Why do people hate old movies?

I never understood the humor behind Pink Panther.

The only Peter Seller's movie I ever enjoyed was Being there (1979)

 

I don't hate old movies, and "old" is a relative term. I wouldn't consider any movie made during my lifetime to be old, and 2 of the 4 "old" movies in the original posting are younger than I am.

I can offer this constructive idea - much of why people disdain older films has to do with production quality. I find particularly the lighting and many indoor sets in older films, even those considered masterpieces, to be of distractingly poor quality. Filmmaking has come so far in recent decades. Most lighting appears natural now, and walls don't look as though a child could push them over.

Outdoor night scenes with what is clearly bright artificial movie lighting and ridiculous shadows, for me, take away from the scenes in a big way. The same is true for lighting of indoor scenes. If i'm aware of the big bright lights and unnatural shadows, even though the lighting equipment is out of view, I can't enjoy the rest of what's happening on-screen. Movie lighting since the 1980s adds to the overall quality of the finished product. Prior to that, it mostly takes away from it. The poor quality of movie lighting is most apparent, and most distracting, in black and white films.

 

Of course I love the old movies--I enjoyed as a youngin', the golden age of movies, The 30s, 40s and 50s, when most of the famous stars were alive and making classic movies. I still enjoy the black and white movies of those days for what they were, for the stage of movie making was in those times, the intent of the movie and the stories themselves. They were very reflective of the times in which they were made regarding the great depression, the WW2 years and on into the 60s-70s.

I've always been especially interested in how movies are edited. Whether individual scenes are dragged out or quick cut, depends on the director and the type of movie being made and this is not the place for a long explanation of such. Buffs will know what I mean and have their own examples. The music has always been important in setting moods in movies and I think all and all, " they " do a good job of it. My main complaint about many productions, whether TV or motion pictures has to be with Foley Walkers. They seem to always have people clomping around even when you --for example--can see that the protagonist is walking on a rug or when someone is attempting to sneak around, plainly wearing rubber sole-type shoes, but is still making louder than necessary shoe noises. A minor complaint,I suppose, but once I noticed it---now I always see/hear it.

It feels to me , that in the "olden " days, script and story were much more important than in much of the movie making these days. There is a certain segment of the population that ONLY require that much shit gets blown up for a movie to be worth watching. Obviously, some violence is needed for story lines in certain instances, but I need a somewhat coherent plot line where the main issue is not the extreme violence, elitist prick that I am!

 

shit I like old movies, Abbot & Costello classic stuff of course they learned from Laurel & Hardy more classic stuff, Not to mention the Marx Brothers absolute GENUISES , The classic old horror monster movies Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy etc, Lon Chaney, Borris Karloff . most of todays stuff got NOTHING on 'em

 

This is so true, but as I'm learning it's not the fault of the original production. It's the fault of the transfer process from film to home video.

You can skip my following spiel by just watching a Criterion or Kino restoration of a classic; a picture is worth a 1000 word spiel

In the early days of cinema all the way through the 70s and half of the 80s, films were created to be seen in one, and only one, setting: projected on a monstrous screen from a 16mm or 35mm print of the negative. This is where the superb nuances and details really pop out as the filmmakers planned. But suddenly home media emerged and people were watching these masterworks on blurry substandard VHS copies, with the further insult that these 65 ft wide projections were now crammed down to 20" tv screens. I grew up in this era, and I gotta admit I groaned every time an old movie would come on because it would just look bleh.

In recent years, studios like Criterion & Kino have been painstakingly restoring & remastering the classics, going back to the original negatives & nitrates, recreating in HD what the original films actually looked like, what audiences 50-100 years ago actually saw. And it's in-effing-credible. A good restoration makes you realise that the visual bleh-ness we associate with old films has nothing to do with the film itself but with the lousy transfers we've been living with.

Just an example, compare the crusty old transfer of Kubrick's 1953 "Fear and Desire" which you would've seen on tv all these years, to Kino's 2012 transfer.



You couldn't pay me to watch the one on the left. It makes my eyes hurt and makes me irritated at the world lol. But the one on the right, the one which the original audiences would've seen back in 1953 looks amazing. Even in b&w it's visually engaging, and I think even kids of today would enjoy if they gave it a chance.

Unfortunately there are so many lousy copies of the classics floating around, even the ones supposedly upgraded to blu-ray, that a lot of people have a learned prejudice against old films because they just look bleh. I hope this starts to change with more careful restorations. Might take a while though.

 

Primarily because they don't know the actors in the movie.

 

Close-minded. They're missing out, but so is the world. It's hard to have a community of anything if people have no idea what you're referring to.

 

Probably more used to the incredible CGI effects of modern movies

 

I've been lucky - my local theater (Alamo) always shows lots of old movies. We're currently getting a Kubrick film fest. Wonderful to see these movies on a huge screen w. an amazing sound system. I have lots of friends who won't watch anything more than 10 years old, let alone give a B&W movie a shot. Sad.

 

Wherever I've lived, I have always looked for places that show old / classic movies. In some towns there are small theaters that show only those type movies. One time in my travels , I showed up for an old, advertised movie and it turned out to be in a persons home. It was pretty cool,that.

 

When I lived in Lincoln City, Oregon in the early 70s, some friends of mine had a restaurant and my girl friend at the time worked there . I got the idea to show movies there Sunday after they closed and Monday when they did not open. They liked the idea, so I cut an opening in the kitchen wall, framed it out and it was a perfect 38 foot line of sight to the corner of the restaurant. I talked to a school principal in town there and he like the idea and agreed to loan me two 16 millimeter projectors and a screen for my endeavor. The projectors sat on top of a refrigerator and when showing movies was JUST right for the distance! I would set a reel on each projector and time the change to the second reel when those little marks showed in the corner of the film , was the plan. Worked perfectly. So then my artistic girl friend made up some show bills listing the movies to be shown on the respective days.

WE put the flyers around town and lo and behold--we got a full house every time we showed movies. I ordered them someplace? --that I don't remember now, but on each night I would show a short subject, the Academy award winning animated movie --Closed Mondays--( which was the name of the restaurant--they had a copy) and then a full length movie, with an intermission to fill peoples wine glasses if they wished and dispense free popcorn! Couple of examples: Tobacco Road---The Man Who Came to Dinner,May Time with Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy----and many more oldies. . I think I charged a buck just to cover the cost of the rental movies. Much fun was had by all!! Ahhh---memories.

 

Jo Van Fleet taught at my high school before her movie career.

 

Is all we watch, & is a long list. We shy away, from gratuitous violence. Lets start with keeper of the flame.