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Gone With The Wind; Out of Africa; most highly acclaimed movies from the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's - i dont like them, and here's why: the dialogue just is not believable. and neither is the acting as it pertains to how the lines are delivered. i just dont beleive that people acted and talked that way - ever. it all seems more like youre watching a play on the stage. those movies never make you feel like youre there or like you can even relate to the characters in them. know what i mean?
Well for starters Out Of Africa was released in 1985, and I wouldn't put that in the group you described. I'm pretty young (college), and I generally agree that most good movies were released 1970 and after, with some exceptions like Casablanca or In Cold Blood (among others).
I am sorry you don't enjoy old movies. I confess to really enjoying them and appreciating a style and class that you don't often see nowadays.
Having said that, you're talking about a very different acting style to what you see today. For one thing, a lot of these movies were made before the "Method" was invented and actors started doing things like sense-memory exercises and building back stories for their characters. Secondly, the language and behaviour would have been extremely cleaned up due to the censorship and rules that movies had to abide by thanks to the Hayes Code which was introduced in the 1930s (The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)). These rules weren't repealed until the 1960s! So whilst people almost certainly didn't talk like that in private, in the movies they had to be a lot more uptight and prissy. If you ever get a chance to see movies made before the Code came into effect, some of those are incredibly racy and daring by comparison.
A lot of actors and directors in the 1950s made great efforts at either getting around the code or hastening its demise. Movies like The Man with the Golden Arm (drug addiction), Anatomy of a Murder (rape), Suddenly Last Summer (homosexuality), Psycho (nudity), etc, really helped in that regard. The Pawnbroker is the movie that pretty much broke the camel's back.
By the way, Out of Africa was made in 1985 - hardly a "golden oldie".
Plus, movies in the 20s, 30s and 40s were coming from a more theater-based and vaudeville origin. They weren't necessarily meant to be realistic. They were meant to be entertaining.
Gone With The Wind; Out of Africa; most highly acclaimed movies from the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's - i dont like them, and here's why: the dialogue just is not believable. and neither is the acting as it pertains to how the lines are delivered. i just dont beleive that people acted and talked that way - ever. it all seems more like youre watching a play on the stage. those movies never make you feel like youre there or like you can even relate to the characters in them. know what i mean?
Wow, I thought I was naive, the best movies are made back in the day where there WAS no computer animation, pyrotechnics and all that fake stuff to keep you paying attention.
Watch Hitchcock watch Umberto D, or Citizen Kane. I bet you don't even know what i'm talking about; to which you'll probably log off your computer and watch Austin Powers on BluRay.
I bet the last book you read was Twilight and have never heard of The Rum Diaries
IMO, for most older movie you have to put a filter on your brain and think of it the way people saw it when it first came out. If you try to judge it against the standards of today, you will be distracted from just enjoying the movie as it is.
I agree that the way they talked in a lot of older movies is pretty corny. Also, they often have rambling subplots that have little if anything to do with the main plot and can be pretty much ignored. My personal theory is that they needed them because the movies were longer and they had to fill up space. Or they were just trying to bring women into see movies like The Caine Mutiny.
I also enjoy watching older movies because it is interesting to pick out techniques and plot devices that are still being used today.
Wow, I thought I was naive, the best movies are made back in the day where there WAS no computer animation, pyrotechnics and all that fake stuff to keep you paying attention.
Watch Hitchcock watch Umberto D, or Citizen Kane. I bet you don't even know what i'm talking about; to which you'll probably log off your computer and watch Austin Powers on BluRay.
I bet the last book you read was Twilight and have never heard of The Rum Diaries
wow...youre a really judgemental *******, you know that. youve completely misread me and youve completely missed my point in your haste to get up on your soap box and act superior.
im not talking about the lack of special effects, ect, and i dont go see movies to look at special effects. i'm talking about how, in older films, an actress will stare blankly and deliver her line, not even looking at the person she's talking to. and how more often than not, the actor/actress' emotional affect is inconsistent with the circumstances the character finds themself in.
you show a certain shallowness in character to assume that someone who dislikes the way film was presented in the past is a fan of Twilight, Underworld, Fast and Furious, or any of that other crap - which i hate.
I am sorry you don't enjoy old movies. I confess to really enjoying them and appreciating a style and class that you don't often see nowadays.
Having said that, you're talking about a very different acting style to what you see today. For one thing, a lot of these movies were made before the "Method" was invented and actors started doing things like sense-memory exercises and building back stories for their characters. Secondly, the language and behaviour would have been extremely cleaned up due to the censorship and rules that movies had to abide by thanks to the Hayes Code which was introduced in the 1930s (The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)). These rules weren't repealed until the 1960s! So whilst people almost certainly didn't talk like that in private, in the movies they had to be a lot more uptight and prissy. If you ever get a chance to see movies made before the Code came into effect, some of those are incredibly racy and daring by comparison.
A lot of actors and directors in the 1950s made great efforts at either getting around the code or hastening its demise. Movies like The Man with the Golden Arm (drug addiction), Anatomy of a Murder (rape), Suddenly Last Summer (homosexuality), Psycho (nudity), etc, really helped in that regard. The Pawnbroker is the movie that pretty much broke the camel's back.
By the way, Out of Africa was made in 1985 - hardly a "golden oldie".
thank you for this lucid and informative post, and for not being a judgemental wannabe thesbian like some of these other jerk-offs. understand, i dont mean to say i dislike all movies made before the 70's. i'm just saying that the style of the delivery that was prevelent before the 70's really makes it hard for me to connect with the characters.
just so we're clear, when i say people didnt talk that way, i'm not referring to the use or lack of use of obscenity, i'm talking about the way the lines are delivered - as if it were stage acting.
And the dialogue in a modern movie like Aeon Fluxis believeable?
no. it isnt. i dont remember saying that it was. ive never seen that ****ing movie, and i never will. why does a demand for a certain believability in characters have to make me the kind of ****ing moron that would watch something like Aeon Flux, or Employee of the Month, or any of the rest of the stupid crap that makes up 98 percent of movies they make these days?
Quote:
I'm sensing a lack of vocabulary and an inability to look beyond glitzy special effects.
really? that's your judgement of me because of what? i dont get a kick out of watching John Wayne starring as John Wayne in just about every movie he's ever done? that's a really shallow assumption for you to make. you people are so eager to feel smart and superior that when i say i dont appreciate the way film was delivered in the 30's and 40's you assume i'm a big fan of a bunch of stupid movies that i hate.
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