Sitting in a darkened room snivelling, cheeks wet with tears and nose streaming is a terrible way to spend a night, right? Well not always… especially not if you’re in the cinema and you have just had your heart wrung and mind blown. And forget the stigma around crying in public – fellow audience member scorn be damned, blubbing away may even be good for you.
Watching the BAFTAs last week, I was reminded of exactly this experience as clip after clip of All of Us Strangers teased each of its six nominations including for Outstanding British Film, and acting nods for the wonderful Andrew Scott, Claire Foy and Paul Mescal.
I’m not ashamed to say this was a film that set me off when I recently saw it, getting the waterworks going on at least four separate occasions – each time Scott’s character Adam talks to the ghosts of his parents at the age they were killed in a car crash, and now younger than Adam himself.
It is a story of familial love, of longing, regret, wish fulfillment and loss. Beautifully written and directed by Andrew Haig, the acting takes the words to a level that doesn’t just pull at the heartstrings, it rips them right out. Even for those of us lucky enough to have both parents alive, it can’t help but leave the viewer reduced to a puddle.
So is that a good night out in the cinema? In these days with so much going on from global conflicts to everyday prices spiraling, wouldn’t a light rom-com be better? Or a jaunty musical to get those toes tapping?
I was thinking about this as a book called The Art of Crying by the wonderfully named Pepita Sandwich landed on my desk, and it explains all sorts about why crying is good for us (in general, but also when it comes to art). It opens with a quote from Charlotte Bronte, “Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.”
In this sweet comic strip memoir about crying – it’s somewhat exhaustive on the topic from her personal history to the scientific, from historical research to informing the reader about a person who actually calls themselves a tears teacher – she found that as well as a good weep being self-soothing, shedding emotional tears releases oxytocin and endorphins and make the crier feel better.
Sandwich – a cartoonist and visual artists from Buenos Aires, whose real name is Josefina Guarracino – adds that crying is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system, and helps soothe the mind and body.
The book is a bit too exhaustive for an irregular crier/tough guy such as myself and there are moments where I diverge from the author – for example I do not weep when I look at the moon on a clear night – but I feel a kindred spirit when she talks about art that can bring the viewer/listener to tears as it “can make us pay attention to our own conflicts, aspirations and desires”.
Rather than demonstrating some sort of character weakness, the book cites a study that says crying at the cinema shows great strength of personality. It requires “seriously formidable emotional strength” as well as emotional intelligence. Added to that, consuming sad stories allows us to experience sadness without anxiety which “makes us feel more grateful for our close relationships, and causes us to think about what’s valuable and meaningful in our own lives”. No wonder a good weepie keeps the punters flocking in.
Despite what this column may suggest, I don’t tend to be a massive crier – I’m more of a quick cough and, er, ‘is that a bit of dust in my eye?’ kind of guy – but the flicks that can spark the waterworks have stayed with me, all the way back to when Macauley Culkin was stung to death by bees in My Girl (Look it was sad, okay, and I was 11). Art that moves you stays with you.
Also, whatever stigma crying in public has now, it wasn’t always that way. Ancient societies from the Aztecs to Chinese antiquity would use ritual public weeping and performative wailing; they certainly would have had no fear of loudly blowing their noses in the second row of the local multiplex because Adam’s dead dad wants to give him a cuddle.
So don’t avoid Anthony Hopkins tearjerker One Life – I watched that this week, and yep, was set off again – but embrace it and others like it. Weeping in the cinema can make you feel better, makes you feel alive and shows great character. Or if you want to take baby steps, you could stay in and watch One Day and cry in the privacy of your own home.
At last week’s BAFTAs, All of Us Strangers had tears running down my face again – though this time in frustration – as the film and its wonderful cast walked away completely empty handed (as they will from the Oscars next week as they have not landed a single nomination). That really is a crying shame.
