Old Movies are Better Because...

The argument has been made that movies produced since 1970 are better than those made prior to that year. While I admit many great movies have been made since then it remains a laughably ludicrous and shortsighted statement. All great art forms are born, flourish, reach a pinnacle and then either morph into something else or continue in a lesser form. The Movies (like Sculpting, Painting, Music, Plays, Novels, and even Television) are an art form that has passed its golden period. Great movies will continue to be made but they will become increasingly fewer and farther between. This is not to suggest that humanity has run out of great art, but simply that we await the birth of a new medium.

One obvious example of this is the common practice of re-making old movies or churning out sequel after sequel of a box office hit until all that remains is the faint memory of something good. It is not the fault of today's filmmakers that the best plots and ideas have already been used. It is simply the natural result of living in a finite world. And although remakes have always been made in Hollywood it has gotten so bad lately that any old idea, no matter how stupid or trivial, can be rehashed into a feature movie. Notice the plethora of old sitcoms that have been made into big budget FX driven projects during the past ten years. They simply make up for quality with lots of CGI's, or, like the pathetic Mr. Deeds update the idea by adding crass sexual humor and/or upping the violence and gore factor and then crank up the old publicity machine. They have even started remaking classic movies shot for shot such as the recent pitiful attempt to redo Hitchcock's Psycho. These signs reflect neither a healthy nor entertaining art form. Even a well-crafted remake like Scorcese's Cape Fear seems superfluous when compared to the original.

As for today's acting being more naturalistic that is well and good if you want acting that you could get by standing on a street corner and watching the world go by. I, for one, don't want to hear people talking in a movie the way they talk in everyday life. If I did I'd rent a documentary. Besides I hear more interesting lines on the subway than I hear in most modern movies. Today's acting is like today's pop music, over-produced and soulless. Great movie stars like Bette Davis and Cary Grant would often do pages of dialogue in a single take. Now everything is edited to death, a word here - a frame there. The result being that today's movies look and feel like overgrown television commercials.

This brings up my next point. Sure movies have gotten more sophisticated technically. So what? Does modern musical equipment make Beethoven any greater? And it has led to the lessening of our imagination. Old movies were more like books in that we had to imagine things that weren't force-fed us on the screen. With modern computer graphics almost any image can be created. This is great if you want a momentary rush of eye-candy, but its contribution to the lasting enjoyment of movies has certainly been overrated. Great filmmakers, like great novelists, know that it is sometimes more important what you don't show, or tell, as the case may be. Today filmmakers blow there wad too soon. And remember that this year's special effects will seem just as primitive in the future as yesterday's special effects seem now. Technology waits for no man. But let us not confuse technology with entertainment.

Faces. Where are all the great movie star faces today? It used to be that certain individuals were so charismatic, glowed so magically on the silver screen that they elevated the quality of the movies they were in. Being a Movie Star is an art form unto itself. Today they are an endangered species. The price of naturalistic acting and dialogue has been the loss of the Movie Star. We had Garbo, Valentino, Gable, Bogart, Cagney, Swanson, Marilyn and Liz. They will forever embody what it means to be a Movie Star. I'm sorry, but modern box-office stars like Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt pale in comparison. In fact, Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise are the last of a dying breed. A Movie Star commands your attention by simply being. All of the acting talent in the world cannot replace a great close-up, Meryl Streep. And do you know anyone who thinks Adam Sandler is more evolved than Buster Keaton?

OK, OK, I concede that in terms of adult content and diversity of the characters portrayed many positive changes have happened over the last thirty-five years. Still art should not be penalized because of the restrictions and mores of the time era in which it was created. That would be like criticizing Shakespeare for not writing about gays or other cultural minorities. Besides I think it quite possible to make a movie today that incorporates old-school, highly stylized writing and acting in a story featuring a variety of characters dealing with modern topics. The brilliant Far From Heaven is a superb example of this and one Hell of an entertaining movie to boot.

Musicals, once the greatest of all movie genres has been dead for a quarter of a century. Sure every few years a movie is made that will supposedly resurrect them but somehow it never happens. With the exception of Cabaret, Grease and any movie in which Barbra Streisand sings there hasn't been a classic musical made since the sixties. I don't know about you but I consider that a strike against the state of contemporary movies as well as modern moviegoers tastes. The modern attention span has morphed the musical movie into the music video.

Another aspect of movies that is long gone is the silent movie. Silent movies are pure magic. They are like opera for the eyes. They were originally called moving pictures and they are, in fact, like looking at great paintings that move. When sound came in movies were called talkies for years. No modern genre of film can replace the relatively few remaining flickering images of high melodrama or the high-speed chase antics of silent film. They are uniquely entertaining time capsules.

In conclusion let me say that yes I still enjoy going to the movies. However, I do so with the full knowledge that as time goes by my expectations get lower and lower and are exceeded less and less often. I look at it this way. We are only given so many hours in our lifetime to devote to movie watching. I would much rather spend them with great movies that are like old friends than bother trying to make new ones.