Characterize each decades movie types?!
Question:
Characterize each decades movie types?
If you had to characterize each decade's types of movies how would do so?
50s
60s
70s
80s
90s
00s (2000-present)
Ye olde timers can also throw in the silent movies if you want. Additional Details
17 hours ago
Right on the money Beatle. I would also say the current decade has been characterized by comic-book movies (due to the advances in CGI effects, as you stated).
The 80's was also outright violent, with action and horror movies not mincing the gore.
16 hours ago
Downriver Dave--great answer.
Answers: 17 hours ago
Right on the money Beatle. I would also say the current decade has been characterized by comic-book movies (due to the advances in CGI effects, as you stated).
The 80's was also outright violent, with action and horror movies not mincing the gore.16 hours ago
Downriver Dave--great answer. You pose a very interesting question. Although each decade has its exceptions, most of the time you can find familiar themes in the major movies of the time.
I would actually start in the 1930s when movies came of age.
The 30s were symbolized by the big budget, huge cast movies based on exsisting stories. ie. Gone With the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, The Adventures of Robin Hood. People needed an escape from the sadness of the Great Depressions and movies allowed them to become a hero or heroine in a great adventure.
By the 40s the war was gearing up. Tremendous numbers of boys and men were being killed. The silly adventures of past heroes suddenly seemed childlike and you saw movies take a more ominous approach. Casablanca, All the Kings Men, Hamlet.
After the war, in the 1950s, the movies tried to return to that carefree day of wonder...but really failed miserably. The Greatest Show on Earth, Cleopatra, Around the World in 80 Days. The best movies in that time period were filmed in the later part of the decade and seemed to be rememberances of the war. The Bridge Over River Kwai. The Diary of Anne Frank. Ben-Hur (watch the movie again with a WWII slant)
By the 60s America was reeling from racial discord and the Cold War. Movies took a far darker turn with the The Alamo (which is one of the first movies to show the American's losing a major battle), West Side Story, Dr. Strangelove, North by Northwest, In the Heat of the Night, Midnight Cowboy, MASH and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
American decidence (crime, drugs, sex & rock-n-roll) was the center of 70s cinema. A Clockwork Orange, The Last Picture Show, Deliverence, The Godfather, American Graffiti, The Sting, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, and Network.
80s movies were a modge podge. Some of the classic films of the time celebrated teenagers (due in large part to the outragous success of Animal House which at one time was history's highest grossing picture). Back to the Future, the Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Beuller's Day Off. 'Intelligent' movies based on foreign cultures and minorites also came to the forefront of the decade however. Ghandi, Chariots of Fire, Amadeus, Out of Africa, the Color Purple, On Golden Pond, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, and Driving Miss Daisy.
Character driven pieces were in the forefront of the 90s. Hollywood attempted to pyschoanalize their characters. Silence of the Lambs, Schindler's List, Unforgiven, Bugsy, Dances with Wolves, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and Shakespeare in Love.
Hollywood in the 2000s, as you both have mentioned, has lost its way. It is far more interested in showing off its technical prowess then telling a good story.
Again there are exceptions to each decade. This just seems to me to be the overall characteristics of each decade.
Great Question. 50's, classic middle class stuff. 60's rebellious, and interesting foreign films, experimentation, like Faces, and Blow Up. 70's Historic revisionism like McCabe and Mrs Miller, and Little Big Man. Anti middle class, like Network, and Five Easy Pieces. 80' s Nostalgic and fun films dominate, like Back to the Future, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. 90's mob rules, from Miller's Crossing to Goodfellas, domiate the decade. 00's CGi' films dominate, because they sell tickets, and the other trend is sequelitis overlode!