Performance Or Plot?
Which do you consider the bigger ingredient in a film's success? Intricate plotting or great performances?
When one considers why a film succeeds, there are many factors to consider. The greatest films of all time succeed because they fire on all cylinders: they have great plots, captivating screenplays, iconic performances, and skillful direction. Films like CITIZEN KANE, THE WIZARD OF OZ, GONE WITH THE WIND, and THE GODFATHER show how all of these skills come together in glorious ways. But in this day and age, film success is quantified and predicted based on sure-fire hooks or gimmicky casting. The question is - which is the more important ingredient for success? SAW was a film that was successful entirely because of its plotting, particularly the twist ending that shocked everyone so thoroughly. Performance had nothing at all to do with the success of the film; in fact, the film succeeded in spite of the performances, which were uniformly bad. To some degree THE MATRIX falls into this category; the performances are almost all bland and lifeless, but the heady plot machinations (and some revolutionary special effects) carried the film to great box office success and critical acclaim. Another example might be mechanical action films like SPEED or TWISTER, whose plot devices are infinitely more interesting than the people on the screen.