So, each of the following movie videos was created 35 years after the following selection.
Tom Hanks in News of The World (2020)
Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider (1985)
Roy Rogers in North of The Great Divide (1950
Cecil B. DeMille's The Girl of The Golden West (1915)
So the dilemma here imho, is that for the better part of a century, each generation that came up watching movies, when they'd watch the older generations' movies, had pronounced & obvious esthetic visual evidence, that indicated like a pictorial timestamp how vintage what they were watching was.
However, for the 1st time in the artform's existence, we're now into a generation that is coming up watching 35-40 year old films, that photographically speaking are virtually indistinguishable from ones being made now, as the 1980s was something of a zenith in photographic technology (Unless you're talking about VFX) which finally succeeded in making movies that look fully photorealistic... an accomplishment we have not much improved upon, because there isn't anything to improve when it looks real. Real looking is real looking, no matter the year.
The result is that last year Tom Hardy portrayed Al Capone in a movie, & 33 years earlier, Robert Deniro portrayed him, & to someone who knew nothing of either of these actors or films, you essentially couldn't tell which came 1st. This creates a context issue imho. Its much harder to refrain from unduly placing the expectations of modern sensibilities upon a piece of art, when it is comparatively identical in many ways to modern art, & to people who might not be versed in that art's history, the effect might be even more so
From hereafter it might always be this way, much longer maybe than it ever had where it wasn't. I feel like I had a luxury of perspective that these newer generations are not going to have with old movies, & it might make movies struggle harder to withstand the test of time, perhaps?
For example, a young viewer today might have no context for the social dynamics in a movie like Tom Hank's Philadelphia, & could easily misread quite a lot there, for having no marker that reminds them, THIS IS OLD. I noticed this when watching a young person view Rain Man, & when they remarked "It's almost as if no one even knew what Autism was" & I had to say "Yeah, they kind of didn't", not until this movie put it on the cultural map, which in some ways was a blessing, but in others, kind of put a stigma on the spectrum that made everyone think all autism was like Dustin Hoffman's character.
Are we going to have a harder time with context, because the movies are so indistinguishably similar to the older generations now?
Tom Hanks in News of The World (2020)
Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider (1985)
Roy Rogers in North of The Great Divide (1950
Cecil B. DeMille's The Girl of The Golden West (1915)
So the dilemma here imho, is that for the better part of a century, each generation that came up watching movies, when they'd watch the older generations' movies, had pronounced & obvious esthetic visual evidence, that indicated like a pictorial timestamp how vintage what they were watching was.
However, for the 1st time in the artform's existence, we're now into a generation that is coming up watching 35-40 year old films, that photographically speaking are virtually indistinguishable from ones being made now, as the 1980s was something of a zenith in photographic technology (Unless you're talking about VFX) which finally succeeded in making movies that look fully photorealistic... an accomplishment we have not much improved upon, because there isn't anything to improve when it looks real. Real looking is real looking, no matter the year.
The result is that last year Tom Hardy portrayed Al Capone in a movie, & 33 years earlier, Robert Deniro portrayed him, & to someone who knew nothing of either of these actors or films, you essentially couldn't tell which came 1st. This creates a context issue imho. Its much harder to refrain from unduly placing the expectations of modern sensibilities upon a piece of art, when it is comparatively identical in many ways to modern art, & to people who might not be versed in that art's history, the effect might be even more so
From hereafter it might always be this way, much longer maybe than it ever had where it wasn't. I feel like I had a luxury of perspective that these newer generations are not going to have with old movies, & it might make movies struggle harder to withstand the test of time, perhaps?
For example, a young viewer today might have no context for the social dynamics in a movie like Tom Hank's Philadelphia, & could easily misread quite a lot there, for having no marker that reminds them, THIS IS OLD. I noticed this when watching a young person view Rain Man, & when they remarked "It's almost as if no one even knew what Autism was" & I had to say "Yeah, they kind of didn't", not until this movie put it on the cultural map, which in some ways was a blessing, but in others, kind of put a stigma on the spectrum that made everyone think all autism was like Dustin Hoffman's character.
Are we going to have a harder time with context, because the movies are so indistinguishably similar to the older generations now?
I do know what you mean though and I've been frustrated with that kind of thing too. It gets even worse when they try to be historically accurate and only light the scenes via candlelight or other dim lighting. Done right, it can add to the atmosphere, but if the scene is then made too dark, it can be frustrating.
