Danielmedley.com

Michael Caine On Modern Film

And it’s not pretty.

FILMS made today pale against cinema classics of the past because they are so lacking in dialogue, character and plot ...

In today’s world, dialogue is anathema and plots that are not designed to quite literally beat you about the head and shoulders are few and far between.

The Oscar-winning star has lost count of the number of times he has seen films such as Casablanca, On the Waterfront and The Third Man, which he never tires of watching. Which is more, he said, than can be said for today’s “banal” films: “I can’t think of one I could see again,” he said.

Bottom line: He’s right.

Dear Daniel,
I agree with you on the films totally.  I am a collector of world films and I too love the classics.  That glamorous allure is what I feel is missing today!  There are also fantastic Post-war Italian, French and Swedish films.

Forgive me for raising the subject of food, but it’s the same.

We now have greater quality and availabilty - just look in any modern supermarket - but the greater part of it is unhealthy, over-processed, denatured and just plain not good for you. Like so much of the cinema these days.

Why produce what’s good for people when there’s more money in producing homogenised tosh?

Food OR cinema!

Amin, you’re spot on with your analogy. The only thing that I might amend is the more money part. I think that, in the short term, there is a quicker return on the dollar, but in the long term, it may be more lucrative to concentrating on quality. At least I’d like to think so.

I wish I could believe that quality wins out in the end, Daniel, but as someone who has seen standards decline and increase simultaneously over the last 40 years, what I now see is a levelling of the playing field, so to speak. It’s almost like the masses are being conditioned to expect mediocrity as the gold standard - whether food, or cinema/art/literature/whatever.

I see intelligent children who are barely able to sustain interest long enough to finish a chapter of a book. Those same children watch films only if the plot is painted technicolor and obvious to a blind man. I do not see - outside circles like this, generally - much interest in usings one’s brain. Too much like hard work.

“plots designed to quite literally beat you about the head and shoulders”

Exactly. Why switch on your brain when someone else can do the thinking for you? Why cook a meal when someone else can prepare a 3 minute microwave simulation of nourishment for you?

As Anna Friel says in the shampoo advert, “why bother?”

I get no sense that mankind is evolving mentally, or emotionally. Quite the opposite.

Hmm, I didn’t mean to rant like this, but I love quality in all its forms and I despair of what the world will be like in another 20 years.

Hmm, I didn’t mean to rant like this, but I love quality in all its forms and I despair of what the world will be like in another 20 years.

Oh, your rants are quite welcome.