Moody Blues
I am DYING to see this movie. But I can already tell, from the raves (but hints) in the NY Times review, that it is one of those movies in which I (me personally) will be bitterly diasppointed. NOT because it's not brilliant and reinvents the movie musical, but I KNOW that I personally don't deal with bittersweet movies very well. They linger, they sometimes depress me. A week later, if it was a really great movie, I will still find myself moved--and not in a good way, often.
The same thing with books. I thought House of Sand and Fog was fabulously well-written. But from page one, I knew this was not a book to end well. I didn't even BOTHER to see the movie. I knew it was a doomed affair.
True fact: I call my BESTEST friend Pam before I go to see any movie to ask her how it ends. She knows me. She knows what I can handle. She'll tell me--"Nope. It's sad. Don't go."
Sometimes, I guess, books and movies MOVE us. We start at point A and move to point B. I am just as easily LIFTED by a happy movie or book, a gloriously joyous crowd-pleasing ending.
But, also, I am aware, that I as movie goer and book reader often choose to AVOID certain books and movies. Not forever. Just until I am in a different place. If someone I love is sick, I am hardly going to rent a movie with death and disease as a theme. I need to be in a place where I can take it.
Case in point. I saw Schindler's List. I KNEW I was going to be viewing a sad, sad, difficult movie. But that, like the movie Sophie's Choice, does not fully describe how deeply I felt it. I was pregnant when I saw it, and I truly worried that I had released WAY too many sad hormones into my body. It stayed for days and days. I was not, as I recall, really in the right place to see it. Not that there's ever a "right" time--but sometimes, you just know you're in a decent spot to accept that kind of grief in a movie or a book.
Right now, I am reading a philosophy text. But I have been working 24/7 and am so exhausted, I am probably not in the right frame of mind to read it. So I'll give it until after the weekend when I hopefully get some rest.
How about you? How do books and movies affect your mood? And do you delay seeing or reading some things because you just know you're not in a good place?
The same thing with books. I thought House of Sand and Fog was fabulously well-written. But from page one, I knew this was not a book to end well. I didn't even BOTHER to see the movie. I knew it was a doomed affair.
True fact: I call my BESTEST friend Pam before I go to see any movie to ask her how it ends. She knows me. She knows what I can handle. She'll tell me--"Nope. It's sad. Don't go."
Sometimes, I guess, books and movies MOVE us. We start at point A and move to point B. I am just as easily LIFTED by a happy movie or book, a gloriously joyous crowd-pleasing ending.
But, also, I am aware, that I as movie goer and book reader often choose to AVOID certain books and movies. Not forever. Just until I am in a different place. If someone I love is sick, I am hardly going to rent a movie with death and disease as a theme. I need to be in a place where I can take it.
Case in point. I saw Schindler's List. I KNEW I was going to be viewing a sad, sad, difficult movie. But that, like the movie Sophie's Choice, does not fully describe how deeply I felt it. I was pregnant when I saw it, and I truly worried that I had released WAY too many sad hormones into my body. It stayed for days and days. I was not, as I recall, really in the right place to see it. Not that there's ever a "right" time--but sometimes, you just know you're in a decent spot to accept that kind of grief in a movie or a book.
Right now, I am reading a philosophy text. But I have been working 24/7 and am so exhausted, I am probably not in the right frame of mind to read it. So I'll give it until after the weekend when I hopefully get some rest.
How about you? How do books and movies affect your mood? And do you delay seeing or reading some things because you just know you're not in a good place?
Labels: happy endings, moods, sad endings, sad movies and books
posted by Erica Orloff at 9:20 PM
2 comments
