Painful Movies

[Sardondi]

somatic hypermutation made reference to Glengarry Glen Ross, the powerful 1992 David Mamet movie with the all-start cast of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Jonatahn Pryce and others. It reminded me of great movies which are nonetheless difficult for me to watch. Some movies considered great I have even avoided, because it's just too painful to me, or draw such a bleak world that I don't want to spend more time there. It's been this way for me with contemporary fiction as well, as I have many times passed over novels of self-obsession by miserable and depressed writers from Manhattan, which seems to amount to about half the writers in the US.

Ordinarily I see good movies several times over the years, even painful or dark ones. For example, many people think the The Lion In Winter is an emotionally wrenching, close-up study of horrible marital and familial wounds, but I've watched it perhaps 8-10 times just to see Peter O'Toole and Kate Hepburn. But many movies are simply too hurtful to see more than once all the way through. The great Russian film Come And See contains some of the most horrendous scenes of Germany's war of genocide against Russia, yet I've sen it 2-3 times because it is so powerful, and yet hopeful in some ways. Another film I've seen more than once although it is depressing (I can't for the life of me remember the title right now) is a French film about a writer in his 60's (also a movie maker?) who is dying but who, with the help f an estranged son, leaves hospital to die at a summer house surrounded by old friends and lovers from his glory days of '68; and with the help of a junkie nurse is finally helped into death as each friend injects a morphine syringe, ensuring a lethal overdose. It's actually very sweet, and as I recall the son and the cleaned-up nurse may even become an item. Anyone?

But Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? I've seen only once in its entirety - that was enough. I've seen a lot of movies only once, but in this thread I'm talking about good or even great movies which I have seen only once, or not at all, because of how painful I found them. Movies I have seen only once because of the emotional pain or discomfort I felt watching them include Sophie's Choice, Shoah, Gone Baby Gone, Schindler's List, The Virgin Suicides, Trainspotting, The Pianist, Million Dollar Baby, Requiem For A Dream, Bad Lieutenant, The Killing Fields, A Clockwork Orange, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Carnal Knowledge, The Road, The Wrestler, American Beauty.

I've never seen Dance In The Dark, Leaving Las Vegas, United 93 or any other movie about 9/11.

It's not like all or even most of these movies devastated me or left me sobbing in the aisles; but I do recall being so bummed out I didn't want to watch them again. Any other similar reactions to these or other movies?

[Usagi]

Some excellent movies on that list.  The Road in particular is a rare instance of a film that I thought very good, but that I will flat out refuse to watch again.  I just can't go there.


However, one singularly depressing film that comes to mind (animated in this case, which doesn't lessen the impact in the least) is Grave of the Fireflies.  I'm blanching just a bit typing the name of it.

[UnscreenedCaller]

I can't rewatch Breaker Morant, it's too painful after "Shoot straight, you bastards", and I will never watch Leaving Las Vegas again for the same reason. That movie got under my skin for a very long time. I know it's a great movie, but ... no. And Old Yeller: no, no, a thousand times no. The nuns showed that in high school, and unprepared for two hundred sobbing teenaged girls. Oh, and one more: Of Mice and Men. I don't do well with tragedies involving the underdog.

[MrMajestik]

Threads.

A British T.V. movie from the 1980's.
One of the most depressing movies I ever saw because it was an all too real possibility.
You'll probably only find it on Youtube now.

[Usagi]

I can't rewatch Breaker Morant

What a great, if painful, movie.  I get on British Imperial kicks now and then (I long to visit the Vale of the White Horse and play Tom Brown).  I recently watched Breaker Morant and Zulu together.  Good times, but easy for me to say.

[PhantasticSanShiSan]

What a great, if painful, movie.  I get on British Imperial kicks now and then (I long to visit the Vale of the White Horse and play Tom Brown).  I recently watched that and Zulu together.  Good times, but easy for me to say.

Haha, same here (Luv Ya Netflix!!). Breaker Morant is so awesome but so sad.  Looking forward to watching Zulu Dawn soon, but I fear it won't live up to my expectations.

And Come and See is an AMAZING movie.  Good list you got going Sardondi.  There aren't many high quality movies I wouldn't watch multiple times, but honestly The Wrestler might be one of them.  Great movie but just depressing as all hell.  Sometimes it sucks to have a natural inclination to root for a certain character/s.

And yeah, The Road is in there too.

[HorrorRetro]

Threads.

A British T.V. movie from the 1980's.
One of the most depressing movies I ever saw because it was an all too real possibility.
You'll probably only find it on Youtube now.

That was one of the more graphic, realistic nuclear attack movies.  It came out right around the same time the US movie The Day After.  Threads is far more disturbing.  After not watching it since it was originally shown in the US on cable TV, I made myself watch it a second time about a year ago.  It still had the same effect on me.

[Usagi]

That was one of the more graphic, realistic nuclear attack movies.  It came out right around the same time the US movie The Day After.  Threads is far more disturbing.  After not watching it since it was originally shown in the US on cable TV, I made myself watch it a second time about a year ago.  It still had the same effect on me.

Oh god, that reminds me of Testament, too.  That belongs on this list if it isn't already.


The Day After had the unfortunate luck of featuring Steve Guttenberg.

[PhantasticSanShiSan]

That was one of the more graphic, realistic nuclear attack movies.  It came out right around the same time the US movie The Day After.  Threads is far more disturbing.  After not watching it since it was originally shown in the US on cable TV, I made myself watch it a second time about a year ago.  It still had the same effect on me.

Talk about one of the biggest letdowns.  I remember The Day After was like a plague in some places when it aired; my elementary school had an assembly and we were told to never watch the movie and messages were sent out to all the parents.  Too disturbing and all that.  Never saw it till mid-to-late 2000's.  Bah.  As if it was any worse than V (Marc Singer was sooo cool! - The Beastmaster!).  Hell, by that time I had already seen Friday the 13th, Porky's 1&2 , and Evilspeak, never mind The Treasure of the Four Crowns - now that was a traumatic experience.

[Eddie Coyle]

 
         Generally, documentaries or reputable dramatizations do the trick for me, like One Day In September, (1999) Bloody Sunday(2002) The Thin Blue Line (1988)

         Movies about real injustices/coverups etc...that aren't presented by corpulent Texas conmen with a bullhorn.

[Eddie Coyle]

Talk about one of the biggest letdowns.  I remember The Day After was like a plague in some places when it aired; my elementary school had an assembly and we were told to never watch the movie and messages were sent out to all the parents. 

Yes,same situtation here,  I was in third grade, the movie aired Sunday night 11/20/83, and we were warned by our nun teachers to not watch it. Which of course, was the greatest advertisement ABC could have ever had. Probably the most controversial TV movie since Born Innocent in '74...

[PhantasticSanShiSan]

         Generally, documentaries or reputable dramatizations do the trick for me, like One Day In September, (1999) Bloody Sunday(2002) The Thin Blue Line (1988)

         Movies about real injustices/coverups etc...that aren't presented by corpulent Texas conmen with a bullhorn.

You mean like Erin Brockovich? 

[UnscreenedCaller]

Oh god, that reminds me of Testament, too.  That belongs on this list if it isn't already.

I was just going to mention Testament. Burying her child in the backyard and freaking out because she couldn't find his teddy bear. Yep, it's going to be a cold day before I watch that again.

[Eddie Coyle]

You mean like Erin Brockovich? 

Somehow I've yet to see that wonderful film. I'm sure it's on We or Lifetime in the coming minutes though. Somebody should cut off Julia Roberts thumb in a movie...that'd I watch.

[Sardondi]

I was not familiar with Grave Of The Fireflies but it sounds positively wretched to go through. I loved Breaker Morant and although I find difficult to watch those movies which feature either historic depictions of injustice (like Amistad or Paths of Glory) or miscarriages of justice which are otherwise realistic, I have watched it probably 3 times.

As I recall Morant introduced the Australian actors Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson to America, and gave Edward Woodward more exposure in the US than he'd ever had other than the original The Wicker Man (the final scene of which I have always found both terrifying and a realistic portrayal of how a man like Woodward's character would have faced those circumstances. Chilling.)

BTW, other movies I find difficult are Full Metal Jacket and Network.

And speaking of Jack Thompson how in the world anyone thought he could convincingly play a Savannah lawyer in Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil just astounds me. "Go Bulldogs", indeed.

Generally, documentaries or reputable dramatizations do the trick for me, like One Day In September, (1999) Bloody Sunday(2002) The Thin Blue Line (1988)
         Movies about real injustices/coverups etc...that aren't presented by corpulent Texas conmen with a bullhorn.

Ah, as I was typing, you were saying it for me. Thin Blue Line: bad downer.

You mean like Erin Brockovich? 

    Somehow I've yet to see that wonderful film. I'm sure it's on We or Lifetime in the coming minutes though. Somebody should cut off Julia Roberts thumb in a movie...that'd I watch.

Erin B is a movie I've never been able to watch. Or Pretty Woman either. And I guess in  a way you could say I haven't watched them because they're just so bloody painful....but not in the way these other movies are.

*Avatar note* Eddie Coyle, I'm rolling looking at your latest avatar. Some friends and I were so contemptuous of Gino Vanelli, that 70's schlock rock singer, that we named him, *ahem*, "Gino Vagina". To this day I cannot see his name without our moniker for him coming to mind. I'd be afraid to try to speak his name in public.

[Eddie Coyle]

Ah, as I was typing, you were saying it for me. Thin Blue Line: bad downer.


*Avatar note* Eddie Coyle, I'm rolling looking at your latest avatar. Some friends and I were so contemptuous of Gino Vanelli, that 70's schlock rock singer, that we named him, *ahem*, "Gino Vagina". To this day I cannot see his name without our moniker for him coming to mind. I'd be afraid to try to speak his name in public.

As someone who has a high regard for Erroll Morris work on The Thin Blue Line, I'm unspeakably bummed by his recent championing of Jeffrey MacDonald...not this shit again.

       Gino "Vagina" Vannelli. Today, I was randomly browsing an old Billboard Magazine(August 28,1976) in my American Splendor-like living quarters...and there was an ad for Gino's next single. The picture was so gross, so lugubrious, that immediately went to Google Images hoping to find it. Snake eyes, but found a treasure trove of other Gino pics. They may be in rotation here, "I Just Wanna Stop" before it gets out of  hand.

          Feb 20, 2013, and I'm reading Billboard from '76 and a Street and Smith College preview from 1982. Yikes.

[stevesh]

But Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? I've seen only once in its entirety - that was enough. I've seen a lot of movies only once, but in this thread I'm talking about good or even great movies which I have seen only once, or not at all, because of how painful I found them. Movies I have seen only once because of the emotional pain or discomfort I felt watching them include Sophie's Choice, Shoah, Gone Baby Gone, Schindler's List, The Virgin Suicides, Trainspotting, The Pianist, Million Dollar Baby, Requiem For A Dream, Bad Lieutenant, The Killing Fields, A Clockwork Orange, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Carnal Knowledge, The Road, The Wrestler, American Beauty.

Great list, especially Sophie's Choice and Million Dollar Baby. I would add one of Mel Gibson's first films, Gallipoli.

[PhantasticSanShiSan]

Great list, especially Sophie's Choice and Million Dollar Baby. I would add one of Mel Gibson's first films, Gallipoli.

Good Call.

[Juan]

Any remake of a classic movie.  Cape Fear being a good example.


And we called him "Gino Vaginalli".

[coaster]

That Evening Sun with Hal Holbrook. An elderly man whos treated like shit his house and land taken, and in the end takes his life. It was a very moving and depressing movie, and I found myself actually sobbing throughout it. It didnt help that his character reminded me very much of my father.

[Sardondi]

...I would add one of Mel Gibson's first films, Gallipoli.

Yep. It always reminds me of The Light Horsemen, which, being not as depressing, I have watched more than once.

Any remake of a classic movie.  Cape Fear being a good example.

Ooh, Cape Fear is a hard one to watch. That last scene of the psycho Max Cady, his burned face a melted mask, screaming out "tongues" is chilling.

It had Juliette Lewis of course, which reminds of another terribly depressing, vile movie I've seen and will see only once: Natural Born Killers. Never got it about that movie, or her.

That Evening Sun with Hal Holbrook. An elderly man whos treated like shit his house and land taken, and in the end takes his life. It was a very moving and depressing movie, and I found myself actually sobbing throughout it. It didnt help that his character reminded me very much of my father.

That sounds like a very difficult movie to watch. I don't think I'd watch it again. Based on your description I don't think I'm going to watch it the first time.

[onan]

So many...


The Elephant Man, Requiem For a Dream, Jude, Vera Drake, Scum.


Plus several already mentioned... Imma gonna watch Young Frankenstein now.

[Sardondi]

... Imma gonna watch Young Frankenstein now.

Heh. The cure-all. Followed by Radio Days. Guaranteed feel-better movies.

[stevesh]

My brother suggested Frances with Jessica Lange.

[BigDave]

somatic hypermutation made reference to Glengarry Glen Ross, the powerful 1992 David Mamet movie with the all-start cast of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Jonatahn Pryce and others. It reminded me of great movies which are nonetheless difficult for me to watch. Some movies considered great I have even avoided, because it's just too painful to me, or draw such a bleak world that I don't want to spend more time there. It's been this way for me with contemporary fiction as well, as I have many times passed over novels of self-obsession by miserable and depressed writers from Manhattan, which seems to amount to about half the writers in the US.

Ordinarily I see good movies several times over the years, even painful or dark ones. For example, many people think the The Lion In Winter is an emotionally wrenching, close-up study of horrible marital and familial wounds, but I've watched it perhaps 8-10 times just to see Peter O'Toole and Kate Hepburn. But many movies are simply too hurtful to see more than once all the way through. The great Russian film Come And See contains some of the most horrendous scenes of Germany's war of genocide against Russia, yet I've sen it 2-3 times because it is so powerful, and yet hopeful in some ways. Another film I've seen more than once although it is depressing (I can't for the life of me remember the title right now) is a French film about a writer in his 60's (also a movie maker?) who is dying but who, with the help f an estranged son, leaves hospital to die at a summer house surrounded by old friends and lovers from his glory days of '68; and with the help of a junkie nurse is finally helped into death as each friend injects a morphine syringe, ensuring a lethal overdose. It's actually very sweet, and as I recall the son and the cleaned-up nurse may even become an item. Anyone?

But Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? I've seen only once in its entirety - that was enough. I've seen a lot of movies only once, but in this thread I'm talking about good or even great movies which I have seen only once, or not at all, because of how painful I found them. Movies I have seen only once because of the emotional pain or discomfort I felt watching them include Sophie's Choice, Shoah, Gone Baby Gone, Schindler's List, The Virgin Suicides, Trainspotting, The Pianist, Million Dollar Baby, Requiem For A Dream, Bad Lieutenant, The Killing Fields, A Clockwork Orange, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Carnal Knowledge, The Road, The Wrestler, American Beauty.

I've never seen Dance In The Dark, Leaving Las Vegas, United 93 or any other movie about 9/11.

It's not like all or even most of these movies devastated me or left me sobbing in the aisles; but I do recall being so bummed out I didn't want to watch them again. Any other similar reactions to these or other movies?

As a history nut,I enjoy Lion in Winter. Peter O' Toole and Catherine Hepburn were awesome as Henry ll and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I can't blame Henry having Eleanor imprisoned,She tried to overthrow Him

[Usagi]

Imma gonna watch Young Frankenstein now.

You could, instead, go watch Young Einstein and suffer some genuine pain.

[ItsOver]

Oh god, that reminds me of Testament, too.  That belongs on this list if it isn't already.


The Day After had the unfortunate luck of featuring Steve Guttenberg.

And both remind me of "Special Bulletin."  Pretty tense when the NEST team realizes they aren't going to be successful.  But my all time favorite nuclear holocaust film is the classic "Fail-Safe."  Henry Fonda makes the best on-screen President ever and it's cool to see such a young Larry Hagman.  Speaking of one of my all time favorite comedies, "Young Frankenstein," then reminds me of "Dr. Strangelove......," in the nuclear attack vein.  It would be pretty funny to watch Noory watching any of the movies on this thread zoom right over his head.

[HorrorRetro]

And both remind me of "Special Bulletin."  Pretty tense when the NEST team realizes they aren't going to be successful.  But my all time favorite nuclear holocaust film is the classic "Fail-Safe."  Henry Fonda makes the best on-screen President ever and it's cool to see such a young Larry Hagman.  Speaking of one of my all time favorite comedies, "Young Frankenstein," then reminds me of "Dr. Strangelove......," in the nuclear attack vein.  It would be pretty funny to watch Noory watching any of the movies on this thread zoom right over his head.

Fail-Safe is great.  I picked up a VHS of it for .25.  Wish I still had a working VHS player.  I've seen bits and pieces of Special Bulletin, but I think I'm going to have to sit down and watch it in full.  Testament, I vaguely remember some of it, but nothing in detail.  I've tried to track it down on YouTube and Netflix, but I can't find it. 

[BigDave]

I found the movie "Triumph of the Spirit" staring Willem Defoe a hard movie to watch,very dark and sad. It was about the Greek Boxer Salomo Arouch who boxed for His life in Auschwitz. If He lost it was death,if He won He got a loaf of bread. It was unbelievable He survived Auschwitz for two years pretty much fighting twice a week for the entertainment of the SS. Salamo and His wife were the only ones in Their families who made it out alive

[ItsOver]

Fail-Safe is great.  I picked up a VHS of it for .25.  Wish I still had a working VHS player.  I've seen bits and pieces of Special Bulletin, but I think I'm going to have to sit down and watch it in full.  Testament, I vaguely remember some of it, but nothing in detail.  I've tried to track it down on YouTube and Netflix, but I can't find it. 

I should have mentioned "spoiler alert" before my "Special Bulletin" comment but it's still not bad for a made-for-TV-movie from that era.  My same reaction to Testament, too.  I don't remember much from it other than being depressed after seeing it years ago.  I really miss movies like "Fail Safe" that had first class acting to carry the movie rather than non-stop CGI crap.


Speaking of painful movies, from the visceral sense, one of my favorites is "Hannibal."  It's still tough to set through Hannibal's special dinner with Ray Liotta at the end without a little squirming.