Take a look at the following clip from the 1959 film, The Room at the Top:
The audio quality is poor, the camera work is shakey and the film contains two whole colors: black and white.
Compare this to the following clip from the 1994 film, Forrest Gump:
The audio quality is clear, the cameramen learned how to use a tripod and there are bright and vibrant colors.
The budget for The Room at the Top was the equivalent of about 8.5 million-dollars today. The budget for Forrest Gump was about 95 million-dollars today. As time has gone on, movies have changed. They have grown to be more technologically advanced, They have become more financially costly and beneficial. These small logistical changes of films are irrefutable. The major elements of films are where the heart of the films come from: the plot, the themes, the messages, the issues they face. In order to really analyze how films have changed, these are the aspects of films that we need to analyze.
As time has gone on, there has been a constant where the films will critique the problems that they see with society. Take for instance the Room at the Top. The film follows the story of a man named Joe Lampton trying to escape the working class. He begins dating one woman, Susan while having an affair with the married Alice. Alice leaves her husband to be with Joe but he ends up deciding to marry Susan after she gets pregnant and her father offers him a higher paying job. Alice drunk drives and crashes her car, but Joe ends up getting everything he wants in life, yet he is not happy. The film handled some topics that were very controversial at the time. While the very idea of pre-marital sex is highly accepted today, it was nowhere near as accepted back then. In addition, while films including affairs would not be groundbreaking today, it was a very taboo topic for the time. The film tackled these taboo topics to make a strong impact to draw in the audiences so they could express their message to the audiences. The reason why the film had such a strong impact with its theme was due to it’s timeless relativity. There has always been a class system and there always will be a class system in society with everyone always wanting to advance to a higher class status but struggling to do so. The textbook, “A Short History of Movies”, says that the film, “was the first of the working-class British films to earn an international reputation and make money.” The largest reason people praised the film was due to the inclusion of new technology, however as the tech hasn’t aged well, the film has looked poorer. In Francescas essay about the film, she mentioned how the stop motion was choppy, saying, “Stop-Motion animation was invented in the 1800s and it has improved since then but if you look at the scenes where this was used in the movie, you could definitely tell that this is what they used. There were wires showing and you really could tell. “
Around the 80s, films shifted from being more story focused to being more focused on entertainment value and box office. Take for instance, the 1984 film, The Terminator. The film is a futuristic sci-fi film that follows a man, Kyle Reese, who time travels to the 1980s from the year 2029, where androids have enslaved all of humanity for being inferior. Kyle goes back to the 1980s to save Sarah Connor, a woman whose son ends up leading the resistance against the androids. The film lightly tackled some social issues with the film addressing racism by having a nuclear genocide similar to the Holocaust. Most of the appeal for the film however came from the action scenes. Take the following scene for example:
The film easily could have had the Terminator not see them and the rest of the scene would have the exact same result. By including action scenes such as this throughout the film, they are sacrificing time that could be spent on developing plot for action. The film makers realise that the film industry is a largely profitable one and care more about putting effort into making money than making an impact on society. A lot of the reason the film is so critically acclaimed is due to its nostalgia factor. This review of the Terminator states, “I would recommend this film only because it is a classic that is referenced in numerous popular culture pieces today, and because it’s a relatively good time, but drags on for an unnecessary amount of time. I’m becoming more and more convinced that Cameron is only as good as our memories are bad.”
In 1992, the film Batman Returns was released, being the sequel to the 1989 Batman film. The film follows this same trend of the Terminator, focusing more on being fun and entertaining than working on developing plot. The film follows Bruce Wayne (Batman) as he takes down three villains, The Penguin (a disfigured man who was abandoned as a baby and raised by penguins), Max Schreck (a corrupt businessman trying to build a nuclear power plant in Gotham) and Catwoman (a woman who wants revenge on Schreck after he tried to murder her). The film, while focused more on entertainment, included some very important themes such as feminism and includes how people are left behind by society. A lot of the criticisms for the film came from its overstack of antagonists. At the films release, film critic Roger Ebert claims, “It is a common theory that when you have a hero, like James Bond, Superman or Batman, in a continuing series, it’s the villain that gives each movie its flavor. “Batman” had the Joker, played by Jack Nicholson, to lend it energy, but the Penguin is a curiously meager and depressing creature; I pitied him, but did not fear him or find him funny.” It could be argued however that the Penguin being pitiable might not make him an intimidating villain, but does make him very sympathetic. The film did follow this idea of having the films be more focused on the villains then on the heroes which allowed the film to explore the conflict of the film more. The website, “wbur”, comments on the feminist qualities included in the film, stating , “The film is stolen outright, however, by Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. The actress gives the performance of her career as Selina Kyle, a mousy secretary shoved out a window by her creepy boss Schreck, mysteriously resurrected by alley cats and looking for revenge. “Life’s a bitch, now so am I,” Pfeiffer purrs in one of the lines that made her an unlikely feminist icon.”
Finally, in 1994, Forrest Gump was released. The movie followed the “simple minded” man Forrest Gump as he goes throughout various famous moments in history including the rise of Elvis Presley, The Vietnam war, The Black Panther Party and The Watergate Scandal. Throughout these events, the only constant that remains in his life is the woman he loves, Jenny. The film presents this idea that the world is a horrible place and the only options we have as people are to suffer through the hardships life throws at us or remain ignorant and not deal with said hardships. Take for instance the following scene:
The film shows Forrest’s ignorance over Jenny being abused. Jenny meanwhile is currently in so much pain and has to suffer through it. I don’t think the film is trying to say people chose to be ignorant over these topics but rather that’s just how they are. The film also comments on the idea that people tend to not deserve what they have. One would argue that Forrest was lucky for his entire life with the exception of not getting to spend all of his life with Jenny. Nicola Evans explains this well in her paper, “historic vs futuristic”, where she states, “He sees the world differently yet goes on to achieve incredible success as a football star, a Vietnam war hero, an international ping-pong player and owner and operator of the Bubba Gump shrimp company.”
All four of these films were representations of the times when they came out. Up until and during the sixties, films were more focused on making good stories than making good money. After that, films were more focused on entertainment to sell as many tickets as they could to make as much money as they could until the 1990s when films started working to combine these aspects. Take Forrest Gump for example. In the film, the story includes lots of serious plot with the inclusion of the war and Jenny passing away, but it also includes lots of humor and entertainment as well. This was shown in the following trailer for forrest gump:
The trailer shows how the film combined entertainment value with important messages. Compare this to the Batman Returns trailer shown below that features soley entertainment and action
The trailer shows that the film exists for the purpose of entertainment. The plot is shown to be very simple and is meant to be watched to have fun. Finally, when analyzing the trailer for Room at the Top shown below, we can see how the film explains the story to show how much effort they have put into the plot.
The reason to watch movies has certainly changed over time, but the purpose of making these films has remained: to portray a critique of a major flaw of society. The Room at the Top commented on how it’s impossible for good people to get to higher places in society, the Terminator commented on racial superiority, Forrest Gump commented on the idea of ignorance vs suffrage and even Batman Returns was able to comment on feminism.
Films have changed. The black and white film featuring a man struggling to fight through the class system is very different than the film about a man dressing up in a bat costume to fight criminals. But where films count, the purpose that they are trying to achieve by commenting on the problems with society, will always be a constant and will always make films incredible.