On biking through Rome and boat trips to Paris
There’s something magical about old movies. I’ve been taking a personal crash course on Audrey Hepburn classics, and there’s something that’s just… sweeping about her films.
I don’t know if it’s the acting or the scoring or the way every angle and movement is equal measures deliberate and subtle. I don’t know if it’s the way the actors speak, or the simple but well-rounded plot lines, or the unforced, natural endings (I especially loved how Roman Holiday ended; bittersweet, like a sad love song). I don’t know if it’s the aura surrounding Audrey herself or the charisma of her leading men—Bogie, Gregory Peck, George Peppard.
I don’t even like romantic movies in particular. I mean, give me a good, solid epic any day—a long, barefoot journey to throw a tiny ring into a volcano or an old-fashioned lightsaber battle never fails to lift my spirits.
But there’s something about these old films that stirs the old ticker. I think that’s the word: stirring. The actors, the costumes, the movies themselves, they’re symbols of a time that’s gone forever: a time of elegance and grace and little black dresses, a time of gowns and gloves and three-piece suits, a time of round-dial telephones and cameras with bursting light bulbs and understated scoring.
And I can’t even really call them cheesy because they’re so authentic. These films are the origin of the innumerable cliches we see in theaters and on our televisions today. They can’t be cheesy if they were the first to do it.
Movies like that could make even ice queens swoon, and remind confused young women how to fall in love.
Champagne before breakfast. Now there’s a thought.
10 Notes