February 21, 2011
Originality vs Focus

What makes a great movie is not its originality, but its razor sharp focus.

Take The King’s Speech. It’s about a King who overcomes his fear of public speaking to deliver a wartime speech to his citizens. It is a great movie.

But at the core, it is saying nothing new. Overcoming fear is a theme of numerous self help books and movies. I won’t bother to name all the books and movies that try to address this issue.

Here’s examples of other movies that are unoriginal:

Psycho is about a transvestite killer. It contains one of Hitchcock’s most memorable scenes and many people think of it as original. But if you wiki it, you’ll find that it is based on a play by Josef Stefano, who adapted it from a novel, which is actually based on true events of actual crimes committed by a Wisconsin serial killer.

Dial M For Murder is another Hitchcock thriller based on a play. Yet another one is Rope.

What differentiates The King’s Speech from its competition is its focus, not its originality. Every scene served the story. Remember, the movie is about a prince who overcomes his fear of public speaking. Well, the very first scene is of the prince absolutely bombing a public speech.

Well, duh. Isn’t this obvious? Yes it is. Obvious and unoriginal. So obvious it was overlooked. Overlooked as a story, overlooked by Hollywood and overlooked by moviegoers until now.

The King’s Speech is spot on. Every scene had to do with Albert’s fear of public speaking. There were no wasted shots. They make it look easy, but if it really is easy then there should be dozens of movies this year with the same kind of focus as The King’s Speech. Well, there isn’t.

Almost all movies try to be original, but they somehow always end up having the same corny special effects, the same bad guys, the same hot girl, one of ghosts, aliens, or robots, or all three.

Meanwhile, not many movies actually know what it is trying to say.

It’s okay to drive home an old point, as long as you are focused.

  1. imyjimmy posted this
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