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Great Films
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 09:12 amI’ve been thinking a lot recently about what makes a film great. This was largely sparked by finally getting round to watching The Chronicles of Riddick, which most assuredly is not a great film. It was an enjoyable film, to be sure: there were nice special effects, first-rate fights, and a hot chick in tight clothes who kicks the crap out of people. Since I had thought that these were enough to make a great film, I was provoked to think about what made Riddick a bad film. This produced a sizable list, so I shall mention only three points. The first is the title, which leads one to think it is the history of some Anglo-Saxon kingdom so insignificant that it is only remembered because a reclusive monk had nothing better to do than to record its minutiae in alliterative verse. I was thus surprised to find that Riddick was a person. People do not have chronicles: they have diaries, journals, memoirs and blogs, though I have to admit that The Blog of Riddick is not an inspiring title. The second factor is the plot, which reads like someone had decided to make a film out of a graphic novel by stitching together their favourite episodes. Riddick is like Wagner: it has great moments, but terrible half hours. Then of course there is the casting. Vin Diesel is the kind of actor you cast in the role of a hired thug who gets killed in the first fight scene. He does rage and bafflement passably, but these are not enough for a galactic hero.
As I said, this got me thinking about what makes a great film. But “great film” can mean two things. We can say that something is a great film, meaning that it’s the kind of film you enjoy watching, and can watch again and again. For me, that includes pretty much anything from John Carpenter. Films like Escape From New York or Big Trouble in Little China are great fun, and I’ve watched them more times than I can remember. The plots are tight, the dialogue is snappy, the casting is spot on and the decor is out of this world (only Carpenter could have designed a set so authentically kitsch as the wedding salon in Big Trouble). They even have the kind of film scores that make you go and buy the album (and I did). I love them so much, I’m tempted to break off from writing and watch my DVD of Big Trouble again. But although these are great films, they are not great films.
So what it is that makes films Great with a capital G? Let’s look at some films that I think fall into that category: The Seven Samurai, Fanny and Alexander, Psycho and The Godfather. Let’s also take a film (or rather film series) which is right on the edge of the category, The Matrix.
The first requirement is that the film be flawless, or as near to flawless as makes no difference. That means a plot that grabs your attention, superb cinematography, excellent acting, good music and all the other things that get you Oscars. The four films I’ve mentioned manage all of this, and the test is that there is nothing about them that I would want to change. Each film is perfect in its own way: you wouldn’t want to rewrite Psycho (although someone did), shorten Fanny and Alexander (even though it’s five hours long), cast anyone other than Marlon Brando as Corleoni, or colorise The Seven Samurai. Words like “sacrilege” come to mind. On the other hand, although I love the Matrix films passionately, I can still think of a few tweaks I could make. The second and third films could easily have been rolled into one, and if that meant ditching all the lovey-dovey stuff between Neo and Trinity, there wouldn’t be tears, but sighs of relief. The Wachowski brothers, gifted though they may be, also made the classic mistake of putting better actors in supporting roles than leads, with the result that characters like Morpheus, Agent Smith and even Niobe steal the show. Keeanu Reeves is a sweet guy, and he does a good job in the first half of the first film by looking scared and confused, but hero material he is not. As for Carrie-Anne Moss, if The Matrix hadn’t come along, she’d still be acting in made-for-TV movies. She may look cool in black leather, but anything more wooden could be used for a Yule log.
A minor point related to this is that a film should be accurate. For example, if you’re making a film about Julius Caesar, you shouldn’t have Roman soldiers wearing the familiar metal corsets (lorica segmentata), since they didn’t come into fashion until the end of the first century AD. If you’re showing hackers at work, please try to have the computer screens come up with something that vaguely looks like it might be doing what your characters are supposed to be doing (full marks to The Matrix Reloaded here for having Trinity use a Unix command line). All four films manage to provide an authentic atmosphere by getting the details right. (Admittedly, the psychology of Psycho may now strike us as questionable pop-Freudianism, but Hitchcock was using the best theory around at the time.)
The second factor is what Matthew Arnold called “high seriousness”. (I’m borrowing here from William Burroughs’ excellent defence of Mario Puzo as great literature.) This means that the film must express something about what it is to be human, and in their very different ways, all these films manage to do this. I once remarked that if you watch Fanny and Alexander and The Seven Samurai, you’ve seen everything that is is worth saying about the human condition. Psycho and The Godfather offer insights into human nature in its less acceptable forms: a twisted soul who performs needless atrocities, and a basically decent person who performs them out of necessity. The Matrix also does well on high seriousness; in fact if anything, there is a little too much of it.
The last thing that makes a film great is to have an impact on film in general. All of these films pass this test. Fanny and Alexander gave us Die Schauckel (an undeservedly obscure film) and a lot of less obvious successors. The Seven Samurai gave us a host of other samurai films, The Magnificent Seven, and a load of battles in the rain (including the last fight between Neo and Smith). Psycho influenced just about every psycho film since, and any mafia film automatically invites comparison with The Godfather.
Put another way, if you find yourself thinking things like the following, you know you haven’t watched a great film:-
As I said, this got me thinking about what makes a great film. But “great film” can mean two things. We can say that something is a great film, meaning that it’s the kind of film you enjoy watching, and can watch again and again. For me, that includes pretty much anything from John Carpenter. Films like Escape From New York or Big Trouble in Little China are great fun, and I’ve watched them more times than I can remember. The plots are tight, the dialogue is snappy, the casting is spot on and the decor is out of this world (only Carpenter could have designed a set so authentically kitsch as the wedding salon in Big Trouble). They even have the kind of film scores that make you go and buy the album (and I did). I love them so much, I’m tempted to break off from writing and watch my DVD of Big Trouble again. But although these are great films, they are not great films.
So what it is that makes films Great with a capital G? Let’s look at some films that I think fall into that category: The Seven Samurai, Fanny and Alexander, Psycho and The Godfather. Let’s also take a film (or rather film series) which is right on the edge of the category, The Matrix.
The first requirement is that the film be flawless, or as near to flawless as makes no difference. That means a plot that grabs your attention, superb cinematography, excellent acting, good music and all the other things that get you Oscars. The four films I’ve mentioned manage all of this, and the test is that there is nothing about them that I would want to change. Each film is perfect in its own way: you wouldn’t want to rewrite Psycho (although someone did), shorten Fanny and Alexander (even though it’s five hours long), cast anyone other than Marlon Brando as Corleoni, or colorise The Seven Samurai. Words like “sacrilege” come to mind. On the other hand, although I love the Matrix films passionately, I can still think of a few tweaks I could make. The second and third films could easily have been rolled into one, and if that meant ditching all the lovey-dovey stuff between Neo and Trinity, there wouldn’t be tears, but sighs of relief. The Wachowski brothers, gifted though they may be, also made the classic mistake of putting better actors in supporting roles than leads, with the result that characters like Morpheus, Agent Smith and even Niobe steal the show. Keeanu Reeves is a sweet guy, and he does a good job in the first half of the first film by looking scared and confused, but hero material he is not. As for Carrie-Anne Moss, if The Matrix hadn’t come along, she’d still be acting in made-for-TV movies. She may look cool in black leather, but anything more wooden could be used for a Yule log.
A minor point related to this is that a film should be accurate. For example, if you’re making a film about Julius Caesar, you shouldn’t have Roman soldiers wearing the familiar metal corsets (lorica segmentata), since they didn’t come into fashion until the end of the first century AD. If you’re showing hackers at work, please try to have the computer screens come up with something that vaguely looks like it might be doing what your characters are supposed to be doing (full marks to The Matrix Reloaded here for having Trinity use a Unix command line). All four films manage to provide an authentic atmosphere by getting the details right. (Admittedly, the psychology of Psycho may now strike us as questionable pop-Freudianism, but Hitchcock was using the best theory around at the time.)
The second factor is what Matthew Arnold called “high seriousness”. (I’m borrowing here from William Burroughs’ excellent defence of Mario Puzo as great literature.) This means that the film must express something about what it is to be human, and in their very different ways, all these films manage to do this. I once remarked that if you watch Fanny and Alexander and The Seven Samurai, you’ve seen everything that is is worth saying about the human condition. Psycho and The Godfather offer insights into human nature in its less acceptable forms: a twisted soul who performs needless atrocities, and a basically decent person who performs them out of necessity. The Matrix also does well on high seriousness; in fact if anything, there is a little too much of it.
The last thing that makes a film great is to have an impact on film in general. All of these films pass this test. Fanny and Alexander gave us Die Schauckel (an undeservedly obscure film) and a lot of less obvious successors. The Seven Samurai gave us a host of other samurai films, The Magnificent Seven, and a load of battles in the rain (including the last fight between Neo and Smith). Psycho influenced just about every psycho film since, and any mafia film automatically invites comparison with The Godfather.
Put another way, if you find yourself thinking things like the following, you know you haven’t watched a great film:-
- “Yeah, you should really watch it, it’s all about, about ... well, you really ought to watch it.”
- “So was she really in love with Joe or what?”
- “Hang on, are you sure the American army were at Gallipoli?”
- “Oh I love Jean-Luc Godard, he’s so ... so ... er ...”
- “I’m not sure Jack Nicholson was the best choice to play Jesus.”
