Old Movies and Posters.

I love old movies. Not old movies like movies from the '80's, old movies like movies from the '20s. My all time favourite old movie is Metropolis from 1927 by Fritz Lang. The man was a genius, actually. This film was the most expensive silent film ever made, costing 5 million reichmark. (Reichmark is German currency from just before WWII, all the way through to about 1948) Needless to say, it was a very expensive film to produce, the most expensive film up to that date, and it still remains the most expensive silent film ever made.

With all of that money, it was a beautiful film. Absolutely incredible to look at, and something that literally changed film making forever, and it's so often over looked as one of the most amazing films ever made. Fritz Lang, wherever you are, you were pure genius.

In any case, I start this praise mostly because last night, while talking about buying art for walls, Alex and I came across this website for Movie Posters. This website is amazing, they have posters from all over the place, but the most amazing thing is that they have original posters from when the movie was being shown, and some of them date back to these amazing early films like Metropolis. Needless to say, they are excessively expensive, and the chances of me ever owning one is pretty much zero, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming! They have some super amazing posters, and now my fear is that Alex and I are going to become movie poster hoarders.

The unfortunate thing is that they don't make posters like they used to. I would never want to own a movie poster from post 2000, maybe even post 1960. Posters from more modern movies aren't as visually stunning, they don't look like art, and unless they're signed by a star... they just don't interest me at all. I am a pretty big movie buff too, I love movies, and I have a lot of favourite movies from post 2000, but the posters aren't art like they used to be.

 

That is art my friends. I miss the time when posters were art instead of just propaganda to get us to go pay money at a theatre.  Metropolis (top) and 'M' (bottom) both brilliant movies by Fritz Lang stand to me as two of the most amazing films every produced, and they both have awesome posters to boot. Do I want a collection of Fritz Lang posters? No, not particularily, but my god, the brilliance of these films stand out to me as some of the most brilliant film making to ever occur, and it happened within 30 years of film existing at all.

While most people are unable to sit through silent films, as our brains are so driven by dialogue, I think that if you can sit through Metropolis, listen to the sound track (which is also AMAZING) and absorb the brilliance that is the art of this German masterpiece, DO IT. It literally changes how you see films, and how you appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into movies before we had computers to do all the work. If you can't sit through a film without dialogue, 'M' by Fritz Lang, his first "talkie" is also a brilliant film, be prepared though, it sometimes is subtitled...

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.