'The type of movies that become classics'

this is interesting
but it kind of creates a catch 22 situation-if we are stuck in a rut where a "classic" anything is impossible because everyone is trying to write one using the standard criteria,then the answer would appear to be that we need something to come along and change all this,point the way foreward
but then this would have to be exactly the sort of classic/important/event work of art we're so cynical about in the first place?
do we just have to sit around and hope that someone will accidentally write the great american novel?

I think you're better off writing for money than art.

(BTW - in Doctor Who, if the freindly local was you become a companion they would not have Cahpter 9: Betrayal, instead it would be replaced by Chapter 9: A Brief Respite - when they introduced them to the wonders of the Tardis).

pete,i'm not really referring to people sitting down saying,right,i'm going to write the greatest book in the history of literature
i mean more if someone is writing an ambitious novel with a large scope,are they doomed to failure
or
are we doomed to have it pass us by because nowadays,if someone does write a 600 page novel dealing with major issues,it will be presented to us as "the first great american novel of the 21st century","the greatest book since the bible"etc by the publishers,papers,etc and thus we will be cynical about it
i mean i know franzen announced that he was going to write the great american novel,but say something like gangs of new york,i dunno whether it is any good or not,and i seriously doubt it will be a truly amazing film,but even if it was because of its scope and ambition it will be so hyped its bound to be underwhelming...

heh. both of us discussed this earlier in the week when martin let me borrow a couple of PKD novels and a Jim thompson one. and i thought abt that discussion when i saw the thread yesterday.

I think when we discussed SF movies we both agreed thta most of those weren't THAT good (though you praised the movie based on 'solaris'). Hollywood tends to take a couple of chapters and go off at a more 'entertaining' tangent.

As far as books go there is a lot of snobbery towards the SF/crime end of things. The 'classics' are definetetly preferred (hey they are longer, 600+ pages and more 'challenging'...yeah, right).

not in regard to being accepted into the "canon",just in terms of writing a great book* that deals with big themes and has a large scope,a book that *could* (or should) be regarded as "important/a classic",regardless of whether it is seen as such (ie accepted into the canon)

*or recording a great album,or whatever

Have we had that entertainment vs art question yet?

and then when i read it it turned out that it was basically a second rate sci-fi story interjected with middle aged men getting joyless blowjobs and having meandering,name/concept dropping philosophical discussions...
but because it was presented as a literary novel dealing with the big questions,it was accepted as such

Ha ha and he calls *me* arrogant.

I think you are probably right about City Of God being aimed to be bigger budget bigger scope (and it is based on a bestselling Brazillian novel as well which also ties it in that way). And of course me telling people to go and see it will instantly raise the suspicions of people who generally disagree with my taste in films. Wheras I don't think anyone else will probably see "Take Care Of My Cat" - and I don't want to big it up because I think its a film that just touched me in a certain mood. How do I tell?

i know what you mean about not wanting to go on about something because it just touched you in a certain mood,and i suppose at the end of the day most films/books/albums that people will love,that will really mean something to them,are down to that,so i suppose what "great" works of art do is touch a nerve with most people,which i suppose is why they have to deal with the "big themes"

i suppose its just a question of how well its done,and maybe noone is doing it well at the moment,or,as i think is more likely,maybe the media requires it to look like someone is doing it to validate art/promote sales,so they look for someone who deals with universal issues,heap praise on it,and because we soon realise that these "great" things seldom live up to the hype,were all cynical about them,and this is what i mean,that the problem is not with the idea of the great american novel,its just that its become a boy who cried wolf situation...

But are people still reading The Bonfire Of The Vanities now?

A weird point about the genre prejudice thing is music, where as far as a lot of mags and critics are concerned, the mainstream seems to equal white men with guitars. Other genres are treated tokenistically, as if each offers one person you have to acknowledge, and you can ignore the rest - Lee Perry is the reggae producer, Billie Holiday is the jazz singer, Otis Redding the soul singer. With black forms, it helps to wait twenty years or so...

i was more referring to ambitious projects which *could* become classics (as all classics were once) because of their scope

for example the roots album is (by all accounts-i wish i was more familiar with the specific examples being discussed here)hardly an attempt to merely copy classic hip hop like jurrassic five do (oh i now see where some confusion could have arisen-jurrassic five are trying to make a "classic"hip hop album,as in one that ties in with what is considered classic hiphop,but they aren't trying to make a classic in the sense that it will be regarded as a hip hop milestone)
it is an attempt,from what i've read,including an interview with the band itself,to create an album that goes beyond normal hiphop,ie an important,future classic album
is it just me or are people cynical about people like the flaming lips,roots,etc in their efforts to redefine their chosen medium,whereas mike skinner can actually write a song called "lets push things foreward" and get away with it?
because the roots are an established group,(or scorsese an established director)should they not try to do something that raises the bar?

I am all in favour of great ambition, and I don't see it as any more problematical these days than most enterprises are in a PoMo world.

I think second guessing your audience is potentially problematic, especially if you are trying to create a classic. (Especailly if you are going to write it in an attic).

Loads of classic-y stuff dates very quickly, and pulp stuff like 'Out of the Past' is still golden -- on the other hand stuff that has gone out of fashion sometimes comes back.

There aren't too many rules.

Basically, when I'm in charge the first act of state will be to transfer every film in the history of the world on to DVD. Then we can decide what's classic. Till then we don't have a chance.

(Also missing out the films which simply do not exist any more...)

By definition, any sense of the word that rejects those two films is useless.

Well sure, yeah, you're right. But it would be nice to have more than exists, like Renoir's 'Nana', or Murnau's 'The Last Laugh' or, or, or, and not have to travel on the Red Bus to see stuff late at nite.

I am interested to see how much the Matrix's classic rep is going to be damamged by the sequels. I am already gratified to see that Star Wars currency is finally going down due to the prequels (and the Star Wars babies finally getting over twenty one and being needlessly vocal about a kids movie).

Can we perhaps invent the idea of an influential film (a film which brooks imitation, or from an economic point of view is seen as worthy of imitation)? Certainly COG and Matress would fit into this defn.

'Westworld'
'On the Town'
'Pepe Le Moko'
'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'

Also I suspect some of this discussion is the shadow of the "genre fiction" discussion.

A documentary on The Usual Suspects pointed out that the actual film came in a distant second to its poster in terms of influence.

I picked Together because it is the other end of the spectrum - lots of critical love, not really much popular mindshare. Though look what happened to the moderately similar You Can Count on Me: film becomes underground sensation, stars get put in shit films, director gets bugger all.

(Tangenting all over the place - I'd consider YCCOM, Together and Take Care Of My Cat to be similar but they aren't really. In a perfect world they'd be obviously miles apart with tons of ickle films filling up the spaces between (and beyond))

City Of God has already casued a lot more money to flood into the Brazillian Film industry. (Not a knock off, but a film marketed ina very similar way to appeal to the CoG audience would be Man Of The Year).

Matrix was much more influential than just those two films (though they are obvious low budget knock-offs), there was ceratinly a knock on to the Blade movies, definitely the way the X-Men films developed, the whole attitude in action films towards CGI and wire-fu fights.

That perfect world exists Andrew but a lot of the films inbetween don't get seen / aren't any good. I was thinking that when I saw Okay last week, its a great performance in search of a much better script.

You have to see it anyway, as much as you do 'A Bout de Souffle' or 'Blue Velvet' -- it's a classic of its time, if not a Classic. It's as good a film as 'City of Sadness', in my opinion better.

Uh oh, classic vs Classic. I thought that was the kind of distinction this threead was all about kicking into touch.

I meant to say that in a perfect world the intervening films would be seen. Making them better is a bit trickier.

Would Crouching Tiger have been made without The Matrix, or was that sufficiently a labour of love?

Tangent again: Did the Matrix break kung-fu (again) in popular America? If so was this a big thing, or just something that was obviously going to find a channel anyway, like dancehall? A generation of film critics that grew up on Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan coming into their majority? Or am I blathering away in my usual underinformed manner?

xpost - that was back when this thread was classic. Now it's been elevated to Classic, and pared down to a brand new back to basics meaning.

So, nine years on, what do we think about this? Are people still making 'the kind of films that become classics'?

the kind of films that become comics

the only movie i've seen recently that made me think "classic" is Spring Breakers.

Movies that become classics have little to do with their subject matter or tone or 'size' and everything to do with excellent execution of the material and making a strong connection with large numbers of its viewers, so they feel like they'd like to see it again and have the exact same experience more than once.

also helps if they've got big cartoon robots punching big cartoon monsters in the face

xp to aimless, i think that's half-true. truly great films transcend genre definitions because above all they succeed in being unmistakably, very much themselves. there is another kind of classic though, which is seen as a window onto a specific cultural moment, and is appreciated mostly in terms of how well it speaks to a zeitgeist that has now passed. the graduate is this kind of movie. apocalypse now. the matrix will probably be remembered in this way, as a symptom of anxieties about the digital age at the turn of the century. the reason i think spring breakers is a classic, or will be a classic, is that in addition to being great it feels very timely -- like someday people will say that it is emblematic of something.

basically, i think that movies that can fit into people's facile narratives about cultural trends tend to make their way into the canon.