It seems that as I’ve grown older, I have become a more emotional person. By this I do not mean “caring for others” – I’m still kind of waiting on that one. There’s a line that Gena Rowlands delivers in John Cassavetes’ Opening Night that expertly expresses my newfound vulnerability: “When I was 17, I could do anything. It was so easy. My emotions were so close to the surface.” Despite being 20, and not officially an actress like Rowlands’ character, the sentiment remains the same. To put it quite simply: I cry literally all the time. 

The smallest inconvenience or sappy moment brings me to tears. During the 2024 Olympics, I think I cried nearly three times a day. Watching people get the gold medal they’d been chasing, swimming, or spiking volleyballs after their whole lives was visceral and touching. Perhaps that can be chalked up to my own history as a competitive gymnast. Sometimes I’ll glance over at a photo of Andy Warhol, Candy Darling, and Jed Johnson I have hanging up in my dorm and shed a tear at the tenderness that jumps out from it. My brother asked me what I wanted for Hanukkah one too many times and I erupted into a sob, shouting at him to get out of my room. This instance, I’ll admit, was more confusing than emotionally revealing. There are other small moments or Great Frustrations that bring me to a soft weep at inopportune times, but none bring me greater joy than the soft tear or heavy wail that I experience while watching a movie.

I’ve long been a watcher and lover of movies. I wouldn’t say that I’d been apathetic towards them in the past, but I definitely had a harder time getting into a spiritual rhythm in my younger days. In high school, the period of time when I seriously started getting into Film, I was encased in a thick wall that blocked any “weak” feelings from seeping their way out. Emotions were not something I let come to the surface, lest they be extracted and exploited by other people who would use them to my detriment. Or something like that. I don’t “do therapy” so I couldn’t tell you why I was so closed off. I recall a time when my ex-best friend was committing one of her usual acts that resulted in her being my ex-best friend, and I was more scared of crying in front of her than I was to confront her about her wrongdoings as a friend. When I did “do therapy” I was similarly embarrassed to cry in front of my literal therapist. I also would lie about things. I think I need something more than therapy.

But back to the point at hand. For whatever reason, and I thank god for it, I’m now able to cry pretty much at the drop of a hat, and my emotions sit happily below the surface waiting to be called upon in any given situation. Anger, Annoyance, Ennui, and Jealousy are the ones I tend to rely on the most, but Crying at Movie comes in at a close fifth, and it’s my favorite one to wield. While writing a final project during reading week, I had to do a short analysis for Robert Altman’s magnificent film Nashville. I chose the scene where Keith Carradine’s character serenades no fewer than five women with the beautifully self-written song “I’m Easy.” To my shock, I started to tear up on the C-floor of Firestone Library. One would think that during a time when my eyes were burned by my computer screen eight hours a day for ten days, the well would have been dry. The scene isn’t even entirely romantic and sweet – Altman’s eternally satirical perspective meant that the scene was peppered with irony. Still, I reveled in the brief teary outburst the song gave me. I then rewatched the scene about 23 times, and once more the next day. 

When I’m at home for breaks, I enjoy an outing to the theater to go see a movie or two. A normal thing to do, I’d like to think. NOT. Though I adore these solo excursions to the likes of Metrograph and Film Forum, I can’t bear to sit there for an hour and half at the very least in what feels like a mid-century insane asylum. Maybe there’s a gas leak or something that’s somehow affecting everyone in the room but me, but the level of laughter I’m hearing in these screenings amounts to nothing short of mass hysteria. Yes, movies can have funny lines. Most have some sprinkled here and there, some are consistently quite funny. But what the hell is so goddamn funny about Enter the Void???!!! (For the uninitiated, here is a description of this movie you can find from a Google search: “A psychedelic acid trip in which a young man takes a wild journey into the afterlife. A visceral journey set against the thumping, neon club scene of Tokyo, which hurls into an astonishing trip through life and death.”) Somehow people have got to thinking that every line in every movie is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, and they must let everyone else in the theater know that with their noxious giggles and cackles. Can’t we just sincerely react to what’s on screen, not have some weird, performative, detached experience? I commend people on the simple fact that they are leaving their homes to watch these movies rather than wallowing in front of a somewhat-smaller screen, but I’d thank them to leave the detached irony at home too. This alarming phenomenon, coupled with a looming JP deadline at the time of writing, means that I did not make an effort to go out to see a movie during this winter break. So I resorted to having some very spiritual, emotional, and tearful experiences with movies in the privacy of my own home, where I’m the only crazy one in the room.

The night I returned from school, I sat down in front of the TV and aimlessly scrolled through the Criterion Channel to pick a movie. Their selections have gotten pretty repetitive, so that goal post seems to be moving further and further back. After what felt like an eternity (probably like fifteen minutes), I settled on a much-derided “boy movie:” Donnie Darko. I don’t subscribe to such essentializing watching practices and believe those who do are doomed to eternal stupidity, but I’ll admit that I felt a little stupid myself choosing this one. I won’t get into an analysis of the movie, because I don’t really care to give it any more chatter than it has already received in its 24-year existence. To a similar surprise that I felt towards the Firestone incident, I found myself uncontrollably sobbing at the film’s climax, when Donnie makes the choice to sacrifice himself so the world can go on turning. Frank, the anthropomorphic bunny rabbit that haunts his schizophrenic mindscape, had been telling him that the world will end at a set time on Halloween 1988. When that time arrives, his girlfriend Gretchen gets run over by a car, driven by his sister’s friend Frank in a bunny costume. The world, for all intents and purposes, ends at that time, with the death of his young love. I guess I found the moment moving, however simplistic and naive it feels to admit. 

I’m smart enough to piece together why these specific moments make me cry. They have to do with love of the unrequited, cut short, young, tender, hopeless, and hopeful varieties. Maybe that says something about me. Well, it certainly does. But that is a (psycho)analysis for another day. There are other moments that make me feel a great sadness for the world, the experience of which I had while watching Malcolm X, for example. At times, I’m saddened by my own malfunction as a person as mirrored through the actions on screen. For now, I’m content to find out that I have evolved at least in part from my days as an Angsty Teen. My delicate emotions prove that I’m still alive. That my eyes aren’t as dry as my optometrist told me they were in fifth grade. That I have a beating heart and wet tear ducts. That my crying is removed from something other than hurt brought on by the actions of others. That I can let myself Feel and really Feel as a person should. That someone can have a personal, earnest, and visceral reaction to a piece of art in a world that is overwrought with irony and confoundingly laughter-filled repertory screenings.