What Makes a Movie Great?

Very tough question.
I'd pick 1) direction; 2) script; 3) cinematography; 4) acting; 5) production.

Good production enhances any good film's virtues, but also magnifies any bad film's vices.

You can't have a great film with bad acting, but you can have very good performances in bad films. And you can have a great film with not-so-great acting.

Cinematography is essential to a good movie, and sometimes it is the most striking part of a good movie, but it does not make it good. I think Setanta's Star Wars argument runs against his point of view: the cinematography and the adventures is what we remember most. We've seen not-so-great films with great cinematography.

The hardest homework is to choose between script and direction. I believe both are necessary conditions for a film to be great. But I also believe that the direction sets the visual style and pace of the script. It's the other level in writing (writing with light and movement, punctuating, expressing the idea in the language of cinema).

LW, good question.

I impulsively voted for director before I read all the good arguments for script. However, I think that I'd still vote for director since he/she has control over so many of the other items on the list.

Fbaezer seems to be getting at something that I felt, which is that in reality, any picture is a mix of these things. In most cases, the director will be most important, IMO, but in some cases a good script and cast may rescue a mediocre director, or a mediocre job by an otherwise good director.

Setanta, one of the main things I recall about "Dangerous Liaisons" was Malkovich copulating while wearing those silly period tights that did not appear to open in the front. A ripping demonstration of manly powers, I thought at the time. I'm not sure how this observation falls into the survey.

I'm an old devil who grew up on scripts based on a linear sequence of events, well, maybe a flash back once in a while, but that's about all. I am totally dazzled by Movies like "Ground Hog Day," "Pulp Fiction," Mulholland Drive," "Momento," and others. I suppose that is script writing. My hat's off to the people who dream up this kind of thing.

Voting for the director. It seems to me that a good director can make an adequate actor good or excellent - can make a decent script dance on screen - can inspire the cinematographer with his/her vision - can suck $$$ out of the producer if required.

I did not vote in the poll because I think individual films are great for reasons unique to the film in question. If I say "directing" that only holds true for certain ones. As others have noted, it is a collaboration, but one aspect in the making generally overshadows all else, be it a de Mille, or Robert Deniro's acting, etc.

Hi, edgarblythe -- I qualified the question with "more often" and this realizes that all the elements have to come together to the degree that it can be called a great movie. I tried to make it more impartial myself by looking at the ten best films as selected by the world critics and directors, and then the Ebert list of Great Movies.
I came to the conclusion that these films were all guided by a director's talent for unifying the components into a single vision. For each individual film that I consider a favorite, the mix would be different for each film and would include the soundtrack.
Each of these are essential but a great director with an identifyable style impresses me more than the other components. I could have added soundtrack to the mix but I doubted it would get any votes and I know my favorite movie music seems to mostly come from movies that are not on the list.

List schmist LW.Tell us about your favourite movie music.

A good director might have saved the integrity of the Harry Potter films.

Ah, another thread methinks! Just off the cuff, three of my favorites are from not-so-great films: "The Blue Max," "Krull," and "Raise the Titanic." "Blue Max" is way too long but as far as "flying" music, it's unequalled. All three suffer from directorial weaknesses, "Blue Max" in its length and rather stilted performances, "Krull" in its self-conscious aping of "The Lord of the Rings," and "Raise the Titanic" with its weak script and weaker acting. There's some decent storytelling in all three but relying on cinematography (great aerial shots in "The Blue Max," some of the best), music and special effects -- we all know where that leads to. I'll more often watch "Krull" for the score and the imaginative set pieces (especially the fire mares sequence) but the script is laughably derivitive and clunky (it's really a boy meets girl tale).
When directors go astray is just too obvious -- could it be that there that many hack directors? They know how to assemble the product but the contents of the package often has a perculiar odor to it. That's another thread -- how far some films to up the stink meter!

So start those threads up for us!!!

eb - Harry Potter is directed toward children although some adults appreciate the books and the films. I don't think in this case that it's the director but the script and source material that doesn't impress some people. I enjoyed the first film but haven't seen the second. For me, there's simply to comparison to the epic scope of "The Lord of the Rings" and Peter Jackson has painstakingly put together the components with a masterful hand. He has more than enough style in his storytelling. The script is somewhat a mechanical adaptation written for an audience -- Tolkien really wrote the books for himself and a few friends. There are those who don't like Jackson's vision of what is set in their minds from reading the books but that's a stumbling block of creating cinematic versions. I think he leapt over most of the hurdles.

Hey, and talk about a director beating producers over the head with a project, my hats off to Jackson! May he reap the rewards.

I chose directing even though it was a close one between acting and directing. A good actor, no matter how good - can't connect the dots, so to speak, in the way the director can. Only the director can fill in the actors on exactly what he sees happening next for each of them, so that it comes out as a uniform piece of art.

what makes the movie
I must say, I have to agree with EdgarBlythe about not choosing at all, for it is different for each movie, which element made that particular movie great AND with someone who said that with a bad script - no matter how good any of the elements are, it will still not create a great movie

Lightwizard, you and I had this debate on Abuzz. And you still don't get it! It is not the director alone who makes the film. It is the combination of the director and the script. Listen to what Akira Kurosawa (who began his career as Japan's top screenwriter before directing a film) had to say: "With a first-class script even a second-rate director can make a first-class film. But with a second-class script a first-class director cannot make a first-class film." If the movie is not present in embryo form in the script, it can never be born on celluloid. That is why Hitchcock flopped with terrible scripts like MARNIE, TOPAZ, TORN CURTAIN, and FAMILY PLOT. He was still Hitchcock. He just didn't have anything good to shoot.

I, of course, realize that film being a collaborative effort that it is difficult to pinpoint any one aspect of filmmaking that makes a film great. The greatest films have been a high quality script in the hands of a masterful director. However, the director's today are not just handed a script as in the days of the studio system. They have the opportunity to pick and choose to come up with the best scripts. Scripts don't just show up at their front door and it's magically what they've always been looking for.
If it begins with an idea or another medium such as a novel, the director can select the scriptwriter they want to work with and it can even be themselves. I disagree that a director can't take a script that's not up to par and get it whipped into shape. That is, if he is a good enough director to decide the script is worth polishing and it's compatible with his style of directing (which, granted, for many great directors is not an apparant style on the screen). The poll results although not comprehensive show an almost equal vote for script, or writer, and director, so that may tell some of the story. Directors can make mistakes in going ahead with a mediocre script and trying to make it into something it's not. In the studio system days, it was almost accidental that a good script met up with the right director. Then, some directors had some clout with the studio to convince the studio production bosses to let them make the movie. I still feel the director comes out on top when examining all aspects of filmmaking and it's partly that the director meets up with the right script or is smart enough to get the rights to a novel or other medium. I've seen many films that I thought were great that still had script problems and great scripts that were filmed and had some directorial gliches (I could write a list of scripts that were spoiled by lackluster direction). And still, when the entire film is put together, the director's style and competence comes through for me at least as the main reason a film is memorable. It's after all only a subjective viewpoint and should be applied to each individual film. That's the only reason we have film critics and why I "get it" in my way and you "get it" in your way.

I chose acting.
The one movie that stands out for me, and supports my vote, is "The Godfather Pt.lll". Strong script, wonderful direction, interesting twists, but the casting of Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone has relegated the film subpar to it's two prequels. Forever. Her completely boring performance drained all of the juice out of it. She made it impossible to appreciate anything about the movie at all.

I'll stand by what Kurosawa said about the fundamental imprtance of the script. It makes sense also because there are comparatively few directors (especially right now) who have anything close to a distinctive visual style. If that were the criterion, 70% of the movies I see would be no good, because they are pretty rote visually. For every Polanski they are ten Sydney Pollacks. But a Sydney Pollack can crank out a good movie like TOOTSIE or THE WAY WE WERE or THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR even though he's a mediocre stylist--because he has a first-class script to shoot. Also, Lightwizard, I suspect you can't really define what you mean by "directorial style." Some directors who are very good have an invisible style (John Huston, William Wyler) while others are egregiously flashy. What is your criterion? My test for a good script is clear--it has to be well structured, develop the characters intelligently, create suspense and/or comedy where appropriate, and buiuld to a satisfying climax. What is your criterion for "directorial style", if you have one???

A directorial style isn't always evident on the screen and may not be. It's how the director handles his actors, handles the script, handles the production design, et al. It'a the filmmaking itself and it's obviously tied up in the director's personality and character. If the director goes too far and implants too many stylistic devices (like Ken Russell), it can be a detriment. I don't agree that "The Way We Were" is a first class script and underneath "Tootsie" there is evidence of a dominant style of directing. It's true that a script and director mis-match can torpedo what could be a great film. In other words, the style isn't "worn on the sleeve" but it is there. Again, the melding of a great script with the perfect director for that script has relinquished the greatest movies. eoe has thrown in acting which is also important and also under the auspices of the director (they don't just wander in and take parts). It could be that in another poll, I would chose script as being the most important but I've seen too many films where I wasn't impressed particularly with the script but I was impressed with the cinematic creativity. Paintings, for instance, have no script. If a director can show us things happening without words, that's real talent. It can only be suggested by a script but most of it comes up in storyboards and working closely with the cinematographer.

Lightwizard, what you seem to overlook is that without the script there is nothing for the director to shoot. Even silent visual sequences are often scripted shot by shot by the screenwriter--take the famous scene in NORTH BY NORTHWEST where Cary Grant is pursued by the cropduster. All in the script. (It's been published and I own a copy.) If the script is so secondary, why did Hitchcock spend months working with his writers, trying to get the best script ON PAPER that he could, then confess that actually shooting the movie bored him?

There are a lot fewer talented directors in the world at any given time, especially right now, than there are decent scripts floating around. That is why you can still see decent movies at a time like now when there is a dearth of brilliant directors. If we had to wait until every movie had a terrific director, we would never go see anything. Clint Eastwood is a good example--hardly a great director, but he protects himself by getting first rate scripts like UNFORGIVEN to shoot. The result is that he makes good movies. Do you think that maybe Eastwood knows something that Lightwizard doesn't?

Was Unforgiven all that great? I thought that the academy
finally awarded him with the Oscar not because that movie
was so great, but because Clint should have had an Oscar
years ago, but politics preside over the Oscars more so
than talent.