Tears and TV

[azdak]

nineveh_uk has been writing haikus. Apparently they "should derive from spontaneous, concrete, personal experience in a certain moment of heightened awareness". And since there is not a lot of personal experience going on outside the home these days, here is mine:
SPOILER for Nirvana in Fire

Mei Changsu
dies and Prince Jing weeps.
My own eyes are dry.

This is not a criticism. Nirvana in Fire is terribly sad in many ways, but not in ways that make me, personally sad. Quite the contrary, I thoroughly enjoy wallowing in the character's emotional agonies. What did make me cry was The Story of Minglan and I didn't enjoy feeling those feelings at all - a child's traumatic farewell to a dying mother strikes a chord of "This has really happened to some people" in a way that the specifics of Mei Changsu's fate do not. But I also very nearly cried at the scene where Minglan leaves her father's house to get married and her grandmother momentarily breaks down - the relationship between Minglan and her grandmother is AWESOME, even more awesome than that between Minglan and Gu Tingye, and the actress playing the grandmother is terrific. Hmm, perhaps I should try writing a haiku about how Minglan's grandmother is worthy of my tears.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

Hmm, there is a sense that NiF lays out its characters' anguish for us to wallow in as a delicious banquet. I was in an agony of narrative angst wondering if/when Jing would get to know MCS's true identity, all but yelling "just tell him!" at the screen etc,, but I didn't really share Jing's pain in a weepy way. One feels for him rather than with him? Though this is perhaps partly me - I am hardly ever moved to tears by page or screen, and tend to go at a very small range of predictable thing. The bit I'd be most likely to cry at in NiF would therefore be a doomed last stand by Meng and co at the hunting lodge, except that it hasn't been filmed in a way to provoke that, so I don't.

Your haiku certainly beats the canonical poem Banruo quotes about Mei Changsu's intriguing smell (maybe the poet detects from afar the eau de yeti?) Clearly you should write ones about Minglan.

[azdak]

Yes! I think a delicious banquet for us to wallow in hits the nail on the head! The "for" rather than "with" distinction is a good one - although a theatre director once told me "Either the actors can cry or the audience can" and there's an element of truth to that - if the characters are already sobbing their hearts out, there's no need for the audience to do it for them. But this is one of the things where theatre is a very different beast from film and I don't think it really applies to screen productions.

Cold-hearted intellectual that I am, my secret shame is that I cry at the drop of a hat at sad things on screen (less so with books, but I think that's because I tend to wimp out pre-emptively if a story looks as if it's going in a bad direction). But I don't actually enjoy crying - I don't WANT to be sad (I also don't enjoy horror movies because I don't like being scared).

Eau de yeti can probably be detected from very afar indeed. Perhaps he drinks all that tea in an effort to cloak it.

[caulkhead]

STOP GIVING ME RIDICULOUS PLOT BUNNIES DAMMIT.

[azdak]

I refuse to apologise if it results in something as pleasing as the last bunny.

[nineveh_uk]

No! Continue!

[nineveh_uk]

although a theatre director once told me "Either the actors can cry or the audience can" and there's an element of truth to that

That had not struck me with theatre, but I see what you mean. I suppose whatever the medium, its all about getting the manipulation of the audience right (which I don't necessarily mean cynically). Though sometimes I mean it cynically - I tend to shed a tear in the same bit of The Two Towers film every time even though I know it is just the damn violins and I am being ridiculously manipulated by the Brave Rohan Civilians and my brain is shouting "For goodness sake! In the last ditch you arm the sturdy middle-aged women, not the 8 year old boys who can't lift the sword."

Which brings me to a further thought re. NiF, which is that I don't think we are often as the audience set up to be only sad. Generally there is something else going on at the same time and our banquet of angst is fusion food in which we're simultaneously admiring cleverness, tense about the plot, yelling "you lying bastard!" or whatever.

[azdak]

Don't be ridiculous, you can't possibly arm women, an 8-year-old with a Y chromosome trumps a female blacksmith or cook any day when it comes to lifting heavy weapons!

NiF definitely doesn't only require us to be sad. It's what makes it work so well - none of its emotional moments (or plot twists, come to that) are cheap, put in there simply to achieve one effect and one effect only. Everything has layers and serves multiple functions. And it never tries to pull the wool over the audience's eyes for a cheap surprise, either (looking at you, Story of Minglan).

[caulkhead]

Not reading Chinese
I missed the crucial moment.
Replay's not the same.

[azdak]

OUCH!