I’m writing about my soon-to-be-completed digital video, Tearjerker, an essay documentary on crying and tears. When I started writing this piece for Poetica, I began to wonder, is there something hidden in my Jewish background that piqued my interest in this subject? While Jews have certainly suffered their share of inequities, we are a particularly resilient bunch, and we are adept at using humor to heal. In any case, I’m not sure that any special relationship to crying or grief exists for Jews, although humor is another story!

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I don’t particularly consider myself a “cryer”, or a depressive type, although I’ve certainly gone through periods of intense grief and tears. A few years ago, I was browsing in a bookstore and stumbled upon a copy of Crying: The Natural & Cultural History of Tears, by writer and critic Tom Lutz. What most intrigued me were the many images of works of art from medieval painting to contemporary film stills. It seemed to me that crying was a visual subject, and therefore, a very cinematic one. I began watching as many films as I could that had well-known crying scenes, and getting recommendations from others on good examples. I also began looking into current psychological research and theories on crying, as well as on the physiology of tears.

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I started working on my project, a digital video consisting of interviews, footage of crying scenes from films and television, and original footage of actors crying, a baby crying, and a doll with a “crying” face, for example. I began to see a few themes emerging: crying from a physical standpoint, and how the body produces tears; as a cathartic act, and the effect on the body and mood after tears, which also includes the strong emotions we feel when experiencing works of art. Also, crying as it relates to gender, and whether or not crying is different for either sex; “faked” crying, or crying that isn’t genuine, but is used to manipulate others; and “magical” properties of tears. This last theme is strictly an artistic device, in which tears are seen to have some sort of supernatural or alchemic power.

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I’ve always been interested in situations and experiences that are ubiquitous, that we take for granted because they seem so common. We all cry as babies and children, even if we cry only rarely as adults. Crying is essentially part of an inevitable cycle – no matter how happy we may be, and no matter how hard we might try to avoid pain, we can always count on tears to happen at some point in our lives. I became most fascinated by the transformative power of tears. What makes us cry, and how is that reflected in art? One of my favorite quotes on crying comes from Madelon Sprengnether’s book, Crying At the Movies, in which she writes, “The lesson of crying is metamorphosis”. The act of crying transforms us from sad to happy and back again, in both life and art.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Roslyn Broder, Guest Blogger

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Roslyn Broder is a Chicago-based graphic designer, jewelry designer, and filmmaker. She received her MFA in filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her films and videos have been screened and awarded at numerous festivals and venues around the country. You can find her graphic design work at http://roslynbroder.com/ and her jewelry at http://www.etsy.com/shop/RedAvaDesigns. For information about Tearjerker, contact Roslyn at redorb123@hotmail.com. Follow her on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/redorb1/ - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor