This movie makes us realize, that people can live in the best moment in history, and they still will complain about their present; so, taking our present as the golden age, what do you think is the best of it? what will remain as stand outs for the following generations?
shareI'm trying but can't think of anything truly special except Marion Cotillard.
"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
I like to believe i grew up & lived in the golden age of rock n roll. It was 1st coined the term in the spring of 1954, supposedly, which is exactly when i was born, and i'd love to believe that rock n roll will never die. but its best years were the sixties & seventies, and thru the eighties some will say. there's still good rock songs being written present day, but nothing like back then, IMO. Of course, it's not new anymore, which is partially why it became "golden" but the quality or craftsmanship of the melodies, and esp the hard driving beat is no longer revolutionary.
But i still think of my lifetime as "the present" as opposed to say, the classical music era, which is still alive, mostly because it was written down. Our music has been recorded by the actual artists so it really cannot ever "die".
So is a golden age one's subjective idea of when things were at their best, or a textbook definition of a high point in history. the speed at which the best of....is exponentially racing forward so what are we in the golden age of now? Electronics, communications? what is the best thing going today that trumps all before it? : >) : >
I always loved the 1990s, in which I was raised in.
It was before 9/11 and after the end of the Cold War and there wasn't any texting or any pervasive social media.
I wanted to love you like my mother's mother's mother did
Civilian
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I would say our technology. From iphones to ipads to hybrid cars and such. Though I think in the arts we are suffering ; music, painting, literary works,which is rare, I know there are some good stuff out there. But you make a good point, we have a tendency to not see what we have till it passed.
shareI think music especially is something that gets lost because of technology. Some people (myself included) like to complain how it's so hard to find good music these days, when in reality it's TOO easy. Mick Jagger has a quote where he basically says, "There were the Stones, the Beatles, the Who, and then not very many other bands in England."
He's obviously underselling it, but in a way he's right. These days every computer comes with a program that makes it easy to record music and get it online. That means there is tons of garbage out there, but also tons of brilliant music that gets lost in the shuffle
You sir just nailed the present perfectly. The question is how and when is that going to change?
shareWe will become known as the age of clutter. 2001 AD - 2045AD (or somewhere in that ballpark ;P)
shareThe present is the golden age of the internet, smartphones, etc. Especially the internet... it's just an explosion of information, web companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter... These are the things that will inspire the future generations. iPads and iPhone which did not exist 5 years ago can make the present the golden age of mobile personal computing.
shareI disagree that technology, in the sense of gadgets, can be used in the context of Golden Age because as so many people point out, technology gets bigger and faster (avoiding the words 'better', 'evolves' or 'improves').
Every golden age in the film is defined by its art (the authors and artists of the 20's, the Belle Epoque, the Renaissance) and then critiqued by its lack of advancement in other areas (the antibiotics line).
I enjoy my smartphone as much as anyone, but I won't be looking backwards nostalgically when I upgrade next year, nor will I go looking for an iPod classic in a curio shop.
Saying that I have no suggestions as for what art would define our Golden Age, as a victim of mainstream commercialisation I probably haven't seen it =P
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As others have stated, definitely technology would be the greatest factor in our "golden age". It has grown astonishingly fast; I remember when I was young copying files with floppy disks with a 1.47MB capacity, and I'm only 20. Now, an 8 GB flash drive can be bought for 3 dollars at 1/6 the physical size and a much faster transfer rate.
Seriously! Multi-core CPUs in desktop computers were the big thing less than 10 years ago. Now we hear people complaining that their phone, equipped with a dual/quad core processor, are slow or laggy (WTF?). Previous laptops weighed 10 pounds and could last an hour on a charge, while today we have ultrabooks and laptops that lasts a whole day.
But anyway, I do agree that art in all forms has been declining, at least in North America, and especially music. Well that's pretty subjective, but to me, music that's synthetically made with programmed instruments and vocal enhancements for the sole purpose of making money is not art. Not to mention every rap song seems to be about having money and women, and mentioning "having God on my side" and several swearwords in one line (Nicki Minaj). Who knows, maybe today's crappy music will be considered good compared to the future's music.
Just to note on why the past always seems better, it's the way our memory works. We're always biased to see our past memories as more enjoyable than it actually was. Since our memories aren't stable pictures, they're manipulated every time we recall them and reconsolidate them. In terms of pasts we haven't experienced, it's a (rather unhealthy) coping mechanism for people who are having difficulty with reality in the present. Oh sure, the 60's looked great for Rock and Roll and we'd love to go back to the simpler times when all you had to do was turn on the radio and every song was amazing, and being a hippie looked so carefree, smoking weed and having sex all day. But of course we push under the rug the Cold War, assassinations of MLK, the Kennedy's and Malcolm X, sending hundreds of thousands of troops to Vietnam, and the countless riots that occurred because of it, etc.
Holy crap this was long. Horray for procrastination! But yes, our time will definitely be thought of as a golden age, but certainly not of art. Unless of course the future's music is so bland and pointless that today's meaningless music is comparably good, in which case I'd fear for that future.
"but to me, music that's synthetically made with programmed instruments and vocal enhancements for the sole purpose of making money is not art"
Are you suggesting that music that's made with real instruments for the sole purpose of money is still art?
"Not to mention every rap song seems to be about having money and women, and mentioning "having God on my side" and several swearwords in one line (Nicki Minaj)"
Hardly. Obviously you don't listen to a lot of music and judge the quality of this generations music based on whatever records sells the most. Do you do the same for movies? I doubt it. I'll be damned if our generation of classic movies is considered to be Avatar and The Transformers series just because they sold the most tickets.
Look up any list of the top rappers of all-time and you'll find the majority of them are extremely intelligent lyricists and rap about very important and controversial topics. Not all of them rap about having "bitches and money" just in the same way that not every rock band sings about murder and the devil.
The main reason people look so fondly of the past and seem to think everything nowadays is *beep* is because noone remembers all the crap that came out years ago, most people only remember the stuff that has a lasting impression, the good stuff. I can guarantee for every excellent movie or brilliant song that came out in the 60's and 70's or any other decade for that matter, I'll be able to direct you to an atrocious movie/song that came out about the same time.
Plus people automatically reject change.
I always loved those moments at family get togethers where my Dad would talk about how amazing The Stones were or how great The Band was, then for my Grandpa to turn round and say "Oh bollocks, it's all just a bunch of noise. Listen to some real music.".
Nostalgia's a funny little thing.
nice question, harder to act upon i think
Angel : In 243 years I've loved exactly one person.
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