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Wednesday, July 8, 2009
What is the saddest movie you’ve ever seen?
Recently I watched the movie The Children’s Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine as women whose lives are ruined when they’re suspected of having a lesbian affair. A friend of mine commented that it was the “saddest movie” he’d ever seen.
And that got me to thinking - what was the saddest movie I’d ever seen? Here are a few candidates, in no particular order.
Vertigo - Unfortunately, I cannot speak about WHY this is the saddest movie I’ve ever seen without spoiling the film, but those who have seen it will surely know what I mean. You can always find out for yourself when it plays at the Victoria Theatre July 24, as part of Jimmy Stewart weekend.
The Godfather Part II: I saw this on the big screen recently, and even though I’d seen it before, I was struck at just how bleak and unforgiving the ending felt.
Unforgiven: “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
Schindler’s List: As hard as it is to watch this film, I saw it several times in the theater because I wanted to analyze Spielberg’s technique. Never worked. By the time the movie depicted the first ghetto massacre, I would dissolve in tears.
Those are just four off the top of my head. So what are the saddest movies you’ve ever seen? I don’t necessarily mean ones that make you cry like The Wizard of Oz, or E.T., which both end happily. I mean ones that make you cry and/or wipe you out emotionally, making you feel wrung out at the end.
Discuss. And pass the tissues.
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