# Films that don't make sense unless you understand the zeitgeist of the time **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 20, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730 "2010-02-20T03:42:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/61 "2010-02-22T03:08:24Z")
Dirk Bogarde in [Victim](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_(film)) Made in 1961 before homosexuality was decriminalised/legalised in 1967 ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/62 "2010-02-22T03:28:58Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > I disagree. Antiestablishmentism (?) was certainly a much rarer thing in the 60s, but it’s certainly not unheard of today. People rant against the government, corporate culture, or other authority all the time these days, and rant against those who accept that authority without question. Cool Hand Luke is still a powerful movie. But Luke wasn’t directly railing against the government, his self-centered malaise as establishment defiance is all 60’s. A teenager watching that today would remark, “So the guy ate 50 eggs, who cares?” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/63 "2010-02-22T03:31:45Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > I always thought that if Jenny, the girl in “Love Story” had lived, she would be the suicidal narrarator of “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan”, by Marianne Faithful. > \* > At the age of 37 > she realized she’d never ride > through Paris in a sports car > with the warm wind in her hair > \* Nitpick, just for credit-due’s sake: “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” is by Shel Silverstein. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/64 "2010-02-22T03:36:03Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > You need to watch better silent film acting, and not from the 1910s. Silent film acting evolved by the 1920s, and was more subtle and scaled for the camera instead of the stage. See Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Richard Barthelmess, Lillian Gish, Charles Farrell, and Louise Brooks. To be fair, with the possible exception of Louise Brooks, the style of all the actors you mention would stand out like a sore thumb in today’s movies. They may have been a little different from the standard style of the teens, but they were still very much of the era. The silent films whose performances really stand out for me as very close to modern in subtlety and realism of style are \*\*\*The Crowd, Hindle Wakes, _ **and** _ A Cottage on Dartmoor. \*\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/65 "2010-02-22T03:55:32Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Nitpick, just for credit-due’s sake: “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” is by Shel Silverstein. I did not know that. (I did know he wrote “A Boy Named Sue”). Ignorance fought. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/66 "2010-02-22T04:11:33Z")
I found **Vixen Slut Nurses #32** to be trapped in the collective unconsciousness of the early 2000’s, while both **Vixen Slut Nurses #31** and **Vixen Slut Nurses #33** to have aged very well. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/67 "2010-02-22T06:30:53Z")
The L Shaped Room was a movie starring Leslie Caron who played an unmarried ,pregnant teenager who moved into a bad apartment to fend for herself. It was not the thing that we were public about in 1962. It was a big think back then. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/68 "2010-02-22T06:43:39Z")
Roger Moore’s James Bond movies. Yes, some of it is Moore’s limitations as an actor. And I know that there was a sense in which he was playing the role broadly with a self-deprecating wink. But much of the role is about his representation of an image of masculinity that is locked into the 70s zeitgeist. That whole idea of cool that he promoted now looks lame to the extreme and utterly dated. He looks like the ads Playboy ran in the 70s that typically had an uber-guy drinking cocktails listening to his fabulous stereo. A woman used entirely as set-dressing paws him with desperate yearing in her eyes as he gazes indifferently elsewhere. Maybe he’ll do her the signal honour of gracing her with his sexual prowess. Or maybe not. It’s entirely his call, as she passively and desperately uses her sexuality to get his all-important attention. Moore just looks like an aging pants man caught in terminal brand idolatry; pathetic rather than heroic. It’s just no longer possible for that shtick to sell. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/69 "2010-02-22T07:30:14Z")
The James Bond look was already dated by the '70s. It was hatched in the '50s, and stayed frozen in that era. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/70 "2010-02-22T14:15:20Z")
My vote is for “West Side Story”-I mean-young punks snapping their fingers and chanting “cool it”? And Officer Krumpke? Nobody in his or her’s teens would understand this film. Incidentally, in “The Graduate” (when Benjamin rents a room in Berkeley, to be near his love), he has a extremely funny interchange with the land lord: (Landlord): “are you wunna dose outside agitators?” (Benjamin): “no” (Landlord): “I hate does outside agitators”! That was one of the best lines in the flick:D ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/71 "2010-02-22T16:14:28Z")
A lot of this comes under the heading of [Values Dissonance.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ValuesDissonance) See also [Discredited Trope.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscreditedTrope) ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/72 "2010-02-22T16:25:19Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > But Luke wasn’t directly railing against the government, his self-centered malaise as establishment defiance is all 60’s. > > A teenager watching that today would remark, “So the guy ate 50 eggs, who cares?” And? Establishment defiance is alive and well 50 years after the 60s - it’s just usually redirected at different targets. That doesn’t make “Cool Hand Luke” irrelevant in the least. And the film is rich enough in other allegories to still make it relevant on many other levels. A teenager watching today can just as easily see the connection between Luke eating 50 eggs and his later statement of “Stop feeding on me!”, and going deeper, how that ties in with the Christ allegory - all without needing any familiarity with the 60s zeitgeist. One-note movies like “Love Story” become irrelevant because they have no other structure to lean on. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/73 "2010-02-22T16:41:24Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > Roger Moore’s James Bond movies. Yes, some of it is Moore’s limitations as an actor. And I know that there was a sense in which he was playing the role broadly with a self-deprecating wink. But much of the role is about his representation of an image of masculinity that is locked into the 70s zeitgeist. > > That whole idea of cool that he promoted now looks lame to the extreme and utterly dated. He looks like the ads Playboy ran in the 70s that typically had an uber-guy drinking cocktails listening to his fabulous stereo. A woman used entirely as set-dressing paws him with desperate yearing in her eyes as he gazes indifferently elsewhere. Maybe he’ll do her the signal honour of gracing her with his sexual prowess. Or maybe not. It’s entirely his call, as she passively and desperately uses her sexuality to get his all-important attention. > > Moore just looks like an aging pants man caught in terminal brand idolatry; pathetic rather than heroic. It’s just no longer possible for that shtick to sell. Actually, Roger Moore SALVAGED the James Bond series, as I see it. It’s the earlier Sean Connery movies that seem dated to me, because Connery played them so straight. Moore was RIGHT to play Bond with a wink and a nudge! Now, if you want to see some truly dated, pathetic attempts at looking cool, watch any of the Rat Pack movies of the early Sixties. Sinatra, Martin & Co. thought of themselves as hip, swinging, cool, Ring-a-ding-ding kind of happening guys. They had no idea how laughably UNcool they’d look in jus ta few years. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/74 "2010-02-22T23:05:39Z")
[_Things to Come,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_To_Come) screenplay by H.G. Wells, 1936, was based in a _zeitgeist_ that assumed humanity’s salvation lay with scientists and technical experts rebuilding society on a rational basis. As David Szondy remarks on his [Tales of Future Past](http://davidszondy.com/future/city/everytown.htm) website: > [@](#): > > In 1936, Wells wrote the screenplay for Things to Come, a drama about the next hundred years of human history that Wells himself openly referred to as “a propaganda piece.” Things to Come describes how the world is destroyed by a decades-long war using aerial bombardment and poison gas, which is then saved by a self-appointed body of enlightened technocrats who conquer the world using aerial bombardment and poison gas. They then establish a one-world scientific government and use their talents to build gigantic underground cities for the human race to live in. This utopia of 2036 is perfect-- assuming that you really, really like stark white art deco. > > \ > > \*LITTLE GIRL: “They keep on inventing new things now, don’t they? And making life lovelier and lovelier?” > > OLD MAN: "Yes… Lovelier–and bolder…\* > > So goes a history lesson where a man tries to explain to his great granddaughter why people live underground, never see the sun, never breathe fresh air, and why this is so much better all around. It’s less like Utopia and more like those Japanese hotels that are basically upholstered lockers. One comes away with the impression that Mr. Wells didn’t really care for nature all that much and preferred a society where everything could be neatly controlled like components in the huge machines the film featured. Also instructive is George Orwell’s 1941 essay, [“Wells, Hitler, and the World State.”](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part15) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/75 "2010-02-22T23:05:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, Roger Moore SALVAGED the James Bond series, as I see it. It’s the earlier Sean Connery movies that seem dated to me, because Connery played them so straight. > > Moore was RIGHT to play Bond with a wink and a nudge! I couldn’t disagree more (Moore?) I find the Moore films damned near unwatchable, except for **For Your Eyes Only** , which was the straightest and most Fleming-like of all of his. but I could watch the Connery Bonds over and over. And do. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/76 "2010-02-23T03:03:00Z")
**Astorian** , I’m focusing on the zeitgeist thing. It’s not about the worth or otherwise of the Bond oeuvre in its various incarnations or who was the better Bond. It’s about specifically the spirit of an idea of masculinity that is almost unrecoverable now. Assumptions about how men are to behave towards women when being cool inform the whole Moore enterprise in a way that is present despite the broad nod to self-mockery. It’s a bit like Hitler’s moustache. It is now impossible to imagine how anyone ever thought it looked cool because of the sustained (and I hasten to say deserved) mockery of it. But it clearly must once have conveyed something like authority, efficiency, a certain economy of line, and rebellion against Kitchener-style WW1 moustaches that had gone before. Yet no-one today can relate to that. Just as no-one can relate to the unspoken assumptions underlying Moore’s Bond’s cheesiness. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/77 "2010-02-23T04:37:35Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Yes to this. I tried showing it in a freshman comp class around 2001. Most of the students really, really didn’t get it. The one who did was a slacker fifth-year senior who was only just getting around to taking freshman comp, Why are you showing The Graduate in a computer class? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/78 "2010-02-23T05:17:33Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > **Astorian** , I’m focusing on the zeitgeist thing. It’s not about the worth or otherwise of the Bond oeuvre in its various incarnations or who was the better Bond. It’s about specifically the spirit of an idea of masculinity that is almost unrecoverable now. Assumptions about how men are to behave towards women when being cool inform the whole Moore enterprise in a way that is present despite the broad nod to self-mockery. > > It’s a bit like Hitler’s moustache. It is now impossible to imagine how anyone ever thought it looked cool because of the sustained (and I hasten to say deserved) mockery of it. But it clearly must once have conveyed something like authority, efficiency, a certain economy of line, and rebellion against Kitchener-style WW1 moustaches that had gone before. Yet no-one today can relate to that. Just as no-one can relate to the unspoken assumptions underlying Moore’s Bond’s cheesiness. No need to “correct” me. I grasped your point perfectly, though I don’t agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/79 "2010-02-23T05:46:53Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I couldn’t disagree more (Moore?) > > I find the Moore films damned near unwatchable, except for **For Your Eyes Only** , which was the straightest and most Fleming-like of all of his. > > but I could watch the Connery Bonds over and over. And do. I agree with you, although the Moore film I can watch more than once is _To Live and Let Die_, because I’m into the voodoo/vodoun thing. Connery played Bond with a working-class rough edge underneath the suave veneer, something that I think Daniel Craig captures better than Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan ever did. I always got the sense from the Connery portrayal that Bond had grown up rough, learned to fake nobility, and was a complete sociopath. > [@Quintas](#): > > Why are you showing The Graduate in a computer class? I assumed he meant composition. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730/80 "2010-02-23T06:06:36Z")
I’ll nominate **Network** , from 1976. I’m sure younger people with some knowledge of history and a dark sense of humor can appreciate most of the film. Nevertheless, it probably helps a lot to have lived through that time — in particular: [ol] [li]The shallow pursuit of high ratings had not yet taken over television news reporting. (It soon would though.)[/li][li]There was a real malaise in the air, in 1970s America. Not that we all walked around moping every day. But, after Vietnam, Watergate, inflation, rapidly rising crime rates in the major cities, not to mention the Cold War always rumbling in the background, there was a widespread sense that society was severely broken, degenerating, and that no one really knew what to do about it.[/li][/ol] > [@Hamlet](#): > > I found **Vixen Slut Nurses #32** to be trapped in the collective unconsciousness of the early 2000’s, while both **Vixen Slut Nurses #31** and **Vixen Slut Nurses #33** to have aged very well. Ya do, huh? Well I’ve just never liked **Vixen Slut Nurses #33**. It **insists** upon itself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/films-that-dont-make-sense-unless-you-understand-the-zeitgeist-of-the-time/529730.md?page=5)