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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
© 2014 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.
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SPORTS
Friday, August 22, 2014 | D1
’THE CHAMP’ Ricky Shroder grieves over his boxer father, played by Jon Voight. The 1979 movie is a fixture in research on emotions. Below, new tearjerker movies and their techniques.
‘IF I STAY’ The heroine’s grandfather is the focus of a key scene
where a single sustained camera shot helps build tension.
‘MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN’ The film portrays human vulnerability
in teenagers and adults in a bid to reach audiences emotionally.
THE CRYING
GAME
As a host of tearjerkers hit
theaters, filmmakers are
enlisting ‘neurocinematics’
and new directing
techniques to move
jaded audiences.
Read it and weep.
By Don Steinberg
THESE ARE HAPPY DAYS for people who like to cry at
movies.
Opening this weekend is “If I Stay,” about a celloplaying teenager who falls into a coma after a car accident. In the hospital, Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) has flashbacks about winning the heart of Adam (Jamie Blackley),
a super-cool boy given to impossibly romantic lines.
At one point, timid Mia goes to a party dressed like
punk-rocker Deborah Harry in hopes that Adam, who
plays in a band, will like her more. It’s hard not to
choke up when he tells her that the clothes don’t matter: “Don’t you get it? The you you are now is the same
you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I’ll be in
love with tomorrow.”
Coming this fall: more opportunities to get out the
handkerchiefs. “The Skeleton Twins,” “This is Where I
Leave You” and “Men, Women & Children” delve into the
emotional minefields of parents and children, fraying
marriages and estranged siblings trying to reconnect.
Over the summer, viewers teared up at “The Fault
in Our Stars,” the story of terminally ill teenagers Hazel and Gus (Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort).
“Fault,” which opened in June, has brought in $124
‘THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU’ Music has to be used judiciously
or the audience may feel manipulated.
million in the U.S., making it the highest-earning teenromance flick not powered by vampires.
“I have people coming up to me on the street and
crying,” Mr. Elgort says. The 20-year-old actor is following up his role of star-crossed lover in “Fault” by playing an anxious teenager in “Men, Women & Children.”
Audiences love tearjerkers, but why? How do they
work? Horror movies have their clichéd “jump scares”
that can get us every time—the demonic face in the
bathroom mirror, the knife-wielding maniac suddenly
in the doorway. Tearjerkers have triggers, too, but they
are more complex, wrapped up in how characters make
us feel, with their awkward attempts to connect with
each other, their bravery and fears, regrets and unspoken burdens. Other hot-button themes are faith redeemed, struggles rewarded and love requited.
Filmmakers say there is no surefire trick to make
viewers cry but certain techniques help. And since audiences have seen it all before, it’s not getting any easier.
Some tearjerkers made years or decades ago are
still vivid. Think of “Terms of Endearment,” in which
Shirley MacLaine’s overbearing character clashes and
ultimately reconciles with her dying daughter, Debra
Winger. Or “Jerry Maguire,” where Renée Zellweger interrupts Tom Cruise’s attempt at reconciliation by saying, “Shut up, just shut up. You had me at hello.”
Crafting a scene that touches emotions is “not
about putting the sugar in the sauce. It’s about every
ingredient and decision that you make,” says R.J. Cutler, who directed “If I Stay.” The movie, like “The Fault
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MGM/Photofest (‘The Champ’; Warner Bros. Pictures (2); Paramount Pictures (‘Men, Women & Children’); Reuters (below)
Murray with his
new coach, Amélie
Mauresmo. Female
coaches are rare in
pro tennis.
Andy Murray Finds a
Tennis Partner
BY TOM PERROTTA
LESS THAN A YEAR after back surgery
and in the middle of a mentally taxing season, Andy Murray did something almost unheard of in tennis and
professional sports in general: He
hired a woman to help him.
Amélie Mauresmo, a former No. 1
player, has stepped in for Ivan Lendl,
who had led Murray to two Grand
Slam singles titles and an Olympic
gold medal. Lendl had tired of traveling around the globe. Murray, who
has fallen to No. 9 in the world rankings, is seeded eighth at the U.S.
Open, which starts Monday. Two
years ago, he won the title.
Signing up Mauresmo shouldn’t be
seen as bold or newsworthy, especially
in tennis, the most successful women’s
pro sport in the world. Yet despite all
the female talent in tennis, women
coaches are few. On the men’s tour,
only two other top-50 players work
with women—one with his wife and
one with his mother. Coaches on the
women’s tour, too, are rare. But Murray moved quickly to hire Mauresmo,
and they plan to work together longterm.
“Once I started to grow up and
think for myself and know what I
want, it was a lot easier for me to
think, ‘Actually, there’s absolutely
no reason why I couldn’t work with
a female coach,’” said Murray, who
learned the game as a child in Scotland from his mother, Judy. “Maybe
it doesn’t cross many players’
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