Why We Need Weepies

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2019

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Poet and critic Bridget Minamore, TV drama expert John Yorke and film expert Melanie Williams join Matthew Sweet for a Brief Encounter at the Free Thinking Festival to look at the devices – music, close ups and the cliffhangers that cinema and TV employ to make us cry. From Bambi to Titanic, how have directors managed to trigger our tear ducts? And has the big screen actually shaped our understanding of emotion in modern life.

John Yorke is the author of How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. Former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has shaped stories and big emotional moments in British TV working on series such as Shameless and Life On Mars, EastEnders and Holby City, Bodies and Wolf Hall.

Melanie Williams is the author of Female Stars of British Cinema, a book about David Lean and British Women’s Cinema. She teaches at the University of East Anglia.

Bridget Minamore has published a poetry pamphlet about modern love and loss Titanic, her journalism includes writing for The Guardian and The Stage. She has written with organisations including The Royal Opera House, The National Theatre and Tate Modern.

Producer: Fiona McLean

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps
0:21.2	it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream
0:26.1	van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds,
0:34.5	music, radio, podcasts. I'm Matthew Sweet Sweet and in a moment we'll be bringing you
0:39.7	one of the discussions recorded at our Free Thinking Festival. For this year's theme, we set out
0:45.0	to explore the emotions, so be ready with your happy or sad or enraged face just after this
0:51.8	short message. Why does music move us? How does it do it?
0:56.9	Well, if these are questions that have been firing you up, I've got the very podcast for you.
1:02.4	I'm Tom Service from BBC Radio 3 and from Schubert symphonies to video game music,
1:07.2	from how to start a piece of music and when to end it.
1:10.5	From background music to Birdsong, from Beethoven to Beyonce a piece of music and when to end it. From background music to
1:12.2	bird song, from Beethoven to Beyonce, from Bach to the future. Thank you very much indeed.
1:18.6	The Listening Service podcast is your guide to how music works. Add all kinds of music to,
1:24.6	the mastery and mechanics behind the magic. Just search for the listening
1:29.2	service on BBC Sounds and learn more about the music we all love.
1:43.3	In September 1844, a Victorian dad in Kent noticed that his three-year-old daughter was crying.
1:51.8	She was looking at a print that depicted a girl weeping beside her mother's grave.
1:57.3	Little Annie, her dad noted, did not put the print to one side, but continued to gaze upon it.
2:03.9	She seemed to wish to excite the emotion again, he wrote.
2:07.5	Poor Mama, she cooed as she wept.
2:10.0	Poor Mammy.
2:11.3	Her father noted this in his diary.
	...

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