Old is the new new

By Steven Zeitchik

Steven Wright once asked how young you can be to die of old age. Hollywood has a different version of the question these days: how old can an era be for a movie to be made about it?

Plenty of different (old) ages, apparently. As a story we've spent the last few days tinkering with shows, no era is too far back for the studios and specialty divisions, which are prepping literally dozens of period movies for this fall. You want duchesses and courtiers circa 1780? Hollywood's got it. Priests and nuns in an early 60's Catholic school --or Southern estates in the same period? Searchlight and Miramax won't let you down. World War II romance in China, Australia and Europe? The Weinstein Company, Fox and Par Vantage are all here to help.

There are so many period movies set to hit in September it'll actually be the bigger anomaly when people in movies wear recognizable clothing and use cellphones.

So why is retro the new contemporary? It's hard to put a finger on what's behind this thinking on the bigscreen (and on television, where nearly every Emmy-nominated movie this year seems to be a period piece as well). But critics and execs have plenty of ideas, the most palatable of which is that it's a lot easier to make the kind of binary good-versus-evil movies that are seen as reliable standbys if you remove it from the last thirty years. Postmodernism what? Relativism who?

Maybe that's why the most modern of the period pieces takes place pretty much at the moment when the era of innocence ended and the the age of skepticism and ambiguity began -- the Watergate period, the birth of which is what Ron Howard's fall entry "Frost/Nixon" examines.

Of course consumers may not embrace the simplicity of the old with the same gusto. After all, the common thinking has it that last year brought too many dark movies about our current reality. Well, now we've got more hope....except  it's hope about our grandparents' reality.

Comments

[Setra Kumar]

I think the reason we're seeing so many period pieces (and will see lots more come September) has a lot to do with the upcoming presidential election. We should be focusing on the way things used to be and getting back to that (MaCain) and not hankering for something new (as in Obama).
The past offers security, safety, sameness, what we know and are familiar with, while the future offers uncertainty.
This is not the first time (nor will it be the last) that Hollywood has used the silver screen to influence public opinion.
Hopefully, we won't be so easily swayed this time!

[kenmandu]

Good thinking Setra - let's have four more years of a "McLain in Bush's clothing" hacking away at the Constitution providing security in Iraq by killing the people and helping the Oil pigs jack gas up to $5/gallon. Liberal Hollywood cannot be blamed for the eight years which have practically flushed this country off the world stage. Oh, I almost forgot - the housing boondoggle, the best Republican dodge since the Savings & Loan when Bush 1 was prez. If this is the sameness you yearn for, buddy, give me insecurity anytime!

[kenmandu]

Good thinking Setra - let's have four more years of a "McLain in Bush's clothing" hacking away at the Constitution providing security in Iraq by killing the people and helping the Oil pigs jack gas up to $5/gallon. Liberal Hollywood cannot be blamed for the eight years which have practically flushed this country off the world stage. Oh, I almost forgot - the housing boondoggle, the best Republican dodge since the Savings & Loan when Bush 1 was prez. If this is the sameness you yearn for, buddy, give me insecurity anytime!

[JanetL]

As a Brit, we thrive on costume dramas and historical dressing up. Jane Austen repeatedly, Charles Dickens, even the Canterbury Tales for TV, Chaucerian English notwithstanding post-colonial casting which has made for some interesting telly. It also can become a pastiche of itself within the the same production if authenticity is unbalanced. Often the sets and costumes have upstaged the content of the writing and the acting.

I cannot comment on which way forward the US will go politically as the UK is its own disaster area right now. Being accurately reminded of how you got to this point can be inspirational. Lets hope these productions have an intelligence which literary tradition has to offer the arts. Presumably they are English language based productions. Hopefully someone is willing to tackle the language genres.

[JAMIE DAKIS]

I the real realm and reel of entertainment, what we have not yet experienced is never boring.
We, as a Nation have become like white paper rabbits in front of the television.

Yes, we need more carrots, the same ones that grew in the land of the past.

Relatively speaking, I believe Wizard of OZ,
is one of the first films to have used this theme of "There's no place like home." Yet, it had an added touch of what as a Nation, folks needed to hear, and hope about.

Now, however,our homes have become too predictable, way sensationalized, and much like the Seven Dwarfs of Sleeping Beauty, we need more Old Dust to sprinkle on our imaginations of belief, and less New Dust that seems to be creating a USA, made of wide open mouthed generally accepted doomday fear, that chokes US with disbelief.

Forget that MAN! I want OLD ENTERTAINMENT that has the spirits of Love, philosophy, ethics, fantastic, romantic, DRAMA!!! You name it; if it's alive from the ancient ways of our ancestors, let's ALL ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!