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| Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday |
A while ago I had a long debate with a friend of mine on the importance of old movies. My friend, a terrific movie watcher and all-around good guy, was under the impression that old movies were virtually irrelevant at this point. Obviously special effects and graphics of today blow away the most advanced movies of 20 years ago, let alone the 1940s. My friend, lets call him Joe, went farther than that however, claiming all aspects of movie making were more sophisticated now. Screenwriting, acting, cinematography. Modern directors have learned from their predecessors and are now building on top of if. That is not to say that Joe thinks all new movies are great and all old movies are crap. He just feels that a good new movie tops a good old movie any day, and doesn't understand the fuss about all the classics. I have several other friends, movie lovers even, whose film watching repertoire is nearly complete among the new releases section, but develops giant gaps the farther back in time we go.
I hold a different view point. I love old films. Sometimes, I'll admit the label of classic can be misleading. If Roman Holiday were released today, it would star Julia Roberts or Rachel McAdams instead of Audrey Hepburn, and be rightly lambasted as pure escapism. Many Marilyn Monroe movies are downright sexist, and I even find (gasp) Casablanca to be a bit tedious. Just because they were great at the time does not mean they remain great now. I still enjoy watching these, mainly because I have some historian in me. Even though the original telephone cannot compare to an iphone in terms of utility and elegance, it would still be cool to use one. But I understand that argument does not apply to everyone. I love watching the truly great old movies for a very simple reason. They stood the test of time.
Christopher Nolan's Inception is a terrific movie. It is exciting, subversive, thoughtful, complex, event and character driven, philosophical while still being escapism. Yet as of right now, Inception has appealed to exactly one audience in time. The 2010 movie going audience. In 2040 will people still be wowed by the craftsmanship that went into Inception? I think so, but I also think Avatar, despite being a best picture nominee an the highest grossing film of all-time, will fade into history as at best, nothing more than a landmark for special effects.
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| Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Inception |
Then you have movies like The African Queen, Adam's Rib, or Citizen Kane. The Orson Welles' masterpiece was created in 1941. It continues to capture the hearts of cinephiles now almost 70 years after it was released. If I had to bet, I would guess that movie watchers will still be wowed by Citizen Kane in 2040 and long after that. For me at least, that is the definition of a classic.
To paraphrase a popular political analysis, "It's the story, stupid." No matter what the advances in technique (be they acting, directing, cinematography, editing, or effects), without a good skeleton you've just got a blob that eventually will ooze away into oblivion. But a good story will outlast the advances in film. (And I'm glad I'm not the only person who occasionally feels that way about "Casablanca.")
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Film making is story telling, and to do it well kind of requires a good story.
ReplyDeleteGreat article! Sorry I haven't contributed anything in a while. I think I'll have some time to put something together this week.
ReplyDeleteI find myself flabbergasted at your friend's dismissal of film canon. It's something like saying, "What's so great about Shakespeare, he didn't even write in our modern English!" It's an all-too-common viewpoint that stems from your friend's incorrect assessment of something readily observed everywhere: things change. Sometimes they change for the better and sometimes they change for the worst, but most of the time they are just different, and that is what your friend seems to be missing. He's assuming that where we are now is the peak of film technique, but the fact that we are constantly experimenting with acting styles, preferred story structures, cinematography, does not necessarily imply improvement, just trends that become popular for a time. Our movies are not better. If you plucked a person from the 1940s and sat them down to watch The Hurt Locker, would they like it? Probably not. The color would be distracting, the shaky camerawork nauseating, the accents sound funny and make the actors unbelievable. Our special effects would undoubtedly impress them, and that's one thing that I admit can objectively be said to be improved, but would it be enough to make them like a movie?
Your friend's preferences speak, I would say, less to which films are better and more to which films he is used to. It is the same reason people don't generally watch movies from other languages and cultures (as well as the fact that most people don't like to read). People prefer what they know, and are comfortable with. I must admit to subconsciously suffering from this bias myself. Probably 8 out of 10 movies I rent are from the last 20 years and are in English. The one old movie and the one foreign movie I usually have to consciously remind myself to pick up, because it really is easy to dismiss them - until you make an effort to watch them, and then you reap the rewards of whole other worlds of great cinema.
There, I've said my piece. Play me out with the La Marseillaise, because Casablanca really is one of the greatest movies of all time!
Michael, as much as I disagree with "joe" and agree with you, I feel like you've slightly misrepresented his position, so I'm going to play some devil's advocate with you.
ReplyDeleteYou say he believes this to be the peak of film technique... well only up to this point obviously. The ability to create a film does not simply change as history advances, it improves. Artists stand on the shoulders of previous artists. He believes the screenwriting to be more complex and clever, the cinematography to have found better angles, frames, and lenses with superior cameras and editing equipment. Actors are more subtle, and believable (Al Pacino excepting).
And the fact that someone from the 1940s wouldn't like the Hurt Locker could be used as an argument in Joe's favor. Movies are made for the audiences at the time of their creation. You and I appreciate a broad perspective and enjoy finding parallels with old films. Joe does not. He is a 21st century man and would apply your argument in reverse. Of course people from the 1940s wouldn't like our movies. Exactly why there is no reason for us to be such large fans of their fare.
Now, I disagree with Joe on all of that. But the man knows what he likes. Also, I almost fell asleep in Casablanca
He may know what he likes, but I expect the reason why is nothing more than habituation. He doesn't like old movies for the same reason that old audiences wouldn't like the movies he does: a lack of understanding that although styles change, a percentage of movies from any time period have great ideas, form, and execution. As far as "improvement" goes, Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Stewart had more subtlety than most A-listers around today, stories have been complex and clever for centuries before film was even invented (not that a great film need be complex), and mainstream cinematography has largely devolved into shaky and unclear camerawork misguidedly aimed at being realistic.
ReplyDeleteHas technology improved? Sure, but admiring films based only on technological merits would be forgetting that they are art. And though technology can be put into the service of art, art does not need it.
One thing that does deserve accolades is innovation— discovering new ways of making films, the *broadening* of the concept of what film can be and can mean. But saying that the new ideas are necessarily better and you can discount the rest is even more restrictive than before the ideas were invented.
In the end, it's "Joe"'s loss, not mine. And if he's given older films an honest chance, and he feels that way, then to each his own I guess. But it still disappoints me that for the vast majority of movie-goers, most of the greatest films of all time will never be watched at all, for no better reason than that they're put off by the lack of hue.
Since when did you have a friend named Joe, I thought I knew all your friends... now I am doubting whether I really am your friend because you have friends I don't know and I thought I knew all your friends. You knew I thought I knew you knew I know all your friends right... who's joe?
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