MovieChat Forums > How Green Was My Valley (1942) Discussion > Not aging well

Not aging well

posted 10 years ago by thegreatgazoo-1
17 replies | jump to latest

I get the appeal of this movie in 1941. Slightly.

World at war, Bevins Boys in the mines, rationing, Home Guard, The Blitz. It's a sad feel good story many can identify with.

Now? Even most Welsh wouldn't identify with the characters. Welsh deep mines have been closed now almost 30 years. Hardship for most modern Welsh is not much different from the rest of the West, mortgages, taxes, job security. I don't think any Welsh worry about being blown up by methane during a leisurely 12 hr. Shift hand hewing coal in a 24" seam with water up to your thighs.

In another few years people might wonder if the brutal life depicted ever existed.

[–] MissMellieY 10 years ago

So why should it matter if people now can't identify with the characters? That isn't the point. Most people don't live in a GONE WITH THE WIND type world in the US either, but we can appreciate fine storytelling, telling a tale of a bygone era.

"A man's kiss is his signature" -- Mae West

[–] spiderwort (11) 7 years ago

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[–] 10 years ago

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[–] whomod 10 years ago

Not aging well??

WOW! LOVED IT!!! What a great movie!

Great but also a bit sad. I was thinking that workplace situations like that are supposed to be completely unrelatable nowadays. And I think for a while during the postwar era, Perhaps they were. But they're completely relatable yet again.. Exploitation, low wages, unsafe work conditions, and pitting the poor against each other is back again. And of course, some conservative arsewipe trying to stifle human dignity by turning the word "socialism" into some expletive. How is this not relatable to the world today?

I liked the love story as well. Except it never reached a satisfying wrap-up. You're just left to assume that they end up together. But given the moralizing and self-moralizing of everyone involved, it'd probably have been incredibly scandalous. I mean, the unfounded gossip itself was incredibly scandalous. I can't imagine the actual thing.

Which was another thing. I LOVED that final speech and tongue lashing he gave the holier-than-thou gossips of the church and the wicked deacons as he left. Right there he made the powerful distinction between a loving faith and a judgemental, fear based religious system that only worships out of fear of eternal damnation. Again, completely relatable to the world we live in today.

God... there was so much to love in this film.

[–] kenny-164 10 years ago

whomod,

I understand your admiration for this film, and I agree it is not a question of whether it has aged well. It has.

But I cannot say I love this film as a great one, meaning in numeric terms rate it a ten here. I think the political context at the time led Ford to be a bit too careful in making clear what the film's point and themes is and are. Subtlety itself is not a problem with me in general, but being too subtle, and veering into a lack of coherence, is a problem. Valley does not commit that more extreme sin, but I do think it is a bit too subtle to be a great film.

I also would have crafted the film to spend more screen time on Maureen O'Hara, not merely because I think her beautiful and a great actress, but because I think the film would have been better served exploring her character's situation after marriage, and having an ill fit with the mine owner's family - despite the expectations of that family and her parents, and even of Father Gryffud. In specific, while it was not surprising that she returned to the Valley leaving her husband in Africa, it did seem rather abrupt to me.

So I think i give it a nine, but not a ten.

[–] generalusgrant 10 years ago

I get the appeal of this movie in 1941. Slightly.

Were you alive in 1941?

Didn't think so. You have no conception of that life was like then or what movies meant. You post inanities here. Whatever the reality of life was in 1941 was (Stalingrad, Pearl Harbor), you have no clue about it.

[–] vinidici 10 years ago

Well said, generalusgrant!

Mister OP, try getting it through that obviously thick noggin of yours is that this film is a period piece (ever heard of those?) based on Richard Llewellen's novel. If you are not fond of films depicting bygone eras, then stick to the Transformers flicks and all of the CGI special effects-laden action thrillers with car chases and explosions.

Try to comprehend that this is a character-driven story. I actually happen to like a lot of movies that some would deem mindlessly gory and full of gratuitous violence, so I can jump over to that segment of film fandom (where I think you're firmly rooted) and have a lot of fun watching the likes of "The Fast and the Furious," Arnold Schwarzenneger's and Sylvester Stallone's actions flicks, etc. But if you're not versatile enough to take in tales of human drama like HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and hundreds and hundreds more in fine cinema, then all I can say is, it's your loss, bub!

Try to realize that 1941 was chronologically closer to the 1890's than the 2010's are to 1941. Many people that year were still alive during the period depicted in the movie.

Lastly, try to grow up a little by living life. Come back to this thread 5-10 years from now when you're a little older and wiser and have come to realize that human nature, whether in the day and time portrayed in this film, or in its production year of 1941, or in this present day, hasn't changed one iota. We still have our ups and downs, our kindnesses and selfishness, our courage and cowardice and so on. You can't relate to this movie because you are no different from the typical Millennial who's never seen a rotary phone and aren't yet old enough to compare living older folks you've known to the generations younger than you by the time you reach a grandfatherly age. Come back and see HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY again in another decade or so, when your maturity level will (hopefully) be heightened and will enable you to appreciate fine acting, filmmaking, cinematography, narrative and characterization. Or DON'T come back and just stay the philistine you are, as an object lesson to others not to become closed-minded and sold on themselves as the living embodiments of post-modern enlightenment.

Okay folks, show's over, nothing to see here!

[–] PussyCrusher_Principal 10 years ago

I posit the idea that the fact that the film is actually ABOUT 'days gone by, never to return' (partly anyway, as reflected in the title and Huw's early narration passages) makes it practically age-proof.

"Yes yes yes, the reason for the visit. Got it all deployed for you. Tastes the wares, Email."

[–] hachmom-1 7 years ago

Many of these issues in this film are still quite relevant today. We just had an election in America that in which much of the voting revolved around people in dying professions who feel the loss of those jobs with nothing to take their place. Coal miners in West Virginia, Steel workers in Youngstown and autoworkers in Detroit all voted for someone who promised them their jobs back and a return to the America they remembered. (Not saying that anyone's vote was right or wrong, just that people today face many of the same issues that the Morgans faced.)

It is not our abilities that show who we truly are...it is our choices

[–] spiderwort (11) 7 years ago

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[–] Jes' Sayin' (5956) 2 years ago

Something tells me that a lot of workers in today's Amazon warehouses could probably relate in a way...

[–] Owlwise (1490) 2 years ago

"Not aged well" is like "dated" -- phrase so overused as to be meaningless, other than to indicate that the films in question don't conform in every way to what's popular right this very minute. Any story about real human beings, facing real human issues, remain forever timely & relevant. Yes, the clothing, the customs, the social mores, etc., may be very different—but that serves another purpose, i.e., opening a window onto the way people once viewed & experienced the world. And as I say, the human issues remain the same. Otherwise, why watch any older film? Why read any older novel? Why listen to any older music? Why look at any older art? Yet people find depth & meaning in those "dated" creations that supposedly "haven't aged well" every day.

[–] raymondoz2007 (2045) 2 years ago

many movies from the late 60's early 70's are more dated.

[–] Owlwise (1490) 2 years ago

And even then, it all depends on individual taste. For some, the most "dated" aspects are precisely what give them their charm. Every decade of film offers that window into the past, just as it was felt then. That's something current films about the 60s & 70s can never have, however worthy their other merits.

I grew up in the 60s & early 70s, so of course I'm powerfully bonded to those films. And while I can see why some aspects would be called dated—and in some cases genuinely are dated as far as being fixed in the amber of their moment—I can still appreciate & enjoy them simply for themselves, beyond nostalgia for my youth.

And there's also the fact that today's highly acclaimed films will undoubtedly be called dated a few decades down the line as well. That doesn't make them bad films, though.

[–] raymondoz2007 (2045) 2 years ago

Billy Jack

[–] Owlwise (1490) 2 years ago

Well, in that particular case, I can't argue. :)

[–] Redsfan001 (6004) 2 years ago

This is one of the 4 movies where I teared up.

Very moving and sad.