Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not trust women.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

“But what about the lurkers?”

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You are here: Home / Guest Posts / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Brian’s Song

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Brian’s Song

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In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools unsuffered.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the world of shit falling on our heads daily in the political sphere.

Tonight’s Topic:  Brian’s Song, and Cultural Works That Move You

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Recommendation Week

This morning, the BlogFather sent this tweet:

Which got me thinking. Not about the greatest sports movie–which is a tie between Breaking Away and the original Bad News Bears–but films or books that affected you emotionally.

I’m a crier at movies (the first 30 minutes of Up leaves me blubbering), but books don’t do this to me nearly as often. What books, movies, theater, music, opera (or any cultural works) move you?

Reader Interactions

261Comments

  2. 2.

    Rivers

    I nominate this both for a movie that made me cry but also a great sports movie “Bang the Drum Slowly” 1973 Robert De Niro and Michael moriarty.

  3. 3.

    BGinCHI

    I’ll jump in early with a memory that hit me today of reading Roddy Doyle’s novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, way back in the 90s. It hit me like a ton of bricks, though I’m not (very) Irish, nor did my parents get a divorce.

    I remember being almost too devastated to keep reading. The feeling has really stayed with me.

    I’ll add that Doyle is great novelist and is, I think pretty underrated. He’s one of those who make it look easy.

  5. 5.

    debbie

    My youngest brother wasn’t very old when it was first broadcast, but he cries every time he watches this movie.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @Leumas: I beg your pardon, but your comment has a terrible typo.  I have never seen Field of Dreams spelled that way.

    Though I have to agree that Bull Durham was a most excellent movie.

  8. 8.

    MomSense

    Breaking away is the GOAT of sports movies.
    I’m a weeper generally so it’s hard for me to answer this question.  Music often makes me cry.  My kids loved the Black Stallion movie which means we watched it a lot.  The scene near the end of the big race when Alec has a flash back to riding the Black on the beach always makes me cry.
    Honestly there are too many to list.  I even cry at certain dog and cat food commercials.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    @BGinCHI:

    Yay on Roddy Doyle, especially his earliest stuff, up through A Star Called Henry. I can’t really relate to his more recent work with all the middle-aged guy stuff, but he is a great writer.

    I remember crying when reading Ironweed. I was flying home for the holidays and openly weeping at the tragedy that was Frannie.

  10. 10.

    leeleeFL

    I cannot think of Brian’s Song without filling up.  I cried so hard, my Mom wanted to turn it off!

  11. 11.

    opiejeanne

    @Leumas: In most ways. It is the most quotable sports movie. (Susan Sarandon has sort of spoiled it for me).

    I’d also tag “The Natural”.

  12. 12.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    Oh, please. I cry every time I see Wizard of Oz or The Best Years of our Lives or It’s a Wonderful LIfe. That’s a couple hundred crying sessions right there. I’m sure there’s plenty more.

  17. 17.

    RSA

    I’m a crier at movies (the first 30 minutes of Up leaves me blubbering),

    Me, too. It hit very close to home when I started watching it once, years ago. I should try again.

    The band James has a remarkable animated video for their song Moving On. It destroys me.

    https://youtu.be/aWPgJkOdUZU

  18. 18.

    opiejeanne

    @leeleeFL: I remember Brian’s Song and how everyone in my house was in tears, including our little boy, who was 1 at the time. He was crying because Mom and Dad were so upset.

  19. 19.

    BGinCHI

    @debbie: A Star Called Henry is a GREAT book.

    And if you liked it, I highly recommend Sebastian Barry’s The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty.

    Amazing writer and amazing novel.

  22. 22.

    Gravenstone

    Having been forced to watch Brian’s Song in fourth through sixth grades (as well as Pollyanna a couple times in there), I find myself immune to the emotional manipulation it presents.

    For what does work on me, several episodes of the anime Violet Evergarden (as well as the end of the first movie, and from everything I’ve heard about the second one it will nuke me from orbit as well) have left me a bawling, snot encrusted mess. Once the pumps are primed, it seems like anything that touches on the sense of personal loss (like the first five minutes of Up) will set me off

    eta: and to get in on the greatest sports movie argument, I’ll toss in a plug for the first (and ONLY the first) Major League. Costner loses me in most of the movies he features in, so no Bull Durham or Field of Dreams.

  23. 23.

    MomSense

    What about the kissing film reel in the movie Cinema Paradiso? It’s simultaneously beautiful and touching and I’m a puddle of tears every time.

  24. 24.

    japa21

    I cried at Brian’s Song, I cried at the recent staging of Big Fish (didn’t last long), I cried at several other things. And I don’t get that way with books, I just sniffle a little at times.  I am, to put it simply, a sap.

    Cujo made me angry. I almost resolved to never read another King book.  Key word is almost.

  25. 25.

    Barbara

    A little offbeat, but my husband and I both spent the last 20 minutes of Hillary and Jackie weeping.  Although I didn’t cry, I also felt that the last 20 minutes of Moonlight was among the most moving scenes of any film I have ever seen.  I didn’t cry at It’s a Wonderful Life.  Maybe it’s just not subtle enough.

    And yes, I cried when I watched Brian’s Song.

  27. 27.

    Peale

    The scene in cinema Paradiso when they finally play all the kisses from all the films censored by the priest and their last conversation.
    The big reveal in Kaige Chen’s Together when the selflessness of the father is finally told.
    Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Lots of music makes me cry. The earliest example is the Skye Boat Song (“Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing…”), which I first heard, and loved, and sobbed to, when I was about four years old.

    My uncle used to sit and noodle at the piano while the other grown-ups talked. Every now and then, he’d say to them “Watch this,” and segue into the Skye Boat Song. And sure enough, within a minute or two I’d appear at the parlour door from wherever I’d been in the house, weeping copious tears because it was just so fucking beautiful and evocative.

    It still is. And I still do. And three-quarters of a century have passed. 

  32. 32.

    Hildebrand

    When I was a kid and read ‘Flowers for Algernon’, I cried through the last third of the book.  Didn’t put it down, just kept crying with every page turn.

    As an adult, the third act of Die Walkure, once its just Wotan and Brunnhilde, is devastating, especially if you have a daughter (and she knows better than you).

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    @MomSense: Cinema Paradiso was playing at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Riverside in October 1990, and when the movie-goers exited the theater they saw flames and smoke less than a block away, as the even more historic Golden State Theater burned to the ground.  It was originally the Loring Opera House, possibly the oldest one in California.

  35. 35.

    Lapassionara

    I hope this is not too far off topic, but we are looking for movies that make us laugh out loud. We watched “My Favorite Year” a few nights ago, and I had forgotten how funny it is. We laughed a lot, and that felt good. I am not in shape to cry at a move these days, although Bambi caused me to ugly cry back in the day.

    and I loved Brian’s Song.

  37. 37.

    piratedan

    I’ma just gonna rattle off of list of really good sports movies that no one has mentioned yet… if you find one there that moves ya, then that’s cool…

    Caddyshack
    North Dallas Forty
    Pride of the Yankees
    Hoop Dreams
    Prefontaine
    Shaolin Soccer
    The Karate Kid

    and one very underrated film

    The Games – an oldie about olympic marathon runners, panned by the critics but I kind of liked it, so there’s no accounting for taste.

  39. 39.

    prostratedragon

    Oh no, Gale Sayers! The Great Trinity of Beardom is down to Dick Butkus.

    I saw Brian’s Song when it came out, and of course as a Chicago kid was already familiar with the story and the local outpouring of grief when Brian Piccolo died. Probably cried, as I often do at movies.

    Here’s how it is: the end of Raising Arizona gets me nearly every time, as Hy unexpectedly finds peace. Not necessarily endings: a group of young friends singing and skipping to the last streetcar of the evening, in Lust, Caution. (By that time one already has a notion where the story is going.)

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    Which got me thinking. Not about the greatest sports movie–which is a tie between Breaking Away and the original Bad News Bears–but films or books that affected you emotionally.

    Let’s see. I was saddened to hear of Gale Sayers passing today.

    There is this weird thing about a certain generation largely of white guys that insists that “real men” don’t cry at movies , but are given a pass with “Old Yeller,” “Brian’s Song,” and maybe a few other films.

    I remember seeing “”Brian’s Song” on TV somewhere along the way, and being very impressed by the story and the acting, but it never hit me emotionally or struck me as being the best TV movie of the week ever.

    I never saw Bad News Bears, but love the hell out of Breaking Away. Strangely, even though the bicycle race is a huge part of the film, I see it as a movie about relationships and family, not a “sports movie.”

    I remember being unexpectedly moved to tears by scenes in In the Name of the Father. I was expecting a courtroom drama about the UK/Ireland political tensions, but was not expecting the way the film focused on the father/son relationship of the characters played by Daniel Day-Lewis and Pete Postlethwaite.

    Postlethwaite is also one of the main actors in Terence Davies’ 1988 film Distant Voices, Still Lives, which definitely moves me to tears.

  43. 43.

    bcwbcw

    Slapshot is the greatest sports movie. The rest are just weepies plastered into a sports format.  Breaking away could have been about an aspiring chef or musician and Brian’s song could have been set in just about any engrossing job.

  44. 44.

    patrick II

    Gale Sayers was the most graceful runner I have ever seen.  Deacon Jones said (paraphrasing, but pretty close) that if you want to tackle Sayers you can’t watch him — he runs too pretty and you’ll miss the tackle. If you watch highlights tacklers just somehow miss him entirely– diving and reaching, but not able to stop him. He held the record for punt returns until Hester broke it a few years back, and still holds the record for kickoff returns.  He still holds the record for touchdowns by a rookie with 22, and he did that in just over eleven games. He did all of that in a career that lasted just 67 games.  And he was a hell of a nice guy. Chicago was lucky to have him.

  47. 47.

    JanieM

    Echoing Momsense — too many titles to remember or list.

    But the top two are easy:

    LOTR, which I read once a year for fifty years starting when I was sixteen, and now just skim around in because it’s more or less engraved in my memory. “Thus came Aragorn…” “I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”

    And above all: a beautifully illustrated children’s book called <i>The Mountains of Tibet</i>, by Mordicai Gerstein. It opens like this: “In a tiny village, in a valley, high in the mountains of Tibet, a little boy was born. He loved to fly kites.”

    *****

    I’m even more than usually triggered to cry by books and music these days (I don’t see too many films). It’s obviously an oblique pathway for … everything else to come out, that I’m keeping the lid on in daily life.

  48. 48.

    gene108

    Aliens really moved me. I saw it in the theater, when it was released. I was twelve. The adrenaline rush from being on the edge of my seat was a once in lifetime thing.

    I have never experienced that adrenaline rush again in anything I have seen.

  52. 52.

    BGinCHI

    @bcwbcw: Slap Shot is in 3rd place, easily, in my pantheon.

    I really admire that film, which the more I’ve watched it, the more I’ve come to realize it’s a brilliant look at rust belt culture and only secondarily a comedy.

  54. 54.

    hitchhiker

    I wept at the end of the book, The House of Mirth, but the film was a whole ‘nother thing. I read it in college, where my professor mentioned that for some people it’s intensely emotional but not for him.

    Mr hitchhiker, whose mom died of cancer when he was young, lost his composure completely during Terms of Endearment. Like, we couldn’t leave the theater for a good 10 minutes.

    On Costner: he was good in Field of Dreams, but only if you were inclined to like that sort of earnest, gooey movie. I enjoyed the other baseball one until I understood what a self-indulgent twit Sarandon is; now the sight of her face spoils every scene she’s in.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Lapassionara:

    Bambi caused me to ugly cry back in the day.

    Even more, for me, is the lullaby Dumbo’s mother sings to him from elephant jail while she cradles him in her trunk. Gets me in the feels every time.

  56. 56.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I always enjoyed watching the Toby Maguire flick, Pleasantville. It’s honestly a great coming of age/fantasy movie and it’s in my personal top 10. The court scene where William H. Macy’s character tears up and realizes how much he loves his wife always brings a smile to my face.

    Another in my top 10 that moves me is Cast Away. It’s incredible how much of a good actor Hanks is that he can sell an emotional connection with a volleyball of all things

  57. 57.

    Mike E

    Brian’s Song gets a big boost from Michel Legrand…I must say that Breaking Away is arguably the best sports movie ever made, if just for the bell lap/finish of the Little 500

  59. 59.

    Brachiator

    @prostratedragon:

    Yeah, The Best Years of Our Lives indeed. West Side Story, or pretty much any tragic version of Romeo and Juliet.

    Is there a comic version of Romeo and Juliet out there somewhere?

    BTW: I really enjoyed Baz Luhrmann’s “in your face” version of the play. DiCaprio just fell short of being a great Romeo, but Claire Danes nailed Juliet.

    And once again, the great Pete Postlethwaite is in the film, as Friar Laurence.

  62. 62.

    opiejeanne

    @gene108: Oh God, Alien and Aliens! I didn’t dare see either in the theater. I waited until we could rent them, so that I could hit pause, walk around, talk to myself, get a drink of water, and catch my breath before diving back in

    Especially Aliens, probably because of the child.

  66. 66.

    Brachiator

    @BGinCHI:

    That’s exactly what makes the best “sports movies” the best: less sports and more life.

    Film critic Mark Kermode often riffs on the idea that a good movie is not really about it’s basic plot or “story.” He once made a good case that Jaws is not really about a shark.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    This is coming from a Packer fan, so bear that in mind.  If Brian’s Song does not make you cry, you have no soul left.

  69. 69.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    I hated Romeo+Juliet. I didn’t care for the creative choice of a modern setting while still keeping the Shakespearean English dialogue

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    oh I almost forgot the movie The Music Never Stopped.  My youngest son never cries and he sobbed at the end of that movie.

  75. 75.

    opiejeanne

    @Brachiator: Yes! Clare Danes dressed in angel wings! She was the only thing I loved in that movie. If I were her mother I’d have the still of that printed and framed.  I had trouble with parts of the movie, I thought the setting was jarring.

  78. 78.

    prostratedragon

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    When I was very little, Dumbo made me cry so badly that my mother was almost sorry she took me to see it. About 15 years ago I saw it for the first time since then, and it wasn’t too much better.

  79. 79.

    planetjanet

    Rudy is the greatest sports movie of all time.  Although I have to admit that Brian’s Song is very close second.  I have not seen in years, maybe since it originally came out.

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @leeleeFL: Field of Dreams was ok. Other people around me loved it, I just liked it. I think it tried to hard to manipulate the viewers’ emotions, was too blatant.

    I felt the need to watch something both funny and violent on Friday, and again on Saturday. So, Red and Reds were the fare each evening. Very satisfying for me in need of distraction.

  82. 82.

    prostratedragon

    @Brachiator:
    I understand that the book of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet has, or originally had, a happy ending. The original story apparently got to the composer so badly that he preferred it, just couldn’t leave those lovely kids at that tomb. But really I was just covering for the possibility that someone has done a comedy on that type of situation. Actually, wouldn’t some Shakespeare comedies be alternative versions?

  83. 83.

    eric

    Roller ball is a great sports movie.  Slapshot.  Field of Drams.

     

    Tear jerker for me is when Mark Lee’s character is getting ready to storm out of the trench in Gallipoli.

    I cried at the end of Infinity War, not because it was sad, but because, as a comic book nerd, I waited all my life for that cosmic film.

  88. 88.

    geg6

    @BGinCHI:

    Yup. Totally agree.

    I can’t think of a movie that moved me the way a book or music can.  I have lots of movies that I’ve loved and admired, but none that made me cry. Lots of books have and music does it all the time.  I think it’s because a film is so literal and my imagination needs to be at full power to make me so emotional.  I don’t engage with film and tv as viscerally as I do with writing and music.

  89. 89.

    zhena gogolia

    I can never get through Act 2 of Hamilton without crying. “It’s Quiet Uptown” and “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.”

  90. 90.

    artem1s

    Hillenbrand’s Sebiscuit is one of the best sports books I’ve ever read and the personal stories were very moving.  I used to love Bull Durham but I admit, Sarandon has ruined it for me.  I can watch Miracle over and over again.  It’s a pretty hard sports movie to beat for drama, emotion and action scenes.

  93. 93.

    Nora

    Movie that makes me ugly cry every time: A Monster Calls.  Just destroys me.

    Book that broke me into little pieces and had me sobbing like a baby four or five times before the end (which also made me cry): A Little Life.  So good I read through 500 pages of it in one day, because I couldn’t put it down, but so wrenching I will probably never read it again.

    Also for a book that makes me sob aloud: The Travelling Cat Chronicles.  Even though you know where it’s going, it still breaks your heart (and no, the cat doesn’t die, so don’t worry about that).

    Agree with everyone who said that one song in Dumbo is heartbreaking and guaranteed to make you cry.

  96. 96.

    narya

    I’ve always thought of Brian’s Song as the movie that gives males permission to cry. I agree that Sarandon makes Bull Durham harder to watch, but damn, I love that movie, and even she can’t wreck it. (Nor can Costner’s later stuff, which doesn’t do much for me.) My Cousin Vinny makes me laugh out loud, every time–the first time I saw it, I watched it alone and was completely taken by surprise. A good friend (who died of cancer at age 39) also cried whenever he saw Dumbo. As for me, the LOTR movies can get me–especially when everyone follows Aragorn’s lead and kneels to the hobbits.

    Live music can move me: Springsteen (happy Bruceday, btw) and the Dead (and its later incarnations) can really transport me. I saw Congo Square performed at Ravinia, and it was hands down one of the most, if not THE most, amazing performances I’ve ever seen.

  97. 97.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 

    I hated Romeo+Juliet. I didn’t care for the creative choice of a modern setting while still keeping the Shakespearean English dialogue

    There have been so many Shakespeare films set in different time periods that this should not be a problem. Try it again sometime.

    I also recommend the 1995 version of Richard III, with Ian McKellen and te 2000 modern version of Hamlet with Ethan Hawke.

  99. 99.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    I cried at the end of “Casino Royale”  — the one with Woody Allen, not Daniel Craig

  102. 102.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Barbara: I rewatched Moonlight recently and totally bawled through it again.  And yes, that final scene is just incredible.  Both of those actors deserved Oscars for that.

  104. 104.

    Austin Bailey

    Field of Dreams – manipulative as hell, but I get chills with the first “if you build it he will come,” and have tears streaming down my face by the time Archie Graham steps over the line and becomes Doc Graham.  From that point on it’s a waterworks.

  105. 105.

    James E Powell

    @bcwbcw: 

    Agreed. For theatrical – is that the right word? – it’s Slapshot. Then Friday Night Lights and Bull Durham.

    Documentary sports films have to be a separate category. Hoop Dreams, When We Were Kings, Senna.

  110. 110.

    Peale

    Since I’m going to be the resident “you and your western focus” hoity toity. After Friday Night Lights, the best sports series I’ve watched in the past five years is the “Project S” series out of Thailand (available on Netflix). Best all time, maybe not. But 3 of the 4 mini-series in the anthology work both as high school sports drama and also meet the criteria of making the viewers reach for the handkerchief.  Each blends a personal drama with a social issue and a sports drama, with GDH film’s knack for producing relevant shows for late teens on serious topics that aren’t preachy.

    Project S: Spike is about volleyball. It is also about learning to cope with losing and the attempt of some kids to use sports teams as surrogate families (and why that just doesn’t work.) (Hanky boxes needed: 1+)

    Project S: Side by Side is about badminton. It is also about autism within a family and the problem of transitioning into adulthood for those kids when there aren’t a lot of adult programs available. (Hanky boxes: 2+)

    Project S: SoS (Skate our Souls) is about skateboarding. It is also about a kid trying to use skating to self-medicate through clinical depression that no one wants to take seriously. (Just go to Costco and buy a pallet of hankies.)

    Project S: Shoot is about archery but it really isn’t up to the level of the other three.

  111. 111.

    Spanish Moss

    I am a crier, cried at “Brian’s Song”, both the book and the movie. Read/watched many times.

    I think that the movie and book that made me cry the most — helplessly blubbering — is “Brokeback Mountain”.

  112. 112.

    Kathleen

    @BGinCHI: I love that movie!!! Talk about tears. The State Championship race gets me every time. His pep talk to the team before the race had me sobbing.

    I love Field of Dreams also. I caught the last half on cable recently (starting when Ray meets Moonlight Graham in Minnesota) and I sobbed all the way through the rest of the movie. Hell I’m sobbing now just thinking about it.

    I thought he was great in Hidden Figures also, another weeper for me.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    @prostratedragon:

    I understand that the book of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet has, or originally had, a happy ending. The original story apparently got to the composer so badly that he preferred it, just couldn’t leave those lovely kids at that tomb.

    I think that in Shakespeare’s day, and certainly a little later, there were bootleg productions in which the couple live.

    Also, in Shakespeare’s time, some versions of the story of Romeo and Juliet was known to the literary crowd as a cautionary tale about how youth should obey their parents. Shakespeare shocked the audience by making the lovers’ the emotional heroes of the tale.

    But really I was just covering for the possibility that someone has done a comedy on that type of situation. Actually, wouldn’t some Shakespeare comedies be alternative versions?

    Yep. I suppose. And in looking at the mythic tradition of drama, comedies can be said to reconcile society in bringing the lovers together at the end, while tragedies focus on the disruption of the social order through the actions of the characters.

  114. 114.

    khead

    @gene108:

    Aliens was the fastest 2 hours and 20 minutes I’ve ever experienced in a theater

    Also, I’ve mentioned this before, but the scene from Field of Dreams in Moonlight Graham’s office is just fantastic.

  115. 115.

    hueyplong

    Sports Movie:  Eight Men Out

    Sports Movie Moment:  Redford goes yard at the end of The Natural

    Re the above-mentioned Best Years of Our Lives, it’s the wedding scene at the end, with that angle over Dana Andrews’ shoulder looking at Teresa Wright, who is looking back at him while everybody else in the scene is on camera but focused on the wedding.  Music rises, lump hits throat.

    Re the above-mentioned kissing scene in Cinema Paradiso, it’s the music.  Make-you-cry beautiful, from Ennio Morricone.  My college film teacher told me he wants that played at his funeral.

    In a recent movie, I like the moment at the end of Jo Jo Rabbit when the girl starts to dance, the boy joins in, and the intro to We Could Be Heroes begins.

    Whenever a movie moment moves you, go back and check out the score.  That’s probably what took it from really good to great, emotionally.  And if there wasn’t one, then it was the silence that got you.  Something about the audio.

  116. 116.

    CaseyL

    @prostratedragon: During the Restoration Era (Charles II’s reign), a number of Shakespeare’s tragedies were rewritten with happy endings.  I believe “King Lear” and “Romeo and Juliet” were among them.

    It’s surprising that no one has ever staged those “alternate” versions. Maybe, unlike the originals, they’re too much of their time, and haven’t aged well at all.

  118. 118.

    Phylllis

    @artem1s: I absolutely bawled through last few pages of Seabiscuit. 

    Can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Something for Joey, the tearjerker sports movie of 1977.

  119. 119.

    misterpuff

    I’m with you Cole.

    I was telling a (younger ex-Chicagoan) co-worker that Sayers and Piccolo inspired the saddest sports movie of all time (although Bang The Drum Slowly is a more literary piece and equally good) and he had never seen it. Of course, it was the first (TV) movie to make me break down and cry (F Old Yeller). But Billy Dee Williams and James Caan exude such charisma in that movie and just drag you into the tragedy.

    First time I felt the fragility of Life and our own mortality. Piccolo was so young! Bawled , bawled, bawled.

    The other sports movies mentioned are great and I have seen many more tearjerkers in my life, especially after I became a parent* (Gray’s Anatomy is my weekly go to), but Brian’s Song was my first.

    Special added BS note. Other than the blubbering and football, what I always loved about it was that  the set for Piccolo’s house was the set for Bewitched redressed.

    *Tell me that your tear level doesn’t exponientially increase once you have kids. Tough cynicism melts away once you have other lives to worry about!

  120. 120.

    prostratedragon

    Oh yes, Glory. And for military tragedy of another kind, The Manchurian Candidate (original).

    Maybe neither my favorite sports movie nor the one I think is the “best,” but Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings has got me at the end. Something about the end of an era, I guess. Pride of the Yankees, too.

  121. 121.

    Tim Now Sir Simon Poshlord

    Lately I’ve acquired a late night front porch “good cry” song selection. Stalwarts include Springsteen’s Dream Baby Dream, his version of Hard Times Come Again No More, John Prine’s Clocks and Spoons, and Shades of Gray by the Monkees. Turn it up and watch ’em flow.

  122. 122.

    Kathleen

    @piratedan:  For marathon movies I enjoy Run Fat Boy Run (set in England) and from the 70’s See How She Runs, which starred Joann Woodward. ETA and Prefontaine. Loved that movie.

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @BGinCHI: Hahahahaha

    Damned with faint praise.

    I bet you write a mean letter of recommendation.  Someone very early told me to ask professors if they would write a good letter of recommendation for me, rather than just A letter.

    It’s really an art form.  One time when I was hiring, someone’s letter was all about how nice the guy was and how he was very punctual!  I probably should have told the guy not to use that one for the next job he applied for.

  126. 126.

    scribbler

    The scene of the aftermath of the great battle in Kenneth Branaugh’s Henry V, when he’s carrying the young dead boy off the field. The music, the long tracking shot, gets to me every time.
    Also, some great songs. “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (Fred Astaire). KD Lange singing “Helpless” or “Crying.” “What’ll I Do” sung by Sinatra, Judy Garland, or Nat King Cole, they’re all great.

  132. 132.

    NotMax

    @Lapassionara

    we are looking for movies that make us laugh out loud

    Any Buster Keaton silent.

    Moving ahead some decades, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Movie Movie, La Chèvre and A Raven Called Poe leap to mind. Also, although flawed for a Billy Wilder effort, One, Two, Three.

  133. 133.

    Barbara

    @Nora:

    Book that broke me into little pieces and had me sobbing like a baby four or five times before the end (which also made me cry): A Little Life.  So good I read through 500 pages of it in one day, because I couldn’t put it down, but so wrenching I will probably never read it again.

    Come sit by me.  I set my alarm clock to wake up early so I could keep reading.   A lot of reviewers didn’t seem to get it, and I was really pleased when I found out that it had been nominated for the National Book Award.

    Related, I didn’t cry when I read Lolita but I felt simultaneously furious and empty.  Even the experience of reading it — its clever wickedness — encapsulates the way society abuses and neglects children.  I don’t actually know if Nabokov meant it that way.  He never seems to have explained himself.

  136. 136.

    Hildebrand

    @SiubhanDuinne: We watched the Met’s production just a few days before my daughter left for college.  Before we even got to the farewell, she got up and brought me a box of Kleenex.

  138. 138.

    cope

    If “move you” includes emotions other than abject blubbering (the good ones have been mentioned), I’ll go with “Free Solo”. Having done some climbing back in my day (bunch of ancient gear molding away in the attic), I appreciate what Alex Honnold was doing and was really gripped during the most tense pitches of the route.

  141. 141.

    prostratedragon

    @CaseyL:  I can imagine they wouldn’t translate all that well. First there’s the problem implicit in how subversive Shakespeare often was, that the resolutions that would be popular to those audiences would not be satisfying to present day ones. Then there’s something similar, maybe, in that there’s something meretricious in making a narrative go where its logic does not lead it. Much as we might wish it, Chinatown would not be nearly so memorable with a happy ending.

  142. 142.

    Benw

    The climax of “A Prayer for Owen Meany” wrecked me

    I didn’t sleep for a week after I saw the American remake of “The Ring”

    There’s too much music to count that gets my fist pumping

  150. 150.

    prostratedragon

    This little clip from Lust, Caution is just after the kids, a college theater group, have caught their streetcar, which means I’m already a goner. They have just had their first big success, and the director of the group is thanking their leading lady, as they call her.

  152. 152.

    rikyrah

    I don’t know if Brian’s Song was the greatest sports movie ever made, but, I remember being a kid, and seeing how every Black man I knew absolutely loved that movie. I mean LOVED IT.

  156. 156.

    Freemark

    I think books can be much more traumatic than movies. I have seriously considered suing my old school for making me read ’Where the Red Fern Grows’.  Still traumatized 40 years later.

  158. 158.

    CaseyL

    What makes me cry?

    Almost anything with animals.  Books, movies, commercials…

    “The Incredible Journey” is a story about two dogs and a cat who cross the Canadian wilderness to find their way home.  It was a book, a movie, and then a rebooted movie.  I read the book, and I cry every damn time I read the final scene where the older dog comes running over the hill to his boy.  Every.  Damn. Time.

    Beautiful writing can make me cry.  John (“Mike”) Ford – the late scifi writer, not the late film director – wrote a narrative poem called “Winter Solstice, Camelot Station.”  It’s a brilliant poem for many reasons, starting with the premise of an Edwardian-era train station at Camelot.  All of the Arthurian dramatis personae arrive for Winter Solstice in private trains whose design and style reflect their character.  And, again, no matter how many times I read the poem, the last three lines make me cry like a baby.

    Then there is the three-book series about a species of, basically, jaguars bioengineered to be intelligent, and put on their own planet, and left to form a society. The series takes up many generations later, when the Ungruah have joined a Federation-like interstellar organization and are exploring the galaxy. The two original protagonists are in all three books… and in the third book, they die.  I wasn’t expecting that.  I loved Prandra and Khreng. I read their deaths and almost went into hysterics.

  160. 160.

    leeleeFL

    @Omnes Omnibus: SUCH A GREAT LINE!  I mourn Ian Charleston, Brad Davis, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddle everytime I think of, or see, that movie!  So very good!

    I admit, never have thought of it as a sports film.  Funny, that!

  162. 162.

    MomSense

    @CaseyL: 
    I used to visit my grandparents with my oldest son and we watched that movie every week. My grandfather cried at that scene every time which made me cry because my grandfather rarely showed emotion.

  164. 164.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Hoosiers is probably my fave sports movie of all time (tied with the Natural) but Battle of the Sexes is by far the best tennis movie And probably in my top 5.

  165. 165.

    zhena gogolia

    Wrong thread, but on the question of which five movies you will watch over and over again, I should have included Christmas in Connecticut.

  166. 166.

    Luciamia

    @Brachiator: In the 80s stage version of Nicholas Nickleby, the theatrical troupe he’s involved in puts on a version of Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending.

  169. 169.

    VeniceRiley

    Honey the list is way too long. I cry when two elderly people meet cute in a McDonalds commercial.

  170. 170.

    bjacques

    About “Romeo and Juliet”, there’s a great bit in “Upstart Crow”, the BBC comedy series with David Mitchell as Shakespeare, where he describes the play while he’s still writing it and everyone thinks it’s to be a screwball comedy because the plot’s so unbelievable.

  172. 172.

    Robert Sneddon

    The best sports anime series is, IMO, Hikaru no Go. It’s pretty much a frame-for-frame retelling of the manga which was an odd thing in itself, written by first-timer Hotta Yumi which deservedly received high praise for its general excellence, characterisation, storytelling and so on. After it finished (rather abruptly, almost in mid-action) she started another manga series about high-school speed-skating which flopped.That series got quickly abandoned and as far as I know she never wrote anything else again.

     

    Anime which makes me cry — the penultimate episode of Haibane Renmei, a deep and dark story about… the author, Yoshitoshi ABe refuses to say what it’s about, he wants the watchers to make up their own mind. It takes the viewer on a journey within a closed world and reveals only a little of the path they tread, only a few answers are handed to the watcher and the rest is hidden or half-revealed. There is joy and sadness, loss and community, discovery and mystery. I watch the series through every year, usually in the winter as bright green summer is where the story starts.

  174. 174.

    Bex

    The book Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner when she describes the deaths of two of her sons and the near death of a third.  Just published the US this summer.

  175. 175.

    Barbara

    Two other works that got to me: Milk, the movie.  And “One of Us,” the book about the slaughter of Norwegian students at the hands of Anders Brevik.  The latter made me so distraught I couldn’t read it in public (like on a plane).  What remains with me isn’t so much sadness but anger at how easy it is for aggrieved people to destroy others and use their resentment as justification.  It’s difficult to read, but the author gets inside Brevik’s head and just absolutely makes you understand the mind of a man who justifies killing others because his sense of being entitled to greatness has been thwarted by reality and his own mediocrity.  The unfairness of knowing that he is alive and being cared for by a civilized society when all those beautiful children are dead.  It’s just gutting.

  177. 177.

    leeleeFL

    Nothing to do with this thread, but just saw an article title about Fucker Carlson not letting RBG rest in Peace.  My first thought was, ” Maybe SHE  isn’t letting him live in peace!”. Made me happy, if only for a moment.

  179. 179.

    Gary K

    Some of (in fact quite a bit of) the music of Franz Schubert. Some examples:

    — the slow movement of the String Quintet in C Major, D. 956

    — the development section of the first movement of the Piano Sonata D. 960.

    Amen to Wotan’s Farewell, and let me add the scene in which Brunnhilde tells Siegmund he has to die in battle, and he responds by telling her that her father should be ashamed. Many people can’t get into Wagner because, well, he really was an unlikable person, but in his music he can reach so deep.

  180. 180.

    Zelma

    My latest cry, the end of Hamilton.  But I cried my eyes out at Brian’s Song.  Maybe it will be available on Netflix with Gale Sayers’ death.  Of course, right now who needs a movie to have a good cry?

  182. 182.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Million Dollar Baby (yes, I know Clint Eastwood was involved)

    The Longest Yard (with Burt Reynolds)

    A League of their Own

    Big Fan

    Bend it like Beckham

    hoosiers

    Raging Bull

    I, Tonya

  184. 184.

    Sally

    When I was a child I read the adult books in my parents’ bookshelves. One day I decided that perhaps I should try a children’s book. So I went to the book store and asked for a recommendation. I was about eight. The assistant offered  “Black Beauty “. I bawled all the way through it, and decided if that’s what children’s books were, I was going straight back to my parents’ bookcase. I remember that I picked up “The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini”! Which really tweaked my interest in science, though a bit racy for an eight year old. Ha.

    My best sports movie so far is Invictus, I love rugby. The banning of South Africa from cricket and rugby was very powerful.

  187. 187.

    TheOtherHank

    I did a quick search and no one has said this movie yet. The last scene in The Princess Bride makes me cry every time. I even get misty if I try to describe it.

    “Maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow.”

    “As you wish…”

  191. 191.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @CaseyL:

    Almost anything with animals. Books, movies, commercials…

    Have you ever seen “The Bear”? I don’t think of it often, but when I do, I realise it’s among my favourite movies. Emotional/weepy, funny as hell, with moments of terrifying suspense.

  192. 192.

    There go two miscreants

    @billcoop4: The Marseillaise scene in Casablanca.

    That one didn’t really get to me until after I read Round Up The Usual Suspects and learned more about the cast. Good book about the making of the movie.

  195. 195.

    Steeplejack

    A couple of moments that always get me, randomly selected from memory.

    The ending of The Third Man, with Alida Valli walking down the road of blasted trees toward Joseph Cotten. Nothing on the surface, but a mass of strangled emotions underneath—the perfect coda to the film. And the goddamn zither music. The final shot is 1 minute 30 seconds—almost an eternity in film.

    And from a movie mentioned above, The Best Years of Our Lives, the scene where Dana Andrews goes to the airfield filled with decommissioned planes and has something of an epiphany. The tracking shots of acres of junked matériel bring home the enormity of the war, and then it gets intensely personal as Andrews climbs into one of the B-17s (named “Round Trip?”).

    Interesting TCM commentary here. This scene discussed at 5:02.

  196. 196.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BGinCHI:

    Well, he’s played the same character in every single film he’s ever been in, and he’s pretty good at it.

    Reminds me of a friend, decades ago, who followed news of musical premieres and was wont to say “Ah! I see Aaron Copland has written a new title!”

  201. 201.

    prostratedragon

    @jame:  Goodness, I flooded out a theater at that one. Wasn’t for a few years more that the name of the filmmaker fixed itself in my mind;<)

  203. 203.

    CaseyL

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yes!  I loved the premise of that movie so much that, having seen the trailer, I saw the movie itself the first week it was out.

    I don’t remember crying, though.

    I do remember the scene where the bear rears up over the guy who’s been tracking him.  Bear stands up and roars.  Guy basically tries to fold in on himself.  I remember being gobsmacked and awestruck by the sheer power of the bear (with no blows struck at all; just the bear’s presence).  I was simultaneously sympathetic to and envious of the man it was aimed against, for experiencing it.

  204. 204.

    Gin & Tonic

    Open thread? Yes, no? Fuckit. My daughter-in-law got an e-mail from DoS that her “Immigrant Visa Case has become Documentarily Qualified.” Awkward wording to say her paperwork looks good and her interview is going to be scheduled soon. This is good news.

  205. 205.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Hildebrand:

    The Met’s shown it twice so far since the lockdown — two different productions. I loved them both. George London/Hildegard Behrens is special to me for sentimental reasons, but I also love Bryn Terfel/Debbie Voigt.

    Since they just announced the cancellation of the entire 2020-21 season, I assume we’ll have many more Wagner Weeks in the free* streaming series. Fine with me!

    *Which reminds me, I need to send them a donation. 

  206. 206.

    Tony Jay

    Oh, I’m a terrible crier in the right circumstances. The end of The North Runner destroyed me as a teen, I get tight-throated in the last half hour of Inside Out no matter how many times I see it. There’s a kids cartoon from the late 70’s about a hippo adopted by a village that I only saw once that had a scene where the villagers wrongly blame the local hippos for the crimes of river sharks (I’m not sure how that worked, it was a long time ago) and they beat the hippos to death…. I guess it’s unfairness and/or active rejection of unfairness that gets me the most.

    The one that immediately sprang to mind when I read the question was the climactic battle near the end of Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry. The monstrous champion of the Dark Lord calls out the reincarnated Arthur Pendragon for single combat and everyone knows he’s going to buckle up his shield and ride down to his death, because that’s the curse he’s lived under for a million lifetimes. You can’t buck fate. He knows it. The reincarnated Guinevere knows it. The Dark Lord knows it. He’ll fight, he’ll die, she’ll mourn, and the cycle will repeat endlessly as punishment for his sin.

    So when someone else decided “Fuck that” and charged down that hill in Arthur’s place, chosing to sacrifice their own life in order to break the cycle of fate, I totally lost it. Must be twenty years at least since I last read the scene and it still gets me.

    “For the honour of the Black Boar!”

    I’m filling up. Stupid, sexy Diarmuid.

  207. 207.

    Hildebrand

    @Gary K: Gorecki’s Third Symphony is a weeper, for me.

    The sheer thrill of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, especially the Gloria, can move me to tears.  I had the opportunity to sing in a symphony choir that performed the piece.  That was amazing.

  210. 210.

    Quinerly

    @jame: great movie. I had the biggest crush on Nick Nolte after “Rich Man, Poor Man” thru the early 1980’s. Had actually forgotten about Mac Davis until I saw your comment. Prompted me to check if he is still alive. He is.

  217. 217.

    Pappenheimer

    There is something wrong in my wiring, but both the book and movie versions of the Charge of the Rohirrim at the Siege of Gondor – from the horns in the morning to the deaths of Theoden and of the Lord of the Nazgul –  make me tear up.

  220. 220.

    jonas

    Sorry about Kingpin, but that’s a seriously hilarious movie.

    Tearjerker? A while back I tried watching Cinema Paradiso with my kids and that ending where he finds the reel with all the outtakes of people kissing the old priest used to censor? Bawling like a goddamn baby.

  223. 223.

    stinger

    Brian’s Song made me cry. And no matter how many times I’ve read Louisa May Alcott’s Rose in Bloom, I cry when Charlie dies.

  225. 225.

    jonas

    @Pappenheimer: No, no — Theoden’s death tears me up too: “I go now to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed..”

    Phenomenal acting by Bernard Hill.

  227. 227.

    Kattails

    I had so many films on videocassette, stored just in a cardboard box on a shelf.  Turned out they all had mildew/mold and wouldn’t play, had to toss everything and haven’t really replaced yet. So reading all these has me trying to remember what was there. Field of Dreams and I know it’s hokey, don’t care. Used to enjoy Bull Durham but couldn’t watch it now, Sarandon. ugh.

    Not huge on opera but must say Madame Butterfly “One fine day”– just those few opening notes grab me.

    Now for fun, with Halloween coming up, I must find a copy of Arsenic and Old Lace.

  229. 229.

    Craig

    @narya: I had tears the whole way through Ford vs Ferrari, but they pretty much made it just for me. Saw The Gumball Rally when I was 10, read Car and Driver magazine religiously, Carroll Shelby was my hero and all I wanted in the world was a 427 Cobra.

  233. 233.

    Anotherlurker

    @SiubhanDuinne: Late to this thread but certain music does me in.  Eric Boggle’s “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”  does me in,  every Memorial Day.

    There are several TV shows that will pull at my hear strings.  “Jurassic Bark” from season 5 of “Futureama” leave me in tears.  I’m a dog lover, you see.

  234. 234.

    Steeplejack

    @Quinerly:

    A great early Nick Nolte movie, if you haven’t already seen it, is Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978). Great cast, great script. Vietnam vet gets conned into helping a friend with dope smuggling.

  238. 238.

    Inspectrix

    @RSA: That James video is beautiful and creative, thank you for sharing.

    the comments section for the video is like a group therapy session for the newly grieving. Just in case anyone needs that right now or later.

  240. 240.

    eddie blake

    @Steeplejack:

     

    ooh, yeah. that one..

    so this thread is super dead. but tear-jerking? total cry? EVERY time?

    wrath of khan. when spock is dying and he walks into the transparent bulkhead because he’s blind, and makes sure his jacket is tucked in right.

    “the ship, out of danger?”

  242. 242.

    Craig

    Tolkien’s story of Beren and Lúthien slays me everytime. It’s just beautiful.

    Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees has me sobbing everytime I hear it. I have no idea why. They used it in the outro to an episode of the recent Brave New World show. Blubbering on the couch.

  243. 243.

    rikyrah

    Imitation of Life the Lana Turner version.

    When Mahalia Jackson starts to sing, I begin the UGLY CRY until the end of the movie.

     

    Every?single?time?

     

    Since I was a little girl.

  245. 245.

    billcinsd

    I’m going to add

    Book — John Welter’s “Night of the Avenging Blowfish” while it’s mostly a humorous look at the Secret Service trying to setup a covert softball game with the CIA in a few places the loneliness and longing of the main character really got to me.

    Music — Dramarama’s “Work for Food”, I can’t even explain why past I guess I empathize with the song’s focal character and his struggles

  252. 252.

    oatler.

    “Hamlet 2” with Steve Coogan and Catherine Keener. “I just don’t understand why Hamlet has to die!”

  253. 253.

    Tehanu

    @opiejeanne: I loooooove Kevin Costner. He is a greatly underrated actor. The movie of his that makes me cry is A Perfect World.

    However, the movie that made me cry not just at the end, but from about halfway through all the way to the end was Lion. Have a whole box of Kleenex handy if you ever see it.

  255. 255.

    Amir Khalid

    What works of music move me? Bruce’s 9/11 album The Rising. In particular, Into The Fire is the most beautiful prayer for the dead I have ever heard. The Beatles’ She’s Leaving Home. Hugh Jackman’s Valjean’s Soliloquy and Eddie Redmayne’s Empty Chairs At Empty Tables from Les Miz. Baby Mine from Dumbo. When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2. P Ramlee’s Di-mana Kan Ku Chari Ganti from the movie Ibu Mertua-Ku. You’ll Never Walk Alone, whether sung by fans of Liverpool, Glasgow Celtic, or Borussia Dortmund.

    What movies? The Toy Story trilogy. The Elephant Man. The musical Les Misérables.

  256. 256.

    Tim Now Sir Simon Poshlord

    @BGinCHI: if you can get through them, respect. I haven’t been right since the goddamn plague took him away from us. Peace and goodnight.

  257. 257.

    frosty

    League of Their Own is the greatest sports movie. Or at least the greatest baseball movie. Are there any others that didn’t end with a home run or a strikeout?

    ”She dropped the ball! Dottie Henson dropped the ball!!!”

    ETA: And Major League. Giving the relief pitcher the nickname Wild Thing? Genius. And then there’s Bob Uecker, too.

  261. 261.

    Miss Bianca

    @CaseyL:

    Theater nerd alert on a stone-dead thread: Nahum Tate’s version of King Lear – with Lear and Cordelia surviving, and a romance between Cordelia and Edgar – played for over 100 years, from the time of its writing till well into the 1800’s. It’s largely unknown now, but that’s the version most English theater-goers would have known for a long, long time.

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