I have just been watching Dog Day Afternoon and wallowed again in that 70’s vibe. The story takes second or third place now to the feel of New York in that period and brought back the words of a old media studies teacher I knew (old media studies teacher? – A misnomer perhaps as media studies is a fairly new academic branch... perhaps he studied with Edison and Lumiere) who said there is a wealth of social detail in film if only you look. So the story of a looser holding up a bank to pay for his lover’s sex change becomes a snapshot of the culture that existed at that time – a piece of social history more telling than any documentary.
It has to be the most difficult job in cinema to recreate a period that tells you more than the story Spike Jones with Crooklyn and Summer of Sam, Scorsese with Goodfellas and Mean Streets come close but detail is not all – you have to get into the soul of the age and I suspect it may be impossible.
It is easier to recreate a past we are unaware of and make it real with the use of detail – say Gosford Park – but the closer to our own age the harder it is to pull off.
Funnily enough the best recreation of my perception of 80’s Miami I have seen was in the game Grand Theft Auto – Vice City perhaps it was because as I get immersed in the game for a length of time it has resonances of old Miami Vice episodes! Of course Miami Vice was probably no nearer to the real Miami than Dick Van Dyke’s ‘lovable’ cockney chimneysweep in Mayry Poppinns ( as he would say…) but it works for me !
I have strayed from my point but next time you see some old Warner Bros ‘social conscious’ film from the 40’s or some swinging 60’s grove flick or even a great 70’s blacksploitation epic watch what is telling you about the times as they were and you too can be a media studies expert!
| Posted by: Liz | July 28, 2004 09:27 PM |
I can't believe you posted on this subject Tony. I was thinking about this very thing as I watched Prince's "Purple Rain" movie tonight. I LOVED this movie back then, and I went to see the Prince on the Purple Rain Tour, it was as amazing a performance as in the movie. It's so funny now to see Prince riding around town on that bike and walking in the woods with those costumes on, he looks ridiculous! The amazing thing about this movie is, the look is dated but damn, the music sure holds up. |