80 Years, 80 Movies: The Project

How eclectic are you in your movie-watching?

How familiar are you with the distinctive styles of each respective decade that characterized the movie-making of the times?

What’s *really* your favorite movie-making period? Do you have one?

You can answer these question for yourself by considering all the movies you can remember ever seeing and when they were made. And, from there, list one movie per year, and you will begin to discern just how historical your viewing habits are.

NOTE: Because there are so few Silent-era films available for viewing, start your list at 1930—-the first year of all “talkies”.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE 80 years, 80 movies PROJECT:

1. Make a list numbered from 1 to 80 (and from 1930 to 2010)

2. See which years are missing movies, watch movies for those and fill-in-the-blanks.

3. Once your list is full, share it with your friends,

3a post trivia about one film a day, starting from 1930 onward. You can post on Facebook, your blog, anywhere!

3b To get the trivia, visit IMDb or other movie sites, like TCM.

4. Once you reach 2010 again, you will have taught yourself and others a wonderful lesson in cinema, covering 80 years in less than 2 months!

So, let’s get started! Re-blog this, to inspire your friends to get started too!

[Look for my own posts for the project, beginning later this week.]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16f6YcBhBFU?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=375]

Mary Martin was such a loving individual. Look at how warm she is to everyone, never hesitating to give a compliment or to hold a hand. I think if I was in show-business back in her day, she and I would have been friends, probably.

And, will you get a load of silent-film star, Lillian Gish! When she describes how movies were made about 100 years ago—-WOW!

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Film: the highest art-form

(via Madame Grès)

After browsing images within THE RED LIST (a website devoted to the visual arts), one thing struck me like a canon—-a movie is the hub of it all!

Fashion stands alone as visual, paintings stand alone as visual, architecture, design, photography—-all visual. But, if you’ll notice, all of these visual arts can be found in film, which is, itself, a visual art. So, could it be that film is the most elevated of all art-forms? It’s quite a heavy statement to make, but I think so! In fact, dance is the closest think to matching movies in that way, being that it can be audible, visual, and narrative.

However controversial it may be to claim that film is the most advanced art-form, there is no denying that it is the most in-depth. Hence, just looking at this 1940s fashion photo by designer, Madame Gres, one can totally envision this as a movie-still!

So then, is it any wonder that films seemed to have started off more primarily concerned with visual art than with narrative? Take the comedians of the silent era, for example. The sketches that Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin were in were designed to make you laugh. The story was secondary, a mere device which may or may not have been developed for the sole purpose of enhancing the quality of what was seen.

By the same token, when the sound era finally came along, arguably the most successful genre was the musical. Again, the story would have been comprised to incorporate elements of the visual, not the other way around.

So, what does all this have to do with the photo included  with this article? Well, the photo, along with this article, illustrates how easily we associate certain visual art with the movies, even when a certain image  is not necessarily part of  that niche.

The people of the first 60 or 70 years of the industry seemed to anticipate this tenancy and called upon all the best fashion designers, choreographers, musicians, and even cosmetologists, like the legendary Max Factor, to come and enhance the field of film. That strategy worked so well, that now, it is virtually impossible to dissociate the other art-forms from it, even when they are done independently of the medium.

One easy way to describe it is  that movies are a means-to-an-end, meant as a way of evoking all art, absolutely, once, for all, and for all time.  That is why film-preservation is so important. Because it’s about so much more than the obvious—-hence that picture up there.

But, make no mistake. I do not wish to imply that film is simply the representation of other art-forms. No, quite the contrary is true. In fact, the most important thing to remember about this whole discussion is that movies have not only benefited from the other arts, but that the other arts have benefited from them as-well. And, the fashion industry is definite proof of that—-hence, that picture up there.

So, anyone with a taste for the arts must thereby appreciate the film industry for inadvertently helping to keep all the elements alive. This, to me, is what makes it the highest art-form.

NOTE: If you’re a lover of all art-forms and would therefore like to support film-preservation efforts, you may do so here.

What we really lost when we lost the Hayes Code

When people complain of one-denominational Chick flicks, I can’t help but rationalize that most fans of this type of film have become so based on the process of elimination. In other words, for those of us who don’t like blatant displays of violence, those of us who consider full-blown love-scenes much less impactful than romantic scenarios, those of us who would rather leave some things to the imagination…it is this audience who is left with nothing but fluff.

However, there was a time not so very long ago, when this same audience would have enjoyed horror, crime, thrillers, and romance. But, not now that everything is so brash and spelled out. It’s a pity that we’ve gone this unfortunate direction, thanks to the abolition of the Hayes code in 1968. The very move that was meant to increase our options has inadvertently decreased them, by reducing our opportunity and ability to read between-the-lines, a consequence that is irrefutably connected to what is commonly referred to as the “dumbing down of society”. Yes, in a very curious way, when we uncensored the movies, we censored our minds.

The mixed-blessing of Ted Turner's colorization of films...

In a way, I am so thankful for Ted Turner! B/c before he started colorizing b&w films, in the 1980s, people didn’t seem to have a care in the world about film preservation. But, suddenly, here comes this man (who’s intentions were essentially noble but reasoning was flawed) who has these very touchy plans, and suddenly, people cared. Shortly after, the National Film Preservation Act was passed by Congress—-which was AMAZING! In short, this:   led to… This: …which led to This: (a film preservation guide) Now, isn’t that wonderful?!

I certainly hope that the Act includes a clause about the horrid practice of pan and scan (i.e. “this film has been modified to fit your TV) because even though our new wide-screen TVs have made the practice relatively outdated, it doesn’t change the fact that some films can now only be viewed in that butchered condition—-like the highly under-appreciated Perfect (1985), for example.

To me, cutting off up to 40 % of a film’s picture is just as bad if not worse than colorizing! Maybe someone should come along and publicly threaten to do that to all films—-then, you’ll see what you’ve been missing…up to 40% of the picture!

I used to like VHS, but after I discovered that almost all films on home-video have been “modified” I can’t wait to trash my whole collection in favor of the better, “un-cut” DVDs.