I’m, as of time of writing, 41 years old with an emphasis on the old. When I was a kid, I was exposed to the American New Wave films of the 70’s via rented video tape and, as I moved into my teens, the Independent Cinema Movement of the 90’s via late night TV and DVD. Lucky me. Generation-X got a damn good deal. I miss these eras dearly but it’s time to move on — CJ
I find myself often conversing with people around my age and older about these bygone times and, more often than not, phrases like “what ever happened to films like that?” and “they don’t make ’em like they used to!” are exclaimed with a resentful frustration aimed directly toward modern cinema. It’s always great to meet people on our own wavelength and, on those nights in alone, I often find myself choosing to watch content from the 60’s up to the turn of the millennium. Even the smaller, lesser-appreciated indies from this era feel like a warm soothing bath of nostalgia and, while the concepts often feel smaller and the productions somewhat campy, there’s a grittiness and attitude that seems to have since been lost.
The reality is that I’m a cultural dinosaur just like the pretentious old film fans from my youth who once scorned colour film as a bastardisation of an art form and wanted me to appreciate something slower, more intellectually stimulating, and less commercial. You know how it goes, you aren’t listening to great music in your teens if you aren’t pissing off your parents. I’m not going to pretend I particularly enjoy or even understand most Marvel and DC films and fully admit that the Transformers movies give me motion sickness. I couldn’t even make it half way through 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman without getting exhausted and having to take nap.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this and I am heavily generalising. Just like there’s Gen-Z teens currently getting into Nirvana, there’s young film fans with a love for content old enough to be their parents. Likewise, there’s plenty of people middle-aged and above who are on the cusp of what’s hot and new with the kids. There is however an issue I keep seeing within the filmmaking world that does concern me.
Something I see a lot of with older screenwriters who long for the kind of films we don’t see getting…
