Quote:
Originally Posted by Critteranne
Some people need some learnin' before they should be allowed to see a famous movie.  The filmmakers and Dashiell Hammett invented those clichés -- or perfected the ones they didn't invent. So did authors like Raymond Chandler. (Shout-out to Carroll John Daly, who is credited with writing the first hard-boiled detective story.)
In college, I once proudly showed a Raymond Chandler paperback to one of my friends. It was a newer edition with new cover art, but the cover was a tribute to pulp art. She laughed at it and said something about how it looked like trashy fiction or whatever. I tried to explain that this author is highly respected and now studied in universities, etc., etc., but I don't think she truly believed me.
I've heard that people who see the early Westerns (like the silent film The Great Train Robbery) often have the same reactions. They see them as chock full of cowboy movie clichés. Those movies invented those clichés. (Today I learned that The Great Train Robberywas made so long ago (1903) that they were not using the term "director" yet.) |
It was also one of the first (if not the first) to actually tell a story as well I believe. Prior to that there were clips showing vehicles moving along streets, or acrobatics, or even a couple kissing, but usually no actual story being told.