A Quick Course in the Art of Film

Knowing how to watch and critique movies is a great skill for anyone to possess. It will make the movie watching experience much more fun, and it'll give you a real basis for judging a movie. There are many facets to critiquing a movie. I will do a general sweep of each aspect. When you're finished reading this article, you'll watch movies with much more excitement and wonder because you'll understand all the imagination and creativity that has to go into just one scene.

Cinematography is my favorite part of film, so it's the part I'll talk the most about. It includes lighting, camera angles and positioning, special effects, and the visual aesthetics of the film in general.

When you think "Avatar" (Director: James Cameron), think cinematography. If you watch "Avatar" for the characters or plot, you're probably not going to like it as much as if you watch it for the cinematography. Almost all of the Academy Awards for which it was nominated involve cinematography.

It's fun to watch a director be creative with cinematography. Woody Allen did a lot with lighting. In a scene from Allen's romantic comedy "Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask," he lights the actors from behind (a common lighting technique) which makes their faces nearly impossible to see and outlines the silhouette of their bodies with a glow of light.

In "Napoleon Dynamite" (Jared Hess), every scene has a perfectly planned background. They're always colorful and almost cartoon-looking. Another movie with such perfect planning is the Coen Brothers' cult classic "The Big Lebowski." Attention to detail is key in great cinematography.

Actually, any director who shoots in a widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio is practicing some cinematography as the widescreen format was carefully chosen based on Greek classicist ideas. If you look at the front of the Parthenon (famous Greek structure), you'll notice it is the same ratio as a widescreen video.

A big thing for amateurs to look for in cinematography is the "rule of thirds." If a director places their main subject (usually a character) in the center of the screen, there's usually some symmetrical qualities to the shot. However, most of the time the main subject will appear on one of the four parts of the screen where the "rule of thirds" lines fall. To find those lines, draw two horizontal and two vertical lines on the screen that divide the screen into nine even parts. Where those lines intersect is where it is most aesthetic (most of the time) to put the main subject.

Paying attention to the "rule of thirds" will also help you see other subjects and objects that the director put in the movie. For example, in "Kill Bill," director Quentin Tarantino put a billboard for Red Apple cigarettes in one shot. Red Apple cigarettes are the fictional cigarette smoked by characters in other films made by Tarantino. In a Napoleon Dynamite scene, Kip is talking on the phone and shredding cheese onto nachos. In one shot, he's only got a little cheese on top. Then, the next time he's on screen, there's a ton of cheese on the nachos.

One more aspect of cinematography that you might have fun looking at is the idea of the horizon. In order to make someone look their actual height in comparison to the distance they are from the camera, their eyes must be right around the horizon line. If you want to experiment with this, take a picture of your dog or cat with the horizon (where the sky meets the ground) in the background, but make the horizon line lower than their eyes. In most cases, especially if there aren't any other objects in the shot, they will look bigger.

As you can see, there are several different things going on with cinematography. And what I gave was just a general scope of the topic. Pay attention to the cinematography of a film and you'll see a whole new side!

Symbolism is the little extra stuff you get from a creative director or writer. It's like the big, sugary roses on the icing on the cake. There's all kinds of symbolism. Instead of talking terms, I'm just going to give you a few examples of symbolism. The examples will help you understand exactly what it is, and you'll know what to look for next time you watch a film.

Donny, one of the main characters in "The Big Lebowski" (Coen Brothers), is shown getting a strike (bowling) several times throughout the film. Then, near the end, Donny doesn't get a strike and he looks very uneasy about it. Shortly after that, Donny dies. The bowling miss foreshadows Donny's death.

In the movie, "Ice Age," there's a shot of a UFO frozen in ice. This is the creator's way of saying aliens may have been on Earth before humans. If you look closely, you'll see that when the baby waves at the UFO, she holds her middle and index fingers, and her ring and pinky fingers together just as the pop culture aliens of today do.

Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill, Inglorious Bastards, Pulp Fiction) has an obsession with feet. There are too many occurrences to give specific examples. Watch any of his movies, and you'll probably see at least two different shots of feet.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (Michel Gondry) is a film about erasing memories. When some of the main characters memories are being erased, he runs through a parade of elephants. Elephants are known for having super long memory spans. It seems hopeless that the main character will be able to keep the memories of the girl he loves. That's when the director shows the elephants to offer a spark of hope. Shortly after the elephants, the main character begins finding a way to get back with the girl he is forgetting. You'll understand what I'm saying better if you watch the movie. It's full of other symbolism too. It would be a great movie to watch in regards to the subject.

The 2010 hit movie, "Inception," (Christopher Nolan) can be looked at as a big metaphor for our technologies of today like video games. Basically, put any technology in place of dreaming in the movie, and you'll see some good reasons as to why the technologies are dangerous.

Another 2010 film, "When in Rome" (Mark Steven Johnson) is about a woman who is steals a few coins from a wishing well. This makes the men whose coins they were fall in love with her. She falls in love with one of the men, but can't deal with the fact that he's only in love because he's under a spell. She returns all the coins, and finds out he wasn't under a spell. Until, at their wedding when she realizes she gave him the wrong coin back so he was still under the spell. On the altar, she gives him the coin back and runs out of the church. When she runs outside, there are a few pigeons on the ground. All of them fly away when she runs through them except for one. That pigeon symbolizes the man she just gave the coin back to.

I hope these examples have given you a good idea of symbolism in movies. If you look for it, you'll start seeing it little by little. Sometimes I have to watch a movie three or four times before I see any symbolism. Don't get discouraged.

The writing and plot can make or break a film. Many movies simply recycle plots. For example, most romantic comedies follow the same pattern: guy meets girl, guy and girl have trouble, guy and girl make up and kiss.

The writing mostly involves what the characters say while the plot involves the storyline and setting. Movies like "The Breakfast Club" and "Friday" are almost completely about the writing (the characters), and have little to do with plot. "The Breakfast Club" almost completely takes place in one setting, and there isn't much storyline. It's all about connecting with and watching the characters. Before watching a movie, it's best to try and find out if the actors did a lot of improvising (saying things off the top of their head) or if they went strictly by the script. The Coen Brothers are notorious for not allowing actors to improv (I think it gives their movies a nice quality, but some don't like it). In their movie "The Big Lebowski," the only line that is improvised (not in the script) is the line in which The Dude (Jeff Bridges) says, "you...you...you human paraquat!" Anyway, the writing really blends with and depends on the acting so we'll talk more about that stuff later.

Almost every plot in the history of the world follows the basic scheme of: equilibrium (balance in the lives of the characters), equilibrium offset (balance is broken), return to equilibrium (balance returned). This can happen several times throughout the course of a movie, or just once, but 99% of the time, it happens.

Often times, a director will retell a myth or another story instead of creating a new plot. The great Japanese film director, Akira Kurosawa, uses the plot of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in his film "Throne of Blood" (1957). George Lucas uses all kinds of mythology and story-telling in his "Star Wars" movies. There have even been documentaries made about his use of mythology.

Usually action flicks always follow the same plot. Someone gets into trouble, the hero saves that someone, the hero gets into trouble, someone or something saves him, etc. "Knight and Day" with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz is one of my favorite action films because of its uniqueness in plot to other action films. In a minute I'll talk about the plot just being a track for the rest of the film to ride on, but "Knight and Day" actually makes the plot a valuable part of the movie. This is no easy task. It's the same idea as some of Shakespeare's sonnets that use the form to help tell the story. I can't remember which ones they are, but if I find out, I'll post it here later.

When the plot isn't unique, it doesn't mean the movie is bad. The plot is most often just a foundation for the rest of the movie to work on. It's like train tracks. Everything happens in the train, the tracks just give it a place to go.

The writing and plot are where every film starts. It's important to pay attention to these aspects of the film. They're probably the most commonly looked at parts. Usually when someone says they didn't like a movie, it's because they didn't like the writing or the plot.

Genre and style are most often what you want to look at to rank a movie. For example, mobster movies get ranked among other mobster movies, and comedies get ranked against other comedies. It's rare that you'll see a romantic comedy ranked against a ninja movie just like it's rare that you'll see an abstract painting ranked against a still life painting.

As far as style goes, some movies are in a style where they're better watched when the viewer pays attention to the characters. Others are better watched when the viewer pays attention to the plot. Others, still, are better watched when the viewer pays attention to the cinematography.

While a movie's genre and style are extremely important to know when critiquing it, there's not a whole lot I have to say about them. I would like to leave you with one thing I've noticed. When someone is told a movie is hilarious, they usually set their expectations high and end up disappointed. If you want someone to love a movie, don't set their expectations too high. Just tell them the genre and style.

A great actor has the ability to entrance the viewers by his actions and words. If they're really great, they could be talking about nothing and still have your utmost attention. Jim Meskimen, a great impressionist, made a YouTube video (below) in which he does a monologue from Shakespeare's play, "Richard III" with different celebrity impressions. Most of the time it doesn't even matter that he's saying Shakespeare because he's doing such a good job at impersonating the celebrities. In this sense, the acting has a huge impact on the success of a movie.

Acting is much more complicated than one might think. Don't believe me? Try taking an improv or acting class. It's quite the process. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of books written on the subject.

As I said earlier, you'll be better off knowing whether or not the actors improvised in any of the scenes. Actors like Will Farrell, Jonah Hill, and Seth Rogen are phenomenal improvisers and many of the scenes they've been in haven't followed scripts.

There are three ways I like to watch an actor develop his/her character:

1. Non-verbal. What is the actor doing? What are his/her facial expressions? Many times when an actor is speaking, he/she is doing something at the same time. Brad Pitt's character in the dark comedy, "Burn After Reading" (Coen Brothers), has a scene where he's sitting in a car, watching another guy sitting in a car, and he comes to a realization. It's one of my favorite scenes to watch just because Brad Pitt did such an astounding job with his non-verbal communication.

2. Dialogue. How does the character interact with other characters? It's often easy to predict how a certain character will react to a certain situation once you get to know the character. "The Social Network" (David Fincher) is heavily based on character dialogue. And the dialogue is fantastic. After the first couple minutes, when I got to know Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), I couldn't wait to see what he was going to say next.

3. Monologue. Some of my favorite scenes are monologues. This means only one person is talking. "Mono" means one. "Logue" means speech or voice. When you get thinking about monologues, you'll start noticing them all the time. I recently watched "Humboldt County" (Darren Grodsky, Danny Jacobs). In it, actress Frances Conroy gives one of the most powerful monologues I've seen when she is telling the main character the story of her first husband's death.

There are many theories on acting so I'm just going to keep this section short. If you pay attention to those three parts, you'll develop a sense for acting soon enough! The best way I can explain acting is to say, a character is like a drape the actor puts on. He must shine through it.

The theme is the lesson that the movie teaches. Not all movies have a theme, but I always like them a little better when I come out reminded of some life lesson.

Like genre and style, there isn't much to say about theme. I will, however, tell you one of my all-time favorite movie themes.

In "Burn After Reading" (Coen Brothers) a handful of the central characters get killed. All of them were basically innocent. The one character who didn't get killed is the one who set the whole story in motion by wanting money to pay for plastic surgery and liposuction. Basically, everyone got killed because she wanted her surgeries. She ended up getting them at the end. The theme is that the pressures of society cause people to go to extremes, but at what cost? There are a couple other themes in the movie. If you've figured them out, comment below!

• Watch the movie more than once.
• If you have the DVD, watch the movie with the commentaries on.
• Re-watch your favorite scenes and see if you spot anything you didn't notice before.
• Watch deleted scenes, and try to figure out why they were deleted from the film. It's often because it doesn't add to the story, or doesn't fit the characters.
• Learn about art.
• Visit IMDB.com