profanity
I know the one f word was put in for shock value, but why the G-damns? They wouldn't have been allowed in 1957.
share[deleted]
But not in the MOVIES.
share[deleted]
But they were trying to make it look like it was made in 1957. That's the whole concept of the movie.
shareYou also would never have seen two gay men kissing in a film made in 1957 (the Production Code would have classified that under "perversion"), nor would you have seen a budding interracial romance portrayed sympathetically. I think one of the most interesting things about this film is where it diverges from the Sirkian model. That is where the richest statements are to be found. It is one thing to imitate the style of another filmmaker or employ the formal ABC's of a certain genre, but content is another thing all together. This film adheres to the generic conventions of a 1950s melodrama in terms of technique (angles, lighting, mise-en-scene, editing) and in terms of the basic narrative setup (a seemingly overwrought domestic and romantic drama), but what it actually shows you appears in quite surprising contrast to what you'd see in a theater in 1957.
share
Has anybody else ever thought that during decades when profanity was very rare in movies, the movies were better?
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. For the most part one rarely heard 'cuss words', and certainly not as part of every day conversations.
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Honestly, I still have a hard time believing people swore at all back then! When watching old movies and tv shows from that era (which I spend most of my life doing!) it's a rare moment indeed if there is even name calling, let alone mild cursing in anger. I guess if you're going to be real about things that happened back then, well, that's what some people said when things got dramatic.
shareI believe that you are very wrong. I was born in 1950, and I grew up in a very conservative family. But--the distinction between the 1950s/early 1960s and today is not that people didn't use foul language then, but, rather, it was much more restricted. You never used a word like $h!t or *beep* in any social engagement or even a business meeting (even if all the people were men, which they usually were). But when it came to boys hangin out and stuff like that, we used the same language we use today. No difference at all. Well---maybe somewhat less. B/c today every second or third word is one of those words, and no one even bats an eyelid. Women, in particular, did not use that language back then. Today, there is no difference between women and men. I sometimes think about myself; I use the vernacular today like everyone else, but back then---I would never have used those words. Your mother threatened to "wash your mouth out with soap" if you were caught, and I had one friend who really got that from his demented mother. I still remember, when I was coming of age, how my language really changed--and my feelings about that language. Well, whaddaya expect? By then the Viet Nam war was in our living rooms every night, and the country really started to get angry and polarized; also with the Civil Rights movement, which many whites disapproved of, even here in the Northeast. Gays, of course, were completely invisible to others. Growing up gay back then was almost indescribably horrible, unless one was amazingly lucky enough to have had parents who instilled a self-regard in their children, which was almost as rare. It's almost impossible for me to describe to a younger person what it was like growing up gay in those years; thank goodness our society has changed so much.
Allen Roth
"I look up, I look down..."
You're conflating period movies with the periods being depicted in a manner that makes me think you're about to suggest that people lived in black-and-white back in "the old days"!
It's always interesting to think of the ways that art diverges from life. And, when it comes to film, doubly so!
People have *always* sworn. And they *always* will swear.