Monday, March 27, 2006

Movies that made me cry.

In the course of emailing a friend today, I mentioned that I recently watched Disney's 1946 sequel to "Fantasia" called "Make Mine Music". I haven't seen it since I was about 6 years old.
Something I remembered from watching both Fantasia and Make Mine Music was that each had moved me to tears when I was a kid. In fact, four of the five films that EVER brought me to tears were produced by Walt Disney!
In Fantasia, it was the 5th and final segment of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Do you remember it? Here's a description I found on the internet: "(5) Peace and Sunset: After the storm, tranquility returns, and Iris streaks across the sky, trailing a rainbow of colors. The mythological creatures play in the rainbow's colors. As the sun shines brightly, symbolized by Apollo riding a fiery chariot driven by three horses in the sky, the creatures wave and admire its reddish glow, thankful for the lovely day. Sunset approaches and Morpheus covers the land with a cloak of darkness. Night falls, and Diana, goddess of the moon, appears in the sky to shoot a fiery arrow-comet from the bow of light formed by the crescent of the new moon. The comet creates sparkling stars that scatter and fall into their proper places in the night sky. All is at peace under the moon and stars in the Elysian Fields setting."
Gee, just reading the description takes me back to that beautiful combination of art and music.
In Make Mine Music, it was the closing scene from the cartoon segment titled, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met". After the whale was harpooned and killed, he was still singing in heaven - and I was weeping in the balcony. It may have been the first time I heard Nelson Eddy sing. I've been a fan of his ever since.
Speaking of heaven: 'Remember the clouds morphing into apple blossoms in the closing scene from Johnny Appleseed? That is another on my list of adolescent tear jerkers.
And then there's Bambi. His mother gets KILLED, for cryin' out loud! That's not supposed to happen in cartoons! Damn you Walt Disney!
When I was 8 years-old, my grandmother took me to a matinee showing of Barbara Stanwick and Clifton Webb in "Titanic". I was doing okay until the scene when the ship is sinking and all the women have rowed a safe distance away into the dark stillness of the ocean. The only people left on board were the men and Clifton Webb's little boy (he gave up his seat in a lifeboat to die with the men). The ship's orchestra started playing "Nearer My God to Thee" and all the men, assembled on deck, started singing. The music drifted across the water and the scene closed from the perspective of the life boats as the ship went under. I never forgave my grandma for that! How's a guy supposed to walk out of a theater in the middle of the afternoon and keep everybody from noticing his red eyes?! Now I always take a pair of sunglasses with me, just in case.
After I started writing this, I remembered more scenes from other movies that made me cry. So I guess the total is greater than 5. But no more than 10. I'm sure of that. For the time being.

1 Comments:

At 10:00 PM, Blogger kphiker said...

oh yeah, that johnny appleseed thing can really choke you up...and bambi, and dumbo, and that dog...stop already -- my nose is messed up enough with allergies.

 

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