FRwL

Whenever i watch a movie from 1980,81,82, and even up to 83 i think more 70s than 80s films. They still had this 'gritty' grain feel to it and wavy long hippie hair style, and when i would watch a 1984 film, and even 83, their hair abruptly became so short and the styles became so shiny and glitzy with which we recognize '80s film' to be.

The early 80s movies still feel like a direct continuation of the creative 70s and the blockbuster boom started by Jaws. The 80s is known for being the producer-led, easy-sell, assembly-line homogeny of High Concept, aka selling an audience your film in one sentence, yet the early 80s still didn't tap into that mentality and was more of a continuation of that creative period of the 70s and its blockbuster boom i think.
When i think '70s film' i think it really ends in 1982/3.

All time periods and cinematic (actually all, cinematic, historic, literary, etc.) movements overlap. Distinctions between different types of filmmaking are pretty arbitrary, just like distinctions between literary movements and historical eras. Nothing changes overnight, boundaries seem more like zones than lines. For example, the '60s movies didn't really end until '71/2 or so and they faded out, life didn't switch overnight. Likewise i think the '60s' as we know it started in 1964, after JFK they took on the swinging high-living mentality. The '50s' i think lasted the longest, somewhere from the late 40s up to 1963. Does anyone think these eras are not restrained by these numbers and are more fluid in their thought?

vili

I don't see why stylistic eras should in any way follow the Gregorian calendar. I think the more interesting question, therefore, is why we can actually say that there actually is a distinct "70s", "80s" or "90s" style in, for example, film making and music?

Is it because artists tend to think that a new decade is a "fresh beginning", and it therefore gets reflected also in the work that they produce at these junctions? Does the change of the decade get us think that we now must suddenly make a conscious effort to distance ourselves from what went on before?

Or is it simply that with every decade there is bound to be an artistic, political and/or other leader who dominates the direction where the arts are going? How different would the 80s sound be without Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince? What would the 80s Hollywood have been if, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone weren't around?

Or is the whole "era" idea a simple convenient label that the following generations apply to what, in hindsight, seems to have been the leading trends of the decade?

I would actually think that it is a little bit of all these, and perhaps some more. In other words, I totally agree with you in that these things don't just happen overnight. They may, at least on some level, not even "happen", but rather just be a question of interpretation.

eedoon

Funny that I re-watched Tootsie the other night and it feels like the 80s.

I agree with vili on this thing - whats 70s, 80s and 90s anyway? It's just numbers, they don't have anything to do with trends or movies.