The Evolution of Movies

The following is just my opinion, and nothing more-only opinion. I don't work for any movie people and I'm no academic or be all end all authority. This is only what I've observed.

1930's movies-came in two flavors:

A) Well contructed dramas that came from plays, books, or well constructed screenplays. Actors involved in these projects were selected by the director and followed the script carefully. Their continued employment depended on this fact.

B) A series of musical numbers, accented by dancing, loosely linked with a thin plot which linked the numbers together. Entertainers involved in these movies were vaudeville trained and excelled at acting, singing, and dancing.

1940's movies

C) Add in military movies, which under the careful hand of patriots, lauded the Americans and made villains out of the enemy.

1950's movies

A) Add in a new type of movie which questioned societal values. A good example would be Twelve Angry Men.

B) Inspired by the space race and red scare, there was a series of, mostly bad, sci fi movies. An example of a bad one would be The Wizard of Mars. An example of a good one would be The Day The Earth Stood Still.

C) Westerns were cheap and easy to make and were made in the hundreds.

1960's movies

A) In the mid 60's, musicals died. Sound of Music was an astounding success and 1968's Oliver was a blip on the radar, but very much death after that.

B) Dramas gave way to hippie movies (i.e. Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider) which folded in the societal questioning movies (Dirty Harry).

C) War movies were at their very best in the 60's. The Longest Day, Tora, Tora, Tora, The Green Berets and The Alamo are great examples. It's a pity that the end of the 60's saw the beginning a long slow descent.

D) Nudity moved from the shadows into the mainstream. Actresses now made nude scenes, the first mainstream nudity since before the self imposed Hollywood code imposed in 1934.

1970's

A) We are fortunate that Italian film makers cast Clint Eastwood in a series of spaghetti westerns. These movies have become classics. John Wayne, owning his own Batjac Productions, started a series of well made westerns in the 1960's which endured all through the 70's.

B) The mid 70's saw a new type of movie, which was the infancy of the blockbuster era. Jaws was the first blockbuster, followed late the next year with the surprise hit Star Wars (episode IV)

1980's

A) The blockbuster era took off. George Lucas made Star Wars sequels and started the Indiana Jones franchise. Spielberg had a gargantuan hit with E.T., which eventually led to a series of pretenders.

B) Nudity really peaked with the new teen comedy genre. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a hilarious, but very factual look at life in and out of an American High School. In the early seventies, nude scenes lasted anywhere from five to ten minutes in length, but were poorly filmed. Early 80's nude scenes were plentiful,mandatory in many movies, about a minute in length, but were excellently filmed. 1990, saw a self imposed ten second nude scene rule. Also, nude scenes severely diminished in quantity and quality.

1990's

A) Movies suddenly became gritty, graphic, and downright depressing. Movies became made when actors picked their projects, and scripts. Scripts were often dumbed down to fit the laziness of the actor. Actors prefer to play flawed people and the consumer was subjected to a cram down the throat process. Unfortunately, people bought into this.

B) Blockbusters pretty much became the rule of the movie making process as the average price of making many movies hit 100 million. George Lucas invented CGI and many movies depended on the studios owned by Lucas creating the effects used in movies.

21st Century

A) Movies became a series of stunts and eye popping effects linked by a loose or thin plot.

 

Maybe you should call this the "Descent of Flix"!

I think you nailed it pretty well: a slow slide from movies with plot and well developed charters with consequences on their actions in the film to mega-bang ups per minute without the characters or thin plot getting in the way.

 

there are a lot of great movies nowadays. better than those of the 90's and 80's and so on. You just have to leave most Hollywood crap and start seeing some foreign movies. Subtitles won't kill you



Cheers...

 

They do if you are blind, my best bud from college just hated foreign films in anything but German. He spoke and understood that language, but Japanese, Swedish, Finnish, French, Spanish, or Italian movies just pissed him off.

He was always leaning over, "what did he/she say?" Getting frustrated and telling me to "walk me out, I'll sit in the lobby and listen to the radio I have in my pocket. This was back in the "olden days" before we had MP3 players or iPods or all that fancy stuff of today.

When sound dubbing was used, sometimes he liked the movie but everybody else hated it 'cause the lips didn't cinq with the voices. Made for extremely hilarious viewing. He was trying to follow the story-line and wondering why everybody was cracking up!

 

"Foreign" movies are where real movie making is today. Euro movies are light years beyond Hollywood in terms of story, writing, and acting quality.
The kicker is, is that euro movies, at best, have one tenth the budget of Hollywood movies. Talk about getting more bang for your buck.

Asian movies, at least the ones I've seen offered, are violence soaked and stereotype all Asians as revenge bent martial artists. Hollywood movies, besides being overly reliant on CGI, are overly violent.

 

For the many reasons above that Lias and others posted-is why I rarely watch that garbage they put out in assemblyline fashion-that people are stupid enough to go and see--such as that friday the 13th crap that for some strange reason known but to----other than myself--keep being made and thrust through our chests-like fickly-lick vorhees-thrusting it's mach ete through some hapless teenagers skulls.

GIVE ME THE CLASSICS ANYTIME ANYDAY.

A VERY good quote from a brillient and well-lauded actor said: "Life is hard when your STUPID".

BTW-that quote was by Duke himself.

 

This is precisely what gets me, when you look at movies like the original King Kong and so on, you see what they managed to achieve in terms of effects and drawing you in with so little technology you begin to wonder whether the all singing all dancing effects are actually worth anything. I was talking to a trooper the other week who was telling me that old films are rubbish because they don't have SFX, he genuinely couldn't see why good acting, script and plot are essential to a good film but SFX are not.

European movies are interesting, the British movie industry occasionally chucks out a goodie and there are loads of interesting French and German films out there. As you say, with less money they have to produce a good quality film. Not that they always do, but they are usually interesting at least.

I take it you are referring to the Hong Kong style martial arts movies? I'm not sure they stereotype as such (they are generally either fantasy or about specific people rather than portraying all Asians as Hong Kong Fuey) but I take your point. They do however generally aim to entertain a specific group, they provide what their audience want and they are generally quite good at it. The same is true of Bollywood, a massively popular genre with the community it serves. I did a course on East Asian Film at uni and it flagged up some pretty interesting. Brotherhood of War (a Korean made movie about the Korean war) springs to mind, well worth watching.

That said, the idea of a blind guy going to see a movie with subtitles does strike me as, well, nuts. I can see why the feller was annoyed but, well...

 

Hey there bud, that blind guy could get more out of a movie from the dialogue, sound effects, music build up fades than you imagine. His very favorite was Ben Hur. I recorded it entirely on my reel to reel Aikai studio deck, in audio only and he would happily put on his Koss headphones and drift off into "old Rome" any day of the week. BTW, the foreign films we went to were "free" in college, at the college theater. We often went with our lady friends just for the company.


When we went to "see" a movie he sometimes got more out of it than I did. The subtitles are the only draw back for him in languages he doesn't speak, one of the reasons he just detests TV movies with subtitles. His wife isn't patient enough to read them to him at home, and he and I are now separated by about 600 miles.

 

Brazilian movies rock! You should check out "Cidade de Deus" from the guy who made "the constant gardener" or "Tropa d'Elite" or "Carandiru"...



Cheers...

 

Thanks Miguel. I forgot all about the Brazilian movies, but then I've only seen one. It starred Alice Braga and I very much enjoyed it. Do you know where I can find more Brazil movies?

There's a couple of computer places that have a good foreign movie section. I see euro movies, Japanese, Asian, and Mexican movies, but I haven't seen one Brazil movie in the foreign section.

 

I saw the constant gardner-and thought it was as boring as watching concrete dry. However, I have seen a few good flicks put out by the versions of hollywoodland-that are located South of the Border-and passed Mexicos Way.

Saw Schindlers List too-which I admit HAD a few moments but-it too sucked prune pits all day.

 

What? I know it's not action packed but Schindlers List is a fantastic film!

That's the problem with you youngsters Carl, if it isn't all action and adventure you get bored

 

Heh heh, thank you for the second sentence Stefan--I had a great laugh from it--and oh so true-as they say I look 15 or so years younger than I actually am ;-))

What I hated most aout S/L-is that too many people have bought into and hooked by the Schindler hoax. True the gu saved some Jews from being terminated-but at oh so such a high price. Schindler is nothing more than a War Profiteer-who preyed on some easy victims--"his" Jews. I sur ewish my good friend Anna was here to read about Schindler--Anna is a Concentration Camp survivor-and also a Jew who saw through the Schindler hoax. I don't use Jew-as a deragatory mentioning of that race of people ;-)) In fact, Anna does not mind if people use the shortened term to describe her.

Best regards--C.

 

I don't know, the people he saved seemed pretty greatful and he did a hell of a lot more than most. He also finished the war penniless which rather goes against him being a profiteer. The sabotage of weapons and spending of his fortune on bribes to keep people alive in the last months also speaks in his credit.

 

I mean, Schindler had to also maintain the impression that his factory wasn't "a haven". Or he'll find himself an SS prisoner...

 

Hi Stefan, what you say is true and I can't argue against some of it but--that guys deal that soured my opinions of him-as well with many Jewsih folks-including my friend Anna-was that he profited from saving "his" Jews. Now-if he wasn't going to profit from his Jews-one really has to wonder if he would have tried to save any of them to begin with. True-he paid bribes but-tht was also done from profits he might never have had-had he not had his Jewsaround. And speaking as someone who would be greatful to just be alive-if I were in the shoes of one of his Jews-I too would be greatful to survive-but knowing that, that still isn't right to make a profit trying to save human beings. ;-))

 

I see your point, particularly when it comes to the movie portrayal which suggests he realised early on that Jews were a cheap form of labour he could make use of and that he only later started 'saving' people. However it is clear that from the start he was against the misstreatment of Jews and as early as 1942 was actively protecting as many as he could, even going so far as to smuggle children from the ghetto to safety with Polish nuns.

So whether or not he initially was out for profit, he clearly quickly became dedicated to saving people, which is more than good enough for me.

 

At least he was better than Stauffenberg.




Cheers...

 

*explodes*

 

Well-said Stefan--and I couldn't agree with you more. I too am glad he saved those people--it's just that his reputation is permanently stained w/ me as well as with Ladies like Anna. To me-what good reputation he has-is not justified and is like someone going around and saying that they were a recipient of the Victoria Cross-when they clearly know thet were not.