Crying at the Movies : A Film Memoir
- Book Review,
by Madelon Sprengnether
From Publishers Weekly
When she was nine years old, Sprengnether's father drowned in the Mississippi River as his family watched. Later, though a poet and essayist, she couldn't put her sadness into words nor could she cry. At age 26, however, during a screening of Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, she wept inconsolably; she later recognized that many of the film's moments invoked her personal tragedy and encouraged her release. "It was as though the sadness I had buried when I was nine years old lay deep within my psyche," she writes, "waiting for its shadow image to appear in the dreamlike space of the movie theater." In the elegant prose of an accomplished essayist, Sprengnether goes on to explore other moments in her life in which emotion and cinema fused. Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris reminds her of the rough spots in her romantic history, while Jane Campion's The Piano compels her to reflect on the hatred with which she viewed her stepfather. Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden conjures up memories of her attraction to her brother, which led them to the brink of incest. Sprengnether's honesty, about the events of her life and her inadequate ways of dealing with trauma, is striking, and shows how profoundly films can speak to their viewers. In these insightful essays, even the writing itself is cinematic, as Sprengnether's memories and quick film summaries meld into one another, making it seem as if the author hasn't just seen many movies, but has actually lived one. (Jan.)Forecast: Don't expect Sprengnether to wax poetic on Bruce Willis movies this volume is aimed squarely at artsy readers. But her simultaneous analysis of self and film make an interesting, if occasionally mawkish, read. It's easy to picture her book tucked in the canvas bookbags of NPR listeners and in the backpacks of students of both film and the personal memoir.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This very personal and intimate work part therapeutic journal, part film analysis is an examination of the author's strong responses to particular films that have some resonance with her personal history. As the subtitle indicates, it is much more a memoir than a work about film as such. Sprengnether (English, Univ. of Minnesota) has spent most of her life coming to terms with her father's accidental death during a family vacation. The suppression of her grief and pain led her to excel in school and to pursue a career in academia, while at the same time it warped her relations with family and lovers. By exploring her extreme reactions over the years to a range of films, including Pather Panchali, The Piano, and Shadowlands, and trying to place them in the context of her own life, Sprengnether has created a vivid, passionate description of the therapeutic value of cinema. Her book will be of particular interest to individuals using psychotherapy as a tool for analyzing film. Recommended for public and academic libraries with collections focused on memoirs, counseling, or film studies. Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn Campus, NYCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Sprengnether's recollection begins with an account of her father's death. When she was nine, she watched him drown in the Mississippi on a family outing. She didn't weep but "froze" her memory of this trauma, while her family swallowed grief and didn't speak of it. Years later, as an adult, Sprengnether amazed herself with a teary outpouring of grief while seeing Pather Panchali, the first film in Bengali director Satyajit Ray's famous Apu trilogy. She cried again at screenings of House of Cards, Solaris, Fearless, Shadowlands, and others. Why? The movie theater, she says, is "a special environment, a . . . space between dream and reality," in which ordinary defenses are breached and boundaries relaxed between the conscious and the unconscious. Film serves her need to examine suppressed feelings and reclaim the long-hidden memory of her father's death--feelings and a memory whose repression she links to extramarital love affairs that led to two failed marriages. Mental health professionals who are studying trauma are only some of those who may find this important reading. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
"For years, I cried, not over my own losses, but at the movies. When bad things happened to me in real life, I didn't react. I seemed cool or indifferent. Yet in the dark and relative safety of the movie theater, I would weep over fictional tragedies, over someone else's tragedy."
At age nine, Madelon Sprengnether watched her father drown in the Mississippi River. Her mother swallowed the family's grief whole and no one spoke of the tragedy thereafter. Only years later did Sprengnether react, and in a most unlikely place: in the theater watching the film Pather Panchali, by Satyajit Ray.
In this fascinating memoir, Sprengnether looks at the sublime connections between happenings in the present, troubling events from the past, and the imagined world of movies. By examining the films she had intense emotional reactions to throughout her adult life--House of Cards, Solaris, Fearless, The Cement Garden, Shadowlands, and Blue--Sprengnether finds a way to work through her own losses, mistakes, and pain.
From the Back Cover
"For years, I cried, not over my own losses, but at the movies. When bad things happened to me in real life, I didn't react. I seemed cool or indifferent. Yet in the dark and relative safety of the movie theater, I would weep over fictional tragedies, over someone else's tragedy."
"Crying at the Movies calls forth the kinds of passion and vulnerability which are our most powerful weapons against hopelessness and fear. To use Film as Dreams and to enter those worlds on a visit of discovery is one of the more tender and brilliant ideas I have come across in a long time. This is a beautiful book."--Michael Lessac, Director of House of Cards
"An amazing book--bold, brilliant, beautifully written. Don't miss it."--Carol Gilligan
At age nine, Madelon Sprengnether watched her father drown in the Mississippi River. Her mother swallowed the family's grief whole and no one spoke of the tragedy thereafter. Only years later did Sprengnether react, and in a most unlikely place: in the theater watching the film Pather Panchali, by Satyajit Ray.
In this fascinating memoir, Sprengnether looks at the sublime connections between happenings in the present, troubling events from the past, and the imagined world of movies. By examining the films she had intense emotional reactions to throughout her adult life--House of Cards, Solaris, Fearless, The Cement Garden, Shadowlands, and Blue--Sprengnether finds a way to work through her own losses, mistakes, and pain.
Madelon Sprengnether is Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches critical and creative writing. She is the author of a book of poems, The Normal Heart; a collection of personal essays, Rivers, Stories, Houses, Dreams; and she has co-edited a colleciton of travel writing by women, The House on Via Gombito.
About the Author
Madelon Sprengnether is Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches critical and creative writing. She is the author of a book of poems, The Normal Heart; a collection of personal essays, Rivers, Stories, Houses, Dreams; and she has co-edited a colleciton of travel writing by women, The House on Via Gombito.
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