Crying Games

In mythology, Niobe was the wife of Amphion, the ruler of Thebes in central Greece, and the vain mother of seven sons and seven daughters. When the calendar rolled around to the annual celebration in honor of the goddess Leto, a daughter of Titans and the mother of twin deities Apollo and Artemis, Niobe refused to take part, brazenly insulting Leto and her children while demanding to be worshipped as a goddess herself. When word of Niobe's shameless hubris reached Leto, the goddess dispatched her children to Thebes, armed with bows and arrows. Apollo slaughtered Niobe's sons, driving Niobe's husband, Amphion, to fall on his own sword in anguish.

A 1772 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicts the
massacre of Niobe's children by Apollo and Artemis.

Still unforgivably arrogant, Niobe defied the skies, telling Leto, "After so many deaths, I still outdo you!" As if in answer to the boast, Artemis killed all of Niobe's daughters. Niobe sat among the bodies of her children and husband, unmoving in her grief. In the words of the Roman poet Ovid, "The breeze stirs not a hair, the color of her cheeks is bloodless, and her eyes are fixed motionless in her sad face: nothing in that likeness is alive. Inwardly her tongue is frozen to the solid roof of her mouth, and her veins cease their power to throb. Her neck cannot bend, nor her arms recall their movement, nor her feet lead her anywhere. Inside, her body is stone. Yet she weeps, and, enclosed in a powerful whirlwind, she is snatched away to her own country: there, set on a mountain top, she wears away, and even now tears flow from the marble."

Resembling a woman's face, a rock formation on Mount Sipylus in
what is now Turkey has been associated with Niobe since ancient
times. Rainwater still seeps through the porous limestone of what
is known as the "Weeping Rock," sometimes called "Niobe's Rock."

In a roundabout manner, this tearful tale is a way of introducing a look at some of the screen's most memorable weepers.

Let's begin by rewinding the projector in the Moviehouse back to the silent film era over 90 years ago. Before producer Hal Roach teamed Stan Laurel with Oliver Hardy, each was already established as a screen comedian in his own right. Laurel, born in Ulverston, a town in Lancashire County, England, was an understudy of fellow Brit Charlie Chaplin, and the two arrived in America on the same ship. Stan appeared in over 50 silent pictures. Georgia-born Hardy made over 250 silent films.

Although they costarred in a number of silent shorts, they weren't officially billed as "Laurel and Hardy" until 1927's "Putting Pants on Philip." Together they made 34 silent shorts, 45 sound shorts, and 27 feature films, up to 1951. They also filmed at least 20 foreign language versions of their Hollywood movies.

When an especially flustered Hardy laid into Laurel after one of their many misfortunes, Stan would launch into one of his signature behaviors, screwing up his face in weepy dismay under his bowler hat.

Once motion pictures learned to talk, audiences could enjoy the sound of Laurel's high-pitched sobs.

In 1929's "Big Business," Ollie shed tears, but it wasn't the same.

Tough Guys Do Cry

The image of Hollywood's iconic man's men - Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood - shedding a tear on the screen may have seemed unlikely and would have given the manliest of viewers pause, but the fact is, there were such moments, if rare and far between.

In a photo feature of movie stars, Life magazine called Clark Gable, "All man...and then some." Doris Day, who costarred with Gable late in his career in the 1958 romantic comedy "Teacher's Pet," said, "He was as masculine as any man I've ever known..." Joan Crawford, Gable's longtime friend, on-again, off-again romantic interest, and costar in eight films, told David Frost in 1970 that Clark "was a king wherever he went. He walked like one, he behaved like one, and he was the most masculine man I have ever met in my life." It was no wonder that Gable earned the nickname The King of Hollywood.

In a scene from 1939's "Gone with the Wind," Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland) tries to console a devastated Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) after his wife, Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), suffers a miscarriage of their second child (pictured below). When the heartbreaking scene was filmed, Gable at first refused to cry for the camera, despite pressure from director Victor Fleming. Olivia managed to give Clark enough encouragement to shoot the scene as required.

Although "Gone with the Wind" became Clark Gable's most famous
movie, he disliked it, dismissing it as "a woman's picture."

Cast against type in 1951's "The African Queen," Humphrey Bogart's portrayal of Charlie Allnut, the crude, hard-drinking river pilot of a dilapidated steam launch who delivers mail and supplies to a British mission in German East Africa at the beginning of World War I, was probably his most vulnerable characterization. Never had Bogie seemed so human as he did when Charlie breaks down at the discovery of leeches all over his body from dragging the mired boat by hand waist deep in the muck of a muddy delta, shivering uncontrollably as Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn), the prim and proper Methodist missionary, peels the bloodsuckers from his skin.

"The African Queen" gave Humphrey Bogart his sole Oscar win.

One of the closest times John Wayne came to shedding a tear was in director John Ford's 1949 western "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." When the retiring U.S. Cavalry captain, Nathan Brittles (Wayne), receives a silver watch from his troopers, his eyes get misty, which, we guess, is enough of a show of emotion for the Duke.

Captain Brittles tries to conceal his reading specs from his troops
before reading the watch's inscription: "Lest We Forget."

In 1956, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne's future costar of "In Harm's Way" and "The War Wagon," ran the gamut of emotions in a tempestuous portrait of the tortured Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh in "Lust for Life" (pictured below).

John Wayne attended a screening of "Lust for Life," which left him disgusted. He cornered Douglas and railed, "Christ, Kirk, how can you play a part like that? There's so few of us left. We've got to play strong, tough characters, not those weak queers." Douglas responded, "Hey, John, I'm an actor. I like to play interesting roles. It's all make-believe, John. It isn't real. You're not really John Wayne, you know."

In his role of the aging Secret Service agent, Frank Horrigan, pursuing former CIA agent and potential presidential assassin Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) in 1993's "In the Line of Fire," Clint Eastwood got a little misty-eyed recounting his failed willingness to give his life to save President John F. Kennedy three decades later. Also, in 2008's "Gran Torino" (pictured below), Clint, as a grumpy, recently widowed Korean War veteran and retired blue collar laborer, reacts emotionally when the daughter of a neighboring Hmong family is beaten and raped by a Hmong gang.

Bawl of Fame

Decades before portraying the quintessential Daily Planet editor, Perry White, in the "Superman" films starring Christopher Reeve, Jackie Cooper was a beloved child star. From 1929 to 1931, he appeared in Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedy shorts. In 1932, nine-year-old Cooper became the youngest actor ever to be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor for the title role in "Skippy," based on a popular comic strip about a rowdy fifth-grader.

"Skippy" was directed by Norman Taurog, Jackie Cooper's uncle-by-marriage, who was having difficulty getting his nephew to cry in a particular scene. To induce tears, Taurog threatened to shoot Jackie's dog, a dirty trick that worked too well as Cooper appropriately performed the scene but had a hard time stopping sobbing (pictured below), even after Taurog owned up to the nasty prank. Some accounts relate that Taurog even had someone fire off a blank cartridge behind a nearby truck. Whatever the details, Cooper lost all respect for his uncle and rarely spoke to him again.

Several months later, Cooper must have had the crying drill down pat as he was required to turn on the waterworks in the 1931 tearjerker "The Champ" (pictured below), featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Wallace Beery as an alcoholic former champion boxer.

After getting bopped on the nose by Dorothy for frightening Toto, the Cowardly Lion startles the Emerald City pilgrims when he suddenly starts bawling in 1939's "The Wizard of Oz." "I am a coward!" the Lion sobs. "I haven't any courage at all. I even scare myself. Look at the circles under my eyes. I haven't slept in weeks!" When the Tin Man suggests counting sheep, the Lion says between tears, "That doesn't do any good, I'm afraid of 'em."

A sympathetic Tin Man (Jack Haley), Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), and
Dorothy (Judy Garland) console a lachrymose Lion (Bert Lahr).

Usually not one to unleash his emotions onscreen, Richard Gere had an unforgettable breakdown in 1982's "An Officer and a Gentleman." As a self-serving Navy aviation officer candidate being hazed by a drill instructor - an Academy Award-winning performance by Louis Gossett Jr. - determined to drive him to voluntarily drop out of training, Gere tearfully wails the oft-quoted, "I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to g-...I got nothin' else."

Laura Dern, daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, really showed off her crying chops in writer-director David Lynch's quirky, kinky neo-noir masterpiece "Blue Velvet" (1986). This cult favorite, along with "Hoosiers," released two months later, revived Dennis Hopper's career. Depicted below, Dern reacts in deliriously delightful over-the-top histrionics upon learning that boyfriend Kyle MacLachlan has slept with exotic mystery woman Isabella Rosselini.

Veteran actress Hope Lange, who won a Best Supporting Actress
Oscar for 1957's "Peyton Place" and two Emmy Awards for the
late 1960s sitcom "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir," played Laura Dern's
mother in "Blue Velvet."

"Glory" (1989) was a stirring, acclaimed account of Boston-born Colonel Robert Shaw's leadership of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first all-black regiments of the Union Army in the Civil War. Matthew Broderick portrayed Shaw in a cast that included Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, Andre Braugher, Jihmi Kennedy, and Denzel Washington, in an Oscar-winning performance as a self-righteous former slave named Silas Tripp.

When Tripp is caught after going AWOL, Shaw reluctantly orders him flogged in front of the troops. Tripp stoically endures his punishment at the whipping post, glaring at the colonel while a single tear streams down a cheek.

In his acceptance speech after winning the Best Supporting Actor
Oscar for "Glory," Denzel Washington said, "I want to pay homage
to...the black soldiers who helped make this country free."

In 1989's "Steel Magnolias," the death of Sally Fields' diabetic daughter, Julia Roberts, after rejecting her mother's transplanted kidney, leads to Sally's heartbreaking meltdown at the cemetery as she rides a rollercoaster of grief in front of friends Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, and Olympia Dukakis.

"I'm fine!" Fields rants at the gravesite. "I can jog all the way to Texas and back, but my daughter can't! She never could! Oh God I am so mad I don't know what to do! I wanna know why!...Why? Lord, I wish I could understand! No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way! I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I just wanna hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do! I just wanna hit something! I wanna hit it hard!"

Liam Neeson has a memorable breakdown at the end of 1993's "Schindler's List" as Oskar Schindler - the German industrialist who saved the lives of over 1000 Jews in his employment during the Holocaust - is presented with a gold ring by his Jewish accountant (portrayed by Ben Kingsley), inscribed with the Hebrew sentiment, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." Neeson's Schindler becomes unglued, convinced he hasn't done enough: "I could have got more out." His accountant reassures him, "Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you."

Cry Face Phenoms

Thanks to Internet pinboards and viral videos, a phenomenon sprang up around a few contemporary movie stars known as "cry face," emphasizing their tendency to repeatedly tap the tear ducts.

Hands down (and hankies up), the leader in this category has to be Julianne Moore (pictured below), four-time Academy Award nominee and winner for 2015's "Still Alice." Moore has wept memorably in almost 20 films, including "Nine Months," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," "Boogie Nights," "Magnolia," "Hannibal," and "The Hours." She is the subject of a popular YouTube video titled "Julianne Loves to Cry."

Running - or sobbing - a close second to Moore's boo-hooing is three-time Emmy Award winner Claire Danes. Claire's crying has punctuated such movies as the 1994 reboot of "Little Women," with Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon, Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet," costarring Leonardo DiCaprio, "Brokedown Palace," with Kate Beckinsale, and "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. On television, Danes wept as a 13-year-old in her acting debut on "Law & Order," on her single-season series "My So-Called Life," and on the seven seasons-and-counting of the Showtime series "Homeland."

Instead of a dagger, 17-year-old Claire Danes' Juliet grabs a
Walther P5 Compact to kill herself in "Romeo + Juliet."

The Internet carries a popular video called "Claire Danes Cry Face Supercut," as well as a pinboard known as "The Claire Danes Cry Face Project," a fitting introduction to her scrunched-up, self-described "rubbery features." Danes told Elle magazine that she thought her cry face had been "objectified," adding, "It's just the way feelings register on my face. It's not calculated, it's not an aggressive gesture. It's been isolated from the rest of my work, like it's a tacked on thing. It's not." In a Harper's Bazaar profile, she said she is still surprised her cry face is of particular intrigue to anyone. She nevertheless owns those web-celebrated facial contortions, as "ugly" as they may seem, without any apologies.

Pictured here in "Homeland," Claire Danes noted, "I liked the ugly
even as a kid, and I think that has stayed with me now."

The male cry face has been strikingly represented by Leonardo DiCaprio in a number of performances:

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Johnny Depp's mentally impaired
brother in 1993's "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

"The Basketball Diaries" (1995) was based on poet Jim Carroll's
juvenile diaries of his descent into the world of drug addiction.

The 1995 drama "Total Eclipse" was inspired by the romantic
relationship between 19th century French poets Paul Verlaine
and Arthur Rimbaud (DiCaprio).

"Shutter Island" (2010) was the fourth of five collaborations
between Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese.

Scott Tissues

Actually, this watery visit to the Moviehouse was initiated by the recent death of actor Scott Wilson, who succumbed to complications from leukemia October 6, age 76. To the legion of "The Walking Dead" fans, Wilson is fondly remembered as Hershel Greene, the widowed Georgia farmer and veterinarian who served as the kind and sagacious voice of reason among the survivors. Sadly, Hershel suffered a gruesome fate, falling victim to a Japanese sword wielded by the antagonist, The Governor, near the end of the fourth season.

In truth, Wilson, who, like his fictional counterpart, was Georgia-born, enjoyed a 51-year career that started auspiciously in 1967 with back-to-back roles in "In the Heat of the Night" and "In Cold Blood." In the latter, based on Truman Capote's true crime novel, Wilson and Robert Blake portrayed Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, a pair of drifters executed for the slaughter of a Holcomb, Kansas, family in a vain search for supposed hidden cash.

In Cold Blood author Truman Capote stands with Scott Wilson
and Robert Blake on location for the film in Holcomb, Kansas.

Wilson costarred with Burt Lancaster in two 1969 features, "Castle Keep" and "The Gypsy Moths," then shared the screen twice with Stacy Keach, in 1972's "The New Centurions" (pictured below) and 1980's "The Ninth Configuration."

Scott Wilson played George Wilson in the 1974 version of "The Great Gatsby," starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston, and Karen Black. In 1983's "The Right Stuff," he portrayed test pilot Albert Crossfield, the first airman to fly at twice the speed of sound. Other movie roles included New Mexico Territory Governor (and Ben-Hur author) Lew Wallace in 1990's "Young Guns II," Chaplain Farley in 1995's "Dead Man Walking," General George Marshall in 2001's "Pearl Harbor," and Ambassador Swanbeck in 2003's "The Last Samurai."

Scott Wilson's soulful eyes lent his face an almost permanent state of sadness. Tears would well in those eyes, so much so that a friend of the Moviehouse would greet his appearances by saying, "Oh, I bet he's going to cry again."

In an early film appearance, 1971's rural gangster melodrama "The Grissom Gang," directed by Robert Aldrich (of "The Dirty Dozen" renown), Wilson played a mentally challenged member of the '30s gang who falls for a kidnapped heiress, portrayed by Kim Darby (best known as Mattie Ross in the original "True Grit"), launching a cat-and-mouse game of who's-using-who. Even then, Scott utilized his doleful gaze (pictured below).

"The Great Gatsby"cast Scott as George Wilson, a poor, beaten-down mechanic trapped in a loveless marriage to snobby, adulterous Karen Black. Just look at that melancholy mug (pictured below).

In 1980, The Exorcist author William Peter Blatty wrote, produced, and directed "The Ninth Configuration," a fanciful, sometimes surrealistic comedy-drama about an incongruous castle in the remote Pacific Northwest used as an insane asylum for mentally ill military personnel near the end of the Vietnam War. Stacy Keach stars as Colonel Kane, the newly arrived commander who often seems as odd as the inmates. Scott Wilson makes a forceful impression as one of Kane's charges, a captain who suffered a breakdown and aborted a moon launch before being dragged screaming out of the capsule.

Colonel Kane and the captain strike up an intellectual relationship, and when pressed about his reluctance to go to the moon, the captain, staring at the moon through a window with tears filling his eyes, says, "See the stars? So cold, so far, and so very lonely. Oh, so lonely. All that space...just...empty space. And so far from home."

"I've circled round and round this house, orbit after orbit. Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like never to stop, and circle alone up there forever. And what if I got there, got to the moon, and couldn't get back? Sure, everyone dies, but I'm afraid to die alone, so far from home. And if there's no God, that's really, really alone."