The changing nature of movies

[janradder]

haddayr and I watched Trading Places last night (she'd never seen it before), and as we did, both of us were surprised at how much slower paced movies were back then.

Comments

[glamberson.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, and in every sense: shots, editing, acting. Everything today is spastic, from commercials to sitcoms to movies, and it's what we expect. For the most part, I'll take the 70s - 80s, and even the 90s, over what we have now. The title sequence for SCM wipes from one painting to another, and both of my digital guys wanted to "jazz" it up by doing zooms and other frenetic things. I said no - we're making this film in the style of films that I like and we're not catering to today's hyper sensibilities. Imagine the studio notes if Coppola made THE GODFATHER today. Scorsese always managed a faster style while preserving long acting scenes, so he's still current, but can you imagine Sidney Lumet trying to make a cop film today?

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I watched Bullitt for the first time a few months back and was surprised that 1) the car chase didn't have tons of frenetic cuts and zooms; and 2) that with all the long shots and the sound of the racing engines how much more exciting it was than most of today's car chase scenes.

[joelarnold.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this, too, when showing movies to my kids that I liked as a kid. Much slower paced.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the pacing of movies really sticks out with kids movies. I remember showing our boys Babes in Toyland a few years ago because it was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and being almost bored to tears by it because it was so slow.

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yes! Movies before the mid 90's spent the first hour in character development and rampup, the last thirty minutes in gripping good stuff! Just like classsic literature.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I have to say, in Trading Places some of the reason for it being slow-paced had nothing to do with character development but was more about unnecessary exposition. But yes, there are too many movies today that completely skip over character development just to move the plot along to the next big chase scene.

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

somewhere there has to be a happy medium.