Legendary director Martin Scorsese defines a good movie as sucking in the reader to the point where they’re hypnotized by a film. It makes them slip into a different plane of consciousness in between being awake and being asleep. Really, there is no concrete answer to what makes a movie enjoyable, but through interviewing various students of all walks of life around New Hartford I believe I can answer three different questions. What are the favorite movies of New Hartford students? What genre of movies is most popular for high school students? And what features or qualities do they all have in common?
After interviewing twenty New Hartford students I feel like I have a good answer to all of those questions.
I asked two questions to the students, “What’s your favorite movie?” and “Why?’
Let’s break down the data.
Out of the twenty kids only one movie was mentioned twice, Clueless (1995). This movie was cited as their favorite movie by both senior Clarabelle Shupp and sophomore Gabriella Barnes. It is a romcom starring Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd. Many critics claim that this was the film where Paul Rudd broke out, playing the enigmatic Josh.
Out of the twenty students the Disney/Animated movie genre was by far the most popular with 5 out of the twenty students choosing a film from the category. Other popular genres were Dramas (with four tallies) and Romantic Comedies (also with four).
If you break it down by gender the two most popular dramas for males were dramas and Disney/animated. Combined they make up 4/7 of the males. The three other categories were gangster, comedy, and superhero.
For females the results were just as scattered out of the thirteen girls I interviewed, four chose a romcom as their favorite movie, three of them chose a Disney/animated movie, two chose a drama, one chose an action movie and two chose a period piece.
So, what features do all of these movies have in common? What makes a film enjoyable? Half of all students I interviewed mentioned good characters or good acting. In fact Jace Gattari, Norah Taylor-O’Connell, Evie Pauley, Maddie Appler, Caitlin Greene, Evie Ruggerio, Clarabelle Shupp, Benjamin Stevens, Jace Sandwick, and myself all included this as the key to a great movie.
Other students like Anayla Thompson, Grace Callard, and Juliana Allen claim character development is essential to a good film.
Another feature brought up a lot was a good plot. Students Jace Gattari, Alex O’Brien, David Amankwah, Clarabelle Shupp, Ja’Quae Antonuk, and Juliana Allen all cited this.
Surprisingly only two people brought up good cinematography, Norah Taylor-O’Conell and myself.
According to letterboxd, the top five rated movies chosen by the students I interviewed were: Goodfellas (said by myself), Silence of the lambs (Evie Ruggerio), Dead Poets Society (Evie Pauley), Forrest Gump (Jierui Lin), and Little women (Norah Taylor-O’Connell).
However, at the end of the day what makes cinema so beautiful is how subjective it is.
