What's a "good" film? A few answers to an impossible question
Part 1: What's hidden within individual "tastes"?
Luciano Mariani
info@cinemafocus.eu
© 2025 by Luciano
Mariani, licensed under CC
BY-NC-SA 4.0
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Introduction Let's try to explain the paradox in the title of this paper. How can you provide answers to an "impossible" question? What is a "good" movie? Intuitively, it is a question that does not allow clear and exhaustive answers, since the concept of "beauty" or "worth" is intrinsically linked to the perception and judgment of the viewer, therefore a totally subjective idea. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", goes an English proverb, so what is "beautiful" for a person may not be beautiful at all for someone else. "At the cinema, the film is always the same. It's you who's different': this writing appears at the entrance to the Museo Interattivo del Cinema in Milan, with the corollary that there can be as many opinions about the same film as there are spectators. So, what's the point of asking what a "good" movie is? " I loved this movie. It’s really good”. - "I didn’t like it at all. It’s a terrible movie.”
These two extreme judgments made by different people regarding the same
film deserve to be examined more closely, as they refer to very
different factors.
Finally, in Part 3 we will explore which mental mechanisms lead us to like or dislike a movie, starting from the fact that, as spectators, we tend to attribute some (more or less explicit and conscious) intentions to the images and sounds (and therefore, to the filmmaker). Movies can be vastly different as to the meanings and emotions they seem to convey, and each viewer plays an active role in interpreting the ways in which cinema, through its “language” (direct or indirect, like analogies and metaphors) stimulates her/his mind, heart and, ultimately, full body. These three perspectives (the individual differences found in spectators, the criteria for film analysis and the mental mechanisms through which viewers attribute a certain value to images and sounds) are not in antithesis to each other, and can indeed interact in a positive way, allowing us to enrich our viewing experiences with a variety of elements which, although not allowing us to give a univocal and universally acceptable answer to the "impossible" question "What is a "good" film?, will offer much food for thought to understand the factors at play - as well as enabling us to argue our opinions, beyond superficial statements about what we liked or disliked, with a greater degree of objectivity and awareness."We need to know how to appreciate what we don't like" wrote French composer Gabriel Fauré (Note 1), and this statement can guide us along the path we are about to follow: if it is important to understand why we like something, it is even more productive to make the effort to understand what doesn't meet our taste - because appreciating a film, beyond our most instinctive and superficial reactions, enriches our experience as spectators, as citizens and as human beings. "Subjecting the taste for cinema to scientific-objective criteria or transforming criticism into irrefutable science is like looking for the chemical formula of love or the sex of angels: impossible and not necessarily desirable" (Note 2) In a word: try to understand without trying to explain (or, worse, to give a definitive judgment ...). Part 1: What's hidden within individual "tastes"? 1. The "personal baggage" of each spectator and individual expectations Each viewer approaches every life experience, including the experience of watching a film, with a "personal baggage" made up, on the one hand, of knowledge, experiences, skills, and on the other, of beliefs, attitudes, values, motivations. At the cinema, this personal baggage is made up of - knowledge: both what is already known about the individual film (for example, from seeing advertisements or trailers or from reading or listening to news or reviews), and what is known about cinema in general (for example, who the director is, who the actors/actresses are, which "genre" the film seems to belong to, which other films it can refer ...); - skills: the degree of one's critical abilities, the extent to which one is able to understand various aspects of the film "text" (for example, knowing how to interpret certain choices made in the film regarding camera movements, editing, the use of color or music...); - beliefs, attitudes, values: what you think of and how you judge a film (for example, based on the opinion you have of the director's political positions, the themes covered, the influence the film can have on viewers...); - motivations: the needs that the film can satisfy, the gratifications it can offer, and ultimately the reasons why a certain film is chosen, and therefore the different uses that can be made of it. This set of factors influences the way in which one approaches watching, determining the expectations regarding a film. Expectations are a crucial element, as they create the "ground" on the basis of which, at the beginning, during but above all at the end of the viewing experience, one will judge the meaning and value of the film for oneself: how much did the film satisfy my (cognitive and affective) needs? Do I feel gratified or frustrated? Did the film respond to the reasons why I chose it and the use I intended to make of it? These are questions that most of the time spectators do not consciously ask themselves (how many spectators enter a multiplex without a clear idea of which film they will choose?), but which deeply affect the viewing experience, and which often resurface in the comments and discussions after the viewing: I expected... and instead ... It left me indifferent ... It's exactly what you can expect from this director ... And on the basis of the same expectations one can explain the reactions of different spectators to the same film. Regarding Lions for Lambs (whose title was intended as a metaphor to polemically describe the concept of heroic soldiers under the orders of inept commanders) one can hear things like: It's a film with Tom Cruise ... It's a Robert Redford film ... It's a good war film ... It's a film belonging to t he typical American "liberal" tradition ... It's another superb performance by Meryl Streep ... It moved me ... It made me reflect on the eternal question of war ... Clearly, who makes these statements shows that he/she possesses (or not) certain knowledge and skills, that he/she evaluates (positively or not) the values expressed by the film, that he/she feels gratified (or not) by the use that he/she has been able to make of the film: these are clearly statements that refer to the expectations and "personal baggage" of each individual spectator. |
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Lions for lambs (Robert Redford, USA 2007) |
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We will analyze the factors that can lead a spectator to choose,
interpret and appreciate a certain film in Part 2 of this paper. But
first it is necessary to complete our introduction to individual
expectations with a necessary reminder of the social aspects of the
experience of watching a film. 2. The social aspect: the situations and contexts of vision Despite the proliferation of streaming platforms, which allow a "home" viewing of films, the experience of watching a film in a theatre remains the experience most authentically close to the spirit with which cinema was born and developed throughout its history. Watching a film in a theatre was for a long time the only way to enjoy this means of communication, which therefore immediately took the form of an experience that was not only individual but also social: sharing the vision of a film with other spectators still constitutes an important factor, which influences both our expectations, the way in which we perceive and interpret what we see and hear, and our final judgment on the film. The audience of a cinema reacts to the vision not only as the sum of the reactions of all the individual spectators, but also as a "social body" which manifests its cognitive and, above all, emotional responses in various ways: for example, with a collective laughter in the face of a comic episode, with a gasp in the face of a dramatic turning point in the story, and even with an almost "unnatural" silence in the face of moments of suspense ... Hearing others laugh (or cry!), comment or hold their breath leads us to feel the same sensations or to accentuate what we already feel. When the Lumière brothers presented one of their first films to a paying public, The arrival of a train at La Ciotat station, spectators were terrified by the approach of the train on the screen, and some even tried to save themselves ... such was the impact of the new visual medium on a still "virgin" audience. Over time, spectators have become accustomed to all sorts of effects, but when Hitchcock showed the brutal murder of the protagonist in the famous shower scene in Psycho, spectators jumped in their seats with terrified screams, which amplified the chilling sounds of the sequence and the corresponding soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann - a classic example of fusion between the audiovisual input provided by the screen and the output of the community of spectators who reacted almost "in unison" in the face of these extraordinary stimuli. The reactions of those sitting next to us are therefore fundamental because they influence our own reactions. |
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L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat/The arrival of a train at La Ciotat station (Lumière Brothers, France 1896) |
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, USA 1960) |
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We also know how personal tastes themselves are conditioned by the
opinions of people close to us: for example, we can tend to love a film
that our partner liked, and comparison and discussion with others,
particularly with people we respect, can enlighten us on the value of a
certain film, or can even make us change our mind. In short, individual
tastes are also formed through sharing experiences with others. At the
same time, these personal tastes may not coincide with the opinions of
the groups we are part of: we have all noticed a gap between the ideas
that we freely express in groups of friends, and those that are expected
of us, for example, by our teachers or other more or less
"institutional" figures. More generally, however, personal tastes are a
strong factor of cohesion within a group: we can thus feel that we
belong to a certain group because we love a certain type of film (but
also the opposite: we love a certain type of film because we belong to a
certain group ...). Thus the comparison with others on the same film can give us the measure of personal differences and, therefore, of the relativity of judgments and opinions. It is always interesting and instructive to understand why a certain film is liked or not, what arguments are used to defend one's opinion, and what reactions it provoked in different spectators. If people tell us that a certain film made them think, or moved them, or made them happy, and that therefore for them it is "a good film", when for us the same film was simply boring to death, we must probably give in to the idea that the film/spectator relationship can be expressed in many different ways. Furthermore, we must keep in mind that, if we did not like a film, we have a tendency to attribute the reason for this "failure" to the film itself (and not to our very personal cultural and psychological baggage): the theory of causal attributions explains how human beings tend to attribute the reason for their own "failure" to external causes rather than to themselves (and, conversely, to attribute the reason for their own success to themselves)(Note 3). But the opposite can also happen: when faced with a film that was not to our liking, we can perhaps attribute some positive aspects to it just to justify our experience (i.e. to reduce the negative feeling of having made a wrong choice or of having wasted our time and money - thus protecting, among other things, our self-esteem). Even the situation in which we find ourselves when we decide to see a film influences our choices in this regard: it is no coincidence that sites, blogs, chats and podcasts on the Internet are full of advice and suggestions for choosing a film depending, for example, on the season, the time of day, the people with whom we decide to watch the film, the particular occasion we are experiencing, and a thousand other contextual factors: thus "labels" (tags) are associated with each film which identify the "right" film for a romantic evening, for a friendly meeting, for a birthday party ... and the most "suitable" film to be seen alone, as a couple, with a group of friends, together with children ... when you are tired, happy, sad, anxious ... This "tagging" system leads to the creation of lists of films for every occasion: thus we have "the 10 films to see at Christmas", "the 20 films not to be missed during the pandemic lockdown", "the 15 best films to see with your dog" ... and so on. The information collected by streaming platforms about our choices is then processed by special algorithms that suggest further films to see, in the presumption that if you loved a "type X" film you will also probably enjoy a "type Y" film ... Thus the social aspect of the viewing experience remains crucial, not just when "going to the cinema" (most spectators go to the cinema with friends or relatives), but also for the private home viewing of movies rented or bought on a streaming platform. |
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The contextual factors that make us like (or not) a film can also change
over time: it is not uncommon to discover that a film that we loved at
the time turns out to be boring or insignificant a few years later (or
the opposite). In this case, we can also fall into the temptation to
believe that it is the film that has changed, and not us. Certainly the
enormous availability of audiovisual products that characterizes our
multimedia/digital societies leads us to "experience" new things and,
over time, this influences the formation and change of our tastes -
which are thus constantly evolving. This evolution is accelerated by
rapid technological (and cultural) progress, to the point that if once,
and until a few decades ago, generations of spectators changed every
twenty-five years, today five years, and perhaps less, are enough to
identify new trends, new values, new "tastes". 3. The factors that influence the personal approach to a film (and its evaluation) We return to what was already mentioned in Section 1, i.e. the motivations that drive a person to choose a certain film, the use that this person can actually make of the audiovisual information transmitted by the film, and the generation of corresponding expectations. Individual approaches to a single film, and to cinema as an experience as a whole, are of many types, which we summarize here, with two important preliminary considerations: that these approaches are not necessarily conscious, and that each spectator can deploy more than one approach simultaneously (Note 4). The avoidance of boredom, the need for escape: it is perhaps the most generic approach, and undoubtedly corresponds to a common need. Closely related is sensation seeking, which allows people, through access to emotions, to forget their daily worries by resorting to easily available media (not only and perhaps not primarily cinema, but also television and, increasingly, the use of the Internet), and even, beyond this, to avoid negative feelings about themselves by accessing media content that allows for more positive personal experiences. Sensation seeking may involve the seeking of excitement (e.g. through violent or erotic or horror films), which, however, may be experienced in different ways and at different levels by the same person over time: this means that each individual tries to reach her/his own optimal level of arousal. Furthermore, the negative feelings generated by, for example, a horror or suspense film, can ultimately lead to positive emotions once the frightening events give way to a happy ending. Avoiding boredom and seeking emotional stimulation can be combined with one or more of the other approaches discussed below. Expecting personal enrichment or change: catharsis, or the experience of negative sensations, refers to the fact that experiencing pain and suffering through the mediation of cinematic characters and events, for example in drama and melodrama, can also provide feelings of relief by putting the viewer in a position to better deal with their problems and difficulties. Concentrating on the plot, on the events, on the characters: it is perhaps the most immediate level of enjoyment of the "film" product, which in turn cinema has always exploited to "hook" its spectators and lead them, through appropriate narrative twists and turns, towards an expected (or unexpected) ending. Searching for information: the need to find information and process it, thus activating reflection and discussion, can be related to both an emotional use (such as the search for sensations) and a cognitive use (such as the avoidance of boredom), and can lead to choosing film genres such as documentaries, but also biopics and films that mix reality and fiction (docufiction). The information provided by the film can then be used in many different ways, for example by spectators who are particularly politically, socially and culturally engaged. "Squeezing" possible meanings from the film, giving new interpretations: beyond the surface of the plot, spectators can ask themselves how to interpret what they see and hear, what messages the film can or wants to convey - to the extreme of "making" the film say something which in reality could be the spectators' projection of their personal beliefs, attitudes, values. "Capturing" the world that revolves around the film and sharing it with others: it can be an extension of the previous approach. By pushing your role as an active spectator (and not simply a passive consumer) even further, it is possible to use all the elements of the film (from the plot to the characters, from the sets to the soundtrack, up to the technical and stylistic choices) to manipulate them, creating new configurations of these elements, "playing" with them, also to produce new content, which can perhaps be shared online with others. The websites of fans of a certain film, actor, director, saga or film genre are full not only of personal judgments and opinions, but also of new multimedia content created by exploiting the source materials provided by the original films. Giving vent to one's cinephilia: this is related to the previous approach, but can take on different connotations. Depending on one's knowledge and skills, a spectator can analyze a film for various purposes, for example, to provide a more or less motivated critical judgment (perhaps looking for factors such as originality or authenticity), to connect the film to other previous films or to other films by the same director, to insert it into a trend, a school of thought, or even to place the film within the history of cinema and its evolutions. Appreciating the film from an aesthetic point of view: it can be part of the previous approach, but in this case the artistic use of films is based on focusing, in particular, on the specific elements of film language (such as mise-en-scène, camera movements, editing, the use of color or sound) that produce the final result. Using the film experience for its social value: as we have already seen, the experience of shared viewing promotes a sense of affiliation, which satisfies the need to relate to others, to share experiences and, in general, offers opportunities for interpersonal experiences, such as watching films with friends, discussing them and being part of social networks. Note that the reason for affiliation does not only refer to contacts with other people, but also with the characters in a film, thus raising important questions such as identification with the characters (and the actresses/actors who play them). The following examples tend to highlight how a spectator can be motivated by multiple approaches at the same time, thus using the input provided by a film for multiple uses, even different ones. And of course, as we have already pointed out, the same film can be exploited by different viewers in very different ways. 4. Examples of the multiple levels of "reading" the same film |
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Rear window (Alfred Hitchcock, USA 1954) |
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A film like Rear window can be chosen and used, first of all,
to satisfy the search for sensations (such as suspense) usually
guaranteed by the thriller genre. In this sense the spectator can
essentially concentrate on the plot, the characters, the twists and
turns of the plot, thus following that itinerary of emotional
involvement that a master like Hitchcock knew how to admirably
manipulate. But the film can also satisfy the expectations of those who
know they can count on a Hitchcock film (having previously seen others)
to obtain the satisfaction "guaranteed" by the name; in the same
direction, the film can attract for the performance of some famous
Hollywood "stars" such as James Stewart and Grace Kelly. Going a little
deeper, a spectator who is passionate about thrillers can connect this
particular film to others by the same director or the same genre, more
or less consciously establishing connections with his previous viewing
experiences. Still other viewers may focus on the stylistic and formal
aspects of the film, paying particular attention to the masterful ways
in which, for example, the camera moves from inside the apartment in
which the protagonist is confined to the outside, in a circular motion
that encompasses all the other apartments that overlook the courtyard.
Finally, someone could dwell on the symbolic value of the gaze that the
protagonist, even through a telephoto lens, brings to his neighbors,
with the spectator's involvement in this "voyeuristic" activity... to
the point of making even more abstract considerations on the role that
the "gaze" of a character (and/or of the camera and/or of the spectator)
plays in the production and enjoyment of a film, even throughout the
history of cinema. As we can see, it is possible to use the same film
for the most diverse uses, from the most superficial to the most
"theoretical" and abstract ones, by audiences who include, at one
extreme, spectators interested only or mainly in enjoying a "good"
suspense film, and at the other extreme, spectators who can and want to
be critically involved, as inveterate cinephiles, in what the film can
offer. |
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Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, USA 1979) |
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Those who love war films can definitely pick up a film like
Apocalypse Now and enjoy the spectacle associated with this genre
of film - and they won't be disappointed. But other expectations could
be linked to the name of the director, whose previous films a spectator
may have appreciated (such as The Godfather and The
Godfather - Part II) as well as subsequent ones, even belonging to
different genres (such as, among others, Cotton Club, Peggy Sue Got
Married or Bram Stoker's Dracula). The performers can also
be a source of attraction (for fans of Marlon Brando in particular, here
in one of his most intense performances). Since it is a film set during
the Vietnam War, some viewers might connect it with other films on the
same topic from the history of cinema (also rbelonging to very different
genres, from Green Berets with John Wayne to M.A.S.H.
by Robert Altman, from Coming Home by Hal Ashby to Platoon
and Born on the 4th of July by Oliver Stone to Full
Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick); those interested in the
historical and political implications of this war could use this film to
reflect on the trauma it caused on American society. Some viewers may
remember that the film is inspired by a story (Heart of Darkness)
by Joseph Conrad; others, digging even deeper, could consider the
highly symbolic value of the story, which presents itself as a
reflection on the madness of war in general (and on the related madness
of drugs, violence, sex), considering the journey along the river as an
allegory of a descent into the underworld of the human mind. But the
film lends itself equally well to being analyzed and appreciated for its
aesthetic and formal values (for example, Vittorio Storaro's
photography, with the unforgettable arrival of the helicopters to the
tune of Richard Wagner's Ride of the Walkyries). The most
informed cinephiles might remember the enormous problems (financial,
psychological, and even climatic) faced by Coppola during the making of
the film, or the various documentaries dedicated to it, or the various
versions prepared by the director over the years, as well as the awards
won (from the Oscars to the Golden Palm in Cannes). |
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2001: A space odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, GB 1968) |
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Even a complex and multifaceted film like
2001: A Space Odyssey can be enjoyed in very different ways
depending on the audience. As a science fiction film, it is certainly a
compelling and intriguing film, and can therefore be fully appreciated
by those who love this film genre. But the film also revolutionized the
genre from a formal-stylistic point of view, with a very innovative use,
among other things, of editing, special effects and the soundtrack.
Those who pay attention to these types of factors will not easily forget
the now iconic sequence in which a bone, thrown into the air by an ape
monkey in the prologue, almost magically transforms into a spaceship
sailing in space; or the long sequence towards the end of the film, in
which a dizzying intertwining of optical effects (in an era when
computer graphics was still in its infancy) accompanies the protagonist
beyond the limits of space and time; or again, the extraordinary "cosmic
ballet" in which the space station seems to dance to the tune of
Strauss' The Blue Danube waltz ... And viewers more informed
about the evolution of cinematographic formats will be able to
appreciate the power of cinema viewing with the large 70 mm
Superpanavision format, which was very innovative at the time. But even
those who would like to concentrate on the plot, on the events, on the
characters are soon encouraged to ask themselves questions in the face
of a succession of situations which, from the initial prologue set in a
pre-human era, with a leap of four million years moves to a future time
(2001, then still far away from the year the film was made, 1968), to
end in an epilogue in which the astronaut who survived the revolt of the
on-board computer finds himself in an eighteenth-century room, now aged
... to finally transform, by way of rebirth, into a fetus floating above
the image of the Earth ... It is inevitable, therefore, at least for
many spectators, to go from simply following the events of the plot to
wondering what meanings can be conveyed by this "odyssey", which seems
to concentrate in itself the thousand questions that man asks himself
regarding life, Time, Space and his destiny in the Universe: the film,
in short, lends itself very well to "squeezing" the meanings that the
director wanted to convey in a symbolic or metaphorical way. Certainly
the viewer who has further information on the film will be able to
better practice this attribution of meanings and values: for example, it
is not secondary to know that the film is very freely inspired by some
stories by a famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke; and even
the "cinephile" knowledge of the world of Kubrick and his films (before
and after 2001) can be enlightening in appreciating the
stylistic choices of this film, which, rather than the narration of
events, solicits the audience with an eminently visual representation,
all played on the power of images. And finally, the most informed
spectator will be able to reflect on the words of Kubrick himself, which
seem to well summarize the different approaches that viewers can adopt
towards the same film: "Everyone is free to speculate as they like on
the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film. I have tried to
represent a visual experience, which bypasses understanding to penetrate
with its emotional content directly into the unconscious." (Note 5) End of Part 1. Go to Part 2 |
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Notes
1. Quoted from Genette G. 2014. Epilogue, Seuil, Paris, p.113, in Jullier L. 2021. Qu'est-ce qu'un bon film?, Armand Colin, Malakoff, p. 7.
2. Kaganski S. 2003. Les Inrockuptibles, n. 374. Quoted in Jullier, op. cit., p. 203.
3. For an introduction to the theory of causal attributions see, e.g. EBSCO Advantage Research Starters and Oxford Research Encyclopedias.
4. See Mariani L. 2025. Individual differences in cinema audiences, cinemafocus.eu
5.Quoted in Il Mereghetti. Dizionario dei film, Baldini & Castoldi, Milano.