Hard Work

Ok, so I am still new to blogging, and I can't say that I am picking up quite how it all works (I am fairly awful with technology), so I thought I would just start writing - which is why I set it up in the first place.

I wrote in my first post that I would write about films, which I think will be my predominant focus. What is it about a film/film that makes them so great? Why have they become so influential?

I think, at the heart of it, there lies human's love of stories. My prehistoric knowledge is quite poor, but I know they used to tell each other stories in between wearing furred loin cloths and hunting mammoths. And films have evolved from that - filling in the gaps of ordinary people's lives. At least, that's how I see them.

So I saw 'Lincoln' at the cinema a week or so ago. You have to hand it to Spielberg, that man is amazing. Regardless of whether a person likes his films or not, there is something about the cinematography that makes his films so wonderful to watch. There is a scene in the film (no worries, this is not a spoiler) in Lincoln's office, when he and his politco friend (William Seward I believe) are smoking their fat old cigars, and there are plumes of smoke rising in the background. It's so atmospheric.

I sound like a geek/boring, but it's little things like that which make a film visually brilliant. I can list other directors who do that too - Joe Wright, for example, or Terrence Malick.

At any rate, it's just interesting to think: what actually is it that makes a good film? Likewise with acting, you can't pinpoint exactly what is so good about a performance, and yet it just is. I suppose we all search to be good at something, and be at standard where people can't work out what it is that makes that something so good. I suppose the only ingredient that is definitely needed is hard work.