....you know that "Titanic" is the most successful movie of all time ?......

in a purely finantial way ..
its not a great movie and you never hear a soul mention it anymore.
It's not that old and it's already becoming quickly forgotten.

granted this might be a sign of the times .. the 'movie culture' is different now. There's always something bigger and better coming down the pipe to knock the last one out of our minds ..

but still, Titanic was a bloated extraveganza that did well for time but will never hold its own against the classics of days past because it didnt have the star power, and wasnt that good a story (other than the actual fact that the ship sunk)
It was bogged down with a completely gratuitous and unneccessary side story excecuted by a hamfisted director (something that works in action - not in historical drama)
The scope and depth of GWTW let alone the world class acting puts it miles above titanic.

Titanic will barely be remembered a few years from now ....

Okay, let me clarify a few things...

We shouldn't define classic strictly by its age in years. Generally speaking, a film is old enough to be considered a classic when those stylistic elements that once made it seem modern and comtemporary have become so dated that they now appear artificial and stylized. For example, Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films with Vincent Price: when they came out, they were considered inferior to classic Universal horror movies, because Corman's films were in widescreen and color, and everyone "knew" that great horror movies only came in black-and-white. But forty years later, Corman's films look as stylized and artificial as anything from Universal; it's just a different kind of stylization.

As for oxymorons like "instant classic" and "modern classic," those are words people throw around because they like to heap superlatives on their favorie movie and they can't think of anything better to say. The closest they come to making any meanignful sense is in a case like RINGU, which is not only a great film but a film that establishes a set of conventions that become instantly recognized and repeated.

As for arguments about whether movies like GONE WITH THE WIND are classics, one should point out that there is a difference between a classic and a masterpiece. Like it or loathe it (I put myself in the latter category), GONE WITH THE WIND is an established classic of cinema by virtue of the place it holds in film history. It is reasonably easy, however, to make a case that is not a masterpiece but an overr-rated soap opera.

hey...that was great....but could you say a little bit more around this sentence :
"a film is old enough to be considered a classic when those stylistic elements that once made it seem modern and comtemporary have become so dated that they now appear artificial and stylized."

Gee, I was afraid I was being too long-winded in my previous post -- and now you want me to say more?

i like the way you worded that.

yes :D

Classics?
 

I have a few old books about horror from the 60s and 70s that say the Night of the Living Dead and Nosferatu(1922) are shit. It sounds very odd nowadays, one book said "Nosfertu is too grotesque and has no art to it".

Re: Classics?
 

I have to agree about NOSFERATU. The line I like to use about that film is in regards to the image restoration done for the film's release on laserdisc and later DVD. The people involved in the restoratin bragged about the background details now visible in the sets. "Great," I thought, "now we can -- quite literally -- WATCH THE PAINT DRY!"

Hollywodgothiq, your statement about stylized elements, etc perfectly points out what I was thinking, but could not articulate, about how with technology changing the face of movies so quickly classics may be made faster now than they were before. Jurassic Park is a classic (or a curse) in the sense that it ushered in the wide use of CG, like King Kong set the stage for stop motion monsters even though it had been done years earlier. The big movies make the style acceptable to the public, then it becomes commonplace and eventually only a few movies that use that style are still worth watching.

The fact that many people would not see many classic films is just part of being a classic. People need to have an appreciation for the time period and styles used to want to see a classic film.

GONE WITH THE WIND has got to be one of the worst classics ever made, but it set the stage for every chick that follows it. Thankfully they have gotten shorter (although that is changing too).

Re: Re: Classics?
 

Do you not like Nosferatu or do you just have a problem with the restoration.

Even though people might not need to watch the films that started a trend, I cant say they are not worth watching because so many films have done the same, there is always a strange freshness that is hard to pinpoint about the films even if they are not terribly exciting.

I do not like any version of the original NOSFERATU, and believe me I've seen half a dozen over the years -- and the damn thing keeps getting longer every time I see it!

First there was the 16mm "condensed" version I saw in high school -- kind of like a Reader's Digest condensed book -- cut down to approximately forty-five minutes (no Renfield or Professor Van Helsing character).

Then there was the feature length version they used to show on PBS, but the projection speed was too fast, speeding up the action. Then the laserdisc and DVD fixed that problem, slowing the action back down.

Then there was the time I saw it with a live orchestra performing a recreation of the original music score. The print screened was from Germany (with German subtitles) and contained some footage not seen in export prints, and there was an intermission halfway through, just to drag out things even further.

In between there have been a couple of VHS tapes with new music added (including one with Goth-rock songs by Type-O Negative)

God, I've given that movie every chance, and I never want to see it again!

I thought that cgi effect was first used in "The Abyss"..then developed as time went by...:confused:

My key words there were "wide use". The Abyss helped develop the craft, but after JP anything with CG, good or bad, was considered cutting edge, for awhile. It's like the morphing effect in T-2. The technology existed for them to develop that software, but once they did everybody was morphing into something.

Jurassic Park set the standard for dinosaurs and other monster F/X for the films that followed, just like King Kong did for stop motion (even though other films used stop motion before that) and Godzilla did for guys in rubber suits.

hmm guess your right about that...have you seen "Young Sherlock Holmes" ? They used some kind of new computer animation there too....anyway shall I call you "iamragmar" or "ADOM"
:confused:

Actually we are two different people who chose the same avatar from the ones the forum provides. I am too lazy to shrink anything to the 100x100 limit or whatever it is and upload it.

The animation in Young Sherlock Holmes had a very stop motion look to it. I think that was the beginnings of good CG, where they give the CG models physical things to relate to. The dinos in JP were mostly patterned after the movement of real animals, not just animated by a computer cartoonist, which is one reason they look better than so many that follow.

the CG in the abyss certainly opened the door to new possibilities .. it was used to even greater extent in Terminator 2 ..

metallic morphing where reflections changed in the morphing surface appropriately ...
It looks amazing and can now take us places where we could never go properly before.

the charm of the old FX are cool in their own way - but i remember as a kid wishing they could make things look better..

And now they do ...
The trick is to just blend in the CGI where absolutely nessessary - complex monsters, alien landscapes, etc .... not use it to replace everything ...

..or they can try not to hide it...like in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (2004) were CGI help the movie look more like a comic strip....
..and you know nearly every actor wants to act againts something(even a puppet) ...not against air (blue/green screen).....

I liked the way Sky Captian "embraced" the comic look of it's CGI. I wish HULK had done the same thing and had everything except the actors be CG, then the HULK would have blended in better.

Its just born a classic film.

sky captain was a beautiful film .. and yes - a perfect example of CGI being used the way it should be ... to create an impossible world ..

yeah I'm an old Hulk fan...I saw him first in the Fantastic 4 comic strip...Then he got his own comic strip...and then he got his own tv series which I enjoyed as a kid.....I think they did a great thing by spraying Luo Feringno green :D
...but I dont think director Ang Lee(?) had the right passion to make a movie about Hulk...He cant have had.... cause Hulk looked like a overblown green mashmellow :mad:

I'd say anything 10 years or older that was considered an "amazing" film could be considered a classic...but the real classics go way back.

i agree

I wouldn't say 1995 is considered classic. Stretch it to 15 or so and I'd agree with you.

.

that is a classic for the forums sake - but i think the thread was more about semantics

check the 2nd page :p

a classic can be a current movie.
some are classics the dasy they are released ..
i dont think time always determines the quality of a film ..


i.e. The Godfather - was a classic from day one.

A classic doesn't have to be old, as someone before me mentioned classics can be just that from the day they're released. I believe even films that have come out in the last two years (not necessarily horror) can be considered classics in my standards.