The Resonance Rating

What is the Resonance Rating (RR)?

Traditional movie ratings include stars, thumbs up or, in the case of the San Francisco Examiner, the funny little man in the theater, who ranges from jumping out of the seat with applause to leaving it empty all together. The general idea of the rating is to give a quick look at the reviewer’s overall judgment of the film; In other words, how good or bad was it.

That’s a metric I will consider with an added measure, with a nod toward what I see as a film’s greatness. Greatness is an obsession of mine. What makes things great? Who makes things great? How long do they remain great? I will rate movies based on how they make me feel and how long I believe they’ll stick with me. This is the Resonance Rating.

I think the measure of a great movie is often not known for ten years. “Does it hold up?” is the common phrase. This is still highly subjective of course, because what resonates for me may not for another, but it takes away the simpler idea of whether or not I found something enjoyable. There are great films I do not enjoy nor wish to revisit. One is Saving Private Ryan. That affected me deeply. I won’t look at it again – especially the horrific opening sequence. There are movies with far less resonance I’ve revisited many times – campy comedies like “Space Balls” comes to mind.

The ultimate modern societal award for greatness is an Oscar. Though the Academy is notoriously tight-lipped about how it chooses it’s winners, this is where I think the Resonance Rating should be applied. A practical, semi-recent example of a film that was given the Best Picture nod that is completely forgettable now is The Artist. While not a “bad” film, it was a gimmick film, based on it being a silent picture. Were I to go back and give that film a Resonant Rating, it would be 2.5 out of 5. Hugo, Moneyball and The Tree of Life were all far superior films on the Resonance Rating, more memorable today and more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar.

Resonance will be measured in NKH reviews on a 0-5 scale by ripples (like the difference of a pebble to a boulder in a pond), with zero being low and five being the highest. 

This follows a line of thinking about what makes art great, in general. Does it relate to more than just the immediate pop culture? Does it speak to soemthing larger than the era in which it was created and distributed? Does it approach "truth" - the squishiest of terms that we all define like Justice Potter Stewart considering Obscenity: "I know what it is when I see it". That's what I'm after here: the great pieces of cinematic art that will be considered for decades to come. That doesn't mean they have to be epic, massive or tell some type of "important" story on a grand scale. They can be small, intimate, perhaps just about a person going through something that is desperately important to her. While you'd never miss a big action sequence shoot 'em up scene in a major metropolis in real life as the media would devour it and spit it out for your viewing pleasure, a private struggle like Lester Burnham's in American Beauty would likely fly right under the radar. Yet on the big screen for us to see, examine, judge, pull apart, laugh, cry and gasp at, it's miraculous. It teaches us something. It is truthful. Other Best Picture examples that follow relatively small stories to great heights include Million Dollar Baby, Rain Man and No Country for Old Men. 

The other side of the coin? Argo, The artist, Crash, Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient -- all fine films in their own right and considered good enough to win in the individual years they came out, perhaps, in part due to the films they were up against, or the particular important cultural events of the moment or, sadly, due to a great marketing campaign. None of those films would resonate above a 3.5 on the Resonance Rating scale. Resonance has long-lasting impact. It rises above good and bad and has us consider truth.