To answer your question Jan1957 - i think we need our emotions to be stimulated because it's good for us.
Early cave man would have his 'flight or fight' mechanisms tested on a daily basis - modern man not at all - hence horror films and roller-coasters.
Similarly, we are trained, to varying degrees, men especially, to maintain the 'stiff upper lip' which is a hangover from the war - we just 'get on with it'.
But under controlled circumstances, a rush of emotion is a good thing, even though it doesn;t 'feel' like it at the time.
For me - 'The Deer Hunter' left me crying in the cinema, as did 'Dead Poets Society' which I saw just after I came out of the hospital, so I was seriously raw and twitchy, and that evoked a lot of bad memories.
My middle daughter used to watch 'The Hunchback Of Notre Damme' (Charles Laughton) and weep copiously after it, and then watch it again the next day!