Movies That Made Us Cry

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The Movies That Made Us!

How They Become Part of the Fabric of Our Lives

This post previously appeared on the Brigley Prior Books blog in 2021.

What Netflix does well!

I’ve just caught up with series 2 of ‘The Movies that Made Us’ on Netflix. And feel inclined to write about what a ‘moving’ (sorry) experience it was.

We underestimate the power of films; personally I’m a bit disillusioned with the overuse of CGI, feel jaded at the predominance of superhero movies. And that’s a statement I never would have thought I’d say.

So revisiting the creation of Back to the Future, for instance. I mean 1985 still holds a place in my heart as arguably the best year of my life. I was really happy in school, had a great teacher and friends. I felt popular, less on the outside. I was captain of the netball team, the fastest runner in the year. And I was eleven going on twelve, and I went to see that movie long after the initial rush to the cinema, with not much advance knowledge or knowing what a revelation it would be to me.

I should say that I was blessed with my periods starting earlier on that year, so by the time the credits were rolling, it wasn’t that difficult to have fallen in love for the first time!

My first crush or experience of seriously feeling that way. A momentous occasion. And Michael J Fox will always hold that place in my heart. I remember when I first heard he had Parkinson’s disease, my body had an immediate, physical response. Shock, chills, instant nausea; feeling faint, and all of that was quite a few years after the heady rush of first infatuation.

The moments where we take a leap of faith

There’s a section in the programme where they talk about bringing him into an office to discuss whether he was interested in filming Back to the Future at night alongside his Family Ties responsibilities in the day, and apparently he weighed an envelope in each hand; on one side the light, familiar pages of a sit-com script, and in the other, a chunky movie script with some great names attached to it, and without reading a word, he signed on the dot. That’s faith for you, and taking a chance on yourself. Everything I am aiming towards doing now.

As a personality he just had, and has, that amazing light, the comedic timing and an easy athleticism in his physical comedy. I think he still stands out as a very rare talent.

To watch the making of it now and revisit the emotions I was feeling that year, the excitement and possibilities I felt. It was joyful and tearful. I’m so glad I had that year, that I got to feel that special excitement of the time, because so much shit was soon to follow.

Life is like a box of chocolates for sure!

And Forrest Gump, I can’t help but think of mum during that one, so that definitely brought on the tears. I think I’ve only watched Forrest once all the way through!

That first experience was just the two of us. We had taken in lodgers at the time and tea time was fast approaching, four hungry 16-year-old boys waiting impatiently, because we were desperately trying to reach the end of Forrest Gump before returning it to the video store, and that movie went on and on and on and on! It was tough to enjoy with growing lads knocking on the living room door and the knowledge that you were about to encounter late fees at the video store. But we had to just watch it to the end, guilt-ridden, slightly sweating! But resolved for once to just throw our hands in the air and say sometimes you just have to watch the end of the movie.

It was one of those you always reminisce about. Do you remember the time we watched Forrest Gump… Oh, God!

And that did make the tears come, because you’ll never have that conversation again. And watching movies together was one of our things. One of the last things I did with mum was watch a movie. Not even a particularly amazing movie, but I sat by her bed and we watched on her iPad. And she burst into tears at the end because although she’d enjoyed it, for that brief span of time she’d forgotten she was dying, and the minute it was over it was back to reality. She’d just felt like it was the good old days...

Sometimes a movie bears watching over and over and over

But Pretty Woman and Jurassic Park are also featured - more good memories. Julia Roberts became Mum’s favourite actress. And didn’t we all just want to laugh that way, with complete abandon like Vivian? Everybody should get to laugh that way in their lives.

I remember not being that impressed with Pretty Woman the first time I saw it. But after about fifty times now, I probably have to say I love it. I buy into the fairy tale! I think it’s one of those movies that just makes you feel young again.

I guess with a good movie you just have those moments of joy, the snippets you’ll never forget.

So, just watching the show in the context of seeing how the movies were made, it makes you think about your own build-up to the moment you first saw them. What you might have been doing in the year or so before these films would come to have such an impact on your life.

And the little dramas and the might-have-beens. How filming sometimes came down to luck and timing, and the whims of fate. In the end it becomes a show much deeper than the making of a movie. It’s your life, part of the things that shaped us, our memories, our childhood.

So don’t be surprised if you shed a tear or two while you’re watching it. There are movies that made us cry, that maybe didn’t initially, but with the passage of time they gain a deeper resonance for us.

I found it an emotional experience!

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