Enjoying Older Films - Page 2

Oh shit, I'm about to go grab my shotgun and lynchin' rope.

I guess I was lucky that I grew up in an era where older movies were still played regularly on TV - not just on Saturday or Sunday arvos, but Friday and Saturday nights as well, making them prime viewing for a young lad like me - and I had not just a dad who wanted me to enjoy all the films he loved as a kid but a grandmother well steeped in the classics as well.

I had a love of epics, genre and period pieces so from an early age I was raised with a healthy respect for the likes of The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Spartacus, Captain Blood, Jason And The Argonauts, The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad, The Magnificent Seven, North by Northwest, Gone With The Wind, The Invisible Boy, When Worlds Collide, The Greatest Show on Earth, Hans Christian Andersen, The Court Jester, The War of the Worlds, The Thief of Bagdad and The Wizard Of Oz.

Many of those films are still favourites of mine today and thanks to that grounding I've been able to discover other incredible film experiences as I've grown older like much of Kurosawas work or more dramatic Hollywood classics such as Touch Of Evil, Night Of The Hunter, Double Indemnity and The Sweet Smell of Success to name just a few examples.

I dunno, maybe it's cause I started watching those films young, but I just never had the issue that's being described here. I'm a generation Xer and the most distraction I had throughout childhood besides basic TV and a VCR was a Sega Master System, but I've always been able to enjoy a classic film much like a classic book - a ripping yarn is a ripping yarn. I feel kinda sorry for someone who can't look past the limit of their own experience to see that.

More power to TheMantis for at least recognising this and trying to move beyond it tho - if you can get onboard the classics train you've got a whole wonderful new world of awesome movies to enjoy.

Rath's rep house point is a very good one, if not for the "everything that's dated is high camp" mentality of a lot of audience members. People smoking in restaurants over dinner would get a chuckle at this point.

And Doug didn't say His Girl Friday was boring. He said it would bore the original poster. Agree.

I agree with Rath as well, a revival cinema opened up in the city and for me, it was a fantastic way to experience older films, it's so far removed from watching it at home alone on your DVD player. I caught the entire dollars trilogy there and it still went over huge with the audience.

TheMantis, avoid John Ford at all costs!

I came in here to say essentially this. It's not enough to put me off the classics. But it can require a bit of inner calibration, at least if you're a kid just getting cracking in the oldies.

I grew up in the '70s, a weird hybrid time when you had Pacino and De Niro being naturalistic as fuck, while stalwarts from the '50s like Heston and Peck were still declaiming theatrically in flicks a young geek back then would want to see. The original Omen plays fucking weird today because on the one hand you have the new-skool gory deaths (shocking for its day) and then you have Peck and Remick performing like it's still 1956. And but then you have The Exorcist, which preceded The Omen yet feels fresh acting-wise today because the cast was either part of the Easy Riders/Raging Bull new wave (Burstyn, Miller) or old-schoolers who dialed it down (Von Sydow, Cobb).

Point being, even if the Method took hold in the '50s with Brando and Dean and Clift, there were still plenty of Hollywood stars who blew that shit off and went on acting the same old way well into the '70s and even '80s. So we '70s kids were getting all kinds of acting styles. Nowadays you only see that old style in spoofs. In fact, Leslie Nielsen was so awesome in part because he brought that staid, stick-up-the-ass manly style from his early roles right into surreal ZAZ-land, changing nothing, and the result was fried gold.

Gateway to the oldies for me was Creature Double Feature, man. That'll give you a taste for b&w and pompous acting with a quickness.

Well, strongly dsagree. The rapid-fire style of dialogue and fast pace makes it the perfect choice for someone just getting used to classic movies. Plus, the subject of cutthroat, over anxious news reporters is just as relevant today as it was then.

I hate this trend more than any other movie-going cliche or pet peeve out there. At Film Forum, which is where I do the majority of my rep-house watching (Grapes of Wrath this week!), you get an odd blend of college kids and older people, which is just about the worst group to watch a movie with. When I saw Psycho for the first time a few weeks back there, there was a guy right in front of me who talked to the screen during the dramatic moments, going "Jesus!" in a very loud voice when Norman's mother was revealed. I LOVE going to Film Forum, but I always start and end the movie kind of annoyed.

As an addendum, I'm sure I read somewhere that a big reason for the sea change in the default acting style was advances in sound. Actors no longer had to declaim into a huge offscreen mic, to the point where you have that hilarious early scene in Raging Bull where De Niro and Pesci are sitting at the table and murmuring at each other ("I don't have any gloves, what am I gonna hit you with, the table?") and you have to jack the fucking volume up.

Oh, silents are a whole other ball game. That takes major recalibration as far as the acting style and over-the-top moments. Hell, even masterworks like Nosferatu and Metropolis have genuine WTF moments (like the Harker/Hutter character laughing uproariously in the early scenes whenever he so much as sees the word "vampire"). But you come to love the dingbat excesses of the silents. Hopefully not ironically, but a sort of it-is-what-it-is appreciation.

I think it's a great movie. I just don't have any faith in TheMantis, who keeps turning movies off after a few minutes, discovering its charms. Sorry, Mantis. Nothin' personal. (EDIT: And he goes and proves me wrong-ish by watching Potemkin. Awesome!)

The idea of a "gateway" film to older movies is an interesting one, though. Ace In the Hole, maybe? I stand by Psycho; I think many of Kurosawa's are too long for ADD-esque viewers. King Kong and to a lesser degree M are solid choices. Once they picked up steam, Universal Monster movies were cracking affairs and only 70 minutes long.

Probably not the best choice, to be honest. Shorter isn't necessarily better in this case.

Here's something for you to think about. The Odessa Steps sequence in the Battleship Potemkin. It's editing and style. Where else have you seen it before?

I hear ya. I think Psycho is a perfect choice, honestly. It's probably the movie that got me into "older" movies (although I watched it when I was like...10).

I didn't see Ace in the Hole until much later, but it's cynical humor might be just what the Mantis ordered.

Then why didn't you watch something else?

They could, but obviously it wasn't as easy as it later became. Here's a good story about Orson Welles and his post-production guy trying to get dialogue that sounded like it was being spoken by people riding in a car.

For excessive use of ADR, look at Cruising, where Friedkin had to re-loop practically all the dialogue because of loud protesters near the set fucking up the on-set recording. The result sounds really dead. Which sort of works for the film's creepy tone.

As far as the hammy tone, a lot of actors came from theater and had a hard time dialing it down for film.

Oy.

I must be a freak or something, because I really enjoy "theatrical" acting styles, which partly explains why I love so many of the 70's live studio audience sitcoms. The really strange thing is that I haven't ever been able to attend much live theater because the people in my area seem to hate the arts.

Was going to say something about that too, but didn't quite know how to work it in. But yeah. My generation also grew up on "x was filmed before a live studio audience." (Do we even hear that phrase anymore on sitcoms? The last show I can remember using it was Friends.)

Sorry if I'm overposting in this thread, it's an interesting conversation to have and, despite the open disdain of some here, it's also interesting to hear the perspective of someone of a generation that watches movies with a radically different set of eyes and ears than those of the previous generation and up. I have sometimes wondered if kids who grow up on Michael Bay Avid-fart films find movies like Raiders or even Die Hard sort of visually bland and slow.

Without meaning to derail...I really, really hate the "hot" videotape look of so many 70s sitcoms (Three's Company, Soap, Jeffersons, etc.) vs the more "film" look of others (Happy Days, fer instance).

The "hot" version takes me right out of the story, because it looks so stagey and fake.

How about '70s BBC comedies like Python and Fawlty Towers where you get hot videotape in the interiors and film in the exteriors, sometimes rapidly alternating? And not even just the comedies, but dramas too. (I think it was Bill Griffith in Zippy who pointed this out. Never could watch '70s BBC the same way after that.)

Was just reflecting during an IFC Python marathon that if not for Gilliam's animations, boy, would Python look like shit. Brilliantly funny but shit-resembling, visually.

Doctor Who was the same way.

Seriously, if that's true I'm out. Hand me my rocking chair, shotgun and 'cranky old man' card right now cause I'm officially done.


ETA: In all seriousness tho Mantis - it sounds like you're going for the more important classic films and struggling a bit, maybe try for some of the more colourful fun ones? Try some of the ones I listed in my post like some Ray Harryhausen films (Jason and the Argonauts and the Sinbad films in particular) or some great old westerns or some Errol Flynn adventures like Captain Blood? Maybe even a comedy or two like Duck Soup or The Court Jester? Maybe some classic action in the form of Yojimbo?

It doesn't all have to be oscar worthy and serious - go for some of the fun popcorn fare of the classical era.

aww man. I LOVE Three's Company and the Jeffersons. Actually those two and Good Times were some of the sitcoms I was specifically thinking of when I posted.

As far as classic films, someone mentioned not forcing yourself to sit through them, but I disagree. I have to admit that I became a little ancy during the first act of Citizen Kane, but I was very happy that I toughed out my slight (unjustifiable) boredom. Ditto with Solaris, and tonight I'll be putting Andrei Rublev into the DVD player.

I think it's purely cosmetic differences that force me to work a little harder to become immersed in older films, and not something so drastic as a conflict of "film languages"

To be fair, though, Tarkovsky's stuff isn't difficult because it's older, it's difficult because it's Tarkovsky. He's a giant, I love him, but when you sit down for your first Tarkovsky you really have to sort of exhale and settle in and know that you're gonna be there a while. You can't fucking watch Solaris on your iPod at the bus stop.

Maybe the Russian guy Mantis should be looking at isn't Eisenstein or Tarkovsky but Dziga Vertov. Man with a Movie Camera goes like a shot and is a veritable feast of then-available techniques.

Yer a kid to some of us. Ah, Christ, my knee. Where's my pills?

So that puts you at what, Gen Y? I always lose track. I was talking more about the literal kids going to see the Transformers movies and genuinely enjoying them. I sat through the first one and said, "This makes no sense to me, spatially/visually. I'm completely lost. Clearly the kids who can follow this are wired differently than I am; their eyes and brain are wired together in some way that allows them to actually process this." And so my thought was that such kids — again, not you; you're quite a bit removed from them — might well find classically photographed/edited/framed adventure like Jaws and Raiders sort of dull and lame, visually. And I pick those examples because I know it would horrify a lot of folks here (hell, me too) to think that those particular films could be visually processed as dull. But if you grow up on the fractured film language of Transformers...?

Yeah, that really drives me crazy. What's worse are the egregiously faked "studio laughs" on the BBC shows where it's blatantly obvious they're nowhere fucking near a studio audience.

Oh yeah, he's just gonna LOOOOOVE His Girl Friday.
And for the record, I actually do think it's a very overrated movie.

Yep. Hell, most of the folks back then weren't watching the stuff that's held up as canonical today. Jesus, even The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life underperformed when they came out. This, by the way, is why I try not to despair these days when crap makes bank and greatness goes begging. 'Twas ever thus.

Check out the original The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Per my angry screed posts circa the second half of 2008, when the word "overrated" was tossed around these forums like a enema ball at a gang bang, I must insist that you clarify exactly how His Girl Friday is overrated.

Starting point: It's definitely not overrated by The Mantis. Or Doug.

It's a quintessential example of it's genre, but this particular genre sucks.
A good comedy needs believable interaction between the performers and careful timing. This film is 80 minutes of actors merely spitting out dialogue loudly and at the same redundant pace. There is no real interaction. They may as well all be sitting in their own rooms, reading aloud. It's not funny or entertaining, it's grating.

God this thread. But seriously, watch The Good The Bad and The Ugly or Seven Samurai. If you can't get any pleasure out of those, you're a bad person.

I mean that literally.

The original Thing is the tits, man. Hawksian dialogue with genuine dread and horror. Still holds up very well, IMNSHO.

I won't go as far as to call His Girl Friday overrated, but I think it's really difficult to come to it "fresh" with modern eyes. Just like seeing Airplane! for the first time just now - the HGF's furious dialogue and dry humor has been so influential and so aped, adapted and borrowed over the intervening decades that it's bound to have less impact.

I watched it for the first time in the last few years, and while I enjoyed it, I doubt I'd watch it again. It was very stagey, for one thing - felt very much like I was watching a filmed play, rather than an actual film.

Sometimes a filmed play is all you need. See: Duck Soup.

There comes a point when the sheer idiocy on display makes it no longer worthwhile to post in a thread, and that there's simply no getting through to the original poster. We have reached that point.

Nope. I don't watch any movies without bullet time.

I don't disagree; I don't think it's an objective fault for a film, but it's not a style that appeals to me. Obviously, for budgetary and infuence reasons, many older films (from the 30s and 40s, especially) are going to feel like filmed plays. In and of itself, not a bad thing. But it's not a visual style or approach that I like very much.

But that's ignoring everyone's favorite part of this thread, which is listing the half-dozen pre-60's films that they like and patting themselves on the back for being such a cinephile.

Some people just like the "ride" of moviegoing, but to really immerse yourself in old movies, you need to be a little bit into history/cultural archaeology to get your brain where it needs to be, in my opinion. A guy* who saw one still from Edison's 1910 Frankenstein for 20+ years isn't likely to finally get his hands on a copy, fold his arms and say "okay Edison, impress me." He's going to be fucking stoked to see the thing after hearing and reading about it for decades, and he's going to appreciate it for what it is.

There are various levels of being "transported" by an old film between 1910 and now, but I think that joy of discovery has to be there for any of it to work. You have to get your head around the fact that half of all movies made before 1950 and ninety percent of all films made before 1920 no longer exist. It makes you cherish these "relics" a little more.

*That guy...was Abraham Lincoln. No, wait - it was me. I get us confused.

And it does take some work. Good art often requires work from the audience. Otherwise it's just entertainment.

I've always loved you.

Mantis, I'm in a somewhat similar position as you. I'm fairly young (29, to be precise) and I've only just (within the last year and change) really made a concerted effort to watch as many older films as possible and it's been a challenge at times. The pacing of some older films can be difficult to adjust to so I know what you mean when you say it can be difficult to watch one straight through.

One thing that has helped me to have a better appreciation for these films and to be more enthusiastic about watching them has been to do research on them before a viewing. If I understand what went in to making the film or if I understand the context better of when/how it was made, it makes for a far more interesting viewing than just going in cold. Similar to what Greg Clark said earlier, the more you know about how difficult it was to make some of these films strictly from a technical standpoint, you'll likely be more prepared to both appreciate and understand why the film moves and flows as it does.

That said, another thing that might be good, too, is to simply pick a director and go through their entire filmography. Netflix makes this so, so easy to do. It's fascinating to go through the works of Ford, Bergman, Wilder and Kurosawa and literally watch their style and capabilities evolve right in front of you.

Hope that helps.

I do think it helps, not necessarily to put yourself in the mindset of a viewer of the time, but to at least be mindful of the state of the art at the time. People might look at the original King Kong and scoff at the special effects, but for 1939 that was goddamn magic. You might look at the crowd scenes in a typical DeMille epic and yawn, knowing a kid with some processing power and a copy of Massive could pull that off in about a day, but back then, that was a real big set filled with a real big crowd. That's part of the attraction to me for a lot of older films -- seeing what they were able to pull off without the benefit of modern tech, and often without knowing just how enormous what they did really was. Back when there was more than a little touch of magic to the whole affair, and not everyone was dying to be told how the tricks were done.

To be fair though, they were, to a degree. What makes them actual magic, however, is that once you do learn how they were done they don't lose any of their appeal or effectiveness.

Also, giant crowd scenes -- like the never-ending wounded in Gone With The Wind -- are more impressive than they are in newer films, because you know that somebody actually got, dressed, costumed, managed all those extras.

I recommend TheMantis check out THE THIRD MAN, aka one of my favorite movies of all time.

This is especially true of older horror films. Viewed without a mind for context even the best of classic horror objectively seems silly, and most certainly not scary, when compared with modern era films. Frankly I think the classic Universal monster films should be shown to everyone as children. They scared me at the time because I was like six. Now I think I am better able to appreciate them because I have that connection.

Truth. The now stock explanation "it was computers" doesn't really conjure the thoughts of movie magic that behind-the-scenes documentaries once held. I rarely find myself wasting time thinking about how they did anything in FX films these days, because I already know the answer - computers.