This isn’t about the physical medium of a movie sitting in an archive. Here’s what I am referring to: Every now and then someone will comment that an old movie has or has not aged well (more often the latter). This is most often due to references in the movie that become dated and outmoded for the current generation. This is easy to detect in movies that are at least ten years old and older movies show even greater signs of aging. My question is, what indicates whether a current movie is going to age well or not age well in the future? Can we look at current releases and anticipate what people will think of them ten or twenty years from now and determine its ability to age well?
Pop culture references, even to the extent of stunt casting, does not bode well for a film becoming one for the ages.
The movie can have references to current events or well-known gifures if they’re significant enough, like all the WWII references in Casablanca. But references to ephemeral individuals, fads, or catch phrases will certainly "date’ a movie. For instance, we discussed the last line in Whats Up, doc? here not long ago. The line is a joke on the Ryan O’neal movie Love Story that was universally familiar back then, but not now. Although a single incident l;ike that won’t date a film. (I’ve read that the ending of the Disney feature The Sword in the Stone has a riff on a then-current commercial for a soft drink (Pepsi?). But, if so, I don’t recall the ad in question, or what the joke is supposed to be)
If you don’t want your movie to become laughable as it ages, don’t include “gee-whiz” reactions to the latest technology. So the Bela Lugosi mystery Murder by Television is a weird historical curiousity today, as is the TV-as-monster film The Twonky. James Bond looks like a dork with his cutting-edge Digital Watch in Live and Let Die (But a lot of his other technology – like the laser beam in Goldfinger retains its gee-whiz-ness, and so doesn’t look laughable)
If a movie is trying to be hip to its time it is bound to age poorly as tastes and fashions change. It needs to stand up as a good story with good strong performances to make it. For instance Dog Day afternoon is a very 70’s film (Including the ATTICA ATTICA chant…) the technology is antiquated the fashions and sensabilities are dated too. Despite that it is a well made story and has a strong cast it still holds up.
If it is a period piece it can work as well, a movie set in the 30’s won’t look dated because you anticipate it to be a period piece even if the designs, lighting, music and acting styles give away the actual period it was filmed (EG comparing Bonnie and Clyde with The Sting and The Untouchables)
As for today’s films… Hard to say.
I see this as a decade of relentless pointless remakes that say nothing about today… There are strong films that will likely stand the test of time but not many.
I don’t think making references to specific trends or celebs will instantly date a movie. After all, Shakespeare’s plays are supposedly replete with references to (what to him were) current social gossip, and his works still get produced.
What really determines how well a movie stands up over time is if the themes of the movie continue to resonate with future audiences.
Casablanca holds up despite it’s WWII setting because it’s a story of a man giving up the one person he truly loves for the greater good of the world. Modern day audiences may not identify with the movie the same way audiences in 1942 would have (when the outcome of the war was far from uncertain), but they can idenity with Rick making a huge personal sacrifice, and losing his one true love. Compare that to a movie like 9/11, which has no underlying universal subtext, and is solely concerned with a very specific moment in time. Audiences 50 years from now aren’t going to be too interested in that film, but might still relate to Casablanca.
Another film that comes to mind is the original Alien, which gets nitpicked on these boards because of the characters’ smoking (“they certainly wouldn’t do THAT in the future!”) and because the high-tech starship’s main computer has analog read-outs. But the central message of the film - that you can ‘coccoon’ yourself in banal, everyday, humdrum routine all you want, but the unpleasant outside world is still going to intrude into your sanctuary - still resonates with people.
So, in other words, a film survives over time because of it’s theme. If there is a message underlying the plot that still means something to audiences 10, 20, 50 years into the future - the film holds up, regardless of the setting, incidental references, etc.
Outliers abound, but a film is more likely to age well if:
There are few special effects
It wasn’t low budget
Few or no pop culture references
The performance when released was so spectcular that no remake will ever sell
It was a book before it was a movie
It somehow ends up and stays on AFI’s top 100 list (I think there are quite a few guilty pleasures on it and critics can commonly create convention)
It has an incredible cast at the peak of their careers
My best guesses for classics are:
Fight Club
The Usual Suspects
I can tell you that the Shrek franchise is the epitome of current movies that will n ot age well. Too many pop culture references as the jokes, current slang (often used badly, or ironically, or whatever it’s called…), etc…
Licensed contemporary music will age a film in a year, much less over decades. The Matrix is a mix of hilarious and embarrassing in the music department alone - it’s all bad nineties funk-metal, which already sounds hilarious, and it’s not even that old.
Imagine if “More than a woman” or “Heaven must be missing an angel” started playing as the X-wings begin their attack on the Death Star.
Ahhh… But what about the sappy sentimental “of it’s time” As time goes by?
Music like film can age poorly. Sometimes it still resonates (lest every nation completely change its national anthem each decade)
I hear ya’ VCO3. I disagree, slightly, with The Matrix, but I can definetly see your point. When I was a kid, I loved Lady Hawke, but upon rewatching it, I can’t get through the damn eighties synthesizers.
To expand on your point, If a movie is going to be timeless, it can’t have popular music. Stuff like what John Williams did for Star Wars is fine, but they have to be careful with the music if they want to make a “timeless” movie.
Sometimes the fact that certain movies don’t age well has nothing to do with references to then-current pop cultural references, fashions, and quickly-outdated technology. It could just be the style of filmmaking. For example, this article in the recent Atlantic Monthly about the Hollywood Studio System, mentions the fact that the biographical “prestige” pictures that Warner Brothers and MGM used to put out in the 1930’s and 40’s were regarded (at least by the studios) as important works whose appeal was expected to last through the ages. have little appeal today mainly because they now come across as boring, stuffy, stilted, and self-important. Also, audiences used to quick-cuts and short scenes may find older movies too slowly paced and drawn out.
I also vote that broad, simple themes are a must. The best of the Star Trek movies is the second, the gist of which is:
Death is something everyone has to face.
Family relationships can be painful.
Revenge is good.
Sometimes you have to take one for the team.
Getting old sucks.
Fight Club is almost 10 years old and The Usual Suspects is more than 10 years old, so I’d say the fact that they’re still popular proves the point.
Seems to me like a couple could stand to. I’m looking at you, Mexico.
Sometimes society passes a movie by. Some movies deal with topics that are big controversies at the time but later become passe issues. Look at Kramer vs Kramer - the central theme was whether it was possible for a man to be a single parent. Nowadays that would be considered a cliched theme for a sitcom. The same with the vast majority of movies that deal with current topics like racism, anti-semitism, feminism, gay rights - social views on these issues move so quickly that almost any movie about these topics will seem out of touch within a decade.
According to Dogma:
Loki: The major sins never change. Besides, you know, I can spot a commandment-breaker from, like, a mile away. So, bet on it.
Bartleby: This from the guy who still owes me 10 bucks over that bet about what was gonna be the bigger movie - "E. T. " or “Krush Groove”?
Loki: You know, fuck you, man, 'cause time’s gonna tell on that one.
Yeah, I agree with this. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner didn’t age well.
I think that sometimes period pieces age well, for instance, Chinatown and The Godfather.
Some “genres” seem to age well. . .movies like The Long Goodbye and The Maltese Falcon age well. I bet that Silence of the Lambs ages well, but not American Beauty.
Movies that are too geared towards the hoi polloi don’t seem to age well. . .like the original Poseiden Adventure or The Towering Inferno. That bodes poorly for Bruckheimer movies, I think, like The Rock or Con Air.
Or like NDP mentioned, movies that the style is too cliched from that time. Those old movies where Cary Grant is sitting in a convertible with a dame wearing a headscarf in front of a fake background always seem dated.
I think that Tarantino movies will age like Sergio Leone movies. I can easily imagine Trunk 2020 watching Pulp Fiction 50 times like I watched The Good, The Bad….
I think that pop culture references are the least of a film’s problems.
Crash won the best picture Oscar in 2004. And it will probably be totally forgotten except as a movie trivia question by 2024.
Any film that puts itself on the cutting edge of any social issue has to face the fact that the location of the edge is going to move and the film will still be in the same place.
I’m still wondering how Star Wars is still netting millions of dollars while Logan’s Run, a far better, even ridiculously better movie, has faded into obscurity.
Blasphamy!! The Rock is over 10 years old and it’s still a great action movie. As are Die Hard, the Indiana Jones films and Under Seige.
It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly makes a movie age well or badly. Older movies can often seem slow and plodding after years of watching rapid MTV style editing.
Sets and special effects can often seem dated. Many old big-budget movies have aged suprisingly well though. Jaws, Indiana Jones, Aliens, 2010 aged well for the simple reason they had to physically build a lot of that stuff. CGI special effects tend not to age as well. As we get used to seeing more and more realistic effects, older effects tend to pop out as cheesy and unrealistic. That goes for stop-motion animation or matting effects that don’t quite match as well as CGI.
“Edgy” comedies tend not to age well for the simple fact that as the years go by, filmmakers tend to try to make the movies edgier. I didn’t see Fast Times at Ridgemont High until I was in college and the film had been out 10 years. I found it slow, dull, and not all that edgy. And there have been so many teen movies since then.
I would say that movies that capture the particular Zeitgeist of their era can stand up over the years as decent stories. I didn’t see Say Anything until 1998. I just watched Less Than Zero on HBO the other day. (Actually, it now occurs to me I have all three movies based on Bret Easton Ellis novels on my DVR - LTZ, American Psycho and Rules of Attraction). While the movie is totally 80s in it’s aethetic, it’s still not a bad story. People always love movies about fucked up rich kids. Singles and Reality Bites are extreme 90s films and are still watchable. I don’t know if any of these films have cross generational appeal or if they are just watchable by me because I grew up during the 80s and 90s.
I was thinking the same thing about Red Dawn. I never noticed the music, as it was just music back then. But now I find myself alternating between busting a gut, and grinding my teeth as the synthesized fanfare strikes up everytime action happens. It is just so damn inorganic and jarring.