Cinemarch Madness: Intro and Nomination Round
Greetings, friends and cinephiles, and welcome to Cinemarch Madness: the TN bracket that crowns the most heartbreaking film of all time.
The idea began years ago, at a bar that doesn’t exist anymore, with a scribbled napkin list Scrapper and Couch Baron and I could never quite recreate, thanks to a discussion about Breaking the Waves and the idea of those movies that you feel lucky to have survived — the beautiful, awful movies you will never ever watch again. The ones that you love but that leave you drenched. “Difficult,” let’s call them.
Over the years it’s gone through various names and interations. “The No Hope Film Festival”; “The NC Double The Dosage”; “Two Movies Enter, The Will To Live Leaves.”
Enough already. It’s time to pick a “winner.” But we need your help.
Right now, I need your nominations — the films you consider the saddest or bleakest of all time, so I can cross-check it against my list and see if I overlooked any obvious entries. Please keep it to five (5) per comment; it’s more digestible that way. (Yes, you can re-comment.)
“I don’t know where to start/what you’re looking for!” Fair enough. I don’t either, that’s why I’m sending it to committee. Hee. Here’s the “I” entries from the list so far, for context:
Ice Storm, The
Illusionist, The
Incendies
Indian Runner, The
In the Company of Men
Irreversible
Challenging subject matter, an ending (or non-ending) that makes you queasy, an utter lack of faith in humanity, unrequited love, ravages of age…when I say it’s a tough watch, I don’t mean stuff like a seventh Transformers sequel that’s just straight-up bad. This may be a pornography/”I know it when I see it” thing, but that’s why we spitball it now, before finalizing the list.
Foreign-language and docu noms both welcome. We may have to do a separate documentary bracket, but I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it.
Feel free to make your case for a non-obvious nomination in the comments. I didn’t think of Vincent and Theo as that dark, but a friend argued it onto the list; he didn’t think One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was that bleak, but I insisted. I’ve ixnayed and then re-added Casablanca four times.
Once I have a master list, you’ll have a chance to choose the final 64.
Questions? Ask them. Stalking horses? Nominate them. Want a crack at writing up the match-ups? You got it; when the final bracket is set, I’ll definitely need some help. And by all means forward/RT/solicit suggestions from friends and FB. You’ve got ’til the end of the week. Let’s do this.
Tags: Cinemarch Madness Couch Baron movies
Lilya 4-ever
Heavenly Creatures
The Dark Knight
A third for Life Is Beautiful, which becomes even worse the second time
The Remains of the Day, even if it isn’t as heartbreaking as the book
Up!, which is uplifting in the end, of course, but the depths of Carl sitting alone with that balloon are what sticks with you from that movie.
Too many but after eliminating the ones I think have already been named, I’ve got these left:
The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover (There are just too many painful moments to feel ‘good’ about that ending, especially since the ending is one of the painful moments.)
Dying young (This will act as the representative from the story-of-death-from-terminal-illness genre.)
Revolutionary road
Menace II Society (SO much worse than Boyz)
– Shoot The Moon
– Dancer In The Dark
– Hiroshima Mon Amour
– The Seventh Seal
– Wages of Fear
Some great ones already listed but these would definitely be serious downers (as well as pretty decent movies).
Some of these have been mentioned but I’m going to list them anyway:
Ethan Frome
Life Is Beautiful
No Country For Old Men
Requiem For A Dream
There Will Be Blood
Jude
Happiness
Beloved
Pi (not Life Of, the other one)
Trouble Every Day, although that one was more gory than bleak.
I usually avoid films in this category so not many unique answers. There’s also a Holocaust documentary miniseries that was on PBS some time in the 80’s that is seared into my brain. I was in elementary school at the time, I have no idea why my mom let me watch it.
Not gonna lie, Dead Man Walking wiped me out in the theater. An employee actually came in and said to make sure to have Kleenex even if you didn’t think you needed it. She was so right.
@Daisy, I don’t know whether to second this or cower away from the screen. The whole might of the awesomely bibliophilic Nation focused on finding the ideal books to rip your heart to shreds? The Lurlene McDaniel category alone…
Requiem for a Dream. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.
Lilja 4 Ever – you think it can:t get any grimmer, and then it does… That movie killed me.
In the category of very-much-requited-but-impossible love: Roman Holiday.
I know, I know, it’s mostly a comedy, but the part from the kiss by the river to the end is, to my mind, the most powerful, affecting, well-acted thirty minutes of film I’ve ever seen. (I certainly consider it some of Gregory Peck’s finest work, for which he was massively underrated because everyone was so taken with La Hepburn – who, by the way, owes her Oscar to brilliant direction from Wyler and terrific support from Peck – so SHUT UP, everyone who thinks the master skeeze otherwise known as Cary Grant would’ve been better for the role.)
Not knowing the ending beforehand, I was blown away the first time I saw it back in 2000. I began watching it obsessively a couple of years ago and had to stop because I just cannot handle the ending. This movie somehow worked itself into my soul in a way no other movie has even approached. It made me believe in the possibility of perfect love born in a day, something I am very quick to discredit in any other circumstance. Hell, it even drove me to seek out the therapy of writing fanfiction – something at which I’d always turned up my nose before – because I so desperately wanted to believe these two could find healing and happiness.
So, yeah. Therein is my argument for the movie I love so much I can’t even watch it anymore.
nth-ing Life Is Beautiful and Requiem for a Dream.
And I’m not nominating it, but: Armageddon. TEARS EVERY TIME. Every. Time. I just don’t even know why, but when Bruce Willis is all “I’m not coming back, baby,” the waterworks begin.
Wendy and Lucy.
Milo and Otis killed me as a kid, as did The Bear and Dumbo. (So did The Brave Little Toaster, though I realize that movie is not very good…it’s possible there were some “being abandoned by the thing you love” issues going on.)
I agree with many about Grave of the Fireflies, too.
Also To Live, or possibly any movie about people losing it all and then dying.
@SPM: I was trying to think of what movies I’ve been the most upset after watching, and I had a vivid flashback of lying on the floor at age 15 and sobbing at the end of Roman Holiday, so I get where you’re coming from :) I don’t think it does that to everyone, though, it may just be you and me!
2nding/3rding:
Brief Encounter – it’s beautiful but a lot more hopeless than you would expect it to be. Her final speech is a dagger to the heart of hope and love.
@Kelly – yep, to everyone else this seems to be just another star-crossed-lovers movie. But I’ll go you one better and say that Roman Holiday is to me what Casablanca is to everyone else, chiefly due to Peck’s presence and the fact that Joe and Ann were not married to other people. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in the universe who feels that way. :)
Irreversible – I saw this on a date, people…..it did not end well.
Beaches – Cheesy, yes. But watched it with my best friend as a teenager and cannot watch it again, cannot hear the song, without remembering exactly what that felt like, crying my eyes out and promising to always be there for each other.
Dead Ringers – Creepy, bleak, disturbing, and yet that’s why Irons won the Oscar
Leaving Las Vegas – Watched it in college with a friend, who about two months after quit drinking and got sober, so maybe it did some good?
Kids – I will never watch the movie again, although I still like the soundtrack
Some have mentioned The Lives of Others, and maybe I’m weird, but I find it strangely hopeful. When Mühe auditioned for the part, he brought his own Stasi file in with him, and that is what in a strange way gives me hope; people who lived through that were able to do something much more positive with the experience.
One True Thing
Iron Giant
Terms of Endearment
For documentary: Capturing the Friedmans
Brokeback Mountain
Leaving Las Vegas
Requiem for a Dream
Schindler’s List
Sunset Boulevard
Synecdoche, New York
I’d like to second Boys Don’t Cry, Kids and Precious
Another vote for:
Requium for a Dream
Breaking the Waves
Atonement
And adding
Bent
The Pursuit of Happyness for sure. I sat on the couch in a depressive stupor for 45 minutes before I could rouse myself to turn off the credits.
OK, I have five more for today:
Repulsion (both bleak and scary as crap)
The 400 Blows (that final shot!)
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (go ahead, look up how it ends-I could NOT believe it)
The Heiress (nobody does sad better than Olivia de Havilland)
Take Shelter (depending on how you read the ending; I read it bleak)
Away from Her
Life is Beautiful
District 9
Dr Zhivago
…Don’t look up how it ends; just see it. Well worth it. THEN look it up.
Oh, god, I’ve blocked Iron Giant from my brain. I watched it with my boys and by the end, we were all SOBBING on the couch. Sobbing.
I also have to say Dear Zachary. Holy shit. I have never cried so much in my life. http://www.dearzachary.com/
Lots of good ones up there already. I’d also suggest The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Brighton Rock and Steam of Life (“Miesten Vuoro”). I also remember Margot at the Wedding as having a pretty bleak outlook on life, but I’m not quite sure now.
Days of Wine and Roses, seconded
@LARA – Yes, Perfect. The 2 names
“Seasonal Affective Disorder Film Festival”
and the nickname,
“The March SADness,”
are in perfect keeping with the nature of many of these films.
Often beautiful cinematography or directing, touching, but TOO touching. Getting back out in sunshine is critical.
New proposed motto, “You will need more than 1 pint of good ice cream after you see this movie.”
@Andrea – you mean the one with Will Smith? I know much of it is rough going, but the ending is happy. Why did you find it depressing? (Not trying to criticize, just wondering.)
Second date with my boyfriend (we’ve now been together 12 years):
Me: “Requiem for a Dream” is playing; we could go see that.
Him: Oh yeah! I’ve been wanting to see that.
Post-film: We stand by his car in silence for several minutes.
Him: Uhhh . . . do you . . . want to get something to eat?
Me: No.
Him: Yeah, me neither.
Dancer in the Dark
And a third vote for Dear Zachary. I watched it when my older daughter was about 3 months old and my husband and I just sat there, silent tears streaming down our faces. It’s brutal.
I think I’m just repeating other nominations here, but:
Naked may be the only movie that I actually couldn’t sit through on DVD because of how much it made my skin crawl
Breaking the Waves, definitely
The Piano
Leaving Las Vegas
And maybe The Deer Hunter, which I was allowed to see much too young, so that may be just me.
Or, rather–the particular impact The Deer Hunter had on me might have bumped it higher on my personal list. I can’t imagine it not being devastating.
I’ve told this story before, but I first saw THE DEER HUNTER in the “rent a video from Blockbuster” days. It came on two tapes (hee) and the store had put them back in the wrong order, so I watched the second half first. And the movie holds up. In fact I like it better that way.
Concur on “Once Were Warriors.” I walked around for hours afterwards with a knot in my gut. Devastating.
Oh, here’s a few more…
My Life Without Me
Winter’s Bone
Frozen River
A Separation
…augh, FROZEN RIVER.
The 1997 film version of Bent.
I cried so hard at the end of that movie I forgot what I was crying about, remembered, and cried all over again.
Gummo (1997)
The Proposition (2005)
Funny Games (both versions)
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Grave of the Fireflies
Japanese Story
Wit
I haven’t seen Where the Red Fern grows since we watched it in school in the 4th grade, but I totally remember getting scolded by my teacher because I COULD NOT STOP CRYING. (Though, as I recall, I was largely upset about differences between the movie and book on top of the general sadness.)
I definitely am on board with others previously mentioned, too. But I have to say, I tend to avoid movies that are going to make me have these feelings because I am wimpy when it comes to making myself FEEEEEEEL stuff with movies.
A Dry White Season and <Romero. Saw them both back in my earnest, I-have-to-save-the-world days. Unrelieved hopelessness: torture, violence, torture, abuse, more torture, then death. And torture.
@JenV If anyone else is like me, the reason that no one is mentioning “The Road” is because if they read the book, they stayed the hell away from the movie. I read that in my book club and it was like a group counseling session, everyone was so shell shocked. No one read that book and thought “Wow, I hope they make a movie out of that so I can relive the experience!”
Stella
Jezebel
The Painted Veil
Radio Flyer
Stealing Home
Murder in the First
Freaks
The Passion of the Christ
Whether you’re Christian or not, watching the prolonged and graphic brutality that Jesus suffered in that film is just devastating.
Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but if you are looking for older movies…Judgement at Nuremberg. For anyone who thinks Judy Garland just did musical comedy…um, no. And the concentration camp footage is horrifying.
@JenV & @Stephanie – I really can’t imagine what kind of person did read “The Road” and then decided to go about getting the movie rights. I saw the movie and would never ever read that book. From what I’ve heard from friends, there are scenes in the book even grimmer than the movie.
Walkabout (1971). Loved it but can never watch it again.
Echoing previous posts:
Requiem for a Dream. The only thing that made me stop thinking about and re-watching THE montage in my mind was getting blind-sided by being laid off a week later.
Dear Zachary
Dead Poets Society
The Sweet Hereafter
Prince of Tides
I’m sure I could echo many others, but I’ve been warned not to see several of the films mentioned just because they would shred me.
I don’t think I saw these two in the masses of suggestions above:
Grapes of Wrath
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
And I concur with the Frozen River suggestion. Ugh.