Where do you draw the line between classic and modern movies?

[darkwing_duck1]

I divide the ages up like this:

The Early Age (silent films)
The Studio Age (up till the late 40s)
The Star Age (up till the 70s)
The Director Age (70s)
The Hollywood Blockbuster/Franchise Age Part1 (80s)
The HB/F Age Part 2 (90s-now)

With some flexibility on dates this is workable - and interesting.

Yeah, the dates are a bit flexible, and there's some overlap, really. For example, there are elements of what I call the "directors' age" in our current blockbuster/franchise age, but the "gotta go see the most recent [director] film thing was really a 70s phenominon (here I'm thinking the films of Allen, Scorcese, et al, where the content of the pic was less important than who directed it). People today will follow directors to a certain extent, but usually only as an indication that the film will be to their liking, rather than a fascination with the director's technique, etc.

 

[Davros]

Like with cars, it takes 25 years to become classic.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I think the movies like The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, The Wild Bunch and Bonnie and Clyde were the heralds for the modern age. Taxi Driver would also fit in.

And yet, they were such early heralds that some video stores might be inclined to put them in the classics section.

References to alleged sex perversion (such as homosexuality) and STD's were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth.

I'd definately be down with that last part. I hate those scenes, although I seem to see them on TV more often than movies.

I think I've asked this before, but when did the Oscars stop having separate cinematography categories for black & white vs. color?

I'm not entirely sure where the line is but it's definately somewhere between the Hayes code ending in 1968 & the beginning of the blockbuster age with Jaws & Star Wars in 1975-77.

 

[auntiehill]

I'd say 1968-69 onward is what I'd consider the modern cinema.

It's not the end of the Hays code but a real turning point in the culture---IMHO, anyway.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I think I've asked this before, but when did the Oscars stop having separate cinematography categories for black & white vs. color?

It was briefly abolished in 1957, revived the following year, and permanently abolished in 1967.

 

[cardinal biggles]

^I wasn't aware they'd done away with the separate awards in 1957, but I did know Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was the last film to win an Oscar for B&W cinematography.

 

[scotpens]

I'm going to repeat myself and say the division should be the Hays Code. When the code was abandoned in 1968 it allowed movies to begin representing reality.

That's not altogether true. Warner Brothers in the 1930s, for example, was well-known for its social-realist crime dramas. Movies could certainly represent “reality” while adhering to Code restrictions.

For those unfamiliar with the code, it was the system the motion picture industry's censorship guidelines which governed the production of the movies released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It was named after its creator, Will H. Hays.

Will Hays was actually more of a frontman for the MPAA. He didn't write the Production Code, but was hired to be its chief enforcer. The code was created in 1930, but wasn't taken seriously by the industry until mid-1934 (which is why films from the early ’30s are called “pre-Code,” and why many films from that period contain risqué dialog and situations that wouldn't have been permitted just a couple of years later).

. . . I just did an essay on Some Like It Hot and how its gender bending themes really put the Code away once and for all, so indeed maybe 1959 is the official cut off. I'm not sure the Hayes Code itself can be the definitive answer because there are classics before its inception and after.

Some of the Code's more stringent guidelines were relaxed when Geoffrey Shurlock became head of the MPAA Production Code Administration in 1956. From then up until the adoption of the rating system, even though the Code was still technically in effect, it had less and less influence on the content of American films. Many movies in the 1960s carried the self-imposed advisory “Suggested for Mature Audiences.” And increasing numbers of films played on American theater screens without the MPAA seal of approval.

I find it fascinating -- and a bit puzzling -- that so many people here define movies as “classic” or “post-classic” (for lack of a better term) based on censorship restrictions. A modern preoccupation, perhaps?

 

[C.E. Evans]

For me, I define a classic as being any movie 25 years or older, so new movies keep being added to the list every year.

Now whether a classic is a great movie or a well-cooked turkey is another matter altogether, IMO...