I was coming out of the theater after watching Denzel Washington and Viola Davis give bravura performances in Washington’s screen adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences. A person walking ahead of me said to his companion, “God, that was awful.” The companion agreed: “Worst Denzel movie ever.”
I was stunned. What film were they watching? Further, what film had they been expecting that they judged this so harshly? Yes, the subject matter was occasionally grim. Denzel’s character was not a classic hero. However, a film’s subject can be troubling, sad, thought-provoking, and harsh and be an excellent film with powerful acting and incredible insight in dealing with its themes.
It occurred to me once again that most people go to the movies to be entertained on a level that only speaks to their own life experience. Blockbusters and horror movies do well because they offer thrills that people don’t often get in real life; quieter films that focus on character and dialogue require more work from the audience and often struggle to make back their investments.
Rarely do most people view a film from a larger perspective, which considers all the arts and crafts of filmmaking. But once you open your eyes to other aspects of the film beyond the story and the cast, or how you personally relate to them, you can evaluate what you’re watching and appreciate it on a whole new level. You won’t just like or dislike a flick, you’ll understand what the creative team actually did to make you like or dislike the film – like standing behind the curtain with the Great And Powerful Oz understanding what levers and buttons were pushed while the film was made to produce the overall project. Once you get a glimpse at that, it’s hard to watch a movie any other way.
Here are five underrated tips for watching a movie:
1. Know your film genres.
There’s westerns, psychological thrillers, romantic comedies, crime dramas, satires, war films, adventures, historical dramas, period dramas, science fiction, and coming-of-age films, to name just a few. These longstanding genres have defined conventions, a standard map for how the story proceeds. Romances usually follow the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl formula, embellished with complications. Adventures usually involve a hero’s journey, a race against time and opposing forces to achieve a goal. Westerns usually have a lone character arriving in a frontier town of the past and must fight against a personal or societal wrong. Whatever the genre, the main character must undergo some kind of change by the end: they finally go home/leave, they win/lose the fight, they fall in/out of love, they alter their beliefs/lifestyle/income/moral standards.
Today, most films combine or twist the genres to create something new. How well a film fulfills, expands, or breaks with the expected tropes of its particular genre-defying audience expectations -- is another measure of its success. One example is “Get Out,” which adds a layer of racial prejudice and paranoia along with an African American hero to create a contemporary and shocking story. Some stories add irony whereby, despite all that has happened, a character does not change by the end of the film though everyone around him/her does. Ask yourself what genre does the film you’re watching fit into? How does it compare with other films in the genre?
2. Understand the difference between casting and acting.
For many audiences, acting caliber is tough to gauge. Often, characters in a film are cast with certain stars because they add built-in characteristics and appeal. We like Denzel because he looks like us or like someone we know; he’s usually badass and smooth; and while he’s a great actor, he rarely plays a character that isn’t basically … him, or who we perceive him to be. With Denzel in a role, the audience has a certain expectation that is different than what Leonardo di Caprio or Johnny Depp would bring. But actors are still not their characters. Just ask John Boyega, who played Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and recently caught flak from Star Wars fans for engaging in a little sexually suggestive West Indian “wining” at a British Carnival celebration, something they feel Finn shouldn’t do. The skill of acting is in embodying another character in such a way that we experience them as real.
When watching, ask yourself: At any moment in the film, did I forget I was watching [fill in name of actor]? How did they use their speech, facial expressions, physicality to create this character? Was I emotionally impacted by their character’s dilemma, or was I just watching events unfold?
3. Look at everything presented on the screen.
Because film is a visual medium, it uses coded images and visual cues to communicate information not spoken by the characters. From the first scenes establishing time and place, we’re going to get a lot of this non-dialogue info. In many major studio productions, color and lighting are strong indicators of relationships, moods, even foreshadowing of events. Heroes still tend to wear white or light colors, and villains still wear black or dark colors. Watch the shade of a character’s clothing change or remain static as they grapple with events: the darker their clothing, the darker their intentions, and the lighter their clothing, the more we see them as sincere or heroic. Loud colors or prints reflect a loud or scattered personality, Like-minded characters tend to wear like colors; for instance, in a romance, the closer the two leads come to becoming lovers, the more the colors of their outfits begin to coordinate. A female character who is seeking to cause trouble or set a sexual trap will wear or carry something red. Further, a character whose face appears in partial shadow (as with the stripes from venetian blinds) is likely in deep trouble or is even doomed. Many directors like to use themes or recurring images to evoke responses in the audience; for instance, in Beyond The Lights, most of pop star Noni’s stage costumes featured chains and straps, which communicated that she was basically a captive of her lifestyle. Cats are used to indicate stealth or mystery, birds to represent freedom, etc.; a shot framing the character as small in a huge landscape indicates the scale of forces arrayed against him/her or their sense of singularity or loneliness. Not all films use these tropes, but they have been in use since Hollywood began so it’s useful to look for them.
4. Listen harder to the dialogue as well as the non-dialogue.
I took acting classes for a while in LA, not to be an actor but to improve the dialogue in my writing. I learned that dialogue works best when it exists on two levels: What the character is actually saying, and what they really mean. A character can respond “Fine” to the question “how are you?” a dozen different ways, and it becomes a lot more interesting if “Fine” really means “Stop asking me, I’ll be all right,” or “I hate you but I’m trying to be civil,” or “I’m crumbling but I must appear strong,” or “I just had the most sexually stimulating night of my life but that’s not your business.” Double entendre, irony, and lies reveal who the character really is. What the character chooses not to say, fails to say, or is struggling to say is just as important as the words that do come out of their mouths.
5. Listen harder to the music.
I spend two decades writing about popular music, so how music is used in film is important to me. I’m a fan of the well-considered multi-tune soundtrack, where films use previously recorded popular music to underscore the mood or setting in a film. This works because the audience is usually already familiar with these type of tracks and the impact of that music is immediate. Most often the music supervisor and director will choose songs specifically because the lyrics perfectly communicate the feelings of the character or sum up the action. The best use of this technique that I’ve seen recently is Baby Driver; the character of Baby doesn’t speak much but his iTunes playlist communicates not only his thoughts and feelings, but the tracks dictate how he physically moves through the world. The music of O Brother Where Art Thou perfectly creates the time and place, the South in the 1930s, with new recordings of classic bluegrass, blues, and roots gospel; the tune “Man of Constant Sorrow” is an equivalent musical narrative of the lead character’s Ulysses-like quest. Straight Outta Compton didn’t just use the music of N.W.A. in telling their story, it also used hit songs from the era to establish the time and place. Film scoring is just as important, though less appreciated by the public at large. A composed score also sets time, place, and most importantly the mood of a film. Often, the score creates musical motifs or themes for each character, and can ramp up tension and excitement. Notice how music enhances the overall project.
Other points of film analysis include the cinematography, costuming, set design, location, the structure of the script, the production values, and most importantly, what is the film’s overall message or argument — but that’s for more advanced viewing. The five points above are simple ways to begin actively watching a movie that can add to your overall viewing pleasure and give you more of a critic’s eye view.
So grab your popcorn and your Junior Mints and enjoy!
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