Paul Williams's "Out of It" opened yesterday at the Festival Theater, but it was made in 1967, according to the distributor, and it looks and feels just a bit older—say 1963—even allowing for South Shore cultural lag.
I just caught some of Out of It on ThisTV (which has a knack for digging up these interesting, half-forgotten films), and Greenspun has it exactly right. If you had asked me to date the picture, I probably would have guessed '63 as well (Maltin's compares it to an Archie comic). I certainly wouldn't have said the late Sixties.
But reading the review, it struck me just how much things have changed, or more accurately, how much things have stopped changing. Can you imagine seeing a film today and saying to yourself "I know it was made in 2010 but stylistically it feels like 2006"?
For the first fifty years or so of the sound era, it really did make sense to talk about movies in half decade increments. You could have a meaningful conversation about the difference between the films of the early Forties and the late Forties.
Today we still have trends and fads that set apart the movies of today from those of five years ago, but in terms of distinct, evolving styles, things change more slowly these days. As for why that happened and whether or not it's a good thing, those are topics for longer posts.
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