How to evaluate Movies
Journey to the center of cinema
There are many aspects to a film: cultural, philosophical, musical, visual, and so on. But the most important thing is for these elements to come together and make a movie. When this is done well, it’s only then that the audience can perceive a truly beautiful film.
Akira Kurosawa
Cinema is a quite complex and fascinating art. It collects all the elements related to classical arts: music, literature, painting, architecture, theater, trying to mix them, blending into something that can be realistic, magical or spiritual.
As and perhaps more than any other art, its first goal is to deeply dig into human nature, eviscerate our feelings, perforate our mental barriers and penetrate with a dagger (or caress with a feather, as appropriate), our synaptic cavity.
When this happens, whether it’s a punch or a caress, we’re always amazed and mesmerized by what happened. After all, emotions are the main reason why we are dedicated to all activities that don’t fit into our daily ‘duties’.
Movies on Starico
On Starico a movie is dissected identifying five classes of judgment:
Screenplay, Acting, Cinematography, Mise-en-scène, Music & Sound.
Let’s see which groups of parameters are taken into account for each class.
Screenplay
Make a film always begins from a written text. This class will consider the subject of the film, especially the development of the script, the effectiveness of dialogues or moments of silence, the way it has been developed starting from that idea.
The narrative is what helps to make sense of a movie. A good story, gracefully manipulated to give us a desire to continue the vision, to be surprised, to be excited or disconcerted, can make the difference between a mediocre film and an excellent film.
Acting
The acting plays an important role in determining the final outcome of a movie. If it’s true that a good director can manage to bring out the best from a not excellent actor, it’s also true that some great actors have managed to turn a mediocre film into a masterpiece of great depth. The actorial skills are a mixture of study and talent, entitled to weigh actively on the final evaluation.
Cinematography
Indicates how it was filmed. We’re speaking of the visual language used to conceived it. Since this is a class of parameters, this doesn’t concern what is commonly understood by this word; we’re talking about technical aspects, camera movements, choice of shots and sequences, including the discipline that connects between them all of these elements: the editing.
Usually the work of a director is associated to all these disciplines. While it’s true that their work is inherent to the above, is actually incorrect to limit its work to that, because the hand of a director touches directly not just these categories, but also all other classes.
Mise en scene
Indicates what was filmed. This french expression comes from the theatrical tradition and includes everything that is shown on the screen: set design, special effects, makeup, costumes and props.
Though often indirectly someone tends to give less importance to the totality of these elements, in practice every single frame of a movie requires a meticulous and careful construction of the scenic environment; whether it be to film indoors, whether in an open environment.
To understand us, a director of photography works with a mix of what here’s intended as Cinematography and Mise en scene.
Music and sound
Indicates what we’re listening and when we listen it. This concerns music, but also all sound effects, natural or unnatural. Involving directly our susceptibility, these influence the way we watching a movie. Sometimes the sound is able to communicate what’s happening on the screen (think of a sound of a door opening and not yet shown, or a tense and spooky music during a horror movie scene).
The skillful blending of music and sound effects can make of a film a masterpiece of atmosphere.