Hacker Cinema
Sweet Smell of Success
1957 · Film · 97 min
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disapproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.
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5 comments on Hacker News
With cherry picking you can make any point you want. It not only ignores most of the films in that era, it even ignores most of the best picture Oscar nominees, to say nothing of the fact that OP so wildly mischaracterizes 12 Angry Men and Sweet Smell of Success that I wonder if they've seen the films in the first place.
> The acting/writing was pompous, actors talked like reciting Shakespear. The movies were about heros of impeccable character doing heroic things and there always was a happy ending. Movie shots followed strict guidelines and the creative head of the movie was the producer while the director was akin to a contractor, someone hired to film the scenes.
12 Angry Men and especially Sweet Smell of Success are not good examples of this.
It is hard to overstate how much Godard changed cinema, even in America. If you don’t believe me check for yourself. Open the best picture nominees between 55’-65’ and watch their trailers. Films like Marty/On the waterfront/12 angry men/To kill a mockingbird/The Caine Mutiny/Sweet smell of success is what movies were like in the late 50s.
The acting/writing was pompous, actors talked like reciting Shakespear. The movies were about heros of impeccable character doing heroic things and there always was a happy ending. Movie shots followed strict guidelines and the creative head of the movie was the producer while the director was akin to a contractor, someone hired to film the scenes.
Starting in the mid 60s there was a radical shift, topping the nominations we have films like Five Easy Pieces, The French Connection, The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Deer Hunter, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver etc. Actors would act and behave like normal everyday people facing everyday problems. The new Archetype is the Anti-Hero, someone with flaws/vices in their character, someone that viewers can relate to. We see the rise of the director as the auteur, the creative master of a film. Every known filmaking rule is being tested to it’s limits and broken by young experimenting directors.
The catalyst for this change was the French New Wave, a group of young filmmakers tired of the old style of cinema wanting to do films about their own life and experiences. The poster boy for the New Wave was Jean-Luc Godard starting this revolution with his 1960 film Breathless.
I watched a classic movie from the 50s recently, Sweet Smell of Success. In the movie columnists are portrayed as almost exclusively venal and engaged in corrupt influence-peddling (except for one guy who refuses to compromise in the face of blackmail).
It was an interesting counterpoint to the "journalists used to be objective" stuff.
And if we're going for PR classics, there's always "Sweet Smell of Success", too. Inspired by Walter Winchell. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051036/