badly dated
Thus not much cop.
As for the Drayton's masquerading as a convincing English couple when in fact they're johnny foreigner embassy staff of an unstated country!
I guess most films from 1956 will look dated to us now. I don't mind, it's part of its charm, and this is one of my favourite Hitchcock films. I like the part where J Stewart is walking along the empty Camden streets, not a car in sight!
What amused me is the scene when the plain woman with specs is talking in the phone box at the airport, seemingly right on the apron, just after Doris and Jimmy have landed. In reality you'd not be able to hear a thing for jet engine noise.
There are movies that seem much less dated from years earlier, like Double Indemnity. Or there's a Jimmy Stewart film from the same vintage, Anatomy of a Murder.
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I love Double Indemnity! Also the 1980's version 'Body Heat'.
The only thing dated about DI is the clothing and cars.
All movies "date", since they reflect the time they were made. Even films set in earlier periods -- costume dramas, Biblical epics, westerns, etc. -- date in a way, since they also reflect the attitudes or beliefs of the times they were made in.
I once ran across someone on another board who said he won't watch films more than five years old because after that they're completely dated! When I pointed out that this means that in five years he'll hate the current films he likes, he happily agreed. That's really being picky (although consistent).
"Dating" can be a valid observation but to me shouldn't be much of a criticism. I just enjoy a film for what it is, including its dated elements.
I don't find The Man Who Knew Too Much to be all that dated, beyond the obvious outward trappings (cars, clothes, etc., as you said about Double Indemnity), and of course "French Morocco" ceased to exist right around the time this film came out. I think DI is a bit more dated, especially in some of its dialogue. But then when he begins dictating his story at the beginning, Fred MacMurray gives the year as 1938, so the film essentially dates itself, which helps...though it still feels more 40s to me.
All movies "date", since they reflect the time they were made. Even films set in earlier periods -- costume dramas, Biblical epics, westerns, etc. -- date in a way, since they also reflect the attitudes or beliefs of the times they were made in.
Yes, but wouldn't you have to agree that some movies suffer more from their "dating" than others? I mean, The Godfather Part II and Zardoz were both released in 1974, but surely the latter is more dated, agreed? (I'm using "dated" to be something close to the antonym of "was made in an earlier cultural and artistic era, but still holds up surprisingly well".)
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Yes, of course movies "date" to different degrees. I used the example of this film vs. Double Indemnity, which I said was a bit more dated.
But I don't think your analogy of The Godfather Part II vs. Zardoz is an apt one, though I understand what you're getting at. Zardoz was set 300 years in a future that already seems quaintly outmoded. Any film (or book) that attempts to conjure the future is always problematic, since they inevitably project elements of the present into their imagined future, and things seldom develop so linearly. (I saw the film only once, decades ago, and didn't particularly like it.)
By contrast, TGPT is of course a period piece, set in the past (1958-1960, plus flashbacks), and its script and attitudes largely reflect the era in which it was set. It was dealing with known quantities, if you will, so it really can't date much, and it holds up perfectly well.
The only time-related problem with the first two Godfather movies is that the years of certain events don't mesh or add up. For example, at the Senate hearings in Part II Michael is asked if he played a role in the murders of the heads of the five families in New York in 1950 -- the massacre we see at the end of the first film. But in the original Godfather, the cars seen in the final part of the movie, before and during the killings and their aftermath, mostly date from the mid-50s. Certain other temporal elements don't quite jibe, especially in Part II, including the flashbacks. But this isn't the same as either film being "dated".
Yes, of course movies "date" to different degrees. I used the example of this film vs. Double Indemnity, which I said was a bit more dated.
You do realize I brought up Double Indemnity, as an example of a film that was much less dated?
The only time-related problem with the first two Godfather movies is that the years of certain events don't mesh or add up. For example, at the Senate hearings in Part II Michael is asked if he played a role in the murders of the heads of the five families in New York in 1950 -- the massacre we see at the end of the first film. But in the original Godfather, the cars seen in the final part of the movie, before and during the killings and their aftermath, mostly date from the mid-50s. Certain other temporal elements don't quite jibe, especially in Part II, including the flashbacks. But this isn't the same as either film being "dated".
Agreed, and I think they did especially well in not letting '70s hairstyles infect the period they were showing, in contrast to many other "period" films that (as you alluded to upthread) start, by a decade or two after they were released, to conjure up both the era in which they are set and the era in which they were made.
But so fundamentally, where do you think TMWKTM lies on the spectrum? I gather you think it is not particularly dated for its age? I do think it appears to have "aged poorly".
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You do realize I brought up Double Indemnity, as an example of a film that was much less dated?
Yes, I realize that. I can read. I was disagreeing. I think it's dated more. My comment was actually directed more at poster SueBee55, who said the only thing that had dated in DI were the cars and clothes. I simply said I think it's dated a bit more than that, but that since the film itself says it's 1938, this doesn't matter too much.
Yes, the Godfather movies were pretty faithful to their period in keeping out modern styles. Contrast this with The Way We Were (1973), where, curiously, the women's hairstyles were correct to the 30s, 40s and 50s but the men's were all very 70s. Usually hair works the other way round: men's styles are correct but women's are contemporary to when the film was made.
I have no idea where I'd put TMWKTM on the "dated" spectrum, or even what that spectrum may be. Obviously it's contemporary to its time, but then except for period films all movies take place in their own era, and have in consequence unavoidably dated in some sense or to some degree. It's more a subjective question than one that can be answered strictly on the facts: does it feel dated?
To me, the plot and basic situations in TMWKTM seem perfectly reasonable today. You expect outward trappings like cars, clothes and the like to be different, but generally I just accept these without much thought as they're simply part of the fabric of the time the film was made and took place. Normally you get into a movie regardless of its age simply because of the story, and adjust your expectations and assessments to the era in which it was made.
In many ways, Rear Window has dated more, with among other things the complete lack of air conditioning that helps set up and drive the plot of that film. share
I think it's dated a bit more than that, but that since the film itself says it's 1938, this doesn't matter too much.
This comment made me think you have a different idea of what "dated" means than I do, although other remarks later in your post seem closer. I certainly don't mean "you can tell it's not occurring in the present day". As you say, if a movie was made in 1938, set in 1938, and is realistic to that time, that's not a problem.
To me, "dated" is more about attitudes and social norms that at the time caused elements to be put in the movie that were pretty much invisible to those who made and watched the film at the time, but which become more and more obvious with time and which make the movie less enjoyable or even offensive. Some of the most blatant examples would be the portrayal of nonwhite people as inferior, and often comic in their inferiority. (Note that this is distinct from showing them as having a lower social and economic status, something that was simply factual for that time, but while avoiding endorsement of or indifference to that lower status and instead portraying their humanity fully.)
But it can also be something as relatively innocuous as changing tastes regarding conventions of cinematic language. The plea during the end credits of Witness for the Prosecution to audience members to please not spoil the ending for those arriving for the next showing literally made my wife and me laugh out loud, it came across as so cheesy. Another element is the kind of music used in movies decades ago. I often read critics complaining about overly loud and bombastic scores in new releases; but generally, those are more artfully integrated (at least to my 21st century ear) than are a lot of the scores to films made a half century or more ago. When some dramatic dialogue was stated, a massive swell of orchestral music would fire up, zero to sixty in nothing flat. Almost like the dramatic equivalent of a laugh track, and it is very jarring to modern sensibilities.
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I completely agree with you that many of the attitudes, especially toward non-white races, in many older films are dated. That goes without saying.
Less controversially, much of the dialogue -- slang terms, "street talk", that sort of thing -- plainly dates many films. You hear expressions used in a 1940s film, say, that today seem outmoded, corny, unintentionally funny.
My point is that things like this have to be taken and understood in the context of their time. You can't make a movie for the ages, one that never seems "old", simply because life moves on and language, attitudes, beliefs change. You have to cut movies some slack here. Remember, the same criticisms leveled today at films fifty years old will be leveled fifty years from now at today's films.
Most movies don't specifically date themselves (other than period pieces). Double Indemnity was made in 1944 but was said to take place in 1938 so that the war didn't have an impact on the film's plot (e.g., why wasn't Fred MacMurray in the Army?). But most films don't make such statements or indications.
Anyway, the attitudes of an old film that may overtly date it by today's standards (racism, sexism, etc., or references to contemporary events) are things to be understood in their context. They're dated, but they don't necessarily date the film in the sense that they rob it of its entertainment worth or any redeeming values. That's why I say it's more a feeling than a specific list of facts that makes a film feel dated to me. Outmoded attitudes play a part in this, but don't necessarily render a film as a whole "dated".
I don't agree with you about music. My ear crosses the 20th and 21st centuries and I happen to be a great fan of film music from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, and am a collector of soundtracks from such films. The composers who worked in Hollywood in those years were brilliant and innovative and contributed enormously to films. I can't say enough positive about them. Of course, like any other element of a film, there are many scores one doesn't like or that don't work, but in the main I find most classic film music highly enjoyable and not the least bit intrusive at all.
I've heard a similar criticism to yours, about the music swelling up and so on, from younger people, usually with little knowledge of, no sense about and certainly no appreciation for older films. All I can say in such cases is, to each his own. I'm always disturbed by people who simply reject or dismiss older films because they think what's around today is some sort of artistic nirvana, indisputably superior to all that came before and the only valid or artistically sound method of expression -- not just in music but in every aspect. I like much modern film music too, but as someone who grew up in the second half of the 20th century I have a deeper understanding of and am totally at ease with the truly classic scores of old. In my view, film music has never equaled what we had when Hollywood was at its height. Hundreds of magnificent scores by (I have to re-use the word) brilliant composers. Far too much music of today is unnoticeable -- high-class elevator music.
Since I don't know you or your tastes I can't say precisely what your general attitudes about music are, but it seems you really don't like or appreciate older film music. As I said, it's a matter of taste. I just couldn't disagree with you more. It's too bad, because you really don't know what you're missing.
Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alex North, Alfred Newman, Hugo Friedhofer, Victor Young, Franz Waxman, Henry Mancini, Ernest Gold, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, David Raksin, Leith Stevens...scores [sic] of others, composers of major films and minor ones, who made so many good films great, and bad films better, by their work. To me, music has often made the difference between loving a film and just liking it. In fact it may be the single most important aspect of film to me. And nothing has ever been as good as the classic scores of those 40 or so years.
Guess that makes me "dated"!
It might indeed, but that might mean nothing more than "tastes change".
I've heard a similar criticism to yours, about the music swelling up and so on, from younger people, usually with little knowledge of, no sense about and certainly no appreciation for older films.
I'd like to think that doesn't apply to me. I tend on average to like the cinema of the last 40-50 years more than that which came before it, but there are notable exceptions like the aforementioned Double Indemnity, and silent classics like Earth and The Passion of Joan of Arc.
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Well, tastes change, but tastes are always different even contemporaneously. Styles evolve as well. I wouldn't want things to stand still, otherwise we'd still be watching nickelodeons.
My preferences certainly skew to pre-1980 cinema. That doesn't mean I think every film before that is some great lost classic, nor that there hasn't been anything good or enjoyable made since. But the notion of marketing has never been more central to they kind of movies that get made today. Does the world really need half a dozen installments of X-Men, Spiderman, Transformers and the rest? Far too much of what gets produced today is just vacuous eye candy and repetitions on the same worn-out themes. I have no problem with such films in themselves, but there is more to film than brainless CGI and gross-out "comedy", and far too much time, effort and money is wasted on such stuff.
Looking over the past 35 years, I think there were very few really great films made in the 80s, as opposed to the 90s, when there were a lot of great movies made. So far the 21st century has been a mixed bag. By contrast, there are innumerable truly great or at least memorable films from each of the preceding decades. I'm speaking in all cases about a general consensus about the industry and its output. Certainly individual opinions will vary.
But overall I dislike dividing films along some arbitrary dateline. Unfortunately far too often I run across people who rather mindlessly simply refuse to watch anything older than 10 or at most 20 years (which now means only back to 1995) because they don't like "old movies", lumping most of the history of world cinema into one big, discarded heap. They cite the music, acting styles, black & white, outmoded language, technology and styles, and the rest, yet by their own admission have little exposure to such films. But their minds are so made up that even showing them the wealth of older films serves little purpose. (And of course there are also some people who resolutely dislike and refuse to see newer films, but since recent films are by definition kind of inescapable these are comparatively few in number. I also know people who, for example, love 40s films but not 50s, or silents but not sound. There are many permutations of tolerance.)
The fact that you've seen only seven Hitchcock films and can cite (so far) only a couple of older films that you like makes it apparent you've had relatively little exposure to older movies. At least you seem willing to watch some, unlike some people. But if everyone simply rejected out of hand films from one era we'd learn nothing and be cutting ourselves off from vast amounts of our cultural heritage, all for -- bluntly -- stupid reasons. I was born decades after the silent era but that doesn't stop me from watching, enjoying and appreciating silent films (though like anything else I have my likes and dislikes).
My point is that for anyone to simply broadly dismiss films, or aspects of films, from another day says more about the limitations and ignorance of the person holding such uninformed opinions than it does about the films he's dissing. (And no, I'm not speaking about you, because you show a willingness to watch older films. But I still think you need more exposure to them and perhaps a more receptive mind to the styles and substance of them. I also suspect you'd have no problem seeing more such films.)
I would argue that seven Hitchcock films, while not a massive number, is not so few as to use that qualifier "only", especially given that I was pretty lukewarm on the first few I saw. Do you think most people born after Hitch's heyday have seen more than that? And I've seen most of those in the past couple years or so: until I was in my thirties, I don't think I had seen any of his films though I had of course heard of him (and I watched quite a few episodes of his TV show, which I did really like).
My sense of the '80s is that you're right that it didn't have the volume of high quality movies that other decades did. However, when I look at my own rankings (which you can see for yourself, as they are linked in my sig), I see that four of my top 20 were from the '80s, vs. only two from the '70s (and six from the '90s, one from the '40s, one from the '60s, and six from 2000 or later, including five of my top nine). However, none of those four '80s movies were in my top ten.
If we agree that the '70s an undeniably great decade for cinema but leave it out of the discussion (since in any case I think a lot of people would say it belongs with "modern" movies due to the ability to have nudity, curse words, etc.), here are my top 20 favorites from before 1970:
Double Indemnity
The Manchurian Candidate
Persona
Playtime
Citizen Kane
Earth
Le Samourai
John and Mary
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Jules et Jim
Targets
Rosemary's Baby
The Best Man
8 1/2
Dr. Strangelove
Ikiru
Yojimbo
Seconds
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
The Magnificent Ambersons
Hollywood in the '50s seems like a dead patch for my tastes for sure. Rear Window is the only Hollywood film from that era to make my top 250 (along with a couple Kurosawa and Bergman films), though I did also quite like the 1959 Jimmy Stewart film Anatomy of a Murder.
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As I mentioned on the other thread where you told which Hitchcock films you've seen (and you've seen some of his major ones), seven constitutes only about 13% of his total output.
We seem to share a liking for Kurosawa, one of my favorites. He directed 32 films. Would you consider someone informed about his output if they seen only four of those films (roughly 13%)?
I've occasionally thought about posting rankings of my favorite films but have never been able to do so, or to limit myself to a small number, as many people can. To the extent I do any such thing I tend to break the list up into genres, actors, directors, foreign, by decade, etc. Admittedly this allows me to cheat by getting more in.
I've seen all 20 of your favorites of course, but I'm not sure how many I would put on a similar list; again, it might depend on whether the list is limited to a rigid number. I can say that among your films, I most enjoy (in no particular order) Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, The Best Man, Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and Double Indemnity. I really like Targets but am not sure I'd rank it among a top 20 or even 50, and the same would apply to some others, such as Ikiru. Others would never make my list of favorites. Some I enjoy watching (The Passion of Joan of Arc), others I just don't care much about (Persona, John and Mary).
In my opinion the greatest ("best") American film ever made is William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives. It's also one of my favorite films. But I also like to dig into obscure films, directors or others to find underrated or hidden gems, especially among older foreign films. A film doesn't have to have a reputation to be good, worthwhile, or "meaningful", or to become a personal favorite. Normally I tend to shy away from things that receive too much praise or attention and seek out lesser-known films.
Since you so like Double Indemnity, how many other Billy Wilder films have you seen? Without getting into lists, his 1951 film Ace in the Hole ranks as one of my three or so favorite films of all. But I like most (not all) of his films from 1943 through 1961, and a few are among my favorites.
I like many of the films of directors like Howard Hawks, John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler as well as such "studio" directors (as though that were a sign of condemnation) such as Michael Curtiz, Henry King, Henry Hathaway and several others, but this is just a small selection. Among foreign directors my faves include Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Sergei Eisenstein and Michael Powell. On the other hand, I've never much cared for the output of some directors such as Carol Reed, Fellini, Rosselini, or Bergman, with a couple of exceptions each. All this is just a smattering of names, hardly exclusive. Tarantino and Scorsese are among my favorites today.
This is such a wide-ranging subject that I have to call a halt, disjointed as it is, because I could write reams on it. I'll close this post by saying that while I understand that your tastes mostly preclude any 50s films, I don't get the impression that you've seen many or, perhaps, given them a fair chance. You mentioned Anatomy of a Murder (which I would put as one of my top ten), and Rear Window (which I like but wouldn't elevate that high), but in this we're 180° apart, because I find the 50s a fascinating and innovative decade cinematically, with many excellent, breakthrough films. Granted these are the movies I grew up with, and since you appear to be about 25 years or so younger than me we'd have different life experiences that shape and color our preferences. Still, I can find merit in many films of all eras and types, whether from the 1890s or 2010s. I can also find lots of films from every era I don't especially like.
Point being, writing off pretty much every film of a particular decade (or genre or whatever), and in effect hunkering down and pronouncing your tastes limited and unchangeable, is not conducive to appreciating or understanding films. You not only have to see many different, and different kinds of, films. You have to allow yourself to be open, receptive to, honest and objective about films which, superficially, you may lump together as things you don't like. Like our mothers used to say when we wouldn't eat some new food on our plate, how do you know you don't like it if you haven't tried it?
Besides, all 50s films aren't alike simply by virtue of the calendar, any more than all 20s or 70s or 90s or 2010s films are all alike.
Sure, of course not. You seem to take me as saying that I, a priori, avoid seeing films from the 1950s, or rate them poorly, because of their production date. This is not true at all. It's just a retrospective observation that as I have watched movies from various eras, using lists like the Sight and Sound polls to guide me, the ones I've rated highly have tended less to be from that decade than from most others. That, and a corollary observation that many of the movies I've found disappointing and overrated came from that decade as well: Sunset Blvd. and On the Waterfront are two examples that come to mind.
On Billy Wilder: strangely, I've yet to find another of his films that I find remotely as pleasurable as Double Indemnity. I've only seen a few (there's only so much time when you have four kids and like to read a lot, play tennis, not to mention keep up with quality TV and so many other films coming out each year) but they have all been duds by comparison (not terrible, but very mediocre): The Apartment, Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17, and Witness for the Prosecution.
I do think it's interesting that you are willing to say you don't much like Ingmar Bergman's work (another case where I've only seen a small percentage of his filmography, but have really loved everything I have seen), even though he has such a towering reputation. Why is Hitchcock more sacrosanct than Bergman?
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I did take your earlier statements as inferring you hadn't seen many 50s films. I'm happy you clarified this point for me.
I tend to distrust -- or better, let's say I tend to take with a barrel of salt -- lists compiled by self-regardant (to quote T.E. Lawrence, about himself) film publications -- even when I read things I may agree with. I don't recall all top ten titles in their most recent survey but Sight and Sound's list included a western I've always found thuddingly overrated and filled with flaws that destroy its stronger parts, John Ford's The Searchers.
They included Ozu's Tokyo Story (no argument) but ignore Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, which in 1989 the Japanese film publication Kinema Jumpo ranked (based on its poll of scores of Japanese film scholars and critics) as the greatest Japanese film of all time in its "Top 100" list. (Tokyo Story came second, with fewer than half Seven Samurai's votes.) So obviously there's not only an enormous amount of subjectivity involved, but I believe in many cases a conscious effort on the part of our more pretentious scholars to appear more learned by being more obscure.
I don't agree with your assessment of Sunset Boulevard but I was pleased to read your reaction to On the Waterfront. Now, I like that film as entertainment, but I have never understood the depth or extent of unalloyed critical praise it has received, in 1954 and down the years. It's powerful in its way, but at its core it's a crashingly predictable story, and even from a technical view I've always found it surprisingly weak, almost cheap looking, just physically badly put together. (This may have been deliberate, to give it a "raw" feel, though I never read any such thing.) I would not call it disappointing particularly, but the unassailable reputation it's been imbued with by so many I find baffling.
I confess to some disappointment with your terming the Wilder films you mentioned "mediocre". I find those quite enjoyable, though at different levels per my own tastes. The one where I do have some issues is Stalag 17, where -- guess what? -- it's the innumerable plot holes that to my mind do much of it in. Like Hitchcock, Wilder is a good enough director that most of these aren't readily apparent until you think about them afterward. I still find it an enjoyable film to watch but I have my issues.
I still highly commend Ace in the Hole to you. It was Wilder's favorite among his films, in part I think because it was his first commercial failure and he felt protective of it, but the dialogue is the best he ever wrote and the story remorseless and relentlessly cynical. I can understand why it flopped in 1951: there are no heroes, even no truly sympathetic characters, it shows a nasty side to people in general and American society in particular (right-wing critics lambasted it as anti-American!), it offers the viewer no way out. Today it's generally considered a masterpiece and decades ahead of its time. I think you might like that one better than the others you've seen. Worth seeing anyway. Oh, and since you like Double Indemnity, one of Wilder's in-joke references in Ace harks back to DI. (It also has one of the same actors, Porter Hall, who in DI played the guy from Medford, Oregon who almost identifies Fred MacMurray from the rear of the train.)
I don't think Hitchcock is more "sacrosanct" than Bergman. I don't think anyone is sacrosanct at all, which is kind of the point we've been making in our discussions. I can appreciate someone's talent, the quality of his work, and still not care much for it. I've seen probably 60 or so percent of his films and I just don't care for his style of filmmaking. I can see and appreciate the talent; I understand his purposes; but his films mostly don't interest or involve me in the slightest. Too slow, remote, often relentless in the sameness of their atmosphere, even story. Even Bergman (a very funny and gentle man in real life it seems) would occasionally joke about his inability to "lighten up", not just in terms of subject matter but of approach. I must own 3000 or more movies (my wife insists it's more like 5000!) and in all those I own only I believe four Bergmans, all from the 50s: Secrets of Women, Summer of Monika, The Seventh Seal and The Magician. Perhaps my tastes are too literal for Bergman. Yet the films from 1930s and 40s Sweden that I've seen (all pre-Bergman) I mostly enjoyed. So it's the filmmaker, or rather his works, not their nation of origin, that don't appeal to me.
Agreed, well said.
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