Hi everyone!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’ll argue until I’m blue in the face that classic films are better than modern films. While many people would probably agree with me, I also find that some people (particularly the young crowd) think I’m insane. Granted, many of the people who disagree with me are adamantly against the idea of watching anything that’s not in color.

I presented the argument that classic films are called “classic” for a reason. People still watch them 50, 60, 70 years later. But will anyone still watch a movie from 2008 in 50, 60, 70 years? Do they have the same kind of qualities to even survive in the public awareness for that long?

Talk about it!

Gary

Just crunching pure numbers, Gary, you have to be right. How can the films of one season or one year compete with the entire history of film? All of the duds and crap of yesteryear have dropped out of the running, just as the forgettable films of this year will. It is a trap to compare the abstract of “now” to the totality of “history” especially in an comparatively new art form with a firmly entrenched cannon.

Besides, history itself is a subtext - knowing that peoples lives were different from our own changes how we view their art, creating another level of complexity for us that may not have been apparent for the viewers of long ago. We can parse every inane pop-culture reference and sad Saturday Night Live skit rip-off in modern film, and it’s very accessibility cheapens it. Yet seeing those themes in an older film might create a subtle challenge of understanding, or trigger a twinge of perception in modern viewers.

In one area i agree with you, Modern films are less involved in creating the culture, or rather, cultural importance is now diluted across a variety of media, (television, the internet, technology, video games, etc) and there is less cultural market-share for film to exploit. If this means that we are doomed to self-parody and substandard film making in the future i can’t say, i’d leave that to someone more expert then i am!

Matt,

Well yes it does seem like the duds of yesterday are forgotten and the whole era is defined by its celebrated films. Maybe the opposite does ring true for today, where someone like me expresses dislike for modern films based on the ratio of duds to successes. There are, in my opinion, more bad films today than good films. So, to take the conversation a bit deeper, let’s compare the actual actors and actresses.

Is there a modern-day Bogart, Kate Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Cagney, etc...? Will there EVER be an equivalent to them? Probably not, and they were only some examples of the incredible talent of that era. But how many people can be named from today’s star pool that are irreplaceable?

I find that modern independent films are way more creative and professionally-crafted than mainstream films. Unfortunately, no one really considers independent films when they talk about “movies” as a whole. Society’s brain automatically equates “movies” to whatever is playing at their local mall.

Gary

Beside the issues that Matt posted, there is another factor to consider in any discussion of classic versus modern films. Back in the 30’s and 40’s, 100% of Hollywood’s output was for theatrical distribution, whereas today only a small percentage of Hollywood’s output is for theatrical distribution. Many of the best films being created today are presented on HBO, SHOWTIME, FX, TNT and LIFETIME among others, rather than in a theatre. Fifty years from now, people won’t know or care if a film was created for theatrical distribution, direct to DVD or television. We haven’t even talked about episodic television.  Although the modern era suffers because of the influence of MBAs and marketing people in the creative process, if we compare total output to total output, the difference between the two eras is not as vast as most people think.

raymac - 19 May 2008 07:14 PM

Although the modern era suffers because of the influence of MBAs and marketing people in the creative process

..and that’s a big deal IMO

TheMidnightPalace - 17 May 2008 11:36 PM

Matt,
There are, in my opinion, more bad films today than good films. So, to take the conversation a bit deeper, let’s compare the actual actors and actresses.

Is there a modern-day Bogart, Kate Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Cagney, etc...?

Ok, you got me there, i have an illogical hatred of most contemporary actors and actresses! (particularly Brad Pitt!) I find most of them a preening, over-confident bunch, and that’s when they’re actually on the screen. Actresses in particularly have always suffered because we demand that they be over-the-top-drop-dead gorgeous, and often let acting fall by the wayside. At least for men you can be unconventional looking and find some success based on their talent. That said, acting styles have changed so significantly that it would be hard to find an analogue for that list of greats. It might be that the focus of filmmaking has changed to the point that acting much less of a central concern, it’s hard to compete with a giant CGI dinosaur ravaging the city - but that proves your point!

Still, if you allow for the changes in delivery there are actors that doing interesting stuff, they’re just doing fewer films. i’ll go out on a limb and say Daniel Day-Lewis has never let me down, but i haven’t seen everything he’s done.

raymac - 19 May 2008 07:14 PM

Although the modern era suffers because of the influence of MBAs and marketing people in the creative process, if we compare total output to total output, the difference between the two eras is not as vast as most people think.

This is true enough, although i didn’t know about total output! I do think it’s easy to point to marketing as ruining film, but i think it’s deeper then that. Certainly studios bigwigs have always had creative control over films, but now we have an industry and pseudo-science of determining “what will sell” as opposed to vague notions on the part of the boss. Which i feel is somehow more offensive, if materially the same thing.

I don’t want to seem as if I’m harsh on ALL modern actors/actresses, because I’m really not. There are a few that I think are very talented. One of the things I think is wrong with modern cinema is the lack of creativity. I’m so sick of remake after remake after movie-made-from-an-old-tv-show.

A lot of classic films were remakes in their own right. The Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon wasn’t the first version by any means. It first came out in 1931 with Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels, and then again in 1936 as Satan Met A Lady with Bette Davis. But ask anyone who was in The Maltese Falcon and they’ll say Bogart. He essentially “made” the film what it has become in history. So even though it was a remake in the classical sense, it doesn’t seem to carry the same meaning as a current-day remake, which to me means “rehashed”.