Older films

So I was watching A Streetcar named Desire yesterday, the 1953 film version (for a class, sadly enough, the last time I could watch an entire movie just for the sake of watching it must have been months ago. Actually, come to think of it, that must've been The Hunger Games, somewhere in the middle of March. The only things I now actually make time for are Game of Thrones and The Apprentice. Ah, the joy of being busy...), and then it struck me: old(er) films are just much better than the ones we have today.
Now I should immediately put in a disclaimer here, because I don't want to sound like someone who knows her stuff when I don't. I haven't watched that many "old" films. I'm one of those people who keeps saying she wants to watch Casablanca and Gone with the Wind and The Graduate and never really does it. But I do think I've seen enough old(er) and new(er) films to make some kind of judgement.
Now with Streetcar, you can clearly see that the set is not that realistic, that the camera wobbles, that most of the sound effects were added later in a studio, and that the acting is just a little bit over the top. But that doesn't matter. The story, the characters, they draw you in every time, even though you know the plot, even though you know exactly what's going to happen. It keeps you on the edge, it makes you wonder, it does everything a good film or play is supposed to do.
Does this mean that actors were just that much better in those days? I don't think so, because we still have some great ones (although it is of course telling that Marlon Brando also played in what is regarded as the best film for a long time now, The Godfather). I think they did have the advantage of also having acted on stage, which calls for a different kind of acting than film-acting, because the audience is that much farther away and not inside the camera shoved next to your face (although it isn't really, in these older movies, because it couldn't be. So that may also be one of the differences; actors had to act with their whole bodies, their whole selves, not just with that tiny bit showing on the close-up).
No, I think the main difference is that it is real. The people are real, the situations are real, the behaviour is a close enough approximation of real, and the story is told in a clear, not-too-forced manner. What I mean is this; Stanley and Stella and Blanche and the house they live in and their friends and the situations they find themselves in, they're all recognisable. We've all played poker or had an unexpected guest stay too long or known someone who kept up appearances even though inside she was crumbling. They all look real, too, not too much make-up (they even had to make Vivian Leigh look older, because she was too good-looking to play Blanche), and obviously no digital touch-ups. Stella is nice and plump, not the too-skinny kind of actress you have today, and Stanley's friends are big and small and tall and unshaven as real people would be. The filming is kinda wobbly, but that is okay, because in real life you don't have a steady vision of things anyway. The camera is in those places a real person could also be, we don't see the action as if we're "in the wall" or whatever. So, in short, it looks real.
Now compare this to the latest film I've seen that actually came close to gripping me for its entire length; The Hunger Games (yes, I keep coming back to this film, but as I said, it's one of the last I've actually seen and can properly discuss). The situation is unrealistic from the outset, but that's a given in a post-apocalyptic dystopian movie, so we'll let that one go. However, the characters are also unrealistic. Katniss is way to muscular for how little food she has been eating, same goes for Gale. Their faces and clothes are too clean, overall their cloths are just too expensive (Katniss has a pair of leather boots that would cost more that her entire family has in a year). And finally, of course, they look too perfect. Their faces have been made completely smooth by make-up, their hair is always perfect, they are thin but muscular, or broad and muscular in the case of the guys, and they just are unrealistically pretty. Otherwise, the acting is realistic, the responses to situations seem real and are understandable, even though they are situations that we've never found ourselves in. The camerawork is nice and wobbly, "because we wanted to show it was Katniss's point of view", as the director said, even though the camera sometimes occupies a place no normal person could have been (extreme close-ups, extreme overview shots).
On the whole, if you compare these two films, the main difference is the physique and looks of the actors and the camera positions. No matter how good your story is, if your characters look unbelievable or you tell it from a point of view that people couldn't have in real life, people won't follow your story.
Does it matter? Of course it doesn't. Most people don't watch a film to be drawn into the story, to experience highs and lows, to gain new insights into Life, the Universe, and Everything. They watch a movie to relax, to enjoy themselves with friends, to keep the kids quiet. And in response, that's the kind of film we're getting.
However, as Aristotle said (oh my, doesn't that make me sound presumptuous), emotional catharsis in the audience is one of the most important elements of tragic theatre (as you'll see, I'm leaving out comedy for the moment, partly because it's a totally different thing and partly because I don't like 95% of all comic films being made right now, so I don't watch them, so I can't talk about them). For me, it is definitely important. If I'm going to invest my time and attention and energy (and money) into a film, I better get something out of it, or I better be drawn into it in such a way that I forget about everything else for a while. Maybe that's why I haven't been watching that many movies lately; they just aren't good enough. Not for what I want to get out of them.
So perhaps it's time to get some of those oldies, hunker down with some popcorn, and be swept away in black-and-white for a day.