Here?s Looking at Some Classics

(andPOP) - There are three basic qualities that all great movies have.
First, a great movie must have a great writer.

Despite the fact that they?re rarely seen and infrequently talked about, movies are about writers, not directors, and certainly not actors. A brilliant director cannot save a bad script, but it takes a truly abominable director to destroy a good screenplay.

The second thing a great movie must have is a great director.

Despite what I just said above, a bad director can prevent a quality script from achieving greatness.

Whenever you finish a movie and say to yourself, ?It was a good premise, but it fell flat in the execution,? that is the fault of a bad director. Without vision and genius, a director cannot turn a decent script into a decent finished product.

The final, and most important quality of a great movie is unwillingness to compromise.

Without exception, every movie out there that achieves iconic status, compromises were made in the production process, but the artistic vision never wavered.

On this final point, I want to spend a bit of extra time, because I cannot stress its importance.

A while back, I talked about Sin City. As I recall, I gave it a glowing review.

In each case, their seeds of greatness were in their unwillingness go compromise.

Sin City?s creator, Frank Miller, refused 11 offers to make Sin City before he finally agreed to do it with Robert Rodriguez. When he did finally agree, he retained an iron-grip, stranglehold on the creative process.

I pity the people who had to work with Miller, I can only imagine how painful it must have been trying reproduce his comic books in live action and computer generated images.

However, the end result speaks for itself. No compromises (that I know of) were made in the creative process, and that is why it is so awesome to watch.

On the other hand, the most famous example of a cinematic compromise is Lord of the Rings.

In the first movie (Fellowship of the Ring) Liv Tyler had now business being on that horse in the middle of the river. It wasn?t her character that did that in the book, why should it be her character in the movie?

Similarly, where the hell was Tom Bombadil?

He was one of my favourite parts of the Fellowship of the Rings (the book) and he was killed with a flick of the pen.

If you haven?t read the book, and/or seen the movie, you won?t know what I?m talking about. But if that?s the case, read the books, then watch the movies, then let me know what you think.

I?ve been saying these things for years, so I know all of the standard rebuttals.
If they had made a completely faithful adaptation, the movie would have been five hours long.

So?

Am I the only member of my generation who?s watched Ben-Hur? Or Sparticus? Or Casino? Or Patton? These are not short movies, but that doesn?t make them bad movies.

The bottom line is that there are two types of movies.

Some movies are made for mainstream audiences (and I don?t even watch these movies anymore unless someone I trust tells me it?s good.)

These movies tend to make respectable amounts of money at the box office, but five years down the road, no one will ever remember them.

The other type of movie is the sort that?s made for people who really love movies.

When one of these is made, and it?s good, it becomes a timeless treasure.

But when it doesn?t work, the general public ignores it, and the film aficionados for whom it?s made, turn into a pack of jackals and rip it to shreds.

This is why so few of these movies ever get made ? they?re a gamble, and even if they do turn out well, there?s still the risk that they won?t make much money.

Over the weekend I was watching Casablanca; it?s one of my all time favourite movies.

However, watching it I realized that if the same movie were made today, Ilsa would probably end up with Rick, and Victor would probably die in a hail of gunfire fighting for the cause, or perhaps a really big explosion.

Because that (apparently) is what audiences want.

So I suppose what I?m trying to say is this:
For all of the great, uncompromising movies out there, here?s looking at you, kid.