Classic cinema represents the best of what film
can be. Most of the films we see and love today take ideas from the classics
that came before them. La La Land, one of 2016’s most beloved films,
owes a debt of gratitude to films like Singin’ in the Rain, An
American in Paris and West Side Story. I believe that it is
completely possible to enjoy films without having knowledge of what came before
them, but I also think that having that knowledge enhances your experience of
them.
I understand why people today might not want to
seek out a 70-year-old film. Thanks to Netflix, Hulu and Amazon we have an
unending stream of modern films to explore. Even beyond that, I know there are
many people out there who simply don’t like black-and-white movies. Others find
older movie effects laughable. There are some who don’t watch old films because
they look and feel old. With every year comes newer and newer technological
advances that make older films look less impressive. Yet, despite all of the
reasons to not want to seek these classics out, I believe the reasons to do it
far outweigh the reasons not to.
One of the things I love most in film is when
I’m watching a movie and then I notice an “Easter egg” that gives a nod to an
older film I love. This practice is extremely common in comic book films.
Almost every comic book movie has some sort of reference to the movies or comic
books that came before them. When comic book fans find them, they lose their
minds with excitement over it. Well, it’s the same sort of thing when a regular
film references a classic movie. In the film Scream, there are a lot of
references to older horror classics that it takes inspiration from. In one such
scene, we see a janitor named Freddy dressed exactly like horror-icon Freddy
Krueger. In the Disney film, Zootopia, we get a hilarious “Easter egg”
that directly references The Godfather.
While “Easter eggs” are fun, they are not the
only reason to watch classic films. Movies are a product of the time period in
which they were created. Because of this, seeing an older movie is like digging
up a time capsule and seeing what life was like in whatever year or decade the
film is from. It is fascinating to see in what ways society has advanced and in
what ways it hasn’t. A film like His Girl Friday, which is from 1940, is
extremely relevant to the current movement of empowerment that women are going
through. Likewise, movies like 12 Angry Men (1957) and To Kill a
Mockingbird (1962) still have a lot to say about prejudice and social
inequality, topics that still need to be discussed more than 50 years after
those films were first released.
Every Monday, I will be talking about
modern or beloved films and comparing them to the film(s) that they are influenced
by. Things you might expect to see
coming up include explorations of Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor
and its influence on Captain America: The Winter Soldier as well as
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca and how it served as inspiration for Phantom
Thread. Some of these might be more of a “compare and contrast”-type of
analysis with films such Black Swan and Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
I believe there is a lot to be learned from classic cinema. This is meant to be
a celebration of the films that paved the way for some of our most beloved
films and I hope you join me in giving them the recognition they deserve. I am
always open to suggestions if there is any combination of films you’d like me
to explore!
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