Sad movies say so much

Ari Siletz
by Ari Siletz
29-Feb-2012
 

Reading so many complaints about the movie Separation being depressing, I wanted to blog in its defense and "antellectualize."

Then I thought why not let a master artist explain it himself. Above is Elton John singing, "Sad Songs Say So Much." Lyrics are in the video. My favorite passage is, "If someone else is suffering enough to write it down. When every single word makes sense."

If you did want to "antellectualize," think about how Elton John's sad songs are different kind of sad than Separation. This music video of the same song has some clues. 

What's your vote for the saddest song, movie...?

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more from Ari Siletz
 
Farfromheaven2002

"I've Loved You So Long"

by Farfromheaven2002 on

I watched and I really liked the movie.  Thank you for the suggestion. 

A related story: I was in a doctor office, and I heard the doctor asked an attractive/well-dressed elderly woman about multiple bruises' spots on her hands.  She replied that she burned herself when her mother died years ago.  Is there a movie song for that? 

As in "I've Loved You So Long", it was very difficult to handle 15 years in a prison probably just for her own guilt.


Yana

Ari...

by Yana on

"Seperation" wasn't a sad movie, it was a super fast-moving-train crash that lasted an hour and a half!

shad zee

p.s. I do admire Mrs. Laila Hatami, she is beautiful and smart and I do wish her more success.

p.s. 2, "saddest tree, beed e majnoon", weeping willow is my favorite tree:) and lightens my heart, it can't be saddest tree:)

 


Esfand Aashena

Forgot about Heiran (2009) about an Afghan young man.

by Esfand Aashena on

Heiran (2009) may be even more sad than the two I mentioned earlier, a movie about forbidden love between a young Iranian girl and an Afghan boy. 

Everything is sacred


Esfand Aashena

2 Oscar nominated movies from last year's Foreign Film Category.

by Esfand Aashena on

Last year's winner in the best foreign film category In a Better world (2010) and probably the runner-up Incendies (2010).

Watch them and take your pick! 

Everything is sacred


Ari Siletz

thanks folks, some of mine

by Ari Siletz on

Saddest song (agree with Anahid: "Fast Car").

Saddest American blockbuster: Titanic (Best picture Oscar 1997).

Saddest Iranian blockbuster: Mim mesl e maadar (Iran's entry for Oscars 2007).

Saddest animal film: Old Yeller (1957 Disney)

Saddest classic: La Strada (Fellini, 1956 Oscar for best foreign film. First time this prize was given.)

Saddest tree: Beed e majnoon.

Saddest car: 54 Buick.

 


Anahid Hojjati

some sad songs

by Anahid Hojjati on

Fast car in late 1980s by Tracy Chapman, here is link to Wikipedia about thi song:

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Car

 Hurricane by Bob Dylan, here is the lyrics

Pistols shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood
Cries out "My God they killed them all"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Three bodies lying there does Patty see
And another man named Bello moving around mysteriously
"I didn't do it" he says and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbing the register I hope you understand
I saw them leaving" he says and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops"
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing
In the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that
In Patterson that's just the way things go
If you're black you might as well not SHOW up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the corps
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around
He said "I saw two men running out they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates"
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head
Cop said "Wait a minute boys this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye
Says "Wha'd you bring him in here for ? He ain't the guy !"
Yes here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Four months later the ghettos are in flame
Rubin's in South America fighting for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are putting the screws to him looking for somebody to blame
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar ?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law ?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter you saw running that night ?"
"Don't forget that you are white".

Arthur Dexter Bradley said "I'm really not sure"
Cops said "A boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talking to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail be a nice fellow
You'll be doing society a favor
That sonofabitch is brave and getting braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim".

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It's my work he'd say and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The DA said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder 'one' guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand ?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Dylan has many other sad songs too.

Someone like you that Adele sang, and here is the lyrics:

"Someone Like You"

I heard that you're settled down
That you found a girl and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you.

Old friend, why are you so shy?
Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead, "
Yeah

You know how the time flies
Only yesterday was the time of our lives
We were born and raised
In a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."
Yeah

Nothing compares
No worries or cares
Regrets and mistakes
They are memories made.
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."
Yeah


Rewrite from 2011 album of Paul Simon

and many others that friends can note. From Iranian songs, Darius has many sad songs. several that cam eout at the tim ethat "yavar Hamisheh momen" was out, like Shaghayegh.

Mara beboos that Golnaraghi sang is one of the saddest songs ever because of the story behind it.

Many sorodhaye enghelabi from 1978 now sound sad but also remind us of happier times when there was hope.


Souri

So many good stuff at IC

by Souri on

Thanks Ari for another good blog, again. I am happy there are still so many good blogs and yet few good bloggers at IC, we don't need to focus on the banal and repetitive ones.

Bavafa;

Thank  you so much for mentioning this very beautiful  French nursery rhyme. I just love it. I always sang it for my sons when they were too little boys.

Here's a short translation :

 


Anahid Hojjati

Thanks Bavafa

by Anahid Hojjati on

I liked Kristin Scot Thomas in "Random Hearts", with "Harrison Ford". Unfortunately, I have not seen many movies from her. Thanks for your recommendation.


Bavafa

Anahid jaan: You might like this movie...

by Bavafa on

"I've Loved You So Long"

Kristin Scott Thomas has become my second favorite actress after Meryl Steep.

'Hambastegi' is the main key to victory 

Mehrdad


Anahid Hojjati

Ari,

by Anahid Hojjati on

Ari, I still have not seen Separation, but I have read several reviews of it. In response to your question "how Elton John's sad songs are different kind of sad than Separation", my answer is in separation many sad events happened right after another.  So when you watch the movie, you are bombarded by all these sad events. Just like reason that I never watched hospital shows that had too many death and emergencies crammed in one hour but I do watch House. It is the matter of intensity. With Elton John's sad song, it is a reflective kind of sad. You are not bombarded with events but it is up to person how much you want to reflect and how far to take it.

As far as sad movies, "Terms of Endearment" was very sad. I have seen some other sad movies. I saw Love story when I was a kid and that was depressing. I need to think more to come up with some saddest songs.


Bavafa

Let me guess....

by Bavafa on

Vast majority of those complaints are from the Westernized Iranians, right? 


I thought so!
 
I don’t blame them, Iranian movies, songs are generally sad and depressing, heck Iranian life for that matter is sad and depressing. 

But we ought to remember that Iranians (Iranian culture) embrace sadness in their lives and in fact they thrive on it.
I know, it does not make sense but that is how it is, sadly.

 So, to compare it with a Western culture is to compare apple and oranges.  As much as I like my apple to taste like an orange, it won’t. 

As for saddest song, take any of Dariush songs, we use to play them in our Rozeh khoni shabe Jommeh as our local akhoond  could not make people cry hard enough.   And for the movie, I am sure there are many but I am going to settle for Sophie’s Choice for now.

 

'Hambastegi' is the main key to victory 

Mehrdad


Anonymous Observer

Recent one with a good story

by Anonymous Observer on

The Road.


Farfromheaven2002

Too much expectations:)

by Farfromheaven2002 on

If I only remember the name of the movie, I pat myself.  My future plan is to remember the name of the main actor.  Ei val.

My dream comes true if one day I could remember the name of the movie song:)

"What lies under the surface?

What hides behind the walls?

What imprisons the desires...of the heart."

Far From Heaven, 2002