Throughout history, the definition of “art” has changed many, many times, and so has it’s purpose. At first, it was used in religious ways as a form of worship to the Greek gods, then in the thirteenth century what was classified as art had changed to a more mathematical and historical approach by the Greeks and romans, and now in the modern era, art can be classified as anything from rap music to horror films to oil paintings to crime novels, where its now used for more political reasons. Monaco created a spectrum for the modern art to separate them into their own main categories, the performance arts, the representational arts, and the recording arts. Here are some examples of each below: 

The performance arts – real time performances, such as dance, theatrical productions and radio shows. 

The representational arts – art that is presented through the pictorial/literary methods using established codes and the conventions of language, such as books, canvas paintings and photos. 

The recording arts – A more direct presentation of art, using the movement of pictures to convey stronger messages to the audience, such as films, music, social media videos. 

A good film always starts with a good idea, but it is a complex blend of planning, design, execution, and post-production work that brings that good idea to become something people will watch over and over again, without all of that, it becomes nothing more than lost potential that is looked over. 

But, what makes an idea good? People love the horror genre, but in the style of a rom-com? Which tries to teach you the value of taking care of the environment? Something about that doesn’t seem quite right… To have a good idea, you need to target a certain audience, and then research and understand what it is that they want to see.  

Take for example one of my favourite films, Fantastic Mr Fox, directed by Wes Anderson. The idea was originally created by Roald Dahl as a comical adventure to mesmerize the young audience he had created. Because of this young audience, he wanted them to relate to the story, teaching them the value of accepting family, and the new people in their lives, which they would relate to.  

After the idea was created, Anderson took these macro elements and integrated them with his unique style of film making. Taking into account the audience, genre, messages and style of the story, he designed everything in a way that it could be taken straight from picture book and used stop motion keep the cartoonish feel of Roald Dahl’s story, while being able to implement his brilliant cinematography. Anderson also used very upbeat music throughout the film, especially through montage like scenes, making scenes exciting, and never allowing a dull moment, and keeping the attention of the children and families watching. This was paired with his unique style of cinematography, where he would capture scenes either in one place, or in a panning motion, or always keeping one person/thing the centre of the shot. All of this coming together in post-production is what makes this film, in my opinion one of the best films. 

However, this is just one of a plethora of ways that a film can be made, different combinations of genres, acting styles, camera shots, all of them are the tools for an endless amount of films, and those different and unique combinations are what make films good. This all means there is no single way to make a good film, as long as you are able to capture and project story you intended to the intended audience. 

Metteurs – translated means scene setter.

Ext. mise-en-scene – when it is referred to as an atheistic film element they mean that the elements of mise-en-scene make it appealing to view.

The spectrum of the arts is the idea that the term art can be split up into several different sections. When Monaco says this, he is trying to imply that you can be an artist at one thing but not another (hence the use of the word spectrum.) For example, you can be a musical artist. The seven different arts he originally mentioned were History, Poetry, Comedy, Tragedy, Music, Dance, and Astronomy although these have drastically changed over time.  

The art of history has contributed to both modem science and religious rituals.  art of comedy was plays such as Hamlet or the merchant of Venice but is now seen through stand up or films such as dumb and dumber. The art of tragedy is similar in the 1600s it was plays such as Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet but is now seen in films such as titanic. The art of poetry has not changed much with people still reciting poems such as In Flanders Fields. On the other hand, the art of music has completely changed from Mozart to Rap and drum and bass. The art of dance remains the same however more genres have evolved from original dance such as Contemporary dance or even breakdancing. Finally the Art of astronomy has been forgotten about and replaced    

After watching the joker, I thought the film was a solid 8/10. I think that the story of a clown who goes on a downwards spiral getting more and more insane is kind of cool. The fact he kills Murray on the show really shows he has nothing to lose. I found the film kind of dark however that does portray the mood of the film very well. One of my favourite most memorable scenes is when the joker is running from the policemen on the subway train. I liked this scene as found it was shot really well and when the policemen get mobbed it is really cool seeing him walk away like nothing happened. 

Score 8/10

The most memorable scene(s) I found were the stair scenes. The first stair scene pictures Arthur slowly walking up the tall stairs in his hometown, which in my opinion selfishly degrades him . In contrast, the second stair scene we see Arthur dressed in bright colours as a clown, with face paint on. This time he is dancing down the stairs, which indicates to me that he has taken power now, and embraced his unfortunate life.

After watching Joker, I thought that it was a 10/10 film. The cinematography and camera work were incredible. The director of the film, Todd Phillips, made the shots of the movie unique and stunning. I noticed that he uses vibrant colours to depict the mood of the scene. For example, the movie uses more bright colours when joker becomes happier and freer later. Two of my favourite scenes of the movie was when joker was dancing on the stairs. This is the point of the movie when main character becomes free and not constrained by the pressures of society. My other favourite scene is when Arthur goes on Murray show. From the start of the movie, Murray is seen as a hero figure towards Arthur, but later in the movie when is comedy is used for a joke, he finally snaps and makes his own comedy, it is a brilliant plot twist. That is why I think joker is a 10/10

Best picture: 

Saving private Ryan

Best director: Christopher Nolan 

Best actor: 

Tom Hardy

Best actress:

Emma Stone 

• The list was quite hard as it’s difficult to distinguish which you find to be your favourite. 
• The Oscars are important to the film industry as films can be given praise for their accomplishments in their feats, for things such as cinematography, acting, animation, sound etc.  
• I have seen the Oscar awarded films Top Gun Maverick and all quiet on the western front. 
• Drama films are the most common films that received Oscars due to the work put in to entertain the audience or the character created by the actor. 

• What makes a film good? 

The micro elements that make up a good film are: 

How a film is edited can play a factor on if a movie is “good” an example of this is the motion picture ‘baby driver’ where transitional editing is used to seamlessly connect the scenes together. 

The mise en scene for a film also has a part as how a scene is set up or filmed, or even how actors are portrayed and positioned can become recognisable for a good film, for example the neon lighting in ‘blade runner’ maintains a futuristic bright mise en scene. 

Spider man into the spider verse and its sequel across the spider verse have been awarded and praised for their amazing digital cinematography, this shows that how a scene is filmed can really entertain and state what is a ‘good’ film, the use of shot types or techniques such as IMAX film shows this. 

How the element of sound makes a film good can be shown via diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, this consists of musical scores played over the film for an example the montage scene in rocky where he runs up the stairs ( this being non-diegetic), another example being of sound making a film good is being able to listen to music the character in the film is listening too – diegetic ( e.g. baby driver). 

The macro elements that make up a good film are: 

Film genres make up what is a good film as depending on a person’s preference there is a plethora of films to their likings, for example fans of war films have movies such as black hawk down, saving private Ryan and hacksaw ridge. Genres can make a film good as more than one can be found in a film, an example of this is Forrest Gump which contains comedic, dramatic and war genre themes, these can all be showed to compel strong meanings such as the brutality of war, and the joy of life in what spans in a short time frame in the length of the film. This furthermore adds on to another reason why films can be classed as good, this is because of the message they convey,  some films educate like films based on true events, others have heartfelt reasons like family or friendship, etc. 

Themes in a film, like sagas and franchises make up what is good as high earning films like Star Wars or Marvel have records of performing good in themes related to their characters that have recurring appearances. 

After watching this film, I would rate it a 8/10, the use of colours in the film was extremely done, as it was used to show the emotions of Arthur, the cinematography was also a great aspect of the film, my favourite scene in the film, is the talk show scene, where Arthur shoots and kills Murray, I found this scene memorable as Murray was the last thing Arthur had in his life, since he had already killed his mother, and lost his job, the only thing he had left was the Murray show, and killing Murray showed that Arthur really had nothing left, which instead of making him sad or empty, made him feel fulfilled. I also enjoyed Joaquin Phoenix’s performance, as he portrayed joker in a spectacular way that truly conveyed a man forgotten and treated like trash by society.

In my personal opinion, I would give this film a 9/10.

One scene that I really enjoyed was the subway scene with 3 murders. This is because it really showed a turning point in Arthur’s decent into madness. Before the murders, we saw Arthur laugh uncontrollably at a woman being abused, which shows a clear conflict with his humanity as he wants to help the woman, however as we already know Arthur will turn into the villain, Joker, showing his laughter could be unsympathetic, which poses a moral conflict whether we should feel sympathy for him or not. The moral conflict then increases as he murders the 3 abusers, because us the audience, we know death is a horrible thing, and Joker is a vile person, but there is still a part that feels sympathy for Arthur knowing his tragic background, and the reasons he’s doing it, which I love because it’s really up to the audience on how to interpret this scene.