The other night I treated myself to a double helping of Werner Herzog cinema. BBC3 was having a Herzog night and showed Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, Wrath of God one after the other! And then a documentary to bring us up to date with his more recent activities.

Why am I raving on like a lunatic about this non Hollywood, German film director whose most famous films are so idiosyncratic and away from the mainstream? Not because these two films generally crop up in most film critics top 20 films of all time. Not because both films contain the acting talents of Klaus Kinski, one of the most charismatic and spell binding (not to say unpredictable) presences on celluloid. No, you just have to watch the films to find out how special they are.

 I had seen Aguirre, Wrath of God, many years ago and it left an indelible impression on me. I just had to see it again. The story is based on a real event about a group of conquistadors fresh from defeating and enslaving the Incas in Peru and their search for El Dorado - the fabled city of gold - in the Peruvian jungles of the Amazon. The opening scene of the Spanish conquistadors trudging down the mountain into the Amazon jungle through the clouds is deliberately long with an electronic musical score and it sets the tone and pace for the rest of the film. As they trudge through the mud down into the jungle you have feelings of foreboding, that the jungle is ready to devour them physically and metaphorically. The canon gets stuck, the horsemen get caught in the jungle vines, the river looks menacing. Its not long before the nobles are arguing amongst themselves, and power struggles erupt with the hunch backed Aguirre plotting and conspiring. The expedition starts to devour itself and descend into madness.

What is so good about the film is the intensity of it. Kinski, in particular, is electric as the morose, treacherous and violent nobleman who eventually leads the doomed expedition further in to the jungle and madness. The cinematography is breath-taking with the merciless jungle and the raging river becoming major characters in the unfolding tragedy. It has epic pretensions but the encroaching jungle makes the film close in on itself. The conspiracies and power struggles are shown at close quarters. It explores the relationships between the classes - between the noblemen, the soldiers and the slaves. As it is based on the only surviving account of the expedition by a priest, there is also an examination of the realtionship between the state and the church. It looks real because it is real. The hardships were actual hardships for the actors. They really are miserable! No CGI or special effects here. Reality filmed well can be just as stunning. Long takes, no flash bang editing here. It sucks you in by osmosis. It gets under the skin. The finale shows the rapidly-unravelling raft floating down the river with the few remaining survivors after the indian attacks and the camera swoops in and flys in circles around the stricken craft whilst Aguirre rants at the jungle, the river and the dead bodies that surround him. An incredible death spiral image. Wow. If you can overcome the German dialogue and the sub titles I urge you to watch this film.

Just imagine. Immediately before Aguirre, Wrath of God, was Fitzcarraldo, an equally esoteric and eccentric piece of quality cinema. It has many of the features of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Kinski is on acting duty again but playing a much different character - an eccentric Irshman called Fitzgerald who buys a plot of rubber plantation land in the inaccessible Peruvian jungle. Everyone thinks he’s mad because he has no way of getting the rubber out of the impenetrable jungle. This is a much more uplifting story of one man’s insistence that the impossible can be made possible (with a little help from your friends). The jungle and the river are once again major players but not so malevolent this time and beautifully filmed. There are long takes and deep focus shots of the steam boat sailing around the bends of the river at normal speed against the majestic backdrop of the jungle. There are long takes of the steam boat actually being mechanically hauled over a steep piece of cleared jungle  over to the next river. This is actually happening. You have to marvel at it. Herzog, however, manages to make it seem fantastical at the same time. And the operatic score perfectly compliments the film. It symbolises civilisation of the wilderness as we see the indigenous tribe buy into Fitzgerald’s dreams. And the music teeters between tragedy and triumph as they overcome the various obstacles put in their path. Not only does he manage to make his money from rubber but he also satisfies his passion for opera as he builds the first opera house in the jungle.

Quite simply the images in this film, as in Aguirre, Wrath of God, burn into your skull. Once seen never forgotten. Iconic images you will not see the likes of elsewhere. Both films march to the beat of their own drums. They are multi-layered and complex but worth investing time in to stimulate your mind and your senses. In the current parlance, these are two films to see before you die.

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I’m on a roll now. The Song Remains The Same just started me thinking again about pop music films again. It’s funny how one thing leads to another. I’d almost forgotten about probably the greatest film about popular music and culture. And it was made by a bone fide film maker with a host of cinematic as well as musical talent.

The Last Waltz is a film documentary by Martin Scorcese based around the final(?) gig of The Band, that legendary but cultish rock band, that became famous through being Bob Dylan’s backing band for a while. The film came out only two years later than The Song Remains The Same yet as films they are poles apart.

The Band were more legends in the American music industry rather than world wide famous rock stars. Their pedigree was impeccable, they were killer live performers and they commanded respect amongst their peers. Their friends numbered among the royalty of the 1970s American music scene. Individually, they were not household names like Led Zeppelin or The Who. But together they created a small phenomonen.

Martin Scorcese obviously was a fan and he conducts several interviews personally with The Band about their career. But the main event is the concert footage with guest appearances by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Dr John and countless others. Not only is the sound reproduction high quality as is the camerwork and lighting but there is a great feeling of celebration in the performances. Judicial use of editing makes the action always interesting. Scorcese displays the concert footage in its best light and highlights the variety of musical styles on display with The Band accompanying the musical guests on many of the songs. It’s almost like you’re there. There are no great stylistic cinematic tricks to distract you from the performances.

The film is worth watching as a historical document and shows a slice of the 1970s American music scene with many of its movers and shakers but for me it’s all about the music. No pyrotechnics, no real myth making agenda just a record of high quality music for the sake of it. Beautiful.

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1999 was one of my favourite years. I studied film and the cinema for a year at John Leggott sixth form college in Scunthorpe and ended up with an “A” Level in Film Studies. For years I had avidly watched movies at the cinema and on the television and more recently on video. I had even done a short course on the effects of media on society in my university degree in 1973. But I had never been introduced to appreciating films critically. I knew a little about the history of the cinema, a little about the grammar and business of films but this course put it all together and gave me a much greater appreciation of the whole package.

There I was, a forty something guy, going through this course with a group of young sixth form students (18 years old at the most). The lecturer - Alistair Mickie - was a joy, really enthusiastic about his subject and it rubbed off on to everybody. It gave me a great lift to go down to the college one night a week and forget about the worries of the day job. I had decades of experience of watching films over the kids and could quite easily pull out specific examples from my memory. I particularly enjoyed the detailed analyses of parts of films and found new meanings and images that I had never seen before. You suddenly start to understand what the director or the actors meant to get across. The theory gave me an insight into how to watch and understand films better than before. It gave me a new lease of life.

Watching Eisenstein and the old Russian directors showed me what montage was all about. We even tried to do a Proppian analysis of the story in Casablanca - the first time that the teacher had even tried this. Even analysis of more recent films (not necessarily great ones) such as Speed and The Net provided insights into the grammar of film and the underlying story telling. Studying Kubrick as an auteur/author and the rules on different genres and being able to discuss them and listen to different views was quite liberating. We had to watch Citizen Kane, every one had to not because it is supposed to be the greatest film of all time but because, as a student it gave you examples of so many cinematic and editing techniques that it could be an example in almost all of the exam questions. And you could choose to analyse more closely some of your favourite films. I chose Seven Samurai and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Very different but very rewarding.

I don’t consider myself a film geek or even an authority. I am an enthusiast. I can still watch new films and appreciate them better than I used to. I have very eclectic tastes. From Hollywood to Art House, studio blockbusters to small independent films, english, american or sub titled and virtually any genre (although I am not too keen on romantic weepies - my better half loves them wouldn’t you know!). I do know that following that course helped me appreciate films and the cinema a lot more. Reading books is fine but discussion and debate makes it better. I suppose film forums and film chat rooms can provide that sort of outlet for your views nowadays. It opens your eyes and sharpens your senses and gives you a vocabulary to talk about a visual medium.

My main message from this post is to keep learning about film. That way you can get a better appreciation and ultimately more satisfaction watching films whether they are good or bad.

We all know a great film when we see one don’t we? Well not always. What is a great film to someone may be awful to someone else. Films are very subjective. Citizen Kane leaves film critics in raptures but today’s teenager will wonder what all the fuss is about (and probably hate it to boot).

We all have our own ideas about what makes a great film. Are popular films great? You would think that something that draws in audiences in their thousands and millions must be great. Not so. Look at Rush Hour 2 and Pearl Harbour. It could be just that the latest hot film star is appearing in their next movie. Bankable stars in mediocre movies. What about Harrison Ford in Sabrina and Six Days, Seven Nights. Your favourite auteur film director’s latest offering should be great based on past performance. Not necessarily. Even Spielberg slips up occasionally – look at 1942 and Amistad. Conversely, some great films have inauspicious beginnings. What film did little business at the box office but became one of the most successful DVDs of all time and in the process became re-evaluated as a great film? The Shawshank Redemption.

All I’ve tried to do is to show that there is no simple way to forecast what will make a great film. As usual it is a combination of factors that, mixed together and cooked at the right temperature with loving care, produce a great film. I believe that no one factor on its own can produce greatness. Not just the director, not just the star, not just the subject. Not just the story or script.

However, two or usually three or more factors working together can do it. Here is my list of ingredients for greatness.

• Story/ Script – This is the most important ingredient for me. You need a story that grabs the audience and takes them with it on a journey. It must affect the audience’s emotions. You need a script that does justice to the story and provides colour and originality to the action. If you don’t have a good story or script you rely too heavily on other factors and the probability of producing a great film plummets. Watch The Godfather I and II. Great stories from an average book but even better scripts. You are drawn into another world with very different codes of conduct and behaviour and morals. The Shawshank Redemption’s story is gripping even though the script came out of a short story by Steven King. Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven provides an unusual raw and downbeat view of the old west with no heroes riding off into the sunset.
• Acting – good actors telling a good story gives the basis for greatness. One example of greatness that involves just a good story and great acting is Salvador. James Woods gives a career high performance as the thoroughly unlikeable war photographer who goes to El Salvador to make money and retrieve his reputation and in the process gets caught up in the civil war. Good supporting cast performances particularly by James Belushi as his unwitting sidekick drive the film with a nervous energy that has you wincing and squirming. It could be the film that disproves my previous hypothesis where the acting alone could make this film great. A more recent example might be Forest Whittaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.
• Cinematography – By this I mean that what you see on the screen makes you go wow. Not just the CGI although that has to be taken into consideration e.g. The Lord of The Rings. But just consider David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia. Beautiful sweeping cinematography conveys the epic feel of the film, the vastness of the desert, the scale of the battles. However, you can equally be impressed by the edgy quality of the cinematography in something like Traffic or Heat. You can also marvel at the beauty, colour and technical artistry in some of the recent Chinese films such as The House of Flying Daggers and In the Mood for Love. 
• Editing – Editing conveys the pace of the film and splices the narrative together. Poor editing can leave an audience confused or bored. A well edited film will enhance the story telling and adjust the pace of the story to the action. Well edited films will have an internal rhythm to them.
• Direction – You may wonder why I’ve taken so long to get to direction. The director is the ringmaster and as such needs to juggle all the above (and more such as art direction, sound, costume etc.) to come up with a great film. The great ones can coax new meanings and nuances out of formulaic stories and scripts. Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket could have been just another Vietnam war movie but he turned it into a psychological study that showed the dehumanisation of young recruits to help them face the horrors of war. They provoke exciting performances from average actors. Just watch the incredible performance of Sharon Stone coaxed out by Martin Scorcese in Casino. They can inject beauty, originality and controversy into what could have been mundane films.  Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven uses beautiful photography of the American mid west plains to reflect the ebb and flow of the story. They can tap into the issues in society today and make films relevant to the audience. Spielberg does a great job of raising discussion of crime detection and the legal system by projecting a future where crimes can be detected before they happen in Minority Report. Even historical films can touch a nerve by reflecting issues that are important in today’s society. Kurosawa’s medieval Japanese masterpiece – Rashomon – is all about deception and the search for truth played out as a whodunit in the case of an alleged rape in the woods. And directors can put their own individual stamp on films which has lead to the cult of auteurism or authorship.

There you are. Only five factors but great films will have at least two and usually more of these factors present. Just think of films you believe are great films and assess them against these factors. It is fairly simple to do. Do they stand up?

In conclusion. Why is Citizen Kane a great film? Well, it has at least three of the above factors. The story is good although a little dated now as it is about the rise of a press baron (loosely based on the life of Randolph Hearst) and shows the arc of his life and the effect on people around him. However, it does not engage the emotions of the audience and is quite cold. Where it scores highly is in the cinematography, the editing and the direction. The cinematography and editing are ground-breaking and extremely well executed and were way ahead of their time. They actually helped to form a new grammar for films. The direction was excellent in that the telling of the story and the use of new cinematography techniques add nuances and layers to the film beyond the story and script. One could argue that the acting was first rate as well from Orson Welles as the eponymous lead and Joseph Cotton. So, 3or 4 out of 5 is pretty good. Whether it is the best film of all time………

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It must be a great time to be a young energetic and imaginative film-maker at the moment. “The world is your lobster!” as Derek Trotter might have said. Why do I say that?  Because it seems to me that they have more options now than their predecessors ever had.

It was not so long ago that fresh-faced graduates of film schools would get on the ladder of major film-making through the auspices of the large production companies. Getting their face known, showing their skills and abilities and eventually climbing the corporate ladder

But there are some trends that are evident now that could cut through all of the traditional ways of making films, marketing, distributing and presenting them.

Digital video is one of the most significant developments that is starting to democratise film-making. In theory, any one can make a film as long as you have a DV recorder and a PC with the right software. True you still need to have talent and vision but it doesn’t cost the earth to get started. The cost of storing and manipulating moving images has plumetted as processing power becomes greater and the price of hard disks and storge media decreases. Special effects are available to all with low cost, chromakey technology. The quality of DV recorders is improving daily and excellent sound capture equipment is within the reach of most budding movie makers. Editing can be done on the PC.

The technical and cost barriers to making your own film have been eroded away. Just get together with a few talented mates, use your imagination and ingenuity, get organised with a script and actors and go and make your film! Just take some inspiration from the original “Evil Dead”, “The Blair Witch Project” and “Napolean Dynamite”. Even major film makers are converting to DV. Mike Figgis has experimented with DV on ”Time Code” (2000) and just recently David Lynch has released “Inland Empire” (2007) to critical acclaim.

So what happens then. Who is going to see your masterpiece? How can you get paid for your efforts? When are you going to be invited to Hollywood?

Apart from your parents and interested friends is any one else likely to see your creation? Well, if you get out there and market it, quite probably. There is a huge audience out there to tap into. Just look at the rise of YouTube. People making small films of themselves or things and events around them and making them available to any one who has a PC across the globe. This site gets millions of hits every day. No surpirise that Google has taken them over. Why not use it as a marketing opportunity to show a trailer of your film? David Lynch did this with “Inland Empire”. Viral marketing and word of mouth could hook you up with thousands of potential viewers and get that precious PR and buzz. All for free!

As video streaming technology improves you could distribute your film yourself over the net. Bypassing the traditional means of film distribution. There are already loads of internet operations that sell films by download. The infrastructure is already there for you to make money.

Going straight to video is usually filmspeak for poor quality films that are likely to do poorly at the box office. Actually you could turn that round and make quality films that will only be seen in the home and not at the cinemas. People will be able to still have a great film experience with all the new Home Cinema technology (50+ inch screens, Dolby Digital sound through a multitude of speakers etc) being sold at the moment.

So in effect you don’t need the big procduction companies, the big distribution companies and the big cinema multiplex chains. Granted if you want to make an enormous epic like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings then it might be a little difficult to do it a home DV recorder but who knows with a little imagination…….. 

Isn’t it wonderful how the mind works? No matter what pictures are put in front of our eyes our mind tries to make sense of it. It took a Russian called Kuleshev near the turn of the 20th century to bring it to the world’s attention and had a profound effect on film art and particularly early Russian cinema.

Kuleshev found out that if you linked several unrelated shots to the same facial gesture then different interpretations of the meaning of that gesture could be reached. The mind tries to make sense of the gesture in the context of the what it sees around the gesture. Perhaps, an example will clarify. If we see a person crying but we see a coffin beforehand then our mind will surmise that the tears are expressing sadness at a person dying. However, if we see the same crying gesture juxtaposed with a shot of a mother smiling with a new born baby then the mind is likely to interpret the crying as tears of joy. I hope that explains it better. As editing is the process of putting bits of film together in a particular sequence to convey meaning, this discovery lead to development of two strands of editing - Continuity and Montage editing.

Continuity editing is by far the most prevalent form of editing and is seen as being in the Western story telling tradition. Its whole purpose is to knit together scenes seamlessly in a chronological order in order to provide a continuity of narrative. There is a grammar within this for pauses, new chapters, action etc. Most Hollywood movies use continuity editing although some have montage type sequences within the film.

Montage editing was developed in the early Russian cinema and is based on discontinuity and has affected a lot of European cinema. Art House cinema thrives on it. It is more expressive and “arty” but is still used today. In many of the early Russian films you regularly see two very different short sequences of film followed by a third which leads you in the direction of the meaning. It makes you think (it’s designed to make you think) and is difficult to appreciate at first particularly for people brought up on the Hollywood style of continuity editing. The apparent clash of images brings about new meaning to the shots that follow. In the film Strike by Eisenstein, shots of a slaughterhouse which on the face of it seem out of context are used to depict the killing of strikers by soldiers. A couple of examples. In The Godfather a series of killings in different locations  are cut with scenes of the baptism of Michael Corleone’s child towards the end of the film. There is a sharp contrast betwen the pious religious context of the baptism and the business and culture of revenge. The continuity of the church service soundtrack over all the events gives the cue that the events are happening at the same time. Another example can be seen in Apocalypse Now (right) where the execution of the renegade Colnel Kurtz is cut with the slaughter of an ox by the tribesmen who follow him. Interesting that both examples feature in films by the same director, Francis Ford Coppolla. Even in the film Gladiator the early sequences where the muddy preparations for the battle in the forest and cut with and contrasted with Maximus’ hand serenely stroking the barley in a field.

Both types of editing can exist in the same movie and produce very satisfying results for the filmgoer.

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