What makes some films timeless?

[DACrowe]

Very few movies are timeless. Even calssics show what era they were made in (for example Casablanca, arguably one of the greatest films ever made) a way to break the mold is to be set ina period piece and make it so well that it is a timeless capture of that era (accurate or not) for example The Godfather or Lawerence of Arabia. Of course it is two-fold because if you make it with all the cliches of the day, even if it goes down as a classic it stil lages quite a bit, like Gone with the Wind.

Which is why timeless I think can refer more to a feeling you get from watching a movie than not being able to spot when it was made, because that is nigh impossible even for the Godfather. Perhaps Gone with the Wind is cheesy '90s cinema and pro-South propoganda that should be scoffed at and is but the movie has such a glorious doomed tragedy about it that you'll be swept up itno its stereotypes anyway. That is why Star Wars has survived generations and Buck Rogers has not perhaps.

 

[primemover]

Weird though, some movies are SOO about the specific time they are made in, ie Spinal Tap and Office Space, but they are definately timeless movies because they encapsulate that period perfectly.