What constitutes a good movie?
Wikipedia offers this description:
The key ingredients that make a movie “good” are when the acting, directing, writing, cinematography, and overall production value come together to tell one cohesive, entertaining, and impactful story. A good movie uses all these filmmaking tools to tell a compelling story that makes you feel.
And this sounds valid.
I began this enquiry into Korean Drama (DK = movies and serials) for two reasons. a) Many friends suddenly started watching Korean serials after the influx into Greece of Turkish soap-operas, better than the Greek ones, but, in the event, much inferior to the Korean ones. b) when I saw some few serials (e.g. Encounter 2018, Chief of Staff 2019 etc) I wondered why a good actress like Song Hye- kyo worked with inferior male protagonists like Park Bo-gum or Rain (Full house, 2004) and even Lee Do-hyun (The Glory 2022-23). Subsequently I noticed that generally Korean actresses are better in their performance than their male counterparts. Most of the males have an attractive-model look with a pretty face and no doubt large female followings but very little acting competence.
I consider very good films: Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) 1957, John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven 1960 which I found better than the Japanese, The Seven Samurai of Kurosawa, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia 1962, Joseph Losey’s The Servant 1963, Clint Eastwood’s Outlaw Josey Wales 1976, P. Collinson’s The Earthling 1980 (not so well-known or popular), Lean’s Passage to India 1984, Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa 1985, S. Langton’s Pride and Prejudice 1995, F. H. von Donnersmarck’s The Life of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) 2006, Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer 2014 (and two more with Denzel Washington), J. Wright’s Darkest Hour 2017 (Churchill’s war-difficulties and the excellent performance of Gary Oldman).
I am sure professional critics, or other film-viewers, would select other titles. I remember reading a review by a lady-reporter who found that Meril Streep did not evince “much flame” in Out of Africa, but did not explain how “much flame” she should have expressed and why a love or even passion should have “much flame”. The Earthling with excellent acting from William Holden (the adult) and Ricky Schroder (the boy) and photography illustrates self-sacrifice and love in the upbringing and training of a stranger child in need, in the wilds of Australia. As I pointed out in DK4 The Fortress, Justin Lowe, a renowned professional film-critic, made some very serious blunders. And lots of worthless films attain popularity and receive accolades (e.g. Lolita, 1962) and even awards, only to sink into oblivion. I don’t think any connoisseur, any serious film-viewer, would dismiss any of the movies I listed above.
Let me give some serials as well. They are all short with 6 episodes maximum. Longer ones begin to cave in or sag at the 4th or 5th. A good example is Killing Eve (based on L. Jennings’ Villanelle novels) 2018-2022. It has 4 seasons of 8 and in the 4th of the first season it began to slump, then took off again but complications and inconsistencies began to intrude and, in the end, we had full incoherence.
I consider good serials only a few. Suzanne Bier’s The Night Manager (2016, 6 episodes), Scott Frank’s Godless (2017, 7 episodes), the Italian The Law according to Lidia Poët (La Legge di Lidia Poët 2023, two series of 6 episodes each). Godless is an American Western that depicts very well, realistically, life in those troubled years (1884) in New Mexico. Women play a larger than usual part in this serial and it brings out a lesbian incident too. The British Night Manager has revenge, espionage, gun-smuggling and love. Both serials have violence but it is not violence for violence’s sake as in many others and certainly many Korean action or gangster serials. The Italian series is about the first female lawyer in Turin, Italy, in the late 19th century who solves, not without humour, some curious crimes.
All the films and serials I mention have no prolixity, no superfluities, no complexities, no inconsistencies, no ploys, no sentimentality, swollen by silly pop songs. They tell a tale in a certain frame of time and place with good acting, good, clear photography, coherence, good, appropriate music and some insight into the human condition. Take for instance Out of Africa. It is the story of a woman who wants to get well married and does marry a baron, goes with him to Africa and starts a coffee farm, feels driven apart from her husband who has other affairs, has herself an affair with a hunter but in the end loses her farm and her lover and learns the bitter lesson that nothing really belongs to her and that her suffering was due to her attachment. We hear excellent music and have superb views of the country – all contributing to her own deepening understanding! The tragic end is not painful because she has matured and been made wiser.
The good film provides not only entertainment but also a deeper understanding of some aspect of human life which brings self-knowledge. The trashy film may give enjoyment but will feed the grosser aspects of one’s appetites towards egoism, numbness, rapacity and violence. The good film has a cleansing effect on the careful, attentive viewers (the old Aristotelian “catharsis”), and thus elevates their mind to a finer state of understanding and contentment. Few producers and directors show interest in such qualities.
