Is There a Value to Making a Film in an Older Style?

“Is There a Value to Making a Film in an Older Style? "
Yes there is. Think of Maddin.

There is certainly value in not continuously chasing contemporaneousness for the mere sake of contemporaneousness.

Ari said, The best films aren’t slavish tributes or homages to earlier styles but do things differently using older forms – subversively in Aleksei German’s case.

Francisco said, Yes there is. Think of Maddin.

To be clear, I’m talking about something a little different. I’ve only seen one Maddin film, but I get the sense that he’s not trying to recreate silent films from the early 20th Century; he’s just making silent films (at least some of the time). That’s different from a film like The Artist, which actually tries to recreate or make a silent film as if it were made in the 20s-30s.

@Matt

There is certainly value in not continuously chasing contemporaneousness for the mere sake of contemporaneousness.

To give me a clearer idea of what you mean, can you think of some examples or describe what you mean in more detail? If you mean chasing after the “new,” just to be “new,” while lacking substance or artistry, then I would agree with you, but you’re use of “contemporaneousness” suggests something else, perhaps.

Is there value in continously chasing anything for the mere sake of it?

re: “contemporaneousness”, I mean not “new” per se, but more “current”, for example, Hollywood filmmakers trying to do whatever style/technique is de rigueur at the time at which they’re working. Now, of course the “value” there is probably really sale-ability (solubility?) in the marketplace.

@ Odi

Love, art, and sophrosyne ; )

I love Melville’s Army of Shadows and its perfectly crafted classical style. And there it was… right in the middle of France in the sixties (after nearly a decade of “New Wave”)… released a year after Godard’s Weekend! Would I have enjoyed it as much if I’d seen it in a theater in a ready-to-riot Paris in 1968? I don’t know. Perhaps films of an “older style” are best appreciated much later, when their immediate context is not as obvious. (It was panned by Cahiers at the time, and not released in U.S until 1996)

@Odi

Your voice?

I also think “chasing after contemporaneousness” (depending on what we mean by that) can be an important end in and of itself—especially if there is pressure or obstacles for doing so. For example, in jazz community, pressure to play in older styles was a lot greater than playing something new (at least in the past). Also, apropos of what Cole mentioned, I think the glut of information makes developing an original approach/finding a voice difficult. How does this relate to contemporaneousness? I think older and unfamiliar art forms/artists can be very alluring to an artist (especially the open-minded ones with an adventurous bent)—but these art forms/artists may not be crucial to developing the artist’s voice—i.e., they may be a distraction and obstacle. Therefore, focusing on what is contemporary (or at least of the artist’s time and culture) might be a critical step in finding his/her voice.

…for example, Hollywood filmmakers trying to do whatever style/technique is de rigueur at the time at which they’re working. Now, of course the “value” there is probably really sale-ability (solubility?) in the marketplace.

Like that horrible fad of blue and orange? (teal and whatever)

Sophrosyne + love + art = the best! :D

@Matt

You’re talking about trends—i.e., “being trendy.” Yeah, that’s not desirable, either, but I don’t think that’s the opposite of what I’m talking about.

(or was it blue and yellow) (teal and jaundice)

On the other hand, Hollywood tends to overdue it for the sake of profit.

Like feeding someone a whole cow when all they wanted was a steak.

“I think older and unfamiliar art forms/artists can be very alluring to an artist (especially the open-minded ones with an adventurous bent)—but these art forms/artists may not be crucial to developing the artist’s voice—i.e., they may be a distraction and obstacle. Therefore, focusing on what is contemporary (or at least of the artist’s time and culture) might be a critical step in finding his/her voice.”

False!
When you play music, specially music which is based on improvisation and demands above average chops, you need to know and play as much as possible, specially “the roots”. I know a lot of folks who don’t know anything about what happened before the 90’s or 80’s. Their vocabulary is skin deep, there’s no originality at all. They just focus on current trends or the generation before them without realizing how and why it all happened. Developing into a good musician is as much an anthropological research as it’s practicing an instrument.
In music the development of your own voice has always been about copying other folks as much as possible and then combining the elements which suit you the best and from there you eventually get your own tone, phrasing, impro, composing etc.

It doesn’t matter if it’s old or new style. It’s an artistic choice based on the aesthetics which please the artists the most. Unless you actually invent something totally new then you still have to adapt and copy other people’s language.
Experimenting and trying different things is very cool and important but it ultimately comes down to being honest about what you really love the most and doing that.

Besides what’s exactly new anyway? People recycle and combine older styles anyway. The latest jazz thing, nu-jazz isn’t new at all anymore. It doesn’t matter if you use electronics or woodshed bebop, it’s all consciously made choice to adapt already existing language.
Today you’ll be lucky if your voice differs from the others’ somewhat.

Trouble in Paradise (1932) is old cinema.

Light in August (1932) is modernist literature.

Both were revolutionary forms, but only movie fans are obsessed with zeitgeist and what’s “new” and “old.”

“I still watch silent films. I don’t think that there is any such thing as an old film; you don’t say, ‘I read an old book by Flaubert,’ or ‘I saw an old play by Moliere.’ " – Alain Resnais

In music the development of your own voice has always been about copying other folks as much as possible and then combining the elements which suit you the best and from there you eventually get your own tone, phrasing, impro, composing etc.

Music is a disciplined art. It really is.

Experimenting and trying different things is very cool and important but it ultimately comes down to being honest about what you really love the most and doing that.

Agreed.

Today you’ll be lucky if your voice differs from the others’ somewhat.

Do you really think there’s so few original artists these days? Depressing, if that’s a fact. Or maybe there are always very few original artists, in the sense that it’s a challenge to find a way to be original, grasp that and then brilliantly express it. That might be a talent in and of itself, apart from being competent…

The form doesn’t have to be but when it comes to the technical aspects of playing an instrument, then yes. The discipline isn’t really about rigid practice but just playing a lot. For stringed instruments you really need the muscle memory to play things cleanly and have bends, vibrato etc. in tune. And the more one plays the more its tone and feel develops. Or when you play drums… you can’t pull of crazy Vinnie Colaiuta fills when you haven’t played for years, it’s physically and mentally impossible.

When it comes to vocabulary then it’s like science. You just don’t invent everything. You build up on other peoples’ ideas. It’s evolution.

I think there is great value is shooting in an “old” style and shooting films with an older film stock, instead of the new “clean” image.

Some films, especially films from the 70s, have this raw look that I enjoy and I would love it if people shooting a period piece would try and replicate the image quality and style of that day.

@Endy

When you play music, specially music which is based on improvisation and demands above average chops, you need to know and play as much as possible, specially “the roots”.

Oh, I agree with this. If you’re jazz musician, I think it is important to know and acquire a certain mastery of older forms. However, imo, I think this endeavor is a matter of developing one’s technique and command of an instrument—similar to how some jazz musicians learned classical compositions and techniques.

Developing into a good musician is as much an anthropological research as it’s practicing an instrument.
In music the development of your own voice has always been about copying other folks as much as possible and then combining the elements which suit you the best and from there you eventually get your own tone, phrasing, impro, composing etc.

But you don’t think one can go too far with “research?” I think that’s happened with some jazz musicians, and I believe it has the potential to hurt the music and the development of voice. I agree that developing one’s voice is initially about copying—but copying musicians/music that is somehow vital to the searching musician. By “vital,” I don’t just meant that one likes, but music that resonates deeply; music that is important. Making this distinction is not always easy; ditto focusing and working on this music to do create something original. It’s tempting to seek and out play with different music. Refinement takes discipline and focus—moreso now than any other time, imo.

It doesn’t matter if it’s old or new style. It’s an artistic choice based on the aesthetics which please the artists the most. Unless you actually invent something totally new then you still have to adapt and copy other people’s language.

I agree with the last part, but that doesn’t mean that old and new don’t matter at all. If you play mostly in an older style/language, you can try to create something new—and you may succeed to some degree—but not as much as someone who builds their music (art) in a contemporary/modern style. I’m not being precise, so let me give a specific example. Suppose you had a twenty-year old jazz musician playing be-bop. He gets deep into the music; it becomes the foundation—the vocabularly the musician uses to create. Now take another jazz musician who learns be-bop, but decides to use contemporary hip-hop, R&B, etc. as a the primary language. Which approach has a better chance of producing something new? Which musician is more likely to develop an original voice?

In the past twenty years or more, the musicians who have worked primarily in the older styles haven’t really produced the most innovative music or original voices. Rather the jazz musicians who have left the older forms behind have been the ones to create the “newest” music and most original voices.

It doesn’t matter if you use electronics or woodshed bebop, it’s all consciously made choice to adapt already existing language.

Well, this is tricky. You could say that musicians adapt existing languages—anything new is an adaptation of something that came before it. I think that’s essentially true. However, one can be “too rooted” in an older style and one can be distracted by a variety of styles—old and new—and this can interfere with developing one’s voice and one’s music.

Uli, I agree, many new films look too sterile. The same with music, it’s like recording on Tape versus on hard drive. Or some of the modern instrument amplification sounds just so sterile and cold that it’s quite annoying.

@Jazz – A brief rebuttal to the comment that Maddin simply makes silent films:

“By intentionally incorporating crackling soundtracks and loops of audio hum, as well as unnatural breaks in the film’s action—achieved by removing pieces of film from a completed shot, and then splicing the remaining film back together—Maddin’s film appears at once a genuine relic of the 1920s, having survived countless screenings over several decades, and yet at the same time, he infuses an ironic, late-twentieth century sensibility into the presentation of narrative, as well as the film’s intentional signs of aging, in a way that constantly reminds the viewer that what they are watching fully belongs in neither the past nor the present, but seems to exist in a sort of limbo state, as a hybrid of elements, a decaying past made unnaturally fresh again.”

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/maddin/

“Or when you play drums… you can’t pull of crazy Vinnie Colaiuta fills when you haven’t played for years, it’s physically and mentally impossible.”

I can play at exactly the same level whether I can see the kit in front of me or not (most of the time I play with lights off in the evening).

Rhythm is just memory. You just figure out a manner to count (I never pass three because everything in western music is just a multiple of two or three) and you’re set. After that it’s just playing enough until your body remembers how to do it correctly.

Music is much more than memory. It has to be. The greatest music is a connection to what was, while one creates what isn’t. (Or some other pretentious description).

Rhythm is Neil Peart. He is an incredibly fluid drummer, but I swear to God I’ll fucking kill myself if I hear him play that same Goddamn sixteenth note pattern he plays in every single Goddamn song. Neil Peart is a drummer.

Music is Steve Shelley. He’s rougher than Peart, he never attempts to show off, for many Sonic Youth songs he’s not playing at all for huge stretches. He plays simple patterns, usually just outlining where the song is rhythmically (the pattern in 9 that’s used as a bridge in “Candle”), but there is always an approach to his instrument that opens the song up both for his fellow musicians and for the listener. Steve Shelley is a musician.

For stringed instruments you really need the muscle memory to play things cleanly and have bends, vibrato etc. in tune. And the more one plays the more its tone and feel develops. Or when you play drums… you can’t pull of crazy Vinnie Colaiuta fills when you haven’t played for years, it’s physically and mentally impossible.

Endy — nice!

My mother is a pianist. She has spoken of pianists being like athletes of the smaller muscles.

Indeed, it is a physical thing too to play an instrument.

But practicing a lot benefits anyone who does anything really. It’s the only way you can learn, and keep in shape, and progress — whether the activity involved is more physical or more mental. And especially if it’s a lot of both.

Ooo I’m loving this divergence into the finer points of musicianship! :D

“Rhythm is Neil Peart. He is an incredibly fluid drummer, but I swear to God I’ll fucking kill myself if I hear him play that same Goddamn sixteenth note pattern he plays in every single Goddamn song. Neil Peart is a drummer.”

LOL

Odi
“Do you really think there’s so few original artists these days? Depressing, if that’s a fact. Or maybe there are always very few original artists, in the sense that it’s a challenge to find a way to be original, grasp that and then brilliantly express it. That might be a talent in and of itself, apart from being competent…”

It’s a fact, specially when it comes to music. Everything has been done. All the note combinations have been used. There hasn’t been any new harmonic, rhythmic or melodic ideas for decades. You’re good if you differ from the others a bit. The most important thing is about being sincere and putting everything into what you like the most. It’s a bummer that everyone are rehearsing the tunes which already exist but if you sound good and honest then there are people who buy it. And if you are clever and experiment with sounds then someone may even call you unique.

“practicing a lot benefits anyone who does anything really. It’s the only way you can learn, and keep in shape, and progress — whether the activity involved is more physical or more mental. And especially if it’s a lot of both.”

It sure does. No matter what you do.. the more shots you take the better photographer you’ll become. The more you paint the more your technique improves and allows you to pull of things which express your ideas and emotions better.
Mentally it’s the same. Many people don’t understand why everyone has to study so much math at school. I suck at math and hated it but it’s a very valuable brain exercise. You don’t need most of it in real life at all but it makes you to use your brain. Brain works like all the other muscles. The more you use it the better it gets.

There’s a difference between chasing modernity and rejecting it for the sake of rejecting it. I’m sure in the 1920s, if they had sound technology, or color, they would have used it from the beginning. If you’re not going to use the most easily accessible technology of the time and use older technology, it better be for an artistic reason.

Jazz,

Your example of someone with bebop knowledge playing hip-hop doesn’t necessarily mean that a new voice comes out of it. It’s just another combination of styles which has been done all the time. It’s true that you may adjust your lines rhythmically, instead of full on fast swing you play more funky and due the other musicians who you feed of from give you different ideas but it doesn’t really mean you get some totally new voice, you just adapt to certain stylistics otherwise you’d come of as someone with no musical hearing. I’m not saying that you can’t find your voice that way but a lot of time it doesn’t happen. I see all the time how many young sax players from music school play with Dj’s and whatnot… most of them still play the same.
And let’s reverse that theory. When you play bebop which is ridiculously demanding music it’s pretty essential that you are familiar with different styles like Bird, Dizzy etc. were. You take ideas from different styles and use it in bebop. But it’s the same thing, doesn’t mean that you are going to sound new.
Very few sound fresh.

For the sake of quality I think it’s better if everyone plays what they like the best.
Otherwise it is becoming like what painting is right now. Young art students have a pressure to invent something really really new. And what’s the result? A lot of rubbish. A lot of wasted paint. You can really feel that deep down this ultra post-post-modernist thing doesn’t suit for everyone.
I always appreciate when people are seeking for the stars when they truly mean it. But if that’s not your goal you better do what you like no matter how old or new it is.

Wu
“I can play at exactly the same level whether I can see the kit in front of me or not (most of the time I play with lights off in the evening).

Rhythm is just memory. You just figure out a manner to count (I never pass three because everything in western music is just a multiple of two or three) and you’re set. After that it’s just playing enough until your body remembers how to do it correctly.

Music is much more than memory. It has to be. The greatest music is a connection to what was, while one creates what isn’t. (Or some other pretentious description).

Rhythm is Neil Peart. He is an incredibly fluid drummer, but I swear to God I’ll fucking kill myself if I hear him play that same Goddamn sixteenth note pattern he plays in every single Goddamn song. Neil Peart is a drummer.

Music is Steve Shelley. He’s rougher than Peart, he never attempts to show off, for many Sonic Youth songs he’s not playing at all for huge stretches. He plays simple patterns, usually just outlining where the song is rhythmically (the pattern in 9 that’s used as a bridge in “Candle”), but there is always an approach to his instrument that opens the song up both for his fellow musicians and for the listener. Steve Shelley is a musician."

-——————————————————-

A handful of people on the planet can play like Vinnie Colaiuta. When that guy goes off even the most respected pros have an hard time understanding where the 1 is.
Yet he is also one of the most in demand sessions aces. His main job is to play simple tunes.
Yet when he chooses to tour, he chooses to play with someone like Jeff Beck, to make some really cool music.
He isn’t interested in showing off yet he has the best technique I’ve ever seen. He can play some ridiculously hard things and make them sound simple, like he did for Sting.
There are some newer players who also pull of crazy polyrhythms and fills… Donati, Minnemann, Mangini, Lang etc. Yet Colaiuta sounds much better because he is also incredibly musical and has an amazing groove.

Rhythm isn’t just memory. Rhythm is music. Every note has some kind of rhythm. Every pause/silence has a rhythm.
Rhythm is the hardest thing to “get”.
Some things are easy to pull of, some are so hard that may seem impossible.

Many afro-cuban and African rhythms are mostly in odd time meters, full of polyrhythms and you pretty much have to play four different things at the same time. Not easy! Takes years of practice and not only to play those notes but to actually sound good. To have a good tone, dynamics and articulation is just as important as nailing the beat itself.

I don’t care about Rush but Neil Peart is also a musician, it’s not debatable. He creates music.
He is an important drummer when it comes to influencing other people but his playing isn’t anything special.
He is precise and can play in some odd time meters but he doesn’t have much groove, his fills are repetitive single stroke rolls and can’t swing to save his life. He suits for Rush, he pulls that gig off perfectly.
But he lacks some important rhythmic elements. Groove isn’t his strongest side. For me it’s all about the groove and pocket. Swing is something he can’t do at all. After his miserable performance at Buddy Rich tribute concert he tried hard to learn how to swing, using the best teachers out there. Still he can’t do it. But most drummers can’t swing which doesn’t matter if you don’t play jazz. But he insist on doing it and fails. He has a very rigid approach to drums based on visualization but swing is based on feel.

I’m not entirely sure what’s meant by an Older Style."

I’m sure we can all list any number of “Old Movies” that are smarter, faster and more insightful than nearly everythign being made today (eg. “Trouble in Paradise,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “Some Like It Hot,” “Singin’ in the Rain.”)

Techincal innovations, particularly CGI effects are well in advance of the past. ut the imagination that went into films like “The Birds” or “2001” isn’t easily duplicated.

While there has been no end of talk about the 70’s, I find the 30’s a far more innovative era, producing films with wit and imagination like Whale’s “The Great Garrick,” Arzner’s “Working Girls” and Mamoulioan’s “Love Me Tonight.”

Speaking of the latter, aan you point to ANYTHING today REMOTELY as good as THIS?