Great Directing in a Movie

I judge a movie on seven key elements: Writing, Acting, Directing, Editing, Cinematography, Music and Sound, and the overall Design. The final three elements are how the viewer enjoyed the movie.

Each element is rated on a scale of 1 to 10. Obviously 1 being the worst it can get and 10 being the best it can get. When all the sections have been rated, I add the numbers together giving them an average film score out of 100 points.

This post will cover my views on the quality of directing in a movie.

Directing

A director doesn’t only just tell actors and crew members what to do, a director is also tasked with expressing himself and certain themes in the movie.

Making a movie is just like singing a song or painting on a canvas; it’s a form of art where every artist has its own style and is expressing an idea or feeling onto the screen. A movie that is directed well with personal expression, themes, and style can have just as much artistic significance as any other form of art and literature.

Great directors express their feelings throughout the entire movie through thematic ideas, characters, set design, lighting, and etc.

In the current post-modern period, a very popular form of art and literature is expressive conceptual art. Conceptual art is where the artist puts more focus into the meaning of the work than how it’s made. A great director should be able to either use this technique or equally balance the focus of the idea and making.

A great example of expressing a theme without much attention to the physical makeup of the production is Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003). In Dogville, Grace Margaret Mulligan played by Nicole Kidman is on the run from the mob and seeks refuge in a small Colorado mountain town. She slowly works her way into being a townsperson as the mob searches for her.

This movie sounds like it would have a town set with great scenery and wooden buildings but it’s completely the opposite. The set on Dogville is a highly simplistic town set with a few panels with windows and paint outlining streets and buildings.

Colorado Town Set of Dogville (2003)

Lars von Trier created this simplistic and intimate set to express how linked together the community is. There are hardly any walls or facades except for the ones Mulligan puts around her past. The townspeople are like a large family; willing to do anything for each other, keep nothing a secret, and begin to get in harm’s way for Mulligan. The sense of community is already visible through the acting and writing but Lars von Trier enhances that thematic idea with this set and directing.

Hardly any movies are this basic in design which is why great directors are usually seen balancing the production and ideas and great directors will intertwine the two. Here are some examples of movies with professional production quality (sometimes despite the budget) and expression of the director.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011) is a visual and ideological masterpiece. It’s about a mysterious getaway driver played by Ryan Gosling who gets himself in trouble with deadly criminals after trying to help his neighbor. Refn filmed the movie beautifully in Los Angeles with a meager budget for blockbuster standards. It’s amazing how visually appealing the movie is when it is so simplistic as well. This was done intentionally. Refn made the sets, violence, and dialogue simple yet bold to express the idea that movies don’t need explosions and extended shootouts to convey action. Nicolas Winding Refn was able to make the production quality and themes equally great and seamlessly tie them together. That is what makes him a great director.

Ryan Gosling in Drive (2011)

The second example has a higher budget of $30 million. In Neill Blomkamp’s South African Science Fiction movie District 9 (2009), Blomkamp films a beautiful 21st century mixed with science fiction set that delivers the message of the Apartheid’s continuity. In this movie, a man named Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), working for a fictional multinational agency in charge of enforcing the slums holding stranded aliens, begins to see the social injustices the aliens face. The Apartheid may have ended in 1994 but Blomkamp uses the brutal division between humans and aliens to depict the social consequences still prevalent for native South Africans. By also combining visual elements with ideas, Neill Blomkamp has the traits of a great director.

Sharlto Copley in District 9 (2009)

A final example that alludes to the almost robotic monotony of post-modern life is Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix (1999). In this movie, computer hacker Neo Anderson (Keanu Reeves) discovers that his existence is merely a virtual simulation created by robot overlords who rule the earth. The Wachowskis used a normal metropolis set in the beginning to show that maybe our world is how it seems. Maybe we are just working ants for a higher society. That is the idea the Wachowskis expressed in the movie. By using physical elements to convey their idea and vice versa, they are both truly great directors.

Carrie-Anne Moss (Left) and Keanu Reeves (Right) in The Matrix (1999)

All three of these examples show directors who were still able to create visual masterpieces while still making people think and feel. Great directors are capable of both this and conceptual art. But a great director must have a visual style that expresses themselves.

A director’s visual style can be seen through lighting, design, characters, and cinematography, and these usually reveal personal attributes of a director.

One of the most obvious styles is that of Wes Anderson: an American writer and director who has been inspired by various films from mostly the sixties and seventies. He is witty and quirky and it can be seen is his peculiar set positioning, characters, and cinematography.

His sets and cinematography are bright, colorful, and centered, with humorous lines and characters that sometimes face dramatic conflict, and can be seen in all of his movies such as Moonrise Kingdom (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), The Royal Tenebaums (2001), and The Darjeeling Limited (2007).

Gwyneth Paltrow (Left) and Luke Wilson (Right) in The Royal Tenebaums (2001)

Another great director with style is Russian writer and director Andrei Tarkovsky. All of the combined components of his movies show he is sometimes solemn, hopeful, and always philosophical and full of dreams.

His movies feel bleak and bitter sweet and filled with many ideas that are sometimes just kept to the characters themselves. He was always trying new things with cinema and his movies were very experimental. The characters were always raising questions about life and society that really made people think. Some of his most well known movies are Stalker (1979), Solaris (1972), Andrei Rublev (1966), and The Mirror (1975).

Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy in Stalker (1979)

I used these two examples to give a better feel for a director’s style. With me showing all these pictures, don’t think it’s solely cinematography. A lot goes into the sets, characters, and writing. By combining physical attributes of a movie with ideas and concepts, as well as having a unique style, a director can be great.

 

Great Acting in a Movie

I judge a movie on seven key elements: Writing, Acting, Directing, Editing, Cinematography, Music and Sound, and the overall Design. The final three elements are how the viewer enjoyed the movie.

Each element is rated on a scale of 1 to 10. Obviously 1 being the worst it can get and 10 being the best it can get. When all the sections have been rated, I add the numbers together giving them an average film score out of 100 points.

This post will cover my views on the quality of acting in a movie.

Acting

The acting must obviously be realistic. Unless deliberately for artistic sake, the actor must make the character feel tangible. They don’t just use a few expressions and say some lines; great actors work off of inner emotions and depict those emotions through their actions and dialogue.

For example, if an actor is supposed to be furious in a scene, he must first tell himself that he is angry. He must get into the mindset of an angry person. When that has fully developed, they go to the next layer: visible emotion. The emotion comes easy once the actor feels angry. He’s not putting on an expression because he actually feels that anger. Then he exudes the anger in his lines and actions. Then the acting must have an emotional impact on the audience. Great acting must start internally so the moments on camera are real and golden.

There are two basic types of acting: intense, bold, and sometimes theatrical acting and subtle and deeper acting.

A great example of very noticeable acting is Toshirô Mifune as Kikuchiyo in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954). Mifune’s character that he plays is morally complex and highly theatrical but is still a wonderful performance. He’s a bold, gallant, and rambunctious character that you can feel for. Mifune’s inner emotions depicted in his acting are convincing and impacts the audience emotionally.

Toshirô Mifune in Seven Samurai (1954)

However, a lot of acting is also subtle and thought provoking. In Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), Martin Sheen also plays a morally complex person who slowly begins to question the nature of war and his own sanity. But the emotions he conveys are more kept in. Even though Captain Benjamin L. Willard is reserved, his emotional and mental changes are more profound than most performances out there.

Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now (1979)

Good actors must be flexible as well. Great acting sometimes involves improvising according to their character and that’s when great moments get caught on camera.

Going back once more to Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen’s performance was also outstanding due to improvisation of his character. Though must of his acting was subtle in emotion, there are a few scenes where he goes full throttle insane. In particular, an unscripted scene in the beginning of the movie in Willard’s hotel room.

Martin Sheen’s character was scripted to be drunk but Martin Sheen took it a step further and actually got drunk. Coppola told the crew to just let the cameras roll and the result was a haunting performance that mixed with the actual struggles in Martin Sheen’s life. He got so caught up in the scene, he punched a real glass mirror, cut his hand, and became sobbing and aggressive.

Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now (1979)

It was an outlet of emotion for Sheen but he was able to maintain character and create a deep and disturbing scene in the life of a man horribly affected by war and alcoholism.

But an actor can also improvise well without getting drunk and injuring themselves. In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008), the Joker played by Heath Ledger walks out of a hospital in Gotham ready to blow it up. When he detonates the actual bomb trigger, the explosives don’t work at first. Instead of cutting the scene, Ledger continuously presses the switch and then walks off frustrated for the failure. Just then, the hospital goes up into flames.

Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008)

Heath Ledger’s ability to stay in character throughout the whole scene conveyed the Joker’s darkly comedic personality much better than just simply blowing up the hospital. When I say not injuring themselves on set, I’m not counting Heath Ledger’s suicide following the movie’s release.

Actors who are able to be a realistic character that emotionally impacts the audience and is capable of improvising and trying new things are the great ones. As I said in the writing article, there are so many other things that make acting great. These are merely the basics. In truth, it takes a select few actors years to be that good.

Great Writing in a Movie

I judge a movie on seven key elements: Writing, Acting, Directing, Editing, Cinematography, Music and Sound, and the overall Design. The final three elements are how the viewer enjoyed the movie.

Each element is rated on a scale of 1 to 10. Obviously 1 being the worst it can get and 10 being the best it can get. When all the sections have been rated, I add the numbers together giving them an average film score out of 100 points.

This post will cover my views on the quality of writing in a movie.

Writing

If a movie was a living organism, the writing would be the bones. The screenplay must have something to offer that no other movie can offer. It must be original in some way. I understand that every piece of art and literature has been derived from some other piece. So what I am saying is the good writers take ideas and concepts from other works and make it into something of their own.

Most of the time, the adaptations from other works are a little subtle for the average movie-goer. But sometimes they can be very obvious and still work perfectly because the writer made it a part of them.

Take Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? This Depression-Era drama-comedy tells the viewer in the opening credits that it is based on Homer’s The Odyssey. There is a quest to return to a loved one, vicious monsters in the form of sheriffs, bible salesmen, and the Ku Klux Klan, and a scene where the main three protagonists are lured by beautiful women who are definitely not how they seem.

(From Left to Right) John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

In totality, the movie is a modern retelling of The Odyssey. Except that the Coen brothers made it their own by changing the story structure, adding extra elements from other works that are more subtle, and by doing that, they create an original masterpiece.

The Coen brothers expressed their personalities through writing. Good writers always do. Which is also what made it original. We are all unique human beings; and Homer couldn’t have successfully recreated the Coen brothers work and vice versa. This is why personal expression of somewhat familiar ideas can be original. Everyone has their own take on it. If you had a thousand people read one book, you would have a thousand books.

Another key part to writing that amplifies the storytelling and originality is dialogue. The dialogue in each scene must always move the story forward in some way when action and adventure scenes aren’t there to do the talking.

If a scene where two people are talking about something that has no topical value to the plot or any foreshadowing, symbolism, or allegorical element, it is completely useless. If you look hard enough while watching a good movie, there will be something in the dialogue that advances the story.

For example, there is this one scene at the beginning of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction where two mob hitmen (played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) have a seemingly random and possibly stupid conversation that feels like is just passing time. But anyone who has that racing through their head while watching it is wrong.

Samuel L. Jackson (Left) and John Travolta (Right) in Pulp Fiction (1994)

The hitmen are talking about how their boss threw a work partner of theirs out the window of a multistory building just for giving the boss’s wife a foot massage. They carry on about this topic of the victim and foot massages. However, this is advancing the plot because it shows how high the stakes are for these two anti-heroes. One little mistake and they could be killed. This scene is funny and feels a little ridiculous but it’s convincing and makes the audience even more concerned about their fate.

Also, the dialogue needs to be realistic. It needs to feel like it came out of a human being’s mouth. Humans don’t always say what they mean or think and it’s a common mistake for amateur writers. Especially involving the loss of human life.

In many movies, writers will fall for directly mentioning a past death in an unnatural way. Overall, I liked Big Hero 6 written by Jordan Roberts, Robert L. Baird, and Daniel Gerson but there is one scene I don’t like. Tadashi is irritated at his brother, Hiro, for wanting to continue illegal bot fighting. When Tadashi says “What would mom and dad say?”, Hiro replies with “I don’t know, they died when I was three…”

Ryan Potter (Left) and Daniel Henney (Right) in Big Hero 6 (2014)

That is a very strange way to say it. Tadashi and Hiro both know of their parents’ demise, so there’s no need to speak of it; and they both know how old Hiro was when it happened. One could argue that it’s a family movie and the kids need to understand but I still don’t like the scene. If they had an unspoken knowledge of their parents’ death, the emotional impact would have been much greater.

For a movie to have good writing, it must be an original creation or different take on a story already made, each scene must move the plot forward through action and/or dialogue, and that dialogue must be convincing and realistic.

There are so many other things that can also make writing really good. I will expand on them in future posts, but these are just the basics so you can get a feel for good writing.

 

About

My name is Henry Johnston and I created this blog to make movie and television reviews, talking about things I’ve learned from great filmmakers, and how my filmmaking is coming along.

I haven’t rated any televisions shows yet but with movies, I do it by using a rubric that scores the qualities of any good movie. The rubric also implements the viewers’ opinion as well. I will go into further detail about this movie scoring rubric in my next post.

I’ve wanted to be in the film industry since I was in pre-school and I’m still trying to learn more about it. In this blog, I will also be sharing things I’ve learned or have inspired me involving the film topic.

If you enjoy this blog, please share it with your friends and family. Especially the ones who have a passion for the film industry. If you do not enjoy it, I would be happy to know the things I’m doing wrong so I can improve.

Have a great day.