'Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport. General opinion makes out that we live in a world of hatred and greed. I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy but it's always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, none of the phone calls from people on board were messages of hate or revenge, hey were all messages of love. lf you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.'
These are the words spoken at the intro scene of 2003 British Box Office hit Love Actually.
...and these words express what St. Valentine's Day means in some English-speaking countries such as the USA: a day to celebrate love between people: not only husbands and wives or boyfriends and girlfriends. Also between friends, brothers and sisters, parents and children...
Did You Know?
Approximately 141 million Valentine's Day cards are exchanged annually, making Valentine's Day the second most popular card-sending holiday after Christmas. Want to know more?
For some fun facts about St Valentine's Day, click here.
Traditions
Click here for information about St Valentine's traditions in the UK.
Click here for information about St Valentine's traditions in the USA.
Love stories
One of the most beautiful love stories I have ever read was compiled in the book The Golden Ass, by Apuleius. It is the story of EROS & PSYCHE. Venus, goddess of Love, is envious of young Aphrodite's beauty, and sends her son, Eros, otherwise called Cupid, to punish her. But instead, he falls in love with her and wants to make her his wife...Would you like to know the rest of the story? Then click on the photo below: that of the statue of Eros & Psyche by Antonio Canova, which is currently at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Love Songs
What would be St. Valentine's Day without love songs? Bands, singer-songwriters, solo singers...all of them, in all music genres, have sung about love: passionate love, unrequited love, lost love, early love, love that still hasn't arrived, tragic love...Here you have four examples, from four completely different singers/bands. Four different types of singing to love:
PARAMORE - The only exception (lyrics)
PARAMORE - The only exception (lyrics)
SIA - My love (lyrics)
And finally...
Best love scenes
Now I would like you to tell me about your favourite love scene from a film.
I will tell you mine. It's from the 2005 Spanish film "The Secret Life of Words" by Isabel Coixet, starred by Tim Robbins and Sarah Polley. In this film, Hannah, a hearing-impaired factory worker, gives up her first holiday in years and instead travels out to an oil rig, where she cares for a man, Josef, suffering from severe burns. Josef will slowly break her shell of silence...
My favourite scene is towards the end. Josef is waiting for Hannah outside the factory where she works. It is the first time Josef actually sees Hannah, who's been taking care of him through his convalescence, but he already knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. But she has been through a terrible experience, and is afraid to let herself feel anything for anyone. She tells him that she can't be with him, because she will start crying, and won't be able to stop, and then both will drown. And he tells her "I'll learn how to swim, Hannah. I swear. I'll learn how to swim." Maybe, out of context, that line doesn't mean much, but it makes complete sense when you see the whole film, and for me is one of the best, most delicate, love scenes I've ever seen.
I haven't found a video of that scene, so here you have the theatrical trailer of it (sorry for the subtitles in French, but I couldn't find a Spanish-subtitled version).
Now I'm really looking forward to your favourite love scenes, so...
PLEASE CLICK ON "COMMENTS" AND DESCRIBE YOUR FAVOURITE LOVE SCENE FROM A FILM OR A TV SHOW, TELLING WHY IT IS YOUR FAVOURITE.
And have a Happy St. Valentine's Day!
5 comments:
One of my favorites romantic scenes is from the 2007 film "Stardust". In this film, Tristan Thorne (Charlie Cox) has to adventure into a fantastic realm to find a fallen star to prove his love to Victoria (Sienna Miller). He will discover that the star is a girl called Yvaine. He will not be the one trying to find the star: the sons of the King (Peter O'Toole) need the star to claim for the throne and Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) ,a witch, needs the heart of the star to get ethernal youth and beauty. With the help of Captain Shakespeare (Robert de Niro), Tristan try to bring the star back to Victoria, but in this travel, Tristan and Yvaine will falling in love.
My favourite scene is when Yvaine declares her love to Tristan. In this scene Tristan is a mouse transformed by a witch. I think is the perfect definition of love. This is the transcription:
You know when I said I knew little about love? And that wasn't true. I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it is the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. pain, lies, hate... It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves... You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say, Tristan is... I think that I love you. My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange, no gifts, no goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.
The link to this scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qjQhycxUoI
Rodrigo Chaparro 2NA-D
These are the links to see the scenes from the film "Children of a lesser god"
http://youtu.be/ox4OyhhZkzE
http://youtu.be/1pJywLQLzcA
Thank you both, Rodri and Aurora, for sharing your favourite love scenes.
The film I have chosen is "Children of a lesser god". It tells the story of a teacher, James (William Hurt) who begins to work in a school for the deaf. There, he meets a deaf woman, Sarah (Marlee Matlin) who works at the school as a cleaner. They fall in love and soon they discover that they have important differences.
James really likes listening to classical music and, in one of my favourite scenes, he tells Sarah that he can't enjoy the music because she can't hear it.
http://youtu.be/ox4OyhhZkzE
In the other scene I've chosen, Sarah explains James why they cannot connect. She tells him that he thinks for her, decides for her, speaks for her, and until he doesn't understand that she is one person and he is another one, they aren't going to be connected...
http://youtu.be/1pJywLQLzcA
Post a Comment