Crying at the Movies

At age nine, Madelon Sprengnether watched her father drown in the Mississippi River. Her mother swallowed the family’s grief whole and no one spoke of the tragedy thereafter.  Only years later does Sprengnether react, and in a most unlikely place: in the theater watching the film “Pather Panchali,” by Satyajit Ray.

In this fascinating memoir, Sprengnether looks at the interactions between happenings in the present, troubling events from the past, and the fantasies of the individual dreamer—in this case the individual moviegoer. By examining the films she had intense emotional reactions to throughout her adult life—“House of Cards,” “Solaris,” “Fearless,” “The Piano,” “The Cement Garden,” “Shadowlands,” and “Blue” —Sprengnether finds a way to work through her own losses, mistakes, and pain.