chaz720.net - journal

December 09, 2001

Old man lying by the side of the road, with the lorries rolling by. Blue moon's sinkin from the weight of the load, and the buildings scrape the sky. Cold running up and down the side of your door, and the morning paper flies. Dead man lying by the side of the road, with the daylight in his eyes. Don�t let it bring you down, it�s only castles burning. Find someone who's turning, and you will come around. Blind man running through the light of the night, with an insight in his hands. Come on down to the river of sight, and you can really understand. Red lights flashing through the window of your room, can you hear the sirens moan? White kid lying in the gutter in the lane, and you're walking home alone. Don't let it bring you down, it�s only castles burning. Find someone who's turning, and you will come around. Old man lying by the side of the road, with the lorries rolling by. Blue moon's sinkin from the weight of the load, and the buildings scrape the sky. Cold running up and down the side of your door, and the morning paper flies. dead man lying by the side of the road, with the daylight in his eyes. Dont let it bring you down, it�s only castles burning. Find someone who's turning, and you will come around.

I love this song, but far less for what it is as the movie it came from. American Beauty is one of around 5 movies that yours truely, stoic extrordinaire, cried during. And this song was the one playing towards the end when Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey meet up alone for the first time. I wonder if there are certain stories that just warrent that kind of emotional response or if it's just certain stories get to certain people. The former would make sense if certain people just had a threshold where if the director pushed the little "tear jerker" slider up far enough they'd let it out. But that's probably not very likely, the more I think about it. No, although there is no doubt some people are easier than others, there are some movies that would get to a big tough guy, and that person that was balling their eyes out during free willy would just look at them funny.

It seems as though it's simply a matter of how closely we can relate to the film in question. But what decides how this happens? Depending on the life we've lived the director might have to press a particular set of buttons to get us to click with the characters in such a way that things happening to the characters seem to happen to us. And then suddenly something will happen in the film that brings out some linear combination of the following things: Pity or Joy for the characters having felt how they feel at the moment, some image of yourself sharing the same fate in the future, or hope that the character will overcome it because you've come to like them.

I suppose the above is most prominant in films, but surely songs and books can do the same thing. I guess the more forms of media the better for those of us too lazy to use our imagination in many instances as I am.

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