What is the reason for overly sad movies like Fault/Stars?

What is the reason for overly sad movies like Fault/Stars? Mar 12, 2017 16:11:44 GMT

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Post by jeffersoncody on Mar 12, 2017 16:11:44 GMT

Mar 12, 2017 15:27:04 GMT london777 said:

Mar 12, 2017 14:34:21 GMT mikef6 said:

As for why people go to see them and allow this kind of cynical and obvious manipulation work on them...well, since you describe your symptoms so vividly, maybe you can tell me.
I assumed Jeffersoncody's post was satire. Surely no-one could post that with a straight face?

Learn to recognize - and hate - cheap movie tricks to pull tears.
I rarely encounter them in films I watch. I have developed a sixth sense to avoid saccharin crap. Avoiding Hollywood mainstream movies is a good start.

I don't think such movies are more prevalent (as a percentage of all films made). Manipulation of the emotions has been rife since the early silents, and as movie-goers have become schooled in tropes over the decades a healthy seasoning of cynicism and black humor is more often added these days, especially in non-US films.

Hi london777 - There is quite often an element of satire in my posts. But the post you refer to was real. I am a hugely sentimental and ridiculously sensitive person. I also suffer from an excess of empathy. And as I said, a good cry is cathartic. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and my heart often got in the way of my head when I was younger But I don,t really see my condition as a disadvantage. When I was a medic in the army and when I worked in the ICU at a military hospital during my national service I was able to bring great comfort to dying people. It,s better to feel too much than to feel nothing at all.

On the other hand, I am intelligent enough to know when a filmmaker is simply pulling my strings for effect. Perhaps the following reply I gave to a poster in a discussion we were having about Kenneth Lonergan,s MANCHESTER BY THE SEA explains where my head is at.

"I disagree with your thoughts mightily here ashverse. For a start, while grief is certainly a theme which runs through the film, forgiveness and redemption are the most dominant themes at play here, and phases of grief such as denial and bargaining don't factor into the equation.

"I learned that making me cry at the movies is easier than making me laugh or making me feel joy so I'm very careful not to rate the movie high based on it's ability to pull tears from my eyes."

I am an a incredibly sensitive and hugely sentimental person too ashverse. So I cry like a baby when I watch sentimental tearjerkers such as THE FAULT IN OUR STARS or THE NOTEBOOK or A WALK TO REMEMBER. And Don't even let me begin to tell you for how many hours after HACHI: A DOG'S story ended I was still sobbing, or how other tearjerkers such as Clint Eastwood's melancholy manly drama MILLION DOLLAR BABY and the beautiful Swedish film AS IT IS IN HEAVEN left me a wreck.

But I am fully aware when I have been manipulated and sometimes even hate myself in the morning.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA is not a sentimental or manipulative films and it comes by its tears honestly - it doesn't tell the viewer what to feel or how to react.