Charlie Dorf & Francesca DeRosa
Arts and Entertainment Editors
The art of painting has been around for thousands of years, and yet debate still rages over what is a truly “classic” piece. Some claim the works of El Greco or Raphael, while others counter with Picasso and Dali. Film, on the other hand, has been around scarcely a century, but debate over what defines a classic movie ranges just as widely as the debate over its artistic ancestors.
A determining factor that people often resort to is age. A common view is that, in order to be a classic, a movie must be made over a certain number of years ago. “A classic is an older movie that most people appreciate,” freshman George Herdy said. According to him, the approximate age of a classic is twenty years or so.
Senior Pat Daly agreed with this classification. “Movies are like wine,” he said. “They get better with age.”
Junior Austin Wolff, however, said that both popularity and quality take precedence over age. “When I think of classic movies, I don’t think of old movies, but rather movies that you have in your collection,” he said. “A classic has unforgettable characters, a great plot and most importantly, great acting.”
Some feel performances must be legitimately genuine for a film to be held in high regard. “A classic needs to have class. It needs a degree of dignity and self-respect,” Pat said. “The actors need to believe what they are acting for it to be classic.”
Another debated element of a classic is its importance not only in entertainment value, but in the continuing development of both society and the art of film-making.
Austin believes that an effect on the movie’s own genre is of of critical importance in defining a classic. “Look at what The Godfather did for mob movies. Look what Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings did for sci-fi and fantasy epics. They set the standard for their genre,” he said.
Film teacher Peter Kingsbury also attributes a high degree of importance to individuality and the breaking of set boundaries, both artistic and social, when defining a classic. “Films that I have in mind often have invented a form of film language,” he said in search for examples of classics. “I don’t think of the films of Quentin Tarentino, but of Maya Deren (a path-breaker in low-budget, independent films), Orson Wells (Citizen Kane), and D.W. Griffith (the controversial director of The Birth of a Nation, which many regard as racist).”
But a film’s popularity over its impact is still, for some, the key to a classic movie. Junior Isabel Glatthorn cited The Notebook as a classic on the grounds that she is “pretty sure that every woman has seen it.”
In reference to Back to the Future, sophomore Jensen Lee also mentioned the film’s overall viewership as directly correlating to its status, in her eyes, as a classic. “It’s a good movie that everyone knows. And no matter how many times you see it, you never get tired of it.”
Junior Mike Sosnick, however, sees a classic as defined not by its popularity but by its endurance, the ability of its content to stand the test of time and never lose its initial impact or message. “They’re timeless, meaning you can watch them in 100 years and they’ll still be great.”
Sophomore Will Hennessy also saw classics as timeless, not only to modern viewers but also to posterity. “I think a classic movie is relateable to a multi-generational audience,” he said.
On another hand, Mr. Kingsbury claimed that age is an important factor in defining a classic of any work of art, and the relative novelty of film-making makes it difficult, as of yet, to see the products as truly timeless. “When I think of a classic film, I think of the worn pieces of the Parthenon in Greece,” he said. “Film is such a recent art that it might be foolish to declare films ‘classic’ because there have not been enough days of rain to erode them and not enough days of sun to bleach them.”
The idea of classic film, despite its genre’s youth, shows itself to be as varied as even the most ancient forms of expression, remaining fundamentally different from person to person. “If anyone is talking about classic movies, they are really relying on their own intuition, on what they feel has internal strength,” Mr. Kingsbury said.
