why are the 70's considered the high art of cinema? That makes me dismiss what he says because basically what the 70's brought was a focus on mediocrity and the most banal stories, as well as jump cuts and close ups to banal actions that don't convey the passage of time or an artistic mood but it makes it look like characters teleport in time and disrupt the illusion of film.
Having said that, I think film as an art form is dead, it really died in the late 60's and it's just been a steady decline ever since. I'm not sure exactly what is his point, as far as the future goes, I see film like the technology industry when the public is ravenously expecting the new model to make them obliterate the old one. Wasn't just a decade ago that Lord Of The Rings was the be all and end all of filmmaking? Who even remembers them now? Avatar is unwatchable, it is so boring. Infinity War will just reach an expiration date in about 6 or 12 months, never to be remembered again. It is disposable cinema. The funny thing is that, serious films are also disposable. Moonlight?? Who cares. Who remembers Crash? Like I said, film has been on a steady decline for 40 years, it's not a recent thing.
I am however not bitter at all, as a matter of fact, I am enjoying films now more than ever, devoting all my attention to the silent period up until the 1960's. Of course, not all movies were good, but the ones who were still tower over everything.
Us film lovers need to focus on those because they are in real peril, from deteriorating negatives to revisionist digital color timing, they are being endangered.
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FilmBuff (6857)
6 years ago
It's interesting to see how the '70s have gone from being considered the nadir of filmmaking to now being held up as the golden era. I can certainly appreciate a lot of films from the era, but I have to do so with an open mind, ignoring so much that would make a film almost laughably bad if not dismissed in an attempt to take the film in context or view it without irony.
The silent era, and the pre-code era, gave us some of the best films we will likely ever have. I find that by the end of the '40s you start to see a lot less great film, with obvious exceptions, and by the late '50s the magic is gone.
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LetThemEatCake (2717)
6 years ago
I agree completely, usually it is a very vocal minority of fanboys who love machismo and love all that violence in the 70's films, they usually study film or are fanatics and yet they do not know shit. They eventually went on to become Fincher, Nolan, Tarantino, etc and just destroy film for everyone.
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FilmBuff (6857)
6 years ago
I would not go that far. I think Tarantino's work is often brilliant, and am awfully excited for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The Hateful 8 was the first film he's made that I disliked, although Kill Bill 2 didn't do much for me. Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, is among my favorite films of all time. Fincher, too, has made some great stuff, and I really liked a couple of Nolan's films, especially Interstellar.
I definitely don't hate new films, and I think plenty of great stuff is being made, it's more that I think the method of movie-making that ended in the late '40s/ early '50s was so different from what we get today, and in so many ways better. But I still enjoy modern film, too. It's almost like two different artforms. There was a magic to the silver screen, and an understated elegance that has been lost.
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Arghhhh (804)
6 years ago
Fincer, Nolan and Tarantino 'destroyed' film for *everyone*.
But presumably not for the millions of people that like films by these directors?
So what you really mean is that they made films that you, personally, don't like...
I love films from most eras but if you really think film making hit its peak in the 60s, when the acting was woodier than Woody Allen at a family reunion, you're living in a fantasy land.
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LetThemEatCake (2717)
6 years ago
the acting was not wooden, they knew how to act way better than now.
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Arghhhh (804)
6 years ago
This simply isn't true. Many of the famous leads from the time were great actors but it is very noticeable in older movies how terrible the acting is for minor/incidental parts. Another issue with older movies is the music: mawkish strings accompanying every moment of drama is the older movies equivalent of bad CGI.
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LetThemEatCake (2717)
6 years ago
nothing can be further from the truth, the golden age actors knew how to act for the camera, how to convey, less is way, way more. Today you have Charlotte Gainsbourg being degraded in Antichrist for example, that is not acting, it's degradation, and that is sadly the norm.
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Arghhhh (804)
6 years ago
You watch any movie made before 1969 and you'll often find actors who aren't the principals acting like lumps of mahogany. I like old school acting but you can see, even with the same film, massive variation in ability.
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LetThemEatCake (2717)
6 years ago
I've actually never noticed that, when I was an ignorant I would think the old lady in Bride Of Frankenstein was bad acting but now I know way much better and realize that she's actually perfect.
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Arghhhh (804)
6 years ago
Well it's unfortunate but it's there. I just don't they cared too much back then if somebody with only a few lines delivered them poorly.
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Satan2016 (23977)
6 years ago
Talkies were the first nail in film's coffin. Nothing beats hearing the score live from a piano! Fake color film killed film dead, dead, dead!
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