I forgot to talk about how maybe my problem is not AGE per se, but a generation gap. I'm remembering watching Camelot with Vanessa Redgrave during the 80's and thinking that Redgrave wasn't particularly good-looking at all. I was so much a child of the 80's culturally that someone considered beautiful in the late 60's and 70's wasn't beautiful to me. And I'm not just talking about Redgrave's lack of bangs (unforgiveable) and princess waistlines (unthinkable!) but also her actual looks, and the concept of beauty itself. As in, she had no top lip.
I had the same reaction when I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the first time, and didn't find the leading lady (Katherine Ross) beautiful at all. (Hmm. She doesn't have much of an upper lip, either. Neither do I, for that matter. Let's psychoanalyze this . . . )
The cool thing about movies like this, though, is that they manage to communicate how beautiful these ladies are, in context, even when I disagree. I found it easy to believe that the other characters had no doubt that these women were gorgeous. Twilight, on the other hand, failed in this respect for me. Why? Because Edward is a guy and I have higher standards here, since he my opposite gender? Maybe. More, I think it's because of that RIDICULOUS HAIR AND MAKEUP! It's like they were trying way, way too hard. I don't know.
Anyway, Zina put this link in my comments and I thought it was too terrific to let lie languishing down there in the comments so here it is for everyone's pleasure (thanks, Zina!):
That's Eric Snider doing it again. (If you didn't read his Titanic screenplay, look that one up, too.)
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2 comments:
I agree about Redgrave. It's also interesting how even historical dramas show the influence of their times in how they adapt the old styles. I'm reading a book my Mom recommended to me called "Moment in Peking" that was written in, I think, the mid-1930s and set in China in the early 1900s, and I discovered there's a film version in many little segments on YouTube. It's all in Chinese with no subtitles, but I watched part of it anyway just out of curiosity, and was fascinated by how the hair and clothing styles were meant to be old but just had a modern look about them, anyway -- as in, none of the men wore queues, etc.
I think that few costumers really stick to completely strict historical accuracy because they want the characters to look attractive to modern viewers.
As if that comment wasn't long enough, I want to clarify the first part of it: I meant to say that even historical dramas and period pieces show the influence of the styles from the times *when they were performed.*
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