With the death of J.D. Salinger, I took another look at his most famous book. I don't get what is so special about it. Cynical, disillusioned young man has some experiences in life that leaves him even more cynical and disillusioned. While no doubt reflecting the experiences of many young people and well written, I don't get what makes this book so highly regarded. And I never understood Holden Caufields obsession with people who were "phonies". Get a clue son. Most people are phony in one way or the other. It is hardly a secret. Just one of the prices people pay for living in a civil society. But then again, I have trouble with a lot of things considered classic. "Gone With the Wind" for example. It plays out on the large canvas of the Civil War and reconstruction, but basically it is just another story of a very spoiled rich girl going through the hard times that force her to grow up. Nothing you can't see any given week on Lifetime.
You have to put the work in the context of the time. Gone with the Wind was written as just another potboiler in the "ladies' fiction" category of the time, but was turned into an epic film by a studio that needed epic films, in an era leading up to a war that most Americans sensed they'd soon be embroiled in one way or the other. Timing, a studio system that essentially owned its actors and had to keep them earning, and an atmosphere of war. The message to the "ladies" was: If spoiled little Scarlett can make it through her war, you can make it through the one that's about to overshadow your life. As for Catcher in the Rye, again, context. The children/adolescents of the Fifties was portrayed as either Norman Rockwell barefoot boys or those saccharine floss-haired, perfectly dressed darlings in issues of Life magazine. Holden Caulfield was the voice of dissent in that era. You also have to consider that most if not all of the book editors in New York at the time came from the same prep-school background as Holden. They knew this kid, alternately hated, envied, and wanted to be him. They decided then, as they do today (though less so, with alternative publishing) what the American public would be allowed to read, and they touted Holden as an "anti-hero." The critics of the time either loved him or hated him, and their battles sold books to the elite, who then wondered "Could that be my son?" The hoi polloi caught on and wanted to see what all the scandal was about. Then someone decided this book should be part of the school curriculum...as a cautionary tale, or as a way to get kids to read? Hard to say. But that's why the book endures.
That's likely a big part of it. It's like Casablanca or Citizen Kane. Nobody wants to ask the question "So why are they considered 'classics'?" for fear of being booed off the stage.
I can define what makes it better than most films, period. It is a love story about love. Not infatuation, or the self obsessive narcissism of so many supposed "romantic" movies. That our cynical protagonist allows the woman he truly loves to leave, rather than destroy that relationship, and their righteous cause is the best thing about that movie. Rick is the now typical antihero, in an age of film making that held it's heroes in too high a regard. Much like another character in another contemporary film, Sefton in Stalag 17.
Agreed. It's also a much better portrayal of a female protagonist than the standard of the time. In fact, it's fair to say that all of the characters have depth and backstory and motivations for their behavior. Again, also, there's the timing of the thing. No one knew how the war would end in '42. This film gave audiences the sense that there were people of all stripes involved in the fight, and that gave them hope. Imagine writing a character like Renault these days, with the average American's ignorance about the French. The ending also runs against type. In your standard Hollywood fare, Laszlo would have had to die somehow (stopping the bullet meant for Rick?) so that Rick and Ilsa could be together and the women in the audience would be gratified, but the writers didn't take the easy way out. They managed to create a script that had enough action to keep the menfolk from fidgeting in their seats during the romance, and enough of a tearjerker to keep the women thinking about the ending for weeks. Not bad for something that didn't even have an ending until the last weeks of shooting...
I thought a greater theme in Casablanca was that the character of Rick who we learn had once fought nobly against the fascists, only to abandon that struggle after he felt abandoned by his lover, rediscovers his idealism when that woman reenters his life. The thought being to show that even the greatest heros and grandest ideals are often bent and twisted by simple love and one's reactions to it. Casablanca in effects shows how interlinked the most basic human emotions are to far, far greater ideals and beliefs. Personally, I think that a more modern war movie should be very highly regarded as well. Courage Under Fire. We see men who faced enemy fire bravely not able to face up to a terrible truth that they fear so much it ultimately destroys them.
What evenflow said about Casablanca. And Citizen Kane, IMHO, isn't a "classic" due to its story (though that's actually quite good) but because of how the film was made. Both technically (for its time, it's brilliant in that regard) and because of its controversial nature. And I've always been pretty underwhelmed by Gone With The Wind as a film. The story of the making of the movie, to me, is more interesting than the movie itself. However, I've never heard the "impending war propaganda" bit before now, though. I've seen several documentaries about the film and that angle wasn't mentioned in any of them. At all. I mean, shooting had wrapped on the picture more than two months before Poland was invaded and America was still very much isolationist in its views. Now if you want a "prepare yourselves to get into this war" movie, Sergeant York is your film. Very blatant (though it's still a good picture) and more timely in that regard compared to GWTW.
I don't care who you are: if you don't mist up a little when Rick tells Ilsa to get on the plane, you aren't human. Or you don't understand love in an adult way.
The clever in-joke saves this from getting a warning. But in the future: smile when you say that, stranger. We like things civil here in Media Central.
Lawrence of Arabia is one old film baba wants on Blueray. Perfect cinimatography, love desert shots in a movie.
Mitchell's book at the time had been a huge best-seller. It's being translated into film generated the same (for the before Cable TV & the 'net era) level of exitement that was experienced by the Harry Potter crowd. World War II hadn't even really began in Europe by the time of Gone with the Wind's release, and most of America wasn't paying much attention to the Pacific before Pearl Harbor.
True. Taking on the Hearsts was a dangerous proposition. I wasn't suggesting "impending war propaganda." But if you talk to the women of that generation, they'll tell you how that film - and the book moreso, because some of them read it again and again and again - affected them once the war began. I'm not trying to suggest any kind of prescience prior to the invasion of Poland, but anyone who knew anyone in Europe could see the signs from '33 on. And let's not forget that many of the newcomers to Hollywood production at the time were recent emigres. The first war, and a history of pogroms had made them more observant than the average American. Agree there, too, because that's true propaganda, inspiring the menfolk to go off and do heroic deeds. Not as blatant as some, but it's undeniably there. True. Holds up even after multiple viewings. Makes you wonder what alternate endings they might have come up with in those final weeks...
