You can say that for every year in movies…every year will have clunkers. The question is what year produced more GREAT movies and classics?
In my opinion, you cant look at period-pieces with the eyes of today. In that vein of thought…Gone With The Wind hasnt aged well. But its still a classic. To me, I look at a movie and decide whether it is good or not, regardless of when it came out.
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” is dated, but I still think its funny and a classic. Yes, “Sixteen Candles” and “Nerds” are dated movies…but they’re still funny and I think they are still classics. Beats the dreck that comes out nowadays.
Gone With The Wind is four hours long with one of the most unlikable “protagonists” that I’ve ever seen in a movie. When anything bad happens to Scarlett O’Hara, I keep thinking “… GOOD! She deserves it.” And that’s BEFORE you factor in all the tiresome “Lost Cause” propaganda and nostalgia for the Antebellum South. Bleh!
Hey! You’re preaching to the choir…I think the movie is overrated, as well. Beautiful directing and great cinema-photography, lavish sets and production, but the movie as a whole …I agree with you…bleh. But millions of others will always regard that movie as a classic.
Still haven’t seen it (Gone With the Wind (1939)), nor do I particularly want to, nor not want to. I do still marvel that it remains the highest grossing film (box office?) of all time. That’s adjusting for inflation, of course; otherwise any decades-distant comparisons are, quite simply, a lie. (Star Wars (1977, “A New Hope”/“Episode 4”) is #2.)
Adjusted for Inflation? Meaning ticket sales? Avatar (2009) is second, Titanic (1997) third, Star Wars (1977) fourth, Avengers: Endgame (2019) fifth, The Sound of Music (1965) sixth, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982) seventh, The Ten Commandments (1956) eighth, Doctor Zhivago.(1965) ninth, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) tenth.
“Gone with the Wind held the record of highest-grossing film for twenty-five years and, adjusted for inflation, has earned more than any other film.”
And regarding that chart:
“All of the films have had a theatrical run (including re-releases) in the 21st century, and films that have not played during this period do not appear on the chart because of ticket-price inflation, population size and ticket purchasing trends not being considered.”
Edit: The chart I’ve seen, and seen quoted, comes from BoxOfficeMojo, fwiw:
As do I. As did my father and my grandparents. As did critics and movie fans alike for generations. And it still remains. Even today. Enough so people wonder how it’s so beloved. Love it or hate it, it’s a standard. It wowed people in 1939 and even as movies advanced and moved forward Wind’s (1939) runtime, sustained Technicolor for nearly four hours, its performances (love them or hate them), and the labor of love behind the scenes pushing this forward (four directors and David O. Selznick behind it all) are stunning. The results onscreen even now are incredible. It is the first thirty years of cinema in one package for all to see. Much as The Ten Commandments (1956) was the first fifty rolled into one.
Your personal feelings may be one thing. The logistics, the filming of scenes, the expensive and laborious Technicolor process, the cast of film legends, the nearly a year of shooting, the legendary score, and it all effortlessly coming together as this monument to another era can not be dismissed. 221 minutes of story in 1939? The will it took to make it happen sustains it today. It is classic cinema. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”, “After all… Tomorrow is another day”, “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” It was the Titanic (1997) of its age and it wows enough folks even today to hold onto the honor. In watching it as impartially as I can now, the film is a blueprint of how you make movies.
The characterization, the close-ups, the attention to arc and progression. It was a quantum leap of storytelling and it lives as a fossil of where movies came from. It might not be your cinema or even mine but stepping back and absorbing it all in I can’t help but see what everyone is talking about.
For these reasons it’s #5 on my Best Ever List. Gazing at everything out there, its place in moviemaking, its impact, its agelessness if you meet it on its terms, and the amount they were able to capture of whatever they wanted is simply incredible. Purely on a production side of things, they nailed what they were going after when it was unsure it was even possible. That and the product we have today living on as it does like The Terminator on a mission are my reasons why I agree with the legend. Not many films have this picture’s history, success, pedigree, accomplishments, or continuing legacy. And as such, it is deserving of its place in the world of film.
P.S. Loving something isn’t the only factor to greatness. Can you respect it and see why others love it? If you can, than that’s enough. In my experience, seeing the quality and its impact on others and the industry justifies the reaction. Not everything is meant for everyone including Gone with the Wind. Much of what people complain about today is cultural interpretation and appearances. More and more, the world of now gets heaped on the past and our collective film heritage continually get dinged. This is a fashion we must be aware of when we gaze at what was. Are there 2024 reasons to dislike Gone with the Wind? Absolutely. Should we fully embrace these reasons or remember the past is the past and give it its due. I pick the latter. Thanks.
For context, what you quote in Wikipedia is from the Highest-Grossing Films section of the link not the Highest-grossing films adjusted for inflation section which is what I was quoting. The quotes came from the unadjusted section.
I dont look at movies of the past with eyes of today…I dont push current 2024 norms onto movies of the past and I put aside critics, hoopla, hype, etc. and make my own judgement on any movie I see. I imagine I know nothing of a movie when watching it for the first time.
When I watch a movie, I’ll notice directing and the cinematic, visual-art of the film (I think Coppola is the best EVER at that), I’ll note the music…but I’m mainly looking at the story and acting. I didnt have a problem with the historical portrayal in GWTW…history is history. The movie was a beautiful, BIG production, nice shots and visuals…but I thought the acting was weak…just my opinion.
I have the same opinion of Lawrence of Arabia…beautiful film, beautiful shots! But acting and story…bleh.
I’m not discounting all you said, historical impact, etc. I get why its a classic…BIG, lavish, beautiful movie that came out in the infancy of movies. Now that more time has gone by and we’ve all seen hundreds of more movies…I still think GWTW is overrated. But then again…back then…it didnt have much competition. But now, almost a hundred years later…GWTW has A LOT of competition in movie history and I believe some of that competition are better movies than GWTW. Just my opinion, folks.
I’ve always believed $ should NEVER be the determining factor of where to rank movies in their historical popularity. Ticket-prices have changed so much over the decades…its impossible to rank a movie’s popularity solely on money the movie earned. The determining factor NEEDS to be number of tickets sold.
“Nerds” is raunchy…maybe more of a guy-flick. But I love all kinds of comedy…raunchy, slap-stick, one-liners, wacky. I’m a 3-Stooges fan…maybe thats why I dig “Nerds”!
Molly was probably the weakest part of "Sixteen Candles’'…even though she was the star of the movie. Everything else about the movie I thought was a laugh-fest…the other cast, jokes, funny story, music. It was all so good…I thought it over-shadowed Ringwald…and saved the movie.
Raunch by itself doesn’t bother me. The creepy attitude towards women is the issue.
We’re supposed to favor the nerds because they’re better than the jocks. But it ends up being kind of a meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-one situation… if you’re not a hetero white guy.
I just never liked Ringwald as a performer. Her pouting, her whining, her mugging, and the fact that we were to regard her as some kind of oppressed underdog even though she had the looks and aspirations of every other 80s young ingenue type in the roles she played. I found her annoying. There was a condescending vibe in everything Hughes said about teens in his movies: “Let me pretend to challenge stereotypes while I firmly uphold them! Aren’t I great?”
The main reason Gone With The Wind has remained the highest grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation) is because over the years it has been released, re-released, re-re-released, and so on in theaters. Back in the day, before the advent of home media, the main way a lot of studios made money was by re-releasing their films into theaters multiple times, and even to this day when you can get high-quality recordings to view at home, they will still re-release movies into theaters and people will come to see them again, because there’s something about seeing a film in theaters that home media just can’t capture effectively.
As to the subject of the thread; I was coming to mention 1939, but I saw several people already had, but has anyone mentioned 1974 yet?
Chinatown, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Towering Inferno, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Longest Yard, The Parallax View, The Taking of Pelham 123, That’s Entertainment, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Three Musketeers,The Sugarland Express, The Exorcist, The Great Gatsby and Death Wish. And some that bled over from 1973; American Grafitti and Serpico.
Most film historians point to one of two years as being the all-time greatest in film history, and it’s generally between 1939 and 1974. I’d be hard pressed to pick a better year of the two, honestly.
Expanding further into global cinema for 1974: The Phantom of Liberty (Bunuel), Every Man for Himself, and God Against All (Herzog), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder), La prima Angélica (Saura), The Man Who Sleeps (Perec, Queysanne), Chorus (Mrinal Sen), Night Porter (Cavani), Alice in the Cities (Wenders)
And let’s not forget that classic from Japan, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla!
Also - A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes), Phantom of Paradise (De Palma), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah)
And while Bandlands was shown at a NY film fest in 73, it didn’t get a fuller theatrical release until March of '74
Fair enough…I didnt notice any of that with “Nerds”. I dont look at comedy too closely or take it too seriously. Its comedy…made to make you laugh! A diversion.
Molly is a one-trick pony, no question. I love most of Hughes’ movies for the reasons I stated above. Never noticed what you refer to.
Your opinion is merited. Older styles of acting and presentation are not for all. Gone with the Wind (1939), The Ten Commandments (1956), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). These represent when they were made. My stepfather imparted me with watching older films early on and melodrama and dry material don’t tear me out of a movie. My best friend prefers films from 1967 to today. Anything before that with a few exceptions (Rear Window, Anatomy of a Murder, Psycho, Goldfinger) is less successful. Before me, he was an 80s man. Exclusively. The people you know impact what you like. What you’ve seen and when you’ve seen it.
Had I watched Gone with the Wind in my thirties and not at 11 it might be different. Same with The Sound of Music (1965), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Casablanca (1942), It Happened One Night (1934), and Frankenstein (1931). We’re more open when we’re younger and those experiences carry into later life. They did for me. My friend Matthew said if it wasn’t for Out for Justice (1991) and Magnum Force (1973) he wouldn’t like older movies period. Justice introduced him to drama and Force made him dig an obviously older movie. Those two films allowed me to show him other things and he chose what he liked and what he didn’t. It’s still up to each of us but those moments matter. Otherwise we close ourselves off to possibilities. Myself included.
Our taste is our taste but it’s amazing what makes up our taste and much of that is what we saw at the beginning and how it shaped us. I watched enough black and whites at 8, 9, and 10 old movies weren’t old movies to me. Still aren’t. The kind of acting, the stories they tell, the genres that were popular. Every era including now have strengths and weaknesses. And my experiences taught me to meet whatever it was on its terms and judge it on whether it executes its ambitions. You read the movie first and the rest comes later. That’s always been my approach and then I look at other things and whether I’m alone or not. It starts with me and expands out.
You and I are very similar. It begins with what we think and it is the basis of what follows. Where we separate is you end there and I see whether I’m alone in the universe or not. What in my mind determines greatness isn’t only me but whether many agree and whether that persists and grows. Movies like Jaws (1975) or Raiders (1981) have that power. If a movie has long term value, influence, and excellence those are factors. Not the only ones but factors. For me, my metric is the films being their own measure. Their own universe. Rising above genre. Any picture that achieves that is Michael Jordan in my book.
Movies matter enough in my mind that detecting the Moby Dicks is a tell. The movies that keep coming and endure the ravages of decades and still topple the boats. Everything has to be there. And if it is? That’s everything. Is to me anyway. This applies to pictures that are so larger than life they go beyond an individual and become a phenomenon. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), The Godfather (1972), Pulp Fiction (1994). Sure we won’t always agree. Not totally. We must remain ourselves which is what I respect most about you. YOU are YOU. Never change that. Much like… I’M ME. Our priorities and defining qualities are different.
You see a beautifully shot and visually impressive film that’s average on the inside and I love the whole thing. There is no right answer. The fact Gone with the Wind is still a conversation 85 years later implies something and the rest is up to each of us. I salute your resolve and knowing what you want. I wish more people did. What I tried to do was explain myself NOT change your mind. Movies are so vast and varied nothing’s for everyone. Outside of that? We speculate. Cheers.
