Learning to understand movies isn’t hard, or reserved for the educated elite. You can do it, based on skills you already know, once you see how it’s done.
As an example, let’s look at a scene from Top Gun: Maverick. Movies about airplanes can be very clear, because pilots announce their actions over the radio and their instruments explain every little detail about the airplane. Their actions are also obvious and spectacular.
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Movies will often show or tell you an important fact more than once. Music, sound effects, visuals, and dialog are different ways of communicating. You don’t need to catch every single detail, just enough to get the sense of it.
Right at the start, we see Rooster start flying aggressively.
- Action: Rooster pushes the throttle to 100%.
- Camera: moves forward to mimic the action
- Camera: zooms in for emphasis. This is important!
- Sound effect. The throttle hits the stop. It’s impossible to go any faster.
- Action: fighter jet accelerates
- Visual: flames in the exhausts get brighter
- Motion: the fighter jet leaves the camera behind
- Sound: the engines get louder
- Action: fighter jet accelerates
- Reaction: Rooster’s head is pushed back as the jet accelerates forward.
- Motion: The ground rushes past in the background. The jet is very low, intensifying the perception of speed.
- Action: fighter jet accelerates
- Visual: the airspeed dial moves from 550 knots to 700 knots
- Camera: zooms in for emphasis. The numbers get bigger.
- Sound: the engines are still getting louder
- Action: fighter jet accelerates
- Camera: POV from the fighter jet behind Rooster.
- Action: Rooster’s fighter jet moves away
- Dialog: “Jesus, Rooster! Not that fast!”
- Expression: Payback’s eyes are wide in surprise.
- Context: Payback’s job is operating a fighter jet, and this aggression is surprising, even to him.
- Dialog: “That’s it, kid. That’s it.”
- Context: Maverick is Rooster’s mentor and the greatest fighter pilot in the history of the universe. Maverick’s approval means Rooster is acting like a great fighter pilot.
- Action: Rooster attacks
- Dialog: Alright, let’s go!
- Camera: wide-angle lens intensifies feeling of speed.
- Motion: ground rushes past in the background.
- Blocking: Fanboy/Payback are behind Rooster and small, which means he’s fast and important.
- Action: Rooster turns aggressively
- Camera: moves to follow a little late, like it was surprised by the quick motion.
- Action: Rooster’s fighter jet is aggressive
- Motion: the fighter jet turns on its side
- Camera: a telephoto lens tracking something far away makes the background whiz by in a blur
- Camera: The jet leaves the camera behind. It’s too fast!
- Action: Rooster leads Fanboy/Payback
- Motion: Rooster’s fighter jet leaps onto the screen from the left side.
- Camera: a telephoto lens tracking something far away makes the background whiz by in a blur
- Motion: Fanboy/Payback appear seconds later. They are far behind
- Camera: The camera has followed Rooster around the turn, so when Fanboy/Payback appear, they moving mostly away from the camera, not laterally. so their motion against the background is more gentle.
- Action: Fanboy is shocked by Rooster’s aggression
- Expression: Fanboy opens his eyes wide in surprise
- Motion: The plane jerks like it’s caught off-guard
- Dialog: Wow, Rooster, take it easy!
- Context: Again, Fanboy flies fighter jets for a living, and even he is shocked.
- Camera: very quick switch to a closer camera for emphasis. It’s abrupt, like Rooster’s move.
- Dialog: Sir, Dagger-2 is re-engaging.
- This is the easy stuff. The movie is just showing and telling you things directly. You see the four fighter jets, the names of the aviators, and how they are moving through the terrain. The narrow valley and the SAM sites on the map emphasize the danger. A helpful voice explains what’s happening.
Reaction: Hondo nods and seems to let out a held breath. He’s relieved by this good news.
Dialog: Alright, now hit your target and come home.
Cyclone’s not talking to the pilots over the radio. This dialog is for the audience, to remind us why Rooster needs to be so aggressive.
Reaction: Warlock looks worried.
So what techniques from these scenes can we add to our vocabulary and look for in other movies?
Communication is obvious
Understanding a movie doesn’t require a college degree. The things we are looking for aren’t hidden or subtle. As you improve and watch more movies more carefully, you will notice and appreciate more subtle or tricky techniques, but those aren’t required to start. Just be intentional. The movie wants you to understand what is happening. It wants to make you feel something. In this scene, most of the information is some variation of “GO GO GO!” and it’s delivered with the scream of jet engines and people yelling as twenty-ton war machines hurtle through a canyon near the speed of sound.
Re-inforcement through repetition
You can miss half of the hints in any scene and still know what’s happening and how to feel about it because the movie bombards you with the same message over and over on multiple channels. So don’t worry that you’re missing something. You are, and that’s fine. If you’re paying attention and noticing techniques that make you feel a certain way or understand a certain thing, you’re doing it right.
Reaction shots
This is a gimme. Very easy to recognize and understand this technique. The movie shows you something, then shows a character reacting to that thing. Usually, we’re supposed to feel the same way as the the character. Payback and Fanboy are impressed, so we should be impressed by Rooster. Cyclone and Warlock are worried, so we should be worried about the danger of the mission. When someone we don’t like reacts, we’ll probably feel the opposite. For example, if the enemy is happy, the heroes are probably losing.
Next level: Characterization through reaction
The way someone reacts can tell us about that person, not just about what they react to. For example, Payback & Fanboy are normal aviators, while Maverick is a mentor and the greatest fighter pilot in the history of the universe. Rooster’s flying is wild and surprising to normal aviators, but that extraordinary aggression is what Maverick wanted Rooster to do. He wants Rooster to be an exceptional pilot.
Explanations
Another easy one. Often, there are things in the world of the movie that exist to explain things to people in the movie, but we, the movie audience, get that explanation too. The camera helpfully shows only the parts that are important to us right now.
- mission briefings
- maps
- difficult team activities involve a lot of shouting
- military operations
- operating large vehicles
- sports
- medical procedures
- computer or phone screens
- dials, read-outs, instruments
- radio, television, newspapers
Cheating with explanations, just a little
When Cyclone says, “Alright, now hit your target and come home.” he’s not really talking to the pilots. It’s the equivalent of yelling at a sports game on television. The reason that line is in the movie is so the audience can hear it and remember the context for Rooster’s actions. You may notice a character tell another character something they obviously know. Instead of thinking, “That’s a mistake,” you should think, “This is especially for me.” The movie is going out of its way to tell you something!