'The type of movies that become classics'

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.

Yes they do. Uncle Boonmee, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Mysteries of Lisbon, Closed Curtains. Tons of classics this decade.

La Vie d'Adèle's timing alone makes it a classic.

Inception, prometheus, the dark knight overthinks it

Leviathan, Turin Horse, Holy Motors, My Joy, Harmony Lessons, Melancholia, Post Tenebras Lux. This has been a really good decade so far.

Melancholia totally. And Antichrist too.

It was on the last S&S poll, a year after release. Along with Tree of Life and Turin Horse.

Frederik B, a good portions of those films you are listing are closer to the concept of 'masterpiece' than 'classic'. I agree for Leviathan, Melancholia, Holy Motors and Turin Horse but not for a film like Anatolia, which is one my favorite films these past years don't get me wrong.

I am interested to see how much the Matrix's classic rep is going to be damamged by the sequels.

Hee hee

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

What's disorienting though is that one generation's facile narrative about their cultural trends can be completely upended by the next generation's facile etc.

oh yeah, absolutely. that's why i think spring breakers is interesting... there was a whole new inquiry pdf issue about it, and it definitely seems like the kind of thing writers feel compelled to write about, but the discourse about this movie has nevertheless been eclectic and mixed, and critics haven't really settled on their pet reductionist explanation for what it is supposed to *mean* yet. idk. "the graduate" is interesting in this way because it is a very different movie today than in 1967 owing to the fact that the "youth" movement it apparently was seen to champion no longer exists, and that generation today is seen to have a conflicted, rather than purely emancipatory legacy.

i think a serious man is a classic

Superbad is a total classic.