Is modern cinema better than classic cinema?

The cinema is appreciated around the world and has been considered to be ‘The Seventh Art’. In fact there is a cult around it. Nowadays there are people in charge of determining those characteristics which a film must have to be a work of art or bad movie. This debate has given place to the question: Is modern cinema better than classic cinema?

My opinion about the former question is expressed below, but before starting, it is important to define what classic cinema and modern cinema are: classic cinema: movies made before the 60s and modern cinema: movies made after the 60s.

Personally I prefer the modern cinema, because I know more about its historical, social, political and economic context. Furthermore, I love special effects (optical effects are images superimposed or drawn in the film frames and the mechanical effects are techniques with makeup, machines, atmospheric effects, scenery and scale models, mainly) and soundtracks. Moreover, the new technology for cinemas (3D and digital sound) has helped make films more interactive.

Also I must say that I grew up with the modern films and I myself identify with them, because they have marked my generation with movies in which we found teaching and moments that made us laugh (Shrek, 2001. –This movie is very funny because it does parodies of other films–), cry (Schindler's List, 1993. –This movie shows the compassion versus cruelty in the Second World War–), have nightmares (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991. –The film is about a psycho who is a serial killer–), love and dreams (Titanic, 1997. –This film became an icon of the romantic movies, above all for its love scenes and the Titanic theme song ‘My heart will go on’–).

However, I can’t say modern cinema is better or worse than classic cinema. I think that the topics of classic cinema were very interesting because at that time there were not enough technological resources to catch viewers’ attention. The director and actors had to find a way to obtain shocking scenes, and scripts had to be complex and attractive. Proof of this is that some old films nowadays have been readapted in order to allow new generations to appreciate them.

In my opinion classic cinema is the foundation of modern cinema and its greatest merit was its own existence, the development of images in movement through projections (the first film with movement The Great Train Robbery, 1903), addition of music (the first film with music The Jazz Singer, 1927) and color (the first film in color Becky Sharp, 1935). So then really I can not compare them! The actors at that time have become legends (Marilyn Monroe, 1926 – 1962; Charles Chaplin, 1889 – 1977) now, but probably the current actors will become a legend too, 50 years later, and the same will happen with the stories, which in their moment became unrepeatable classics by their impact and magnificence or films that created a new genre and this now is used to create new films (such as Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, 1922, the first film that was about vampires).

We mustn’t forget that classic cinema is the cinema of our parents; therefore I like to think that classic cinema is the father of modern cinema, the second is there thanks to the first, and both have a common history that will continue over many generations.