"Oh Captain, My Captain" -- The last scene in Dead Poet's Society. I don't even have to see the rest of the movie; just seeing those boys standing on their desks is sufficient to open the floodgates. My senior year of high school, my idealistic English teacher showed us this movie, and, having seen it (and cried with it) many times before that, I knew I would bawl, so I made sure to find something else to look at during that scene so my classmates wouldn't know my secret.
"Anything You Want, You Got It" -- The last scene in Boys On The Side. It's harsh enough seeing Mary Louise Parker's gaunt face and emaciated body, pathetically sitting in that wheelchair, but when they go around the room and show the party guests, then go around again and show the empty room and empty wheelchair, it just makes me weep.
"Did I Ever Tell You You're My Hero?" -- It's such a classic tear-jerker that I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but the scene in Beaches with "Wind Beneath My Wings" in the background, where one second, Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey are spending their last time together and the next, pallbearers are carrying Barbara Hershey's casket just breaks my heart. I don't even like that song, and it breaks my heart.
"They'll Be So Happy, Now And Forever" -- This is even more embarrassing, but Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy's wedding in The Muppets Take Manhattan. My flimsy excuse for this is that once when I was little, I was watching this movie and fell asleep, waking up just in time for the end, so I was all out of it when I saw the scene and heard their wedding song. For some reason, that day, it hit the right nerve, and ever since then, it just hasn't been the same. It's not so much the scene but the song that really gets me; even looking up the lyrics just now I got a little misty.
"Live In My House, I'll Be Your Shelter" -- I listened to the Rent Broadway soundtrack nonstop during the most lonely, excruciating summer of my life, so just about every song from that show gives me that weird sense memory thing, so even if I'm having the best day, all I have to do is hear one of its more tender songs (particularly the reprise of "I'll Cover You," sung at Angel's funeral), and I'm crying like a baby. I think I've grown out of Rent, having realized that I'd rather have food and heat than artistic principles, but hearing that music takes me back to the day when I didn't mind eating Ramen noodles if it meant I could create mediocre art.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go find a box of tissues.
1 comment:
Nothing from Carousel? Now, THAT was a tearjerker.
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