Like, after the suicide guy says "we're gonna burn the town", and him and chaplin go to the dancing place.. You look to all those people sitting at the tables and you think "Wow, all those people, having fun, the moments of their lives, and now they're dead..."
Do you guys think about that stuff to, or am I weird?
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I was like that when I was a child but as I got older I stopped thinking about it. The more you watch the classics the more you get use to it.
share[deleted]
Weirdly, I do that with animals too.
See a 20 year old movie ... well, that dog is in heaven ... etc.
Another thing is I think of is technology.
Think about it -- the people in these movies would never know of the internet, Iphones, cable TV or, in a lot of cases, space shuttles!
You're not weird :) - I hear people say that about old movies all the time... What surprises me, actually, is that I never think that way, I never think about them being dead. However, like the other poster mentioned, animals do have an effect on me. The cat in City Lights - it looks just like cats today... People's clothes and things went in and out of fashion, but the cat just doesn't give a damn. Actors' mannerisms have changed, but the dogs (in a whistle scene) act happy exactly the same way they do now. I find it amazing.
shareeither you're not weird, or we both are.
sometimes i think that about the actors, sometimes about the characters (like if it's a world war 2 movie).
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My exact thoughts as I was watching city lights today.
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I often have similar thoughts about actors when watching old movies. At the same time i often think about what it would have been like to live back then. I suppose that's the beauty of having such moments caught on film forever.
shareI can't avoid doing that too!! It never happened with animals, that's funny. But with people I always wonder "how are they now?", "how did they live back then?", "that was their definition of present but would they ever try to imagine what was coming up, in evolutionary terms?".
There are lots and lots of questions when I see older movies, and they don't have to be this old. It happens even when I watch movies from the 80's or 90's.
I once had a similar, or to be exact, a rather contrary feeling: I once had an opportunity to watch some old Laurel and Hardy shorts on the big screen. They were almost impeccably restored and had an almost flawless picture quality. And I thought: "Wow, all these people and places seem so alive, so present, although they are dead for decades now." I mean, we, the audience, laughed with and rooted for Stan and Ollie. When they looked right into the camera, at "us", they were simply here with us, we shared the same present moment with them, if you know what I mean.
And I was amazed and (as, at that time, I was still rather sad about the death of Heath Ledger) I was also a little bit consoled by the apparent power of movies to preserve the moment, to re-present these "dead" people, i.e. to make them present again. In a way, movie actors are "immortal."
I know what you mean, this is how I feel when watching older movies as well. It never occurs to me that the actors are dead, but rather that they are "preserved", as you so elegantly put it, potentially for all time, living on through their captured performances.
Same goes for the locations of a film. For example, with old Ingmar Bergman films, it is possible to experience a Swedish countryside, beach, tree grove, sunset, etc., exactly as it was in that precise moment in time. It is impossible for me to experience those moments first-hand, but because they were captured on film I can catch a glimpse of them any time I want, and they'll never truly fade away.
Yes, also I can't help but feel a bit sad if the actor had a difficult life or premature death, e.g. watching Judy Garland in "Wizard of Oz," any Marilyn Monroe movie, etc.
shareNo, you're not weird.
I have a different sort of disconnect when it comes to the timeline of things.
I watch the original King Kong, and have a hard time reconciling that World War 2 (Pearl Harbor, Stalingrad, Omaha Beach, Auschwitz) and its horrors happened after something so kickass and entertaining and enduring was made (substitute City Lights, Adventures of Robin Hood, Pinocchio, whatever suits you).
I always think of things in a historical context too! It's just weird to think that the horrors of WW2 were yet to come and everyone was none the wiser.
shareI think that all the time watching movies. You think only the youngest children from this movie in 1931 could be alive today. Watching Chaplin's "The Kid" you see Jackie Coogan and think hey that's Uncle Fester, and now he's dead.
Animals too. That cat mentioned above, I was thinking "there's a cat doing its thing, who's been long dead".
It makes you wonder, if these actor's 80 years ago could even imagine people sitting at home and and watching them digitally restored on a 50" flat screen in 2014.
i had exactly the same thought with The Circus watching the audience clapping and also with The Gold Rush when they're partying in New Year's eve.. i think it's when we see extras in this kind of movies, i guess we kinda relate to them or something since they're not really acting
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I'd like to think most rational minded people have similar thoughts like this when watching old movies. I think it's something to do with having perspective of what you're watching. Nothing morbid about it (it's just like stating a fact to yourself whilst watching a movie) In the same way that people would think about death if they watched a Paul walker movie or a Michael Jackson concert.....only the difference with a movie like *this* one, is that chances are most (if not all of the cast) have passed on.
What I find adds to the sense of sadness, is how animated people seemed back then, and how more outgoing people used to be, before pointless inventions like ipods, iphones, etc. Back then (pre-radio) you'd probably have to travel a fair distance just to hear music (or at very least it was an event, as was cinema itself back then) No downloads, no microwave generation of audiences that get what they want instantly....Nowadays we have all the technology we need (and a lot of it we *don't*) and I'd be a hypocrite (especially on a internet website) to trash technology......but I do wish that (as people) we'd wean ourselves off pointless extravagance's and be a little bit more old-fashioned in our ways....which (bringing my point full circle) is why there's only one Charlie Chaplin (because he is a product of a sadly forgotten, and largely non-existant time)
"If you're lying.....I'll be back"