Search found 1 match: Satyajit Ray

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by VinegarBob
Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:54 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: (very) old movies
Replies: 20
Views: 19870

Re: (very) old movies

If you want to see the very best that cinema has to offer you really owe it to yourself to venture back to the 50s or at the very least the 60s. The 60s was phenomenal. Lots of innovation and experimentation. This spirit of adventure carried on into the the 70s which was also amazing. But with the mid to late 70s the arrival of the blockbuster changed the way a lot of films were made and how a lot of studios were run. It became more commercialized and less interesting and was only innovative in terms of special effects and stunts. I'm generalizing here - there are great films in every decade, especially if you're willing to watch stuff that's not in the English language, but some decades are clearly better than others. And if you want intellectually stimulating films the 50s-70s is where you want to spend most of your time.

Some of the greatest directors who ever lived did some of their best films in the 50s - Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Robert Bresson, hell one of Stanley Kubrick's best films - Paths of Glory - was from the 50s. Those directors kept making great films into the 60s and 70s. Andrei Tarkovsky did his best work in the 70s - and his best work is about as good as films get imo.

By the time the 80s rolled around most of these directors were dead or had left their best work behind them. They were replaced by a new generation of directors who had been to film school and were keen to show off their bag of tricks, so there was a lot more 'style over substance' films as they flexed their cinematic muscles. Films became more flashy and ostentatious - Scorsese was doing stuff like The Color of Money, with it's hyperactive style and Spielberg was doing Raiders movies with outrageous stunt work. There were interesting directors like Davids Lynch and Cronenberg, and Werners Fassbinder and Herzog but thought provoking films were thinner on the ground. This continued on into the 90s where you had to work harder and dig deeper to find them.

I suppose it depends what you want from films. If you just can't get enough action then the late 80s and into the 90s was great. HK action cinema was at it's height, with John Woo strutting his stuff and Arnie and Stallone were doing their thing. There are great comedies from that era too, but as time goes by there's less and less challenging material out there and more and more empty spectacle. I guess the more films you see and the older you get the more you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Sorry for rambling...got a bit carried away there. Haven't posted anything in a while and haven't seen any truly great films in years. I'm off to re-watch Persona.