With the deaths of Shirley Temple on February 10, 2014, and
of Mickey Rooney (Joe Yule) two months later, the world lost its two last major (on-screen) living connections to the
classic Hollywood cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. The similarly-clustered deaths
of Ed McManon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson during the summer of 2009 may
have given people the impression that the celebrity world of the 1970s had
become history in the new century.
"Mickey Rooney" as "Andrew Hardy," flanked by his on-screen parents. Together, these three characters give us a glimpse of family life in a bygone era. Even in the 1940s, Andy Hardy's father may have been viewed as representing still another era, further back and on its way out. (Image Source: Wikipedia)
Lest we lament too much the loss of these worlds, as per the
dictum of historians that history is a world lost to us, we can find solace in
the actors’ immortality (and perhaps immorality) on screen. However, in the
fullness of time, by which is not meant eternity (i.e., the absence of time as a factor or element),
even films as illustrious or cinematically significant as Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, His Girl Friday, The Wizard of Oz,
Philadelphia Story, Dracula, and even Mickey Rooney’s Andrew Hardy series of films will find themselves representing a
decreasing percentage of films of note—assuming cinema or some continued evolution thereof goes on. As great as some
ancient plays like Antigone are, the vast majority of Westerners today have
never heard of the work (not to mention having seen it). Even more recent plays,
such Shakespeare’s, are not exactly block-busters at movie theatres.
To be sure, cinema (and “the lower house,” television) has eclipsed
plays as a form of story-telling. However, another technological innovation may
displace our privileged mode sometime in the future. Virtual reality, for
example, may completely transform not only how we watch movies, but also
film-making itself (e.g., reversing the tendency of shorter shots and scenes so
not to disorient the immersed viewer). Although the old “black and whites” can
be colored and even restored, adapting them so the viewer is in a scene would hardly be possible
without materially altering the original.
Aside from the decreasing proportion phenomenon relegating
classic Hollywood gems, who’s to say how much play they will get even two
hundred years from 2014, not to mention in 2500 years. Even our artifacts that we reckon will “live
on” forever (even if global warming has rid the planet of any humans to view
the classics) will very likely come to their own “clustered deaths.” We humans
have much difficulty coming to terms with the finiteness of our own world and
ourselves within a mere slice of history. As Joe Yule remarked as Mickey Rooney
in 2001, “Mickey Rooney is not great. Mickey Rooney was fortunate to have been
an infinitesimal part of motion pictures and show business.”[1]
En effet, motion pictures can be
viewed as an infinitesimal phenomenon from the standpoint of the totality of
history.
[1]Donna
Freydkin, “Mickey Rooney Dead at 93” USA
Today, April 7, 2014.
