The Most Depressing Movie You've Seen

[NuWaveRx]

I'd forgotton about "Leaving Las Vegas" The book and movie are dpressing as hell. I'd also forgotten about the Magdalene Sisters, about Irish-Catholic girls sentenced to essentially slavery in forced labor Catholic "schools" (a true story and program that continued until the 1960s) is also very depressing.

As far a post-nuke movies go, I agree about Threads being depressing. The Day After is also pretty grim (and not just for Steve Gutenburg's acting...[;)])

[i_like_lectric_motors]

Brian's Song. Anything else is a comedy by comparison.
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. Yeah, I know no one else has seen it. [:(]

Depressing for sheer crappiness: The Sound Of Music.

Wolv, I loved The Reflecting Skin. I've seen it at least 5 times. You make it sound far more cheery than it really is though.



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[tileboy]

Requiem for a Dream is well done but depressing as hell,others that made me want to jump off a bridge:

Monsters Ball
Rivers Edge
Mystic River

[stephenmalkmus]

the Champ featuring John Voight and Ricky Schroeder

[WolverineSyr]

[quote][i]Originally posted by i_like_lectric_motors[/i]
Wolv, I loved The Reflecting Skin. I've seen it at least 5 times. You make it sound far more cheery than it really is though.

[/quote]

Yeah, I left out the child murders, sexual abuse, exploding frogs, radiation sickness, suicides and roving band of child abducters. I didn't want to spoil the uplifting message of the movie.
[;)]

Then of course, there's a movie called Happiness, which truly is not only depressing, but utterly disgusting.

[KYYX4ever]

oh, I'd totally forgotten about [i]Leaving Las Vegas[/i]. I actually really like this movie, but it is also truly depressing. One of the most depressing movies ever. It hurts my stomach and head just to watch it!

I'm also a big big fan of [i]The Deer Hunter[/i], although this certainly is one heckuva depressing movie as well.

[newwavepunkgirl]

'Watership Down' without a doubt, fancy making a movie like that for kids! Plus most Disney movies have moments in them that are very depressing, animals always tend to die in the things...[:(]

Devolution is real

[Mechi]

Amores Perros is kinda depressing if anyone has seen it.
But I'll just watch anything that has Gael García Bernal acting in it.... he's talented and beautiful.
Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River are also very depressing... both great movies.

http://spaces.msn.com/members/mechigc
http://thesesensations.blogspot.com
http://devotionanddivision.blogspot.com

[phillyidol]

Is Shawn Penn in Mystic River? There is a movie with him and child abduction I was told was too much for me to handle.

[Panorama]

[quote][i]Originally posted by WolverineSyr[/i]
there's a movie called Happiness, which truly is not only depressing, but utterly disgusting.
[/quote]totally agree.

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"Photography with a Vision"
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[Bitter Almonds]

<p align="justify">You wanna see some - good - depressing films? Try these two film noirs:

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039689/">[i]Out Of The Past[/i]</a>

- Robert Mitchum in top form. Good and evil are not easily defined in this classic story of love and betrayal.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/past.jpg">

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038669/">[i]Ernest Hemingway's The Killers[/i]</a>

- A short story that was extended and stood on its own. There are two re-makes of this that I've read about (and one that I've seen), but this one is top notch stuff with the Noir style clearly evident. The entire film is literally covered in darkness.


You can also try these two French classics:

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041719/">[i]Orphée[/i]</a>

- Jean Cocteau's classic film... of the classic Greek myth. Beautifully-photographed and well-acted. The scenes between Orpheus and Death are quite memorable; on the same level of [i]Casablanca[/i] as far as the effect of their screen charisma goes.

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041842/">[i]Le Sang Des Bêtes[/i]</a>

- Georges Franju's film debut was a documentary of French slaughterhouses and the professionals who work in them. You gotta keep in mind that not only is the subject dark, but that it was made four years after WWII. This is the same director who did [i]Les Yeux Sans Visage[/i] ("Eyes Without A Face") and this film is included as part of a double-feature in the Criterion dvd. It also has an interview with Franju himself where he explains his ideas behind horror stories.




The Italians pretty much excel at everything - and soon after WWII it became evident they meant serious biz.

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/">[i]Ladri Di Biciclette[/i]</a>

- Vittorio De Sica is pretty much the father of the Italian Neo-Realist movement, whose effects were felt all over the world ranging from France (New Wave), Brasil (Cinema Novo), the US (Independent and Verite), the UK (Kitchen Sink), and, finally, with Germany (New German Cinema). "The Bicycle Thief" is IT.

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050783/">[i]Le Notti Di Cabiria[/i]</a>
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047528/">[i]La Strada[/i]</a>

- Then, there is the tour de force that is Federico Fellini. De Sica created it, Fellini perfected it. Filmic virtuosity of his calibre has rarely been matched. "Depressing" had not looked this good up to this point.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/cabiria13.jpg">

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054599/">[i]Accatone[/i]</a>

- The movement ends at around the mid 60s. This is the time when Pier Paolo Pasolini and his fellow contemporaries debuted with their own homages to their masters, De Sica, Fellini, and Antonioni. Antonioni himself was beginning to create something new with his modern take on bourgeoisie/middle class life in the Space Age (so was Fellini), so it was up to the new generation to close this period with their own debut films. As a point of interest, Bernardo Bertolucci worked in this film. Genius abounded in those times.

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059619/">[i]I Pugni In Tasca[/i]</a>

- Neo-Realism ended with one my current personal favourites. This is Marco Bellocchio's debut: A modern Gothic horror story in Neo-Realist form. Music is distinctively Morricone's. I have felt nothing more sad lately than the scenes between Alessandro and his sister, Giulia. I think it might have to do with the music...

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/tn_imagen_t3_599c.jpg">



<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053198/">[i]Les Quatre Cents Coups[/i]</a>

- Everyone who's seen me comment about movies knows how much I adore this film. It's not deeply depressing, but it's also not a very happy story. I'd say it's very compelling, should you not get bored with the French New Wave style.


<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056194/">[i]The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner[/i]</a>

- This is the British take on French New Wave. It is the quintessential Kitchen Sink film about the plight of the working class. It is definitely very much in tune with [i]Les Quatre Cents Coups[/i] in terms of style and plot. I highly recommend it, despite being a bit depressing.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/keyimage_crop.jpg">


<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057654/">[i]Vidas Secas[/i]</a>

- This is Latin America's answer to what was going on in cinema at that same time range. Cinema Novo came around the early 60s and faded later that decade, but not without some memorable films of which [i]Vidas Secas[/i] is most exemplary. Rumour has it that Martin Scorsese lists this movie as a personal favourite and, when it was unavailable for public distribution, he contacted Nelson Pereira Dos Santos' family for a personal copy. Make no mistake, it is [b]very[/b] depressing... and boring (not to me). When this movie was screened, few were left sitting at the end. Their loss.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/brazil_vidas_secas_4.jpg">



<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064588/">[i]Liebe Ist Kälter Als Der Tod[/i]</a>

- With a title like "Love Is Colder Than Death" you have to expect something depressing. R.W. Fassbinder combined the aesthetics of Film Noir, French New Wave, British Kitchen Sink, Brasilian Cinema Novo, and constructed what we now know as New German Cinema (where guys like Wenders and Herzog come from). This is also the kind of film that often gets lampooned as the stereotypical "art house" movie for its perceived blatant banality and lack of editing (i.e. extended sequences that would normally be cut in mainstream movies). R.W. Fassbinder has got to be one of the most prolific artists of his time with something like 40 films in the span of a little over 15 years. He not only directed, but also acted, wrote scripts, edited, set stage plays, and scored some of this movies hahaha. He was a coke fiend as well...

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065808/">[i]Götter Der Pest[/i]</a>

- Not as accessible as his other, high-budget works, but it's a continuation of what Fassbinder was mainly about. The movie is depressing - and boring - but it also shows how meticulous Fassbinder was with his films. Since these were all done on small budgets, every shot had to count. The end result is something without the excess. Audiences get the exact measure of the ideas he was conveying with films.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/godsoftheplague14.jpg">


<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001023/">[i]John Cassavetes... 'nuff said(?)[/i]</a>


- This guy reigns supreme as the American Independent cinema director. Before him, there were a few independent directors here and there (namely, Samuel Fuller), but with the debut of 1959's [i]Shadows[/i], he pretty much showed that American cinema was something to be reckoned with. This was 1959! The only directors who can claim to getting there first in terms of a new style of cinema are the Italians, because the French also debuted in 1959. What took three or four French directors to lift off, Cassavetes managed to do on his own here in the US. Pas mal.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/Nuwavghost/shadows.jpg">

[phillyidol]

Just reading a French Title depresses me.

[The_Freeman]

[quote][i]Originally posted by egg-roger[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by KYYX4ever[/i]
<br>[i]The Wall[/i] (Pink Floyd's) always depressed me immeasurably.
[/quote]

me too.


Last week I threw in "Of Mice And Men", Gary Sinise / John Malkovitch version.
The week before that we watched "The Elephant Man".
But these were not as depressing as "Grave Of The Fireflies", which we watched several weeks ago.

P.S. in the music video category, Metallica's "One" always gets me down.
[/quote]

I'm with you on "Grave of the Fireflies". As a huge Ghibli fan I was expecting a magical story ala "Spirited Away", "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" etc, not 90 minutes of being totally depressed. I couldn't speak for about an hour afterwards. Powerful, but I couldn't watch it again.

[Bitter Almonds]

<p align="justify">Here are a coupla depressing cartoons:

<a href="http://www.globaltantrum.com/igor_mov2.html">Hen, His Wife</a>

<a href="http://www.globaltantrum.com/igor_mov3.html">Andrei Svislotski</a>

[Mechi]

[quote][i]Originally posted by phillyidol[/i]
<br>Is Shawn Penn in Mystic River? There is a movie with him and child abduction I was told was too much for me to handle.
[/quote]

Yes, he is.
He is almost in every depressing movie ever made.

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http://thesesensations.blogspot.com
http://devotionanddivision.blogspot.com