An Affair with Hollywood

Posted by Moulin On July - 4 - 20123,182 views

What is it about the past that makes us want it more?

Is it the fact that we always look back on the romantic moments? It could be that listening to your grand parents or parents version of events make you smile. Even I find my self longing for my child hood once more, and i’m only 20!! Although that is because I have been recently thrown into the ‘real world’.

Lets face it, the past is the future!

I was first drawn to the Rockabilly scene because of a movie that my mum made me watch as a kid. It was ‘High Society’. I fell in love at that moment. The technicolor helped a little, it emphasized the need of color in the dresses and suits. The immaculate make up that never faded and the hair that simply would not budge out of place, it was a world that I wanted to be part of. After a brief flirtation with the Goth culture I realized that the 50’s were where I truly belonged.

The films were a major part of that decision. The way the characters acted with each other and the sophistication of the film industry at the time was simply fantastic. I fell in love with the stars. I wanted to be just like Marilyn and Grace. I longed for a gentleman like Carry Grant or Fred Astaire to take me away into the night.

The films of today are completely different from the films of the fifties. The actors were more real, and they didn’t rely on special effects to cover up their lack of acting.

If you take the film ‘An Affair to Remember’ starring Deborah Kerr and Carry Grant, for example.  The simple story line; a couple fall in love and agree to meet on top of the Empire State building six months later.  How many of you have longed to do that? Despite falling in love Nick Ferrante (Grant) and Terry McKay (Kerr) are engaged to other people so the next six months will be a mystery to for the other. In the film, Nick manages to stick to their arrangement, but Terry does not show up. Nick loses faith thinking that she has possibly married or doesn’t love him. Little does he know that she was in an accident that left her in a wheel chair.

If Hollywood were to remake this film, it would probably star Kirsten Stewart and Robert Pattinson (hardly a match for Kerr or Grant) and instead of Stewart being in an accident she would be stuck in traffic or, you know, get attacked by a bunch of ware wolves or New York thugs. Hardly the gripping love story that we know.

The fifties were full of glorious love stories played out on the silver screen that are timeless. As well as the thrillers from Hitchcock of course, we have this cast of actors who are just brilliant in their role.

Actors and film makers were a different breed back then. They didn’t have access to the technology that everyone does today. They had to make new, exciting camera shots and story lines for their audience to be gripped by.  I know that they still had their horror films like we do but looking at them now, it is clear that our 21st century, new-fangled, geared up, technology savvy Hollywood has copied them. Only just slightly reshaping the camera angle and making changes to the characters name on the script is now suddenly considered genius and new. We need to step back for a moment and consider making a movie with less green screen and more acting. We want to see real actors, acting out a love scene like they really are in love. Today’s lot make the over-acting of the fifties seem real. Which in a way suits the love scenes because love makes you hyper-real and you want to exaggerate this to your partner.  Don’t get me wrong I love a bit of CGI loaded movie scene with over the top explosions and guns, but when it comes to a love story, don’t fluff it up with comedy (although some are quite funny) get to the gritty stuff and wow us with your actors and their acting, not the comedy or the action.

Films of today and films of the fifties are completely different. Different in the fact that our technology and color has advanced some what. But today we feel that we have to throw it in their for the sake of using it in case that the audience will walk out. But they are the same because, the stories haven’t changed. Just the technology and size of explosion.

We are falling back to the golden age of cinema in a way. Take a look at the films coming out within the next year. We have a bio-pic of Grace Kelly. We’ve already had a silent movie set in the 20’s/30’s and a bio-pic of Marilyn Monroe. It is clear that we are screaming for class and elegance and above all, acting that is real acting!

 

Keep rockin’

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