The sweeping (I mean, weeping) power of movies

On Saturday, I visited the Marine Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia this weekend, with my husband. We were on a getaway weekend celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary (which is actually today.) I was hoping to find some information there for my next novel, but instead found myself weeping  among the photographs and artifacts in the second-floor Titanic display. I got a few curious looks from the American bus tourists, but I tried to pretend there was something in my eye.

I don’t know why the Titanic disaster fills me with such grief.  For heaven’s sake, it was 1912! There have been plenty of other disasters since. Is it because I saw the movie and I can’t forget the image of the third-class woman tucking her children back into bed while the boat sank? She was turned away from a lifeboat and knew they were about to drown.

While in Halifax, I also cried at the movie, “Love Happens,” starring Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart. My husband wanted to go see the Bruce Willis movie, “Surrogate,” but as all good husbands do, he tolerated the chick flick on my behalf. The story centred around a successful motivational speaker whose personal life is a complete mess.

It occurred to me later that almost any other profession could have been plunked down in the middle of the plot…he could have been a cardiologist who smokes,  a divorce lawyer who doesn’t pay child support…a Catholic bishop who’s into kiddie porn…?