10 Classic Films That Will Make You Love Black and White Films
I love old movies. My wife … no. This is the stone for us when it comes to deciding what we want to watch together ; on rare occasions she says we can watch whatever you want, she never forgets to add, but nothing old and black and white. I don’t think my wife is the one who is wrong about classic cinema, and her objection is not really that they are mostly black and white, although this is part of it. There is also the simple fact that filmmaking is iterative like any other form of young art, and it has changed a lot since some of the first moviegoers feared the train would fly off the screen and blow them to pieces . (Although, before you share this little thing yourself, you should know that it is probably apocryphal .) The films were very different back then. They were written in different ways. They were edited in different ways – filmmakers had to literally teach the audience the language of the narrative film by coming up with it on the fly. And, of course, they acted differently, which is my wife’s main complaint. Yes, people in old movies sound weird (at least until you learn to love the Mid-Atlantic accent ).
But different is not a bad thing, and old films are inherently not inferior just because the art of making them has improved over the decades. You can compare it to reading Elizabethan or Victorian literature – which seems like homework for many – but I’d say it’s more like exercising the palate and appreciating food and drinks that are not easy the first time around (I think wine or black coffee ). In this slideshow, I’ve compiled 10 classics that will help you learn to appreciate the cinema of the last century, from the Golden Age of Hollywood to the early 1960s, when the studio system collapsed and films began to look more like today. Yes, if you are a movie lover, this choice will probably seem a little simple. But if you’ve seen it, your brain doesn’t need to be retrained – and chances are you have a close friend (or lover) who can win.