Jaws is a classic -- a classic example of how classics crumble and how everyone talking about classics is wrong. Contrary to everything I've ever heard about this movie, 50 years rendered it powerless to human feeling. Everyone in the room left totally underwhelmed. It wasn't scary, it wasn't moving, it wasn't informative, it wasn't even very entertaining.
I'm just so tried of people's inability to distinguish then from now, influence from timelessness. Let's face it: most old movies suck. In fact, most new movies suck too, but they're usually more entertaining. Almost every movie more than 20-30 years old sucks and has lost its luster. Coincidentally, I started watching movies 20-30 years ago -- but I think that 20-30 year period will actually roll on as I age, and whether I admit it or not, movies I grew up with will suck.
Movies age worse than other forms of art. We can still marvel at paintings and symphonies centuries later -- they can still be masterful and moving. Yet in the relatively short history of film, only a tiny few have endured with any sort of glimmer. Mostly they are artifacts. To find a time when paintings were merely artifacts, you're going back almost to cave art. Films age so fast.
Why? I suppose it's because they're usually engineered for maximum stimulation, and what stimulates people changes quicker than what classical music and classical visual art are engineered for (artistic innovation, contemplation, serene beauty, showcasing a single person's technical training without much technology involved,...). Film is the most stimulating and entertaining of the major media, so it must depend on the sensibilities of the era, nay, the very year, of its release. Other art forms may rely on timeliness, but probably not so instinctually. For example, a sculpture of the king shocks everyone in the 1700s because it's not as flattering as expected, or his pose is too sultry. That timeliness is more conceptual though, and can still be considered interesting centuries later. A film's timeliness may partly be conceptual like that, but it is also usually instinctual, meaning when that year's collective instincts wear off, a massive degree of the film's value wears off. The film is not built for interest, it's built for instinct, and to optimize its immediate impact, it's built for that year's instincts. Basic human instincts may be nearly timeless, but a film is supplementing that with so many highly timely instincts. It's in fact relying on the latter, because its examination of the former isn't developed enough. It's optimizing for immediate impact, and not focusing much on timeless values.
So part of the problem is the profitability of film relative to other media -- it's optimized for immediate profit because it's capable of immediate profit. Another part of the problem is film began in an era of quicker technological and cultural advancements than media like painting and music, so things go outdated quicker.
This could become a 100-page dissertation, but I don't have time.
We need a plot to get to the bottom of this. Y-axis Median movie quality, X-axis Year... What does the curve look like?
ReplyDeleteHave you seen any Hitchcock movies? It seems like his movies endure more with modern audiences than his contemporaries. Maybe try one of the Cary Grant movies. I wouldn't suggest Vertigo.
Damn, Vertigo leaves Netflix soon and was 100% next on my list
DeleteThen watch it. I was more just trying to angle toward a recommendation I thought could reasonably land. It is a titan in the history of cinema, and I love Jimmy Stewart. San Francisco is also among the greatest settings for a movie.
DeleteNever seen Hitchcock except Psycho around 9th grade. I've been figuring I should try another, and Vertigo obviously stands out. I doubt "suspense" has the highest ceiling for me, as a genre, but if he's that great as a movie maker, then it shouldn't matter, right... [he says skeptically]
DeleteI feel like more than any other director he works in the suspense genre. But Vertigo, while surely in that genre, is not appreciated for its suspense qualities (Like basically all Hitch's other stuff). There's some other subliminal thing that people latch onto; it just happens to be a suspense film. Something like North by Northwest is more par for the course suspense.
DeletePsycho is kind of odd. I don't know if it fits tidily in with the rest of his filmography. It's more mystery than suspense. I appreciated it more on rewatch. Can't imagine how I'd have responded to it at 15. Definitely would've been bored post shower. I didn't watch any old movies until I was an adult.
I mean I assume you won't like Hitchcock, based on the data we have so far. But it seems like out of all the old directors, he's among the best candidates.
If an old movie is highly stylized, it's more interesting. See Citizen Kane, Persona, and probably Psycho? An exception might be Mirror, which you could say is highly stylized, but almost too subtly. I guess the worst thing is old movies that are just trying to be entertaining and stimulating without much artistic/stylistic innovation. Those age like a bag of wet spinach.
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