What Makes a Classic Film?

[glinda]

So, I'm currently working on a couple of film watching projects on where I'm trying to watch one film from every year since film-making began and the other where I watch 10 'Classic Movies'.

I spent some time as a film student when I was younger, but my films of choice (and mild obsession) as a teen were 50s and 60s B Movies and thus I never saw many of the accepted canon films and thus I often encountered the horrified 'what do you mean you haven't seen X?! And you call yourself a film student!' attitude. And half the time when I try to 'correct' this and actually watch some of the supposed 'canon' the films leave me cold. So while I'm a bit embarassed that I've never seen Forbidden Planet, I'm not remotely convinced that my life is likely to be improved by watching the Godfather trilogy.

Also the major problem I've found with lots of the lists of 'classic' films that I've found are Hollywood centric (and Hollywood from the 40s to the 70s at that), maybe with a couple of arty European affairs thrown in for good measure, but frankly when it comes to films from outside of Hollywood if Satyajit Ray or Yasujiro Ozu get a passing nod then they're doing well.

Which leads me to here. Members of this comm seem to have a rather more sensible attitude to 'classic film', so it seems the best place to ask: what makes a film a classic? And which of the so-called classics are actually worth watching?

Comments

[lycomingst]

I think any film that has a little age on it but that people still want to watch can be a classic. But it also has a lot to do with personal preferences, like, I don't like horror films though I'd watch an old Hammer film but there are those who love horror and would probably classify the Friday 13th series as classic.

There are so many genres of movies and there can be classic, ones that entertain or give you new thoughts, ones in each of them, I think.

[onyxlynx]

Still mulling this question. Be back later.

[glinda]

I look forward to your answer then. :)

[onyxlynx]

Still mulling, and the only thing that seems to be definitive is "Must be at least ten years old for consideration."

I don't doubt that there are "instant classics" and things that become classic with the passage of time, but since critical appreciation and movie-goers' tastes have been known to change, letting (danger: mixed metaphor!) the bouquet of newness dissipate allows the richness (or crummy undertones) of the perfume to come to the fore.

My original endpoint of "classic" was "Could I have seen it in a theater at its time of release?" There've been a few extra decades of film since that time... There seems to be a sea change around the late '70s-early '80s toward more noise and spectacle, but that also went on in the '50s (Cinerama et al.).

So. Ten years. Fifteen would probably be better.

(Of course this fudges the questions of techniques, scriptwriting, representation, and censorship. But "classical" has always been a fuzzy category. Personally, I take 1979 as an absolute cut-off, but that's just my arbitrariness.)

Hope that helped a little.

[onyxlynx]

PS: Some of those B movies are sneaking into the "canon." (There is no c/a/b/a/l/ canon.)