Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

Which Golden Age? Yes, the preservation for pre-1927 films is very very poor, 3/4's was lost, with most of that loss being things make before 1925.

Much more of the post-1927 content was preserved (more of it was preserved with sound once we switched to sound on film) - I'd note however that Silent Movies are virtually unrecognizable by modern viewers as being even the same art form as sound pictures - and sound movies didnt reach the same... production values? as the silents until 1936-37.

The period between 1927-and 1937 was a period of reinvention and learning of a new medium, which is why - my general take is the golden age of Hollywood was 1939 to 1959.

Consider what films came out in 1939 -

* Gone with the Wind

* Wizard of Oz

* Mr. Smith goes to Washington

These are films that still find audiences today, now - 80 years or so on.

Most Americans might have seen one movie produced between 1927 and 1938 - but most people who are above 30 have seen at least two those three movies at least once.

And that trend continues from there on - where 1940 to 1959, most americans have seen one movie released in each of those years.

So while I dont disagree that we are losing heritage in these things - I take issue with their definition of Golden Age and the idea that there is value in saving everything ever written or filmed.

Much of it wasnt meant to be relevant for decades, it was meant to be ephemeral topical entertainment, and functionally intended to be disposable. Most of the production of Poverty Row, and B pictures by the majors are like this, they were intended for Block Booking, and largely just as a way to fill the content needs of the theaters and as a way to provide steady revenue in the event an A picture flopped.

1939? I suppose you have to pick a year and call that the cutoff.

But you're cutoff leaves to the "Dark Ages" the films Frankenstein (1931), Love Me Tonight (1931), 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), King Kong (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), Stella Dallas (1937), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) to name a few.

When I was mentioning most people have only see one pre-1939 film, I was specifically thinking of Snow White.

While I do not deny that movies of that era are often highly influential on later films, they do not lend themselves to modern watchability, because of the technical limitations of the medium at the time. Snow White being a notable exception because it was the literal first of its kind, and Disney has successfully restored and rereleased it decade after decade.

Largely I'm a believer that the merits of the film itself will lead to its preservation and often restoration and that preservation just for the sake of preservation isn't all that valuable a use of a limited resource.

I suppose I disagree since all the ones I listed I feel are entirely watchable for a modern audience. This modern audience of me (and the wife too) loved them.

Also The Invisible Man (1933) and Easy Living (1937), but I agree with the parent that 1939 seems to be about when modern-ish script quality and production values became the norm.

I have a relatively controversial (at least to some) view that Citizen Kane was the first modern movie. When you watch it, it feels starkly modern compared to other production of its era.

Also: M, I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, Nosferatu, a bunch of Bogart, Gable, Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movies.

I left off M because it is not "Hollywood".

> Much of it wasnt meant to be relevant for decades, it was meant to be ephemeral topical entertainment, and functionally intended to be disposable.

As with Pompeii graffiti and warehouse cuneiform tally tablets, from the anthropological perspective, the ephemeral is interesting.

Old entertainment that seems alien has a lot to offer for understanding culture that was.

Do you need all of it, or like 30-40% of it?

The costs to try to save all of it are vast - the costs to try to save some of it are pretty reasonable. What's interesting is what has survived from the 20's was mostly by accident.

I think most people would agree with you, the trouble is getting them all to agree on the same 30-40%…

I think on some level the relative rareness of the stuff that gets preserved, means there is a natural distribution left for the 40%.

> As with Pompeii graffiti and warehouse cuneiform tally tablets, from the anthropological perspective, the ephemeral is interesting.

It's only interesting after a looong period were it was very much uninteresting, causing so much to be destroyed until what remained became interesting as a rarity.

I think it's very likely that process of destruction is necessary to make past ephemera valuable.

Yes, unfortunately, the title is clickbait. Generally "Golden Age of Hollywood" is a nebulous term, but only tends to encompass the last few years of silent films (if that).

In general, as I understand it, silent films were lost primarily for two reasons:

A) The film medium of the time was nitrocellulose, which unfortunately is highly flammable (several films were lost to vault fires) as well as being susceptible to decomposition.

B) With "talkies" becoming the dominant form after the late 1920s, the silver content in some of the old silent films was seen as being more valuable than the actual content. In other cases I think films were just dumped, being seen as not having any value and worth the storage costs anymore.

Television underwent a similar phenomenon from the beginning until the 1970s-1980s, due to videotape being expensive and reusable, and older material being seen as not economically valuable (especially after the transition from black and white to color). Doctor Who is probably the most famous example of a serial with missing episodes, but my understanding is that more rigorous archiving was not the norm for entertainment seen as more "disposable" (eg game shows, news programs) well after television companies archived their prime time programs.

Yeah, misleading headline. The article says "During the golden age of the silent movie (1912-29)", which is distinct from "the golden age of Hollywood" which typically describes the studio era, up through 1959, as you say.

Whatever period you define as the golden age of Hollywood, most of the movies are probably lost to time. That phrase — golden age — is a canard if it distracts from the actual point, which is that we've lost access to important artifacts of our culture and history, and we can't ever get it back.

Also, the fact that people have not seen a lot of movies from before 1939 does not argue that they should not be preserved. Most people haven't read The Iliad or Action Comics #1 either. Or visited the Acropolis, or watched the moon landing. We don't preserve artifacts because most people will want to use them in the future. In fact, we can't know what the future will need or want to know about our time, which is why we preserve as much as possible.

And yet Poverty Row produced Detour, one of the best noirs ever made. The intentions aren’t the only thing that matter here; the art does.

Further, it’s not purely about entertainment value. I recently watched Les Vampires, a 1916 serial from France. It’s true that the theatrical conventions aren’t the ones we know today, but it was fascinating watching Louis Feuillade figure out how to make a thriller on the fly, and some of the ideas he came up with created our current theatrical conventions. That historical understanding is important.

Thats the most part - and to be honest, in my opinion, most of the best Film Noir was probably produced by Poverty Row - even Poverty Row's output post 1939 became much more relevant for modern audiences - like on average even a Poverty Row picture in the post war era had better production values (on whole) than an A picture from a major in 1933 - simply because the state of the art had moved so dramatically forward.

Incidentally one of my favorite Noir's is He Walked by Night featuring a very very young Jack Webb. I'll check out Detour though.

Oh, man, I envy you the experience of seeing it for the first time.

I will give it this - the cinematography is very very good.

> Much of it wasnt meant to be relevant for decades

That doesn't matter though. I find silent movies interesting simply because of their age. It's a window into how people lived back then. Compare what's in the homes of the "average person" in a silent film to what you see in one of today's movies.

Is it? Often the people featured in films were.. basically only the wealthy classes. We have ample example of how they lived.

Also, often movies today do not depict an average person, they depict an idealized version of that. We have stills of the real thing, lots of them.

Bear in mind I'm not arguing against preservation - but its a limited resource, I'd prioritize early home movies and industrial films (what little there was) over the traditional A or B picture studio output.

One of the most celebrated silent film characters was, "The Little Tramp", featuring their misadventures in trying to stay alive and not starve, being an immigrant, taking on terrible and often dangerous jobs, etc.

You mean Chaplin?

Chaplin was a brilliant filmmaker, his stuff remains watchable to this day - but no one could seriously look at his output and call it anything resembling reality - even at the time.

You're right - movies do not function as a reflection of reality. The Gold Rush is no more a documentary than Nosferatu.

But you can say the same about Michelangelo's David. An artist's output - and preserving it, is about preserving the culture, not a snapshot in time. "What did the produce, and why?" are compelling questions to ask.

Well I'm not claiming that they were documentaries. But the way they showed people, wealthy or average, indicates a very different standard of living. I can't think of any specific movies: just what's on TCM that catches my attention usually.

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