Younger people and older films

Found this interesting article recently:

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/14/entertainment/la-ca-film-novelty-20120715

Do you agree with this and if so, what are some reasons for the younger generation shunning "older" films?

I think it's sad that people of my generation have no appreciation for classic cinema.

Whenever I talk to them about a good movie made a long time ago, they usually say "What's that?"

;__;

I don't know I guess if they were how I used to be I couldn't find a movie interesting if it was in black and white. But I grew out of it.

I like older movies now but I used to not be that way.

Classics like The Good The Bad And The Ugly or Its A Wonderful Life they haven't seen.

If they have seen them, they'll say "It was boring."

Because, don't you know, if a movie doesn't have a shootout or a sex scene every ten minutes, then it must be a bad movie.

Sometimes the older limitations on movies and TV shows just form a barrier to younger generations. I know i've always categorically ignored Star Trek The Original Series despite enjoying Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Voyager, simply because so much of it feels low-rent and cheesy, while the 25-20 years since TNG and 15-10 years since Voyager just age much better. The "low rent" barrier also applies to almost any anime that predates Dragon Ball and anime of its time. No matter how good it was for its time, the vast changes in production values raise a barrier to entry.

In the case of a lot of older movies, the impositions of The Hayes Code can make almost everything feel "kiddie" to a certain extent (this isn't applying to me, but could apply to others. I'm pure Periphery Demographic for a lot of kids stuff, and so don't mind a lot of basic censoring as long as it doesn't actively impede the plot), although there are certain movies firmly from that era that are still quite bold, like Night Of The Hunter.

It really just depends on the movie, though.

edited 9th Jan '14 2:55:46 PM by Ogodei

Christ, man. It is really, truly depressing.

Although I am in a film class at school, and the people in there generally like what they see. But then again, most of the people there are smart. In fact, most people I know like old films, but as I said, they're smart.

So I suppose that the smarter people among us will continue to watch the good old stuff.

With anime, I find I like the older 1970s stuff better because it simply has a better art style. And some of that stuff is better animated than anime these days. It isn't all Speed Racer (and I do like Speed Racer).

edited 9th Jan '14 3:16:03 PM by Aldo930

What about Lupin III? A good chunk of the series and (some of) the movies held well in the minds of younger people (or adults paying homage/referencing it like Lupe Fiasco) in this generation.

Every generation has its problems with things of the past. Different values, for starters. Different technologies and narrative devices/characters are also part of the reasons.

However, like in every generation, not everybody is the same and there are lots of people who like different stuff. And that will become certainly true as they themselves get older.

edited 9th Jan '14 3:35:42 PM by Quag15

Saban Entertainment managed to hoodwink a lot of kids, all over the world, into watching old anime. They translated quite a lot of shows from the early 70s. In several countries they're still remembered as part of their nostalgia for the 90s and early 2000s.

edited 9th Jan '14 3:42:35 PM by Aldo930

I like old movies. My mom has shown me a bunch of stuff from the 30s and 40s, and I keep trying to set time aside to watch Citizen Kane and some of the Universal Horror films.

There does come a point, though, when watching old movies (or playing old games, or watching DBZ reruns) becomes more a chore than a memorable way to spend an evening.

I love Singin in the Rain and Our Man Godfrey, but the other movies starring those leads are almost unwatchable (Gene Kelly is remembered for three movies, which is impressive, but only two of those are any good.) Same for westerns: How much time does Clint Eastwood waste just glaring at people and stomping around like a macho prick? ("There's two kinds of people: Those who have a gun, and those who dig!") Hitchcock film were plainly meant to be treated as "events" which people could thrillingly discuss later. Last-phase Hitchcock (i.e. not including Frenzy, Suspicion and Psycho) were by-the-numbers, commercial filler by his own admission.

The values at work are something else again.

I never got around to seeing it, as you can tell, but you're right.

edited 9th Jan '14 3:47:07 PM by johnnyfog

I'm glad I'm a film student; my classmates love this kind of stuff.

Hey, The Birds is great.

Values Dissonance is what censorship is for. Why do you think we have the Censored Eleven?

Not the KKK! I mean milder morals like gender-dynamics, stuff like that.

Wouldn't know how to deal with that.

Then again, I have no idea how widespread sexism was in the fiction of the 50s, 60s and 70s... It does turn my head to see that women portrayed as smarter than men, as is common in sitcoms, was meant to be funny - a reversal of the role expected at the time.

Yet another reason why the Addamses were the most progressive family on television.

With some of the sexism - i.e., a character makes sexist remarks - it can be rationalized as just the character. But if it goes deeper...well, then it goes into different territory.

(Speaking of which... With TV shows, well, one or two overly dated episodes does not detract from the rest of the show being good.)

edited 9th Jan '14 5:46:18 PM by Aldo930

I think the article is out in the weeds and giving too little or too much credit to any one generation. Sounds to me like another obnoxious no good millenial article.

And a survey by MTV (laughs at the implied name) doesn't really count for much.

It is an obnoxious article stretching too hard.

edited 9th Jan '14 8:02:12 PM by TuefelHundenIV

This sounds like an old guy just hating on millenials

Fact is every generation does that. You can bet your ass those boomers hated how optimistic and happy films like Casablanca were compared to fare like The Godfather or Chinatown

So you can bet that some sap will say the same things generations later,social networking will appear to be nothing.

I've noticed that the acting style is especially criticised in older (particularly silent) films. Surely it isn't that hard to switch your mind over to a certain style and accept that it was different then? It's just like reading books written more than 50 years ago- you adapt to the language of the author.

I can understand that the Values Dissonance in older films may be harder to stomach, but I've learnt to accept that pretty much all media is problematic in some way, point the issues out and then move on. If I boycotted everything that was problematic, I would have no means of entertainment left.

Admittedly it might be nice if there was a bit more appreciation for the value of old films, but really, it seems pretty logical that a particular generation will prefer the films it's used to. Personally preferring a particular kind of film doesn't mean one can't appreciate the value and merits of older ones. Intelligent people are able to think outside their own personal preferences.

And it's really too much when he condemns those film students for only having "cold admiration" for films like Citizen Kane. I mean, really, that's just snooty. Of course they're going to find Citizen Kane antiquated - its style is vastly different from modern film. That doesn't mean they can't appreciate its merits. I mean, I can certainly appreciate the literary and intellectual value of authors like Shakespeare or Joyce, but when it comes to reading for fun, I'd still rather pick up a copy of Lovecraft or Martin or Pratchett.

No, I think this guy's just being a bit of a stick in the mud.

Well, I certainly think there's two sides to this.

One side of this is that people are stupid, and can't appreciate good things. This is what I most agree with. I mean, obviously, everyone has opinions, but if someone tells me they didn't like It's a Wonderful Life or Dr. Strangelove, I just think, "Did you even watch the movie?"

On the other hand, there may partially be a justified reason for this. I was listening to the Cracked podcast when I learned about the Flynn Effect, which basically says that because society gets more and more advanced, successive generations become smarter because they were raised in smarter environments. That's a simplification, but still. They used the example of how trailers for movies decades ago had the typical "movie announcer voice" explaining what the advertised movie was about, while today, we're able to piece that together from context, and virtually no trailers today have a narrator like that.

So maybe it's just that people today are used to movies with more modern production values, or more current sensibilities, and so even good movies from past decades are just outside of what they're wired to enjoy. That, and kids these days are dumb. Thankfully, my parents raised me on Star Wars, so I could handle relative oldness.

But I do think that a lot of old comedies don't really age well, because comedy builds on other comedy so much that what was hilarious and new in 1970 has been done to death by 2014. For example, I watched the old Casino Royale, the comedy with Peter Sellers in it, and I thought it was horrible. The only parts that got even a chuckle out of me were the five minutes Woody Allen appeared in. Same deal with Start the Revolution Without Me. It's a comedy with Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, and Orson Welles, for pete's sake, but I didn't really think it was all that funny. I mean, I laughed at the Orson Welles fakeout, and one or two of the moments with the king, and it was sort of funny that the queen was a whore, but it wasn't really funny. That's not to say all old movies are unfunny. I still laugh at It's a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, and really anything from Mel Brooks. It's just that comedy doesn't age well most of the time, so there's an excuse for that.

But for non-comedies, there's not much of an excuse. Clark Gable is the coolest dude alive, Citizen Kane still holds up really well, and if you don't like It's a Wonderful Life, you need to have your head examined.

My knowledge of classic films is really limited to Film Noirs and the occasional Sci-Fi, but I'm fairly young. I think there are some young people who like older films, they're just... hidden, much like these films are.

People have the right to not like classics. If they, however, argue/say that said classics suck, well, they better deal with the arguments and (maybe even) attacks that they'll get.

I'm not gonna say that people are stupid or that their brains need a check-up for not liking Kraftwerk. However, if they say that Kraftwerk aren't great or that their music sucks, well, they're gonna received a real argumentative beating from me.

edited 10th Jan '14 6:04:28 PM by Quag15

I don't think I remember if I saw "It's a Wonderful Life" I think it is because my mother preferred "It happened one Christmas" which is basically a gender reversal of "It's a Wonderful Life" since she saw that movie first.