It is all going to end in tears
Watch ‘em and weep. MARION McMULLEN looks at some classic sob stories as tear-jerking movie Truly Madly Deeply turns thirty
ACTRESS Juliet Stevenson weeping inconsolably proved an emotional start to Truly Madly Deeply.
She played Nina, a woman overwhelmed with grief following the sudden death of her partner Jamie, and the raw emotion captured on screen turned the British film into a hit.
Juliet later said of her moving performance: “I don’t really like watching that glamorised version of grief – a single tear rolls down a perfect cheek. My experience of loss is that you feel trashed. Loss is not a glamorous thing.”
The movie was made for the BBC’s Screen Two series and was first seen on TV 30 years ago on March 1, 1992. Writer and director Anthony Minghella created the part of Nina specially for Juliet, while the late Alan Rickman played celloplaying ghost Jamie, who comes back from the dead to console his heartbroken partner and help her move on with her life without him. Alan once explained his chemistry in the movie with Juliet saying: “Juliet Stevenson and I had done a lot of theatre work together, so much so she was nervous about me playing the ghost of her boyfriend. “She was like ‘but I know him too well, he’s like my brother.’ The fact Juliet and I trust each other so much is gold dust when doing that sort of work.”
It was Minghella’s first film and was shot on location in London and Bristol over 28 days. Alan said: “It’s one of those films that is very, very special for unnameable reasons.” Love that proves stronger than death was also at the heart of 1990 American blockbuster Ghost. It saw Patrick Swayze play Sam Wheat, who returns from beyond the grave to protect his grieving partner Molly (Demi Moore) from the men who murdered him.
Patrick later declared the movie’s famous pottery scene was the sexiest thing he had ever done on film. He said: “I needed to do Ghost for my soul.” Demi described it as “something that touches people’s hearts”. She said: “It has installed a sense of hope and magic that those we love are always still with us.” One of the ultimate tear-jerker movies was Love Story, which came out in 1970. It spawned the catchphrase “love means never having to say you’re sorry” and saw Ryan O’Neal as the rich and privileged Oliver, who falls in love with working class girl Jenny (Ali MacGraw) when they are students at Harvard.
The couple fall in love and marry despite the disapproval of Oliver’s wealthy father, but tragedy strikes when Jenny becomes ill.
Both Ryan and Ali were nominated for Oscars for their work. It was only Ali’s second movie and she later said the success of Love Story was like a “kind of avalanche.” Doomed love has always left cinema audiences crying, and in 1945 it was Brief Encounter that had everyone reaching for the tissues.
The British film had classic written all over it from the start. It was penned by Noel Coward, directed by David Lean and starred Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard as two strangers who meet at a railway station and slowly find themselves falling in love with each subsequent encounter. The only problem was Celia’s character Laura was already married.
The film was not released in America until 1946 and in 1947 Celia was nominated for the best actress Oscar. Trevor was paid £500 for his role as Dr Alec Harvey and said of his co-star: “Celia Johnson was the best actress I’ve ever worked with. Beneath Celia’s Women’s Institute gentility there was the most lovable woman and a real trooper.”
It’s almost impossible to watch Goodbye Mr Chips without shedding a few tears. The British classic came out in 1939 and won Robert Donat an Oscar for his role as teacher Mr “Chips” Chipping, as he looks back on his life and the woman he loved and married. Robert was 34 when he made the film and had to age 63 years for the role. He once said “as soon as I put the moustache on I felt the part... even if I did look like a great Airedale come out of a puddle”.
Greer Garson played Katherine, the love of his life, who helps him become a friend to his young charges. She tells him: “I don’t see how you could ever get old in a world that’s always young.”
Greer also starred with Walter Pidgeon in the 1944 tear-jerker Mrs Miniver about a British family living through the hardships of the Second World War. She said: “If you’re going to be typed, there are worse moulds in which you can be cast.” Winston Churchill said the emotional movie had done more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers. Mrs Miniver went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1942 and won six Oscars.
It seems nothing beats a good sob story.