CloverClover

Is it just the placebo effect... when I look back at movies in the late 90s to 2001, it feels like they were made in a different world, much more innocent. even the extreme R-rated stuff, has a pre-9/11 innocence. then 9/11 happened, and movies after that, are way different. 9/11 changed everything.

whoopdido

How so?

Mondo Kane

If anything, Columbine was more of a knee-jerk reaction than 9/11 ever was. "Killing Miss Tingle" quickly became "Teaching Miss Tingle". Even Idle Hands (Of all movies) was considered to be in "Bad taste" for it's time of release (I clearly remembering reading an article about it's box-office failure as a sign that audiences still weren't ready for violence)

9/11 really just gave birth to the "Hero/Super-Hero" emphasis that's continued to this day.

The Antipodean

Haven't noticed one thing that has really changed myself. People been killing each other for a very long time.

TheMovieman

Me neither. Not sure what the OP is talking about. Maybe further explanation and examples?

Count Dooku

Could you possibly be more vague?

E. Honda

My name is Michael Moore, and I approve this message.

Count Dooku

All he needs is Carrie Fisher sitting in front of him in a bikini.

Solid Snake

Yeah...the OP is pretty vague on this.

CloverClover

Movies got more darker and aware, it was as if all the flicks that came out was a reaction to 9 11, terrorism, fear, depression, paranoia. Like tjhe best picture nominees of those several years

1998
shakespeare in love - a romantic love story
saving private ryan- innocent about the heroes of the golden years
thin red line - about fallen heroes
life is beautiful - more hope

1999
American beauty - empowerment, seems dated in a post 9 11 world where everyone is grateful to get by
Green mile - classic, innocent prison tale
Sixth sense - ghost story
Insider - the media and evil corporations
Cider house - innocent tale

2000
Traffic - drugs are bad
Erin b - corporations are evil
Chocolate - irrelevant romantic
Crouching tiger - historical fantasy
Gladiator - historical fantasy

Seems like those pre 9 11 movies were more innocent, when america was on the path of peace and prosperity. the bad guys were the corporations or the bad guys in the past. Then when 9 11 happened, everything changed, and movies came to show americas trauma

2001
Lord of the rings - sauron was the ultimate terrorist dictator
A beautiful mind - about a paranoid schizo
Mouli rouge - love but tragic end
In the bedroom - grieving from major trauma
Gosford park - murder while no one cares

2002
The pianist - fear and paranoia
The hours - depression and paranoia
Two towers - big war between nations
Gangs of ny - about corruption and violence / terrorism
Chicago - corruption, the system is a joke

2003
The return of the king - the last war to create peace
Sea biscuit - hope in the great depression
Master and commander - russell crowe chases the terrorists
Lost in translation - a connection, in a scary alienating world
Mystic river - violence justified after trauma

whoopdido

You're really reaching. Most of the movies you listed were based on books or based on true stories.

I guess I kind of get what you're taking about. Sometimes when I'm watching a movie I'll look at the release date and if it's pre 9/11 I'll say to myself "hmm those sure were different times". However I don't think 9/11 made any difference whatsoever. Tastes change very quickly and 9/11 happened almost a decade ago. A lot can happen in a decade. For example torture movies (Hostel, Saw,etc) got really popular for a while. That had nothing to do with 9/11 they just got popular for some reason. Now people don't seem as in to those.

Groucho

All of these films were either released or in production before 9/11.

Sean O'Hara

The only thing that's changed is that directors feel the need to make thing faux-gritty in the name of "realism." The stories are just as naive and puerile as ever.

TimeandTide

There's some logic behind OP's claim -- war and large-scale disaster do sometimes affect what types of movies get green-lit -- but the impact of 9/11 on film isn't nearly as broad nor black and white and he's (attempting to) illustrate it. As Groucho notes, all of the post-9/11 noms were in production well prior to 9/11. It's easy to handpick movies to wedge into your argument (Chicago is about corruption!), and that's no different than those who use Taxi Driver and Deer Hunter to claim that Vietnam created a major tonal shift in Hollywood.

Black Hawk Down was released just months after 9/11, which means that the story of one of our biggest military embarrassments and failures was in production long before 9/11. Nothing "innocent" about that story, or any number of pre-9/11 movies.

PopcornTreeCt

Is this about torture porn? Because I will agree that the horrid genre spawned up post-9/11. Perhaps capitalizing a newfound blood lust found in young Americans?

whoopdido

Yeah but I don't think it had anything to do with 9/11. Why it got popular I have no idea. I'm just glad it seems to have displeased.

It seems like if 9/11 would have brought about any type of movie I would think it would have been the "feel good" type movie at least for a year or two after it happened. That was a shocking event to most people and I think many people were just looking for something to feel good about at that time but I don't remember the years 2002 through say 2005 as being the time of the "feel good" movie. I just don't think it had any impact whatsoever other than maybe movies trying NOT to portray middle eastern people as terrorists as they seemed to have no problem doing before they actually brought our buildings down. Just think about the tv show 24. Pretty much throughout the entire run of the show the US was in the war on terror specifically in the middle east and maybe one or two seasons actually had a middle eastern terrorist. There were Germans, Russians, Mexicans and Africans though. Seems weird that it was ok to portray middle eastern people and specifically muslims as terrorists but then after 9/11 it suddenly became wrong to do so.

Supermallet

Honestly, if you showed me that list of films and didn't tell me what the time frame was, I would have in no way seen any difference between one set and another.

All I want to know is: When will the laughter return? I'm still waiting.

Hokeyboy

I love how American Beauty was all about "empowerment" and that theme of Traffic was "drugs are bad".

Sean O'Hara

I always thought American Beauty was about a woman in a horrible job that she's no good at, and one day her husband gets laid off and blows his severance package on drugs and a sports car to make up for his sexual inadequacy in the hope of seducing their teenage daughter's best friend, leaving the woman to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, which makes her husband feel even more inadequate.

TimeandTide

And these pre-9/11 films don't?

Saving Private Ryan
Thin Red Line
Life is Beautiful
American Beauty
Green Mile
Sixth Sense
Insider
Cider House
Traffic
Erin Brockovich
Gladiator

"Trauma" drives the plot of each of these films.

dugan

People got sick of the PG 13-rated horror that dominated the 90s.

Supermallet

Man, don't rain on my parade!

whoopdido

That could very well be true. You can make a good R rated horror movie without resorting to the utter crap that Hostel and the like though. The original Saw is a pretty good example. Although gory and pretty sick in many ways it wasn't anything close to the torture porn that became popular around that time and that the sequels came to be as well.

I'm so glad the population got sick of that shit. I love gory, R rated, violent horror movies as much as the next guy, but give me something to work with.

The Antipodean

As a kind of sweeping over-generalization, I'd say movies in the 1970s were a lot darker and grimmer in tone than any other decade in recent times -- even now a lot of 70s movies are startlingly bold and 'un-innocent' to watch -- take "The French Connection," it's hard to see that being remade verbatim now with Will Smith. Now if you'd argued that say Vietnam/Watergate etc. had an effect on the movie culture, I'd definitely see that with a whole host of movies from "The Godfather" on down to "Apocalypse Now." But while there were certainly a lot of movies that reacted to or used 9/11 as a spinoff I sure can't see any sweeping change in cinematic culture as a result.

CharlieK

I was watching an action movie from the 80's the other night, though I can't remember which one. But one thing that struck me was the wanton killing of innocent people in the crossfire between the hero and the villain. I think it was in a mall food court, but during the gunfight the camera made sure to show that people just sitting there eating were getting shot in the head and chest and so on.

It doesn't seem like that kind of close-up violence isn't around so much anymore in action movies unless it's to further the story. If there's collateral damage it's usually seen from afar like a plane crashing or building blowing up.