My response to movies about ancient times is quite different than movies made during my long lifetime, most of which are now referred to as classics. The classics often tinkle some little bell in my mind which says I never looked as good, wore such great clothes and make-up, or had as much opportunity for everything (especially a social life) as in those movies.
The movies from the forties through the eighties strike a chord too familiar to me, For some people it is nostalgic. I'm missing something genetic, I guess. They don't make me nostalgic. Those about the war make me sad or angry that our country no longer works together or respects the flag and our President. The romantic ones make me chuckle at .the romantic hero who was by then in his forties or fifties to be seen as a screen idol. ( Warner Brothers made a movie of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in 1940 with Greer Garson (as Elizabeth Bennet who was supposed to be 20) and Laurence Olivier.who was supposed to be 28) At the time, Greer Garson was 36 and Olivier was 33.) Granted it ws supposed to have been set in England in the early 1800s but looked like USA in a fantasy of land,time , and costume. It was as grating to my senses as Lulu, produced on stage in the 80s in Cambridge MA, a play set in Hitler's Berlin with a black woman playing Lulu. Some things are just too incongruent for me to allow myself to get into the story.
1957, An Affair to Remember, A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - which doesn't happen. It featured Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. I suppose love knows no age but as handsome as he was, he was 53 by then. Ms Kerr was 36. In 1942, Ronald Colman, then aged 51 was still playing handsome lover parts.
I guess I look back at all those movies until recently that gave a view of life as must be the picture in the minds of the current Republican Presidential candidates. Any similarity to reality is missing from them all.
The movies from the forties through the eighties strike a chord too familiar to me, For some people it is nostalgic. I'm missing something genetic, I guess. They don't make me nostalgic. Those about the war make me sad or angry that our country no longer works together or respects the flag and our President. The romantic ones make me chuckle at .the romantic hero who was by then in his forties or fifties to be seen as a screen idol. ( Warner Brothers made a movie of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in 1940 with Greer Garson (as Elizabeth Bennet who was supposed to be 20) and Laurence Olivier.who was supposed to be 28) At the time, Greer Garson was 36 and Olivier was 33.) Granted it ws supposed to have been set in England in the early 1800s but looked like USA in a fantasy of land,time , and costume. It was as grating to my senses as Lulu, produced on stage in the 80s in Cambridge MA, a play set in Hitler's Berlin with a black woman playing Lulu. Some things are just too incongruent for me to allow myself to get into the story.
1957, An Affair to Remember, A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - which doesn't happen. It featured Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. I suppose love knows no age but as handsome as he was, he was 53 by then. Ms Kerr was 36. In 1942, Ronald Colman, then aged 51 was still playing handsome lover parts.I guess I look back at all those movies until recently that gave a view of life as must be the picture in the minds of the current Republican Presidential candidates. Any similarity to reality is missing from them all.
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