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DemonKia -> Cathartic Media (10/6/2009 2:00:15 PM)
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I was just ruminating on the notion of 'cathartic films', which, in that moment meant movies that are so intensely painful that they are sure & extensive cry-fests.
The first one of that particular type I experienced was 'The Elephant Man', when I was a teen. It was also where I learned to seek these out on vid, not in the theater. Having to sit thru the whole thing, weeping steadily for most of it, was just a little more than I had been prepared for . . . . .
What prompted this thread of thought was seeing the preview for 'Precious' yesterday. I thought both, OMG, I must see this movie & OMG, there is no way I'm sitting in a theater & watching it. I'll buy the video later & watch it in 15 minute increments. (Hell, just watchin' the trailer yesterday & now had the tears leakin' . . . . )
'Sick: The Life & Death Of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist' is another movie, a 'lifestyle' one, to which I've turned for it's ability to take me to these profound emotional spaces in recent years . .. . . & there are ones I cannot make it thru even when I feel a certain moral-socio-political obligation to support what they are about. 'Hotel Rwanda' springs to mind in that direction . .. ..
I also have a tastes for text media (mostly non-fiction) that are sometimes just as emo, morbid & etc . . . In particular, two titles stand out for being the most painful things I'd ever read: 'Killing Hope' by William Blum & 'The Emotional Life of Nations' by Lloyd deMause . . .. . .
Sometimes I think it's partly emotional masochism; sometimes I think it's cathartic; sometimes I feel called to be a 'witness to history', or even just a perceiver of the panorama of the personal . . . . . . . .
& that's without even touching on the topic of fear catharsis thru horror & suspense media. Please, throw it all into the pot.
Do you like your media consumption to induce intense emotional states? Which feelings do you prefer?
& if you do, what media has taken you where?
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