“It’s Just a Movie”: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes

Greg M. Smith

1. Leaving nothing to chance
2. A movie is not a telegram
3. “Reading into” films
4. It’s just a movie…
5. Ruining the movie!

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Leaving Nothing to Chance

Leaving Nothing to Chance

• And I mean nothing…
• Mise-en-Scene, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Script, Plot, Rhythm, Casting, Budget, etc.
• What about improv?
• Still a choice to use this or that take…
• From small, indie productions to HUGE, multi-million-dollar productions
• Wouldn’t you want to protect your investment?
• Art vs. Business vs. Entertainment
• Except on those RARE occasions…

Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969) & Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976

(Improv)

The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996) & Django Unchained (Tarantino, 2012)

(Improv)

Teen Wolf (Daniel, 1985) & Back to the Future: Part III (Zemeckis, 1990)

(Rare “Mistakes”)

Game of Thrones (2011-2019)

(Rare “Mistakes”)

A Movie Is Not a Telegram

A Movie Is Not a Telegram

• What is the movie’s meaning?
• What is the author/director trying to say…? Did we get it?
• Not as simple as standard conception of communication: (Sender-Message-Receiver)
• Who is the film’s author anyway?
• And can we simply reduce the film to what the author consciously intended?
• What about what the film means to me?
• “If we consider those ‘readings’ to be somehow less valid than the filmmaker’s, then we lose much of the complexity of how movies work, make meaning, and provide pleasure in our society” (130).

“Reading into” Films

“Reading into” Films

• What does it mean to “read into” a movie?
• Previous experience with film
• Genre expectations
• Astute filmmakers build on, and experiment with, expectations…
• A wide range of readings are possible!
• Some more “reputable” or “proveable” than others…
• Type “Film Theories” or “Film Explained” into YouTube’s search bar and have some fun…

The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946) & Ip Man (Yip, 2008)

(Previous experience with film)

Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) & Scream (Craven, 1996)

(Genre Expectations)

Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) & Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (Craig, 2010)

(Building on audience expectations)

Top Gun (Scott, 1986) & Sleep With Me (Kelly, 1994)

(Wide range of readings…)

It’s Just a Movie

It’s Just a Movie

• Why do we spend so much time analyzing movies? Who cares?
• Would you say the same about Plato? Dante? Shakespeare? Dickens?
• Hitchcock? Kubrick? Spielberg? Nolan?
• Social status vs. works themselves
• “Instead of relying on our society’s understanding of what artworks are good enough to be taken seriously, we should instead look to the artworks themselves” (132).
• Of course not all texts are equally rich with complexity, leading to fruitful analysis…
• But there’s always SOMETHING to analyze about ALL texts (theoretical, industrial, social, national, ideological, racial, contextual, political, formal, narratological, sexual, historical, and so on...)
• “All cultural products carry cultural meaning” (132).

Ruining the Movie

Ruining the Movie

• Won’t all this analysis kill the pleasure of watching movies?
• Films as “mere entertainment”? Escapism?
• The answer to the question “Can’t you ever just watch a movie?” doesn’t have to be an either/or.
• We can experience “cerebral analysis” and “visceral pleasure” simultaneously (133).
• Add pleasures of analysis to the pleasures of moviegoing!
• May be tedious and/or unpleasurable at first
• But eventually, it becomes an even greater and richer experience

Key and Peele (2012-2015)

“‘Why do that? Why tinker with the simple pleasure of watching a movie?’

This question goes to the foundation of what education is. The basic faith underlying education is that an examined life is better, richer, and fuller than an unexamined life.

How do we really know that self-examination is better than the bliss of simple ignorance?

Like most statements of faith, there is no way to prove it. But by being in a college classroom, you have allied yourself with those of us who believe that if you do not examine the forces in your life, you will become subject to them.

You can go through life merely responding to movies, but if you are an educated person, you will also think about them, about what they mean, and how they are constructed. In so doing, you may experience pleasures and insights that you could not have obtained any other way.

This is the promise of the educated life in reading, in living, and in watching movies” (133).

Watch more movies!

Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986)

Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998)

Guns Akimbo (Howden, 2020)

Blue (Jarman, 1993) & John Waters on Blue

Nosferatu (Eggers, 2024) Masterpiece or Terrible?