I am always fascinated with the classics, history and antiques. Yeah that's right, from classic rock to watching classic films and documentaries about world wars. Even the story on how a car icon or company came to be, I enjoy reading or watching a documentary about it. And I really do not know why, I am just fascinated with it.
Well it is not entirely about history or anything old, it also has something to do with my "likes". For example, popular art like music and movies. Cars and fast cars. Technical innovations, inventions, discoveries (it just happens that most of these were invented, created or discovered during the world wars). Nothing glorious about wars but on the topic of world war I am also fascinated with its stories about survival and humanity.
When I was in grade school, I thought I was the only one (in my age group that is) that knew about the Beatles. I just love listening to the music of the mop-tops. But no, I was not the only one. Surprisingly I lot of my classmates also knew about the Beatles. Can't explain why I enjoy their music, I guess the tunes and lines were catchy. My love for Beatles continued through high school. And again I thought I would be the only one who is listening to the Beatles, but no, found out a lot of my peers also appreciate it. Although not quite as I do. I continued listening to the Beatles up to this day, even if most of my friends and family would say I am an "oldie". Or some would find me weird enough to listen to songs they never heard even to the point of mocking. And what's funny though. Most of those who say they do not listen to oldies
and the Beatles, are humming tunes and even singing to the tune of
Beatles music. Little do they know that the music they heard and came to
like is just one of the many cover versions of a Beatles song. Ironic. On the topic of Beatles, most people would think only of their early 60's music. They never heard of the late 60's, early 70's music of the band which were entirely different. Totally different and revolutionary.
Without the Beatles, we would not have Music Television (MTV). Yes, they revolutionized MTV as we know it today. They were the first to record a music video and sent to TV stations for promotional purposes. Oasis (heavily influenced by the Beatles, 70% of their songs referenced a Beatle song), Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Cold Play, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, U2, The Verve, Franz Ferdinand and the likes are just some of the bands and artists influenced by the Beatles. Heck, they influenced almost all in the music industry, they shaped music as we know it today. They were the first to do experimental mainstream music. Doing techno,
pop, hard rock and even metal rock. They were the first to do music across different genres. The first to have a Sitar in a rock music!
The Beatles music is not only artistically beautiful but is also still very influential and is still very fresh. In My Life, Yesterday, While my Guitar Gently Weeps, Here There and Everywhere, Come Together, Getting Better, A Little Help from My Friends, A Day in the Life are just among the few that I love. My favorite album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It is just simply amazing.
You cannot say you are a music lover if you do not know the Beatles! Cannot imagine the music industry now if the Beatles did not exist.
Go ahead make my day! How the hell's a man supposed to get experience if nobody gives him a chance? Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. What we have here is failure to communicate. Yep, these are just some of my favorite lines from the classic movies I have watched. The first three are from the Dirty Harry series of Clint Eastwood and the last is from Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman.
It is not that the classic movies are technically better than the films now. Well maybe depending on how you see it. If you are a fan of big blockbusters of today and suddenly you watch a classic, for sure you will be bored. The story telling is entirely different, the pacing of the movie, even the plots are different. But recently I came to enjoy watching classic movies because if you come to think of it, it makes you wonder and just appreciate in awe that even without CGI they were able to make such great films.
Actual stunts are really no match for CGI. Old school action movies for instance is just so cool even up to this day. Take for example Die Hard, and compare it with the action movies of today that rely heavily on CGI. Or the original Star wars and compare it with the prequels which relied heavily on CGI. The original Star Wars had lightsabers, spaceships and space stations, creatures and aliens yet they were able to make it with old school special effects, stop motion, no CGI. How about the car chase scenes of Bullitt, The French Connection or the Italian Job and compare it with the Fast and the Furious? The later relied on CGI, while the classics had actual car stunts, of course they have their own techniques back then, but it was not CGI! Or Top Gun, wherein later I found out that they used a lot of model kit airplanes and radio controlled air planes for the aerial shots and dog fight scenes. It was really cool, and if Top Gun were made today, it would be as lackluster as the heavily CGI Stealth. For the stunts, action scenes and special effects, the classics were way cooler than today's CGI effects. Of course CGI would also allow filmmakers to do something they would have not been able to do back then, Star Trek (J.J. Abrams), MCU films (Avengers, Iron Man) had really cool and believable scenes and CGI made the special effects seemed realistic.
On the pacing and story of classic movies, they seemed to have a lot of scenes that are not really important to the story or to the whole plot. Today, scenes in the films are always directly related to the story or the action sets would start early on. Classics tend to show more character development. Sometimes plot are not that easy to follow. But I think the main difference is that for action movies, classics has more substance in terms of plot, and logic of the whole story. Today's action films almost entirely does not make sense at all, Expendables for example. The 2014 RoboCop is nothing compared to the 1987 original RoboCop.
You just have to admire how they were able to pull it off in time where stunts are reals, explosions are real and the creativity of the whole crew on making the special effects without any CGI. Also, they have been pioneers. James Bond getting out of his dry suit already in a tuxedo (copied years later by True Lies), or Bond jumping out of a plane without a chute, also copied a lot by later action films. And notice how Olympus Has Fallen feels very much like Die Hard? Just change the lead to Bruce Willis and it would have been Die Hard 5! Lastly, I enjoy watching classics now, because I was not born and did not had the chance then to experience and appreciate these great movies. I have watched already all the Dirty Harry series and the great classics of Steve McQueen, next on my list would be Robert Redford's and British classics starting with Michael Caine's.
A lot of people would just disregard history or would not even care. But me? The sight of antiques fascinates me as well. It's just amazing if you find something and you discover that it was from the 1930's, 40', 50's or even 60's. And you find it in pristine mint condition is just lovely. Not to mention when you discover its simplicity and creativity of such things (or tools), gas lamps (Petromax and Coleman brands), or even the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison. I'm lucky my great grandfather had a phonograph and to this day is still functioning (of course the sound is awful compared to digital player. But back then when there was no electricity, owning a phonograph is just so cool). 
Finding or discovering something old or classic be it movies, comics, magazines, photographs, music, tools are just simply amazing. Think of it this way, if not for these classics, we wouldn't be enjoying the marvels of today. Mobile phones? Yeah they were used in its infancy during the second world war.
note: all images are taken from the internet / google image search
No comments:
Post a Comment