I used to be a classroom storyteller. As an English teacher for middle school kids, I often would give brief biographical insights into famous people we were talking about at the time. I told them about Crazy Horse of the Sioux tribe, Roger Bacon the alchemist and inventor of chemistry as a science, Mark Twain in Gold Rush California, and many other people I have found fascinating through my life as a reader and writer of English.
One bright boy in my gifted class remarked, “Mr. B, you always tell us these stories about people who did something amazing, and then you end it with they eventually died a horrible death.”
Yep. That’s about right. In its simplest form life consists of, “You are born, stuff happens, and then you die.” And it does often seem to me that true genius and great heroism are punished terribly in the end. Achilles destroys Hector, but his heel is his undoing. Socrates taught Plato, and was forced to drink poison for being too good at teaching. Custer was a vain imbecile and got what he deserved at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but Crazy Horse, who made it happen, was pursued for the rest of his short life for it until he was finally captured and murdered. Roger Bacon contributed immensely to science by experimenting with chemicals, but because he blew up his lab too often, and because one of his students blew himself up in a duel with another student, he ended his days in prison for practicing sorcery.
But if you have listened to any of the music I have added to this post, the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, then you recognized it, unless you have lived your whole life under a rock in Nomusikvetchistan. And why is that? Because even though it is all classical music written in the 1800’s, it’s basic genius and appeal is immortal. It will outlive all of us. Some of it, having been placed on a record on the Voyager space craft may get played and appreciated a million years from now in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. It will still be a work of pure genius.
And, of course, the horrible life and terrible death thing is a part of it too. Tchaikovsky’s work took an incredibly difficult path to success. He was criticized by Russians for being too Western and not Russian enough. He was criticized in the West for being too exotic and basically “too Russian”. He railed against critics and suffered horribly at their hands. Then, too, his private life was far less private than it had any right to be. He was a bachelor most of his life, except for a two year marriage of pure misery that ended in divorce. And everybody, with the possibility of Pyotr himself, knew it was because he was a homosexual. He probably did have that orientation, but in a time and a career where it was deemed an illegal abomination. So whether he ever practiced the lifestyle at great risk to himself, or he repressed it his entire life, we will never know for sure.
But the music is immortal. And by being immortal, the music makes Tchaikovsky immortal too. Despite the fact that he died tragically at the age of 53, possibly by suicide.
So, this is the great lesson of Tchaikovsky. The higher you fly, the farther you fall, and you will fall… guaranteed, but that will never make the actual flight not worth taking. Some things in life are more important than life itself. As I near the end myself, I cling to that truth daily.
Catch a Falling Star 
Why Do You Think That? (Part Two)
In my short, sweet sixty years of life, I have probably seen more than my share of movies. I have seen classic movies, black-and-white movies, cartoon movies, Humphrey Bogart movies, epic movies, science fiction movies, PeeWee Herman movies, Disney movies, Oscar-winning movies, and endless box-office stinkers. But in all of that, one of the most undeniable threads of all is that movies make me cry. In fact they make me cry so often it is a miracle that even a drop of moisture remains in my body. I should be a dried-out husk by now.
I wept horribly during this scene. Did you?
And the thing is, people make fun of you when you cry at movies. Especially cartoon movies like Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. (But I claim I was laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes. That’s the truth, dear sister. So stop laughing at me.) But I would like to put forth another “Why do you think that?” notion. People who cry while watching a movie are stronger and more powerful than the people who laugh at them for crying. A self-serving thesis if ever there was one.
Movies can make you cry if you have the ability to feel empathy. We all know this. Old Yeller is the story of a dog who endears himself to a prairie farm family, saves Travis’s life at one point, and then gets infected with rabies and has to be put down. Dang! No dry eyes at the end of that one. Because everyone has encountered a dog and loyal dog-love somewhere along the line. And a ten-year-old dog is an old dog. The dogs you knew as a child helped you deal with mortality because invariably, no matter how much you loved them, dogs demonstrate what it means to die. Trixie and Scamper were both hit by cars. Queenie, Grampa’s collie, died of old age. Jiggs the Boston Terrier died of heat stroke one summer. You remember the pain of loss, and the story brings it all back.
Only psychopaths don’t feel empathy to some degree. Think about how you would feel if you were watching Old Yeller and somebody you were watching with started laughing when Travis pulls the trigger on the shotgun. Now, there’s a Stephen King sort of character.
But I think I can defend having lots of empathy as a reason for crying a river of tears during Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. You see, identifying with Quasimodo as the main character, hoping for what he hopes for, feeling like a monster and completely unloved, and fearing what he fears connect you to the story in ways that completely immerses you in the experience. This is basically a monster movie.
But the film puts you inside the head of the malformed man, and you realize that he is not the monster. Righteous Judge Frollo and the people who mistreat Quasimodo for his deformity of outward appearance are the real monsters. If you don’t cry a river of tears because of this story, then you have not learned the essential truth of Quasimodo. When we judge others harshly, we are really judging ourselves. In order to stop being monstrous, and be truly human, you must look inside the ugliness as Esmeralda does to see the heroic beauty inside others. Sometimes the ideas themselves are so powerful they make me weep. That’s when my sister and my wife look at me and shake their heads because tears are shooting out of me like a fountain, raining wetness two or three seats in every direction. But I believe I am a wiser man, a more resolved man, and ultimately a better man because I was not afraid to let a movie make me cry.
The music also helps to tell the story in ways that move my very soul to tears. Notice how the heroine walks the opposite way to the rest of the crowd. As they sing of what they desire, what they ask God to grant, she asks for nothing for herself. She shows empathy in every verse, asking only for help for others. And she alone walks to the light from the stained glass window. She alone is talking to God.
Yes, I am not embarrassed by the fact that movies make me cry. In fact, I should probably be proud that movies and stories and connections to other people, which they bring me, makes me feel it so deeply I cry. Maybe I am a sissy and a wimp. Maybe I deserved to be laughed at all those times for crying during the movie. But, hey, I’ll take the laughter. I am not above it. I am trying to be a humorist after all.
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Filed under cartoon review, commentary, compassion, Disney, humor, insight, inspiration, movie review, music, philosophy, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as empathy, movies that make me cry, Old Yeller, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Toy Story 3