OP: I know Marlon Brando was great in this, not because everyone told me so, I can see that, but maybe I would be even more impressed if I knew more about him, but I don't. So how can I judge his performance fully if I know nothing about the real him.
There's a solution to that - Wikipedia and 5 minutes of your time. Personally though, I don't see why knowledge of an actor should affect your impression of his performance. If an actor's doing his job well, the result should speak for itself. I'd never heard of the kid in Life Of Pi before seeing it, but that didn't take away from (imo) the power of his portrayal.
The acting and music USUALLY seem so tacky and just crap.
Many older movies (say, 'til the 60's at least) do feature a different acting style, especially the Mob-centric flicks. To me the difference is how they treat emotion.
In modern movies, like in modern life, emotion is usually expressed out in the open, or at least, if it's in private the viewer sees it. In old films like On The Waterfront, emotion is usually buried deep within a male lead, bubbling away under a veneer of fast-talking quips and bravado. Only the expressions reveal it, but when it DOES finally boil, it's released like an explosion of passion and fire - a furious monologue, or a sudden passionate kiss.
Granted it can look kinda corny now, but I dread to think what Waterfront would be like if remade in 2014. I just know we'd spend half an hour with Terry after his brother's death, watching him cry over photographs of Charlie, telling Edie a story about some fishing trip they took as kids to say to the audience 'Yes, he loved his brother'.
The 1954 version doesn't need to do that - the pain is visible in Brando's face and actions, which back then, was enough to say it all.
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Moscoso1967
11 years ago
It always makes me cringe when someone says (s)he doesn't like old movies or music (but of course, tastes are different, the only thing which makes me really angry is when people dislike things just because they're "old").
The OP thinks it's got something to do with being born in the 80s, but that's definitely not the reason. Some people just dislike everything which differs from what they are used to, that's why many young people nowadays not only dislike (or just don't watch) old movies, but also current movies which aren't formulaic Hollywood blockbusters.
But let me assure you, there are also plenty of young people who like various kinds of older films or films from all decades. Quite a lot of my friends (most of them were born in the 80s) like older movies (e.g.: "Lawrence of Arabia", "In The Heat of the Night","Citizen Kane", "The Court Jester", "Modern Times"), actors (e.g.: Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen) and directors (e.g.: Jean-Luc Godard, Sergio Leone, Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Ingmar Bergman). I too love movies from all decades and genres :)
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