Are Classic Movies Really Dying?

louie [Music] i think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship classic movies literally invented movie magic and they hold a timeless charm that needs to be preserved so how can we stop them from dying out classic cinema is rapidly declining in popularity largely because streaming services prioritize only the newest content as a result viewers are actually losing the ability to engage with the language of older movies which truly speak a different vernacular than most of today's visual stories you need to know how ideas and emotions are expressed through a visual form many young people just haven't been conditioned to watch movies with black and white visuals super long takes film grain or theatrical dialogue and so it's understandable when they voice that they don't even really get the hype over many of these older films but classic movies are a fundamental influence on today's stories an important window into the past and a reminder of the universality of the human experience what makes george bailey so rich finally is that he had the respect and love and that he was part of a group that he was a part of a community without that you're not whole here's our take on why and how we need to keep the classics alive i'm ready for my close-up [Music] if you're new here be sure to subscribe and click the bell to get notified about all our new videos this video is brought to you guys by movie we love movies so genuinely it is a key part of our lives moby is such an incredible platform it has wonderful movies and interesting conversations around those movies ruby always picks something that's interesting that's quality i crave that curation today you feel like you've actually taken in something substantial and then you think about it you dream about it it stays in your head they have great taste it's something for everybody if you want to know about the world and culture and what's really fun and worth watching check out moby right now mubi is offering our viewers 30 days free just click the link in the description below to start streaming now thank you mubi for supporting the take and for helping us bring these videos to you [Music] young people especially millennials are often blamed for killing classic movies the new york post reported on a study that delivered a pretty bleak picture less than a quarter of millennials have watched a film from start to finish that was made back in the 1940s or 50s 30 percent of young people also admit to never having watched a black and white film all the way through with 20 branding the films boring fasten your seat belts it's going to be a bumpy night however if we look closer the real cause of classic cinema's mortal illness is the lack of education and accessibility for potential young viewers as more and more streaming services pop up you would think access to classic movies would increase and destinations like movie and the criterion channel are amazing resources for people who love cinema but the most popular streaming services suffer from a recency bias so intense that their sad classic section might have just a handful of oldish movies generally the definition of classic is thought to be a movie released before the switch from old hollywood to new hollywood somewhere between 1970 and 1975. however netflix's classics page is dominated by beloved flicks from the 80s and 90s [Music] fox's emily vanderworth explains that there are three main ways people become interested in classic film the first and most common way is generational you were shown old movies as a kid by someone older than you my kids will always ask me is it in black and white because i want i always show them movies and when it's over they're raving about it the second is inspirational you're an aspiring filmmaker looking to the old masters for tips the third way is by accidentally discovering these movies for yourself and according to vanderworf this one has essentially gone extinct it used to be far easier to stumble on a random classic movie on network or cable tv but in an age where viewers increasingly choose what to play on streamers you have to seek out older content which requires at least some idea of what you're looking for streamers like netflix will push out suggestions auto-playing scenes from what they think you'll like but those suggestions are almost always brand new most corporate entities just don't make licensing and marketing classics a priority because they assume that audiences have lost interest but as scorsese observes it's a chicken and egg issue if people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing of course they're going to want more of that one kind of thing i'm reliving the same day over and over [Music] older movies largely speak a different visual language than modern movies and as a result of what's pushed to us viewers are becoming less fluent in that language leading them to frequently feel that anything made before a certain date is inaccessible looks worse and just feels unengaging if you go back to movies made closer to the transition into sound cinema in the late 20s and 30s movies bear a much stronger resemblance to plays they're driven by witty dialogue with much longer takes dexter would you mind doing something for me anything what get the heck out of here wider straightforward camera angles and larger more physical performances up until very recently most movies were also shot on film it was only in 2013 that digital cameras overtook film for the majority of movies but the transition has been rapid now over 90 percent of films are shot on digital i think spielberg looked at the film and gave you some editing yeah you have to shoot on film it smell it smells different he's like you cannot shoot a story that takes place in 1861 digitally you just can't our eyes have become accustomed to the norms of digital cinematography which values sharpness crisp focus clear images and high resolution but part of what's to love about film is its grain its immersiveness and the relatively softer look to its focus instead of separating each element from each other as the sharp digital picture does film unifies its components into a cohesive organic whole today's images are full of shallow focus when the subject such as a close-up face is totally clear but the background around it is blurry but many classics like citizen kane were framed for their deep focus striving to keep many elements in the frame visible at once so there was a more sophisticated arrangement or mison sen for our eyes to take in the unlimited options of digital cinematography also aren't always an upside artistically speaking shooting on film requires filmmakers to be more deliberate with their shot compositions and camera placement because limited film stock means limited takes the classic idea of a director's role in a film centers on where they place the camera and how they focus our eyes to tell the story with the most visual efficiency and elegance how do you point the audience's eye to look where you want them to look and to get the point the emotional psychological point that you want to get across older movies also had to work harder to achieve practical effects for much of what today is done in post some of these effects may look imperfect or homemade to us but many retain a timeless charm and aura of naturalness and some can even be pretty convincing whereas the cgi of a given era often looks dated more quickly film has a magic of unpredictability which stems from its physicality the images are made from light-hitting celluloid and a camera confronting obstacles with real-time innovative solutions that power of limitation is an intangible loss in a landscape where you can get near infinite shots fix it in post or make it up from scratch on a computer one key aesthetic that's frequently held against many classic movies is being shot in black and white a visual that immediately reads to many young viewers as shorthand for old and less good i see a black in my movie on tv and i think something's broken but roger ebert writes in the great movies you cannot know the history of the movies or love them unless you understand why black and white can give more not less than color black and white cinematography can sometimes achieve more evocative lighting and set design with greater visual depth and range it can focus us on the most relevant details and convey the feeling of the character or scene with less distraction black and white has an enormous ability to focus the emotional attention i said to him you know i want to get this depth of field in in color he says you'll never get it in color today we may find black and white distancing or alienating but it was once the opposite black and white felt to many directors better at inviting the audience to slip into the story and identify as one can more easily situate oneself in a binary they don't want to see a black and white movie but then i say you're going to have to you're just going to have to and i promise you 10 minutes into the picture they don't know whether it's in black and white or color they're into the movie in fact even long after color became the norm from the 50s and 60s on auteurs like orson welles peter bogdanovich and martin scorsese sometimes chose and fought to shoot in black and white orson had a theory that he says you know what i say about black and white don't you no it's the actor's friend because every performance is better in black and white name me a great performance in color federico fellini once said that if the film is in black and white audiences won't remember it as black and white but will add their own color so there's a sense that black and white allows more room for us to mix the film with our memories or dreams and make it ours perhaps this is why viewers who grew up with it's a wonderful life in black and white find the later colorized version jarring as if it's filled in too many details differently to how our minds had already decided the picture really looked today we're seeing a comeback of black and white visuals for artistic or thematic purposes and the choice doesn't have to signify old it can interact with the content of the story to send any message the filmmaker wants whether it's creating a sense of unbelievability and a dream or memory-like quality with the black and white and the music i had this feeling that we would kind of celebrate the kind of romance and the energy and the spirit of new york city and being young or the opposite a realistic historical feeling alfonso caron's roma is shot in black and white but with a digital look to create the feeling of being in the present looking back at the past it's black and white but it's not a nostalgic black and white it's a digital 65 millimeters black and white without grain you know it's the it's almost sacrilegious in passing a story about light-skinned black women who have the option to pass as white women in the 1920s the binary of the idea of black and white mirrors how the women in the story are forced to define themselves as either or so you haven't ever thought to what [Music] i'm asking if you have a thought of passing but the feeling of the visuals counters this by making all the characters skin colors feel like gradients that are fluid and variable according to the light according to director rebecca hall there is no monolithic idea of blackness or whiteness femaleness or gayness all these categories we like to stick people in are very limiting it's part of the reason why i chose to shoot it in black and white we talk about black and white but it isn't literal it's really a thousand shades of grey it is all about the in-between space and the ambivalence and the possibility to hold one thing in its opposite at the same time [Music] if you want to make good movies or tv shows in the present the best way to do that is by studying the greats before you classic movies are the best and cheapest film school out there and stealing from the past is basically the secret all top directors have long relied on demise scorsese is the great example of this that it's okay to rip off that that you know that you you got to rip it off though you can't just borrow certainly i came to movies through a love of movies so the movie buff in me and forms informs the movies that i want to pillage from peter bogdanovich learned by interviewing legends like john ford and alfred hitchcock and making orson wells his mentor film school movie brat directors like martin scorsese steven spielberg and george lucas packed their films with homages to golden age cinema while their work in turn inspired the next generations to all the movie brats learn from the masters of the 40s and 50s and 30s and and i'm sure those in the 50s and 40s learned from the silent movie matt matt masters as matt zoller sites put it the number one reason for filmmakers to watch old movies is that they are filled with fantastic stuff that you can steal and the vast majority of viewers will have no idea you stole it because they refuse to watch old movies everyone steals my favorite movie is love don't cost a thing with nick cannon which is based on can't buy me love which is based on crayon vs kramer or something which i think was shakespeare many well-regarded films are intentional and obvious in their homages and if critics notice shots and camera movements directly copied from the past this only seems to garner the new films more credit see damien chazelle's la la land drawing on almost every classic movie musical you can think of or all the work of quentin tarantino paying tribute to everything from jean-luc goddard to spaghetti westerns even when movies are not directly or consciously referencing classic ones you can see how the stories of the past have established a foundation of genres themes and tropes from which everything is drawn prior to birdman and once upon a time in hollywood academy award-winning sunset boulevard explored the idea of the washed-up actor used to be in silent pictures used to be big i am big it's the pictures that got small before venom let there be carnage or american psycho delved into the twisted mind of a killer m gave its child-murdering antagonist a monologue that forced audiences to peer into the darkest corners of the human psyche [Music] [Applause] of course just being an old movie isn't the same as being classic the majority of movies made in the past haven't held up or continued to be viewed over the years what makes something a classic is that it stands the test of time and this underlines the biggest problem with racing to see everything that's new no matter which era you're living in most films shows or cultural works that come out will end up being relatively forgettable and will probably fade from your memory pretty quick without leaving much of a mark thus you're better off waiting to see which works are great enough to stick around so you're talking talking to me a classic is a form of time travel it carries a story into the future and still moves audiences there despite how radically the world has changed and when we watch the best classic movies we find that so much of the human condition is universal across time and space everybody's favorite movies it's a wonderful life because it's a man who in some ways is trying to deny his nature in order to really appreciate the choices we've made we have to go back and look at all the sacrifices we've made even if we haven't experienced totally comparable situations we can relate to the crushed dreams of george bailey and it's a wonderful life or the desperation of the villagers in seven samurai or the classist struggles facing terry malloy and the union workers and on the waterfront or confronting the meaning of your existence and death in the seventh seal a true classic is a story that makes you realize that we are all human beings dealing with universal feelings and fears according to roger ebert this is the fundamental reason why we go to the movies and why it's so important to see good films when we go to the theater and empathize with those people who are not ourselves it makes us better people more broad minded and sure of course new movies can still do all this but many of big budget movies today are notably focused more on technology than human faces or feelings sometimes this is literally the case with movies like transformers or pacific rim being centered on machines become one and other times figuratively with rise of skywalker blade runner 2049 and gunpowder milkshake being panned for shallow character development but sometimes the more you add in terms of computerized special effects flashy explosions and crystal clear resolution the less immersive realistic and truthful your art can feel in terms of reflecting the human condition and whereas it used to be the case that the most popular movies at the box office were also the most awarded and critically revered today's most humanistic films are released by indie producers and distributors like a24 and neon and just don't reach the same scale of audience they once did today one of classic cinema's great champions is iconic taxi driver and raging bull director martin scorsese who's attempting to preserve the merits of classic movie aesthetics not only as a working septuagenarian filmmaker but also as a promoter of lesser-seen global cinema and an advocate for visual literacy education the respect for the for the language of cinema itself the history should be taught and the visual literacy should be taught scorsese has famously said that marvel is not real cinema saying what's not there is revelation mystery or genuine emotional danger and he compares today's big blockbusters to roller coaster rides it's a contentious conversation but the point is while there's nothing wrong with enjoying a ride or any blockbuster entertainment that doesn't mean it should replace humanistic cinema or visual storytelling that prioritizes rawness realness and thought i think it's wonderful that someone can make an ingenious entertaining film that can make a hundred million dollars in a day but for that to be the entire cinema is like the entire pharmaceutical business being devoted only to tranquilizers and viagra looking back many classic movies deserve credit for provoking social change humanizing the experience of marginalized people and challenging authority in 1940 charlie chaplin amazingly used the great dictator to mock adolf hitler and preach human values early in world war ii at a time when doing so was potentially very dangerous jew gentile black man white we all want to help one another human beings are like that we want to live by each other's happiness not by each other's misery in the heat of the night offered a nuanced look at racial politics of its time while centering black police detective virgil tibbs they call me mr tibbs mr tips and guess who's coming to dinner pushed boundaries on screen with its interracial kiss between sydney poitier and catherine houghton many of these examples might not have gone far enough by today's standards and there are countless classic films that are overwhelmingly white or espouse outdated regressive even bigoted ideas you're about to see one of the most enduringly popular films of all time the film paints the picture of the antebellum south as a romantic idyllic setting that's tragically been lost to the past and it's important to keep reevaluating how films are taught especially ones like dw griffiths the birth of a nation whose insidious messaging was long played down in film school curriculums that focused almost solely on the film's creative innovations but we can and must still examine many of these films while critiquing their flaws and using them to better understand their times tcm began a series called reframed classics which attempts to situate classic movies with problematic elements in contemporary conversations about race feminism gender identity and sexual orientation to provide context for these movies uh in a historical way so that people will continue to watch them and not cancel them out documentaries disclosure and the celluloid closet examined the evolution of lgbtq plus stories from the beginning of cinema to the present day discussing harmful or flawed depictions can help us all understand how the nuances of representation matter open up conversations about the future and serve as an important time capsule that we should strive to learn from not a race there are lots of ugly things about our history that feel like an assault i think but i think we have to know them william faulkner wrote that the past is never dead it's not even past past movies give us the gift of letting us consciously understand how the past has shaped and is actively still shaping us in innumerable ways we can't know where we're going unless we kind of know where we've been can't understand the future of the president until we have some sort of grappling with the past if the language of classic cinema dies out future visual storytelling will undoubtedly get far worse in quality and if we don't work to revive classics we could lose these gems forever after all many movies are not well preserved in digital forms and if the remaining physical reels are damaged or lost they may cease to exist i'm as mad as hell and i'm not gonna take this anymore the best way to convince streamers and institutions with funding that classic cinema matters is to watch it so why not share old movies with each other the way we share tick tocks tweets and binge-worthy tv shows it's time to learn from the past keep the best movies of all time alive and use them to fuel new classics that will stand the test of time we're all handing influences down and inspiring from generation generation we are so excited to announce that we now have a line of weird girl merchandise which weird girl are you are you the dreamy space cadet living on your own planet are you the delightfully spiraling basket case are you the ferocious goth are you the awkward misfit are you the smart ass click the link in the description below and get your hands on this one-of-a-kind weird girl merch in this video we talked about the need for access to classic films so if you're looking for a destination to watch some of the greatest movies of all time you absolutely have to check out mubi as a special gift to our viewers mubi is offering 30 days free just click the link in the description below to start streaming now this month one unmissable series on mubi is jean luca dard's 1960s it features four of the director's masterpieces piero lefou contempt alphaville and a woman as a woman goddard made all four in under five years and these movies showcase some of the best dialogue characters and style moments ever seen on screen if you're anything like me these days you may be totally uninspired and stuck when it comes to figuring out what to watch next subscribing to mubi completely fixes that their team of curators handpicks every film they show so there's always something new to discover they seriously love movies as much as we do so their recommendations are always top notch click the link in the description below to get 30 days of movie now [Music] you

Channel: The Take

Views: 89,536

Keywords: classic movies, casablanca, she's gotta have it, guess who's coming to dinner, taxi driver, gone with the wind, the wizard of oz, citizen kane, the stepford wives, vertigo, goodfellas, martin scorcese, federico fellini, orson welles, alfred hitchcock, steven spielberg, george lucas, raging bull, roma, sunset boulevard, on the waterfront, the seventh seal, the great director, the heat of the night, the birth of a nation, disclosure, the celluloid closet, dr. strangelove

Id: EdSKHuvYZmM

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021