OT: Star Wars, George Lucas, and the end of filmmaking

[Barney B]

"Very informative post" - LA Times

"Well-researched" - Herald Examiner

"Good to the last drop" - Washington Post

"Two thumbs up" - The Chief

[Ignatius J.]

I think you are all selling modern cinema a little short. Great movies are being made, even by the big time production companies. While the 70's certainly had their fair share of interesting movies, the past ten years have also seen some pretty radical stuff. American History X and Fight Club were both daring movies, produced by major production companies.

Critics have always been reactionary, so i expect it to be some time befor they admit that the quality in film really is increasing. I think that if we look back over the last couple of years, we will see that this era in filmmaking has seen some of the greatest leaps forward in cinematography. Perhaps it is in the advanced post-production procedures, but moves like Braveheart and the Matrix, and to a lesser extent gladiator, have really done some excellent things in the world of cinematography. I just don't see the kind of attention to detail in movies between 1960 and 1990. And while there are definately cultural reasons for this, I think we wil come to realize that this is not such a stagnant period as critics make it out to be.

-DB

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by The Chief

"Very informative post" - LA Times

"Well-researched" - Herald Examiner

"Good to the last drop" - Washington Post

"Two thumbs up" - The Chief

:notworthy

Originally posted by DrunkenBoxer

While the 70's certainly had their fair share of interesting movies, the past ten years have also seen some pretty radical stuff. American History X and Fight Club were both daring movies, produced by major production companies.

If you go and actually look at the record, the sheer volume of “radical” and “daring” films produced during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s more than outweighs the number of such films produced at virtually any other moment in American moviemaking history, including the 1990s. For every one Fight Club from the ‘90s, there were ten Parallax Views from the ‘70s. However, this makes sense when one considers the place that America was at in the ‘70s versus the ‘90s. The ‘70s were a period of severe economic stagnancy for the U.S., marked by rising unemployment and crime rates, whereas the ‘90s were one of the most economically prosperous times in the history of this nation, distinguished by remarkably low unemployment and crimes rates. And, as history has proven time and again, there’s nothing like bad times to engender good art.

Originally posted by DrunkenBoxer

I think that if we look back over the last couple of years, we will see that this era in filmmaking has seen some of the greatest leaps forward in cinematography.

To be sure, DrunkenBoxer. As one of my instructors at ‘SC once said, “Never forget that film is primarily a visual medium.” And you’re right, DB, in that there were some beautifully photographed films produced during the ‘90s, as well as some true quantum leaps witnessed in the very way that films communicate their visual data to the audience, most notably The Matrix’s “Bullet Time” cinematography.

Lest anyone misread my feelings here, let me say that I loved The Matrix and a good many other films produced during the ‘90s and, prior to that, the ‘80s -- which, for the record, were the decades that I grew up in. I also loved Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. However, I was (to put it mildly) less than enamored of The Phantom Menace, and, as a result, am hoping for the best yet bracing for the worst with regard to Attack of the Clones.

[Mad Mike]

One VERY positive thing about digital film making. It allows those who would not be able to consider making an independent film the opportunity to do so due to it's low cost.

Get a Mac workstation w/ final cut pro and a good digital video camera and you have the basics to shoot and edit an indi. Less than $10,000 can get you started with the basics.

That's good news for any creative person with a dream.

Does digital match film? No. Not yet, but give it time. It won't be long. It was not so long ago that digital still cameras, even ultra expensive Nikons were only good for photojournalists who needed to be able to send shots back to newspaper quickly. Now they are often used for commercial work. I've used my Canon digital to produce full page images for ads that you would swear were shot on film.

All I'm saying is don't sell digital short. It can be a wonderful tool. It's up to the person with the story, the dream and the talent to use it well.