For absolutely predictable crying, I don't know how many times I've read L.M.Alcott's Good Wives, but the obvious chapters in that make me cry Every.Single.Time (also the later relevant poem and associated stuff.)
Also, I saw Titanic a few times, and always cried at the montage of the sinking - I think in this case the combination of the very effective music and visuals with the knowledge of the reality of what had happened was very powerfully moving. (I thought most of the Rose-and-Jack storyline - hey, that sounds familiar!! - was a bit rubbish, but the real-life tragedy was effectively conveyed, and I felt they paid it due respect, it wasn't cheapened by just being the backdrop for the romance or anything. But I know lots of people hated the film, which is fair enough.) Similarly for powerful combinations of music and visuals, I agree with Bunn about the arming the children and old men at Helm's Deep and will add the intercutting of Faramir's charge with Pippin's song (and I agree with LoA about manipulation by music, especially combined with a particular type of visual, esp wordless and slow-mo apparently.) For the *book*, the Grey Havens always makes me cry.
Continuing my theme of agreeing with other people, I'll second Muuranker on the end of Journey's End as well. As with Titanic, I think the knowledge of the reality of the trenches was a factor there, though the effectiveness of the fictional portrayal of it is another part of the whole. Ditto Les Mis. So I'm possibly particularly vulnerable to crying at real events when portrayed through a fictional medium, or at least an artistic one (e.g. Wilfred Owen's poems.) But certainly there are whole swathes of not-real-life-type fiction that equally powerfully affect me (see Alcott, Tolkien, Antony Hope, well, far too many to list!)
As for crying in public, I'm not particularly embarrassed about crying in cinemas or theatres. What I have found slightly awkward is crying in front of the children, not because I think it's a bad thing, but because it tends to involve things they don't really understand yet. For instance, I took El to the cinema a couple of years back to watch UP, and was giving him a sort of running commentary on some of the bits thus "look, they're imagining baby shapes in the clouds, and now they're decorating a nursery because they're going to have their own babies ...oh." And there was a lovely children's book called Once There Were Giants that I just could not get through without sobbing, and it wasn't even sad really, it was just time passing (also I was pregnant with Fro then post-natal at the time so massively hormonal!) so really hard to explain to El why I was crying.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-11-17 10:08 pm (UTC)Also, I saw Titanic a few times, and always cried at the montage of the sinking - I think in this case the combination of the very effective music and visuals with the knowledge of the reality of what had happened was very powerfully moving. (I thought most of the Rose-and-Jack storyline - hey, that sounds familiar!! - was a bit rubbish, but the real-life tragedy was effectively conveyed, and I felt they paid it due respect, it wasn't cheapened by just being the backdrop for the romance or anything. But I know lots of people hated the film, which is fair enough.) Similarly for powerful combinations of music and visuals, I agree with Bunn about the arming the children and old men at Helm's Deep and will add the intercutting of Faramir's charge with Pippin's song (and I agree with LoA about manipulation by music, especially combined with a particular type of visual, esp wordless and slow-mo apparently.) For the *book*, the Grey Havens always makes me cry.
Continuing my theme of agreeing with other people, I'll second Muuranker on the end of Journey's End as well. As with Titanic, I think the knowledge of the reality of the trenches was a factor there, though the effectiveness of the fictional portrayal of it is another part of the whole. Ditto Les Mis. So I'm possibly particularly vulnerable to crying at real events when portrayed through a fictional medium, or at least an artistic one (e.g. Wilfred Owen's poems.) But certainly there are whole swathes of not-real-life-type fiction that equally powerfully affect me (see Alcott, Tolkien, Antony Hope, well, far too many to list!)
As for crying in public, I'm not particularly embarrassed about crying in cinemas or theatres. What I have found slightly awkward is crying in front of the children, not because I think it's a bad thing, but because it tends to involve things they don't really understand yet. For instance, I took El to the cinema a couple of years back to watch UP, and was giving him a sort of running commentary on some of the bits thus "look, they're imagining baby shapes in the clouds, and now they're decorating a nursery because they're going to have their own babies ...oh." And there was a lovely children's book called Once There Were Giants that I just could not get through without sobbing, and it wasn't even sad really, it was just time passing (also I was pregnant with Fro then post-natal at the time so massively hormonal!) so really hard to explain to El why I was crying.
Whoa, long answer is long! :-)