 months ago: all things that supposedly make people cry. Yet they've never had much of an effect on me. The only time I remember crying in the last 20 years or so was for about 5 minutes in 2003, when I was young and vulnerable to such things. Lately though, I've been trying to find something to make the tears flow. For no reason, really. Maybe they've been building up and need a release. Maybe just as a challenge to myself.

Whatever the reason, I'm just not succeeding. The entertainment industry is completely failing me here. I think part of it is that I can seperate myself from most fiction and it just doesn't quite hit home for me. Sure, there are certainly tons of real-life scenarios that might make me cry - like losing my entire comic book collection somehow, but I'm not going to put myself through that.

What often moves me aren't sad moments, but when people do incredible things for each other. For example, Jake's sacrifice at the end of The Visitor, Hercules choosing Meg over immortality, all of China bowing to Mulan. Goodbyes that you know are forever are also quite potent - like the endings of His Dark Materials, Escaflowne, Of Mice and Men, What You Leave Behind. But yet, none of these things dig quite deep enough.

I'm always reading reviews and comments that say things like "if this doesn't make you cry, you don't have a soul". So then I watch the movie or read the book, and I just don't cry. Does that mean I have no soul? What other books or movies can I try to make me cry? What works for you guys?

I just want to prove that I have a soul, damnit!

Replies: 4 comments

i'm not sure if its powers work on men as well as women .. but "the notebook" man ... i cried and cried and cried and when i got a phone call in the middle of it from my then bf, he was rather alarmed at my sobbing as it was rather out of character for me.

Posted by melpie @ 01/22/2008 11:08 PM EST

The Notebook was a horrible movie...even my gf thinks so. It will not move Thai, ;).

It didn't even move me, when all it takes for me is The Fountain soundtrack to have emotions rev-up.

Posted by dAN @ 01/23/2008 12:39 PM EST

i'm fairly certain brokeback mountain will make YOU cry thai.

Posted by Dave @ 01/24/2008 07:42 AM EST

I do want to watch notebook eventually, it looks pretty good.

Brokeback: did you like it, brokeback-Dave?

Posted by Long @ 01/24/2008 12:28 PM EST