The Classical Movie - A Reflection of Who We Were

The classical movie has got to be one of the finest “inventions” since sliced bread.  The classical movie is the one which we got the benefit of when we were kids growing up, when only three television channels and limited viewing opportunities were given reprieve, because Saturday afternoons and Sundays—when Dad wasn’t sucked into The Wide World of Sports—held movies from the past, movies featuring the glamour girls and the males gallant that had long since passed out of our existence.

Though there is obviously a clear distinction, between classical movies and classical movies with only classical period elements (music, costumes, storylines, etc.), I would like to address the delight of the classical movie of yesterday and today that does involve only a particular period of history and does, then feature only classical period elements.

I need to start with my favorite classical movie of all time, Impromptu.  This film depicts a few years in the lives of George Sand, Franz Liszt, Freiderich Chopin, and the royal and affluent people who took the artists in, allowing them to compose, write, paint, and create…in exchange for delightful company and entertainment.  The film’s focus is Sand, who is fixated on partnering with Chopin…her aggression as great as his weakness (physical instabilities).  The costuming, the music (of course), the dialogue, and the setting are all as stunning as the direction, the technique, and the delivery of words and emotion.  There is even a theme or two that humans from the beginning of time until today can identify with or at least appreciate — the love/hate, good/evil, and longing/belonging motifs that are as classic as the film itself.

Other classical movie choices I lean toward are also the more marginal (or less mainstream popular) ones.  I find Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (though clearly POST-classical periods), Wilde, and Jefferson, for instance, as worthy of classical movie acclaim as Amadeus, Emma, The Piano, and any number of Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson brilliant [re-]productions.

When you think classical movie, what do you think of?  Do you think black and white?  Classical music?  Big powdered wigs?  Do you think formalities and fanciful dress?  Do you think classic movie in terms of it being colossal in popularity?  Or do you think classic movie is as any individual might determine it—according to accuracy, aesthetics, and appeal?  I tend to include the black and white flicks with the beauties and the beaus, the comedies with the curmudgeons, the histories with the insight into who people were then…like us but with an added je ne sais quoi that we must investigate, learn about, and appreciate in as great a depth and as wide a breadth as we might.

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