Emotional Impact in a Film

[Matt]

I'll agree...music has a big effect on me.

[Shit Dickface]

Jake,

Open this...



I'll get the glasses...

I plan on doing that in a couple of weeks once I get all my shit situated, for sure.

Has anyone ever seen Grave of the Fireflies? A friend got it for me for my birthday back in my "emo days" and I still haven't seen it. I've heard that it's broken a lot of hearts.

I ain't no AZN and I still found it depressing as hell.

[Ed Hocken]

I'll agree...music has a big effect on me.

Great example of one that always sticks with me. The last scene in Heat when you hear God moving over Parted Waters by Moby. Such a perfect ending and I can always see myself standing in that dark field by the airport feeling the wind. Truly beautiful.

All the more reason it bugs me that Michael Mann has gone mumblecore digital.

[V]

All the more reason it bugs me that Michael Mann has gone mumblecore digital.

Because it's edgy and hip!

HockenDAMN,son! Ain't you learned nothin'?

[Matt]

HockenDAMN

Proof right here that Lima has been properly assimilated into the Borg Collective

[Martin]

For me, The Fountain takes the cake. Clint Mansell once again has a score that pushes the effect of the movie to an extreme that I've rarely seen, much like he did with Lux Aeterna in Requiem for a Dream (THAT song). And the visuals, performances and directing are all amazing.

Death is the Road to Awe is a phenomenal piece of music, and combined with the ending of the movie, when Tommy accepts his own death, is a mix that adds so much to my inner fear of dying. In a way, it's a piece of work that made me think positively about the End. Trying to shine a most eastern view on a subject quite taboo in Western society.

[Ed Hocken]

ala Barber's 'Adagio For Strings'...

Best parody use of that score was from the Seinfeld episode where George's father recounts the horror that resulted from cooking for his platoon back in Korea.

[Lisa]

I've told this story a few times over at CHUD, but the first thing that comes to mind is "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2, which is a good example of how the music is used to really drive up the emotional impact.

For anyone who hasn't heard the story (probably no one here), when I was about seven, I got my favorite doll in the world. Her name was P.J., and she was Barbie's "mod hippy chick" friend. She was not only my favorite doll, but I took her with me everywhere. At that time, my parents were going through an ugly, bitter divorce, and when they'd start screaming at each other, I'd just grab P.J. and high-tail it the hell out of there - normally, I'd climb the tree across the street from our house, and just have a mild heart attack, clutching this doll, waiting for them to stop screaming at each other. So she very much became a touchstone to me.

When I was 13, we packed up all my toys, P.J. included - because I was too old and "cool" to play with dolls anymore - and sent them to a local children's hospital. It never started bothering me until I was an adult. I mean, I know - DUDE - it's a piece of plastic. It's not like I gave away my cat. But that doll meant a lot to me, you know? And when I was old enough to understand the implications of having a sentimental attachment to an object, I started hunting around for her at flea markets, antique shops, etc. No luck. And as crazy as it sounds, I'd beat myself up over it. "The one thing you should have held onto out of that pile of stuff, and you sent her away. The one thing that you could always count on to be there for you when your parents were practically killing each other right in front of you. You'd sit up in that tree and hug her tight, twisting her hair out of sheer nerves, wondering when you could go home, and this was the way you repay her." I know - a piece of plastic. But still.

Then along came Ebay. And I swear, she was the first thing I went looking for. And many times, I'd find her, I'd enter into a bidding war, and I'd lose every time. Two years of online Ebay battles.

And then one day, there she was again. In really good condition, and complete with her original outfit. Just a doll, but a doll I should have treated with more care. Again, I waded into battle for her for the 100th time, and when that last round of bidding where you're constantly just entering new bids as the clock winds down, I got her. She finally arrived, three days before my 36th birthday, and I swore I'd never part with her again.

About a week after she was safe and sound, up in a prominent place on my book case, my friend, her 12 year old daughter, and I went to see Toy Story 2. As Jessie's song started up about how she loved Emily with all her heart, and in the end, was repaid by being given away like a piece of garbage, the tears came. Add Sarah MacLachlan to the mix, and by the end of the first line, I was sobbing. Luckily, I was sitting next to my friend, and not her daughter! She knew the whole story, and she immediately turned to me and said, "P.J.?" I just nodded and kept sobbing. It's ridiculous, but the guilt was overwhelming. And as crazy as it sounds, even for all the actual human loss that a movie can trigger in me, I've never ever cried as hard during a movie.

[BillyG]

Oh man, why did you bring up The Fountain? You prick.

I was having a hard time with the girlfriend at the time. She was really sick, and the doctors had discovered a brain tumor a while before. A few days before The Fountain came out she was hospitalized in Toronto, and I was back here in Houston for work. I really couldn't do anything but wait to hear from her family or the doctor. That weekend I went to see The Fountain. Do I really need to explain anymore? I cried like a baby the entire time, and the whole way home.

[V]

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to LisaNY again.

[Matt]

amazing, Lisa.

[PHEDG]

Most of the movies I posted youtube videos for in the "Listening To Movie/Game Scores" thread.

[Ben Thomas]

Matt, in terms of trying to write the emotional stuff (and this will seem like a weird reference but go with it), pick up a couple of Oliver Stone scripts (Nixon is the one that instantly comes to mind). Rather than trying to write a scene to make it emotional on the page, he writes the emotions going through the character's heads into the stage directions.

Its difficult to explain, but say you have two characters falling in love, in the stage directions for one of the characters it might say something to the effect of "X is hearing the words she's waited her whole life for". Its a way of giving direction without dictating the way a scene should be played. You have to keep it to a minimum obviously, but that's the way I go when I'm writing. I realise the above is a shitty example, but that's the kind of thinking I'm trying to get across.

We really need to trade scribbles some time - I think we could give each other great notes.

[Ben Thomas]

That's a really lovely story, Lisa. And I'd challenge anyone who says that scene is overdone anyway, but I can't imagine how moving it was when you have a backstory like that.

[Matt]

Great advice, Ben. Thank you very much.

And yeah, we'll be tradin' notes for sure.