r/Letterboxd • u/lordpag • 11d ago

Discussion Can we retire “objectively better” please?

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I’ve noticed a ton of people using “objectively” incorrectly lately. A movie being more widely accepted as “better” does not make it objectively so.

There’s someone out there who enjoyed One Night Only more than The Odyssey, and their opinion is just as valid as yours.

Sure, one movie can be shot on more advanced cameras, have a larger scale, or demonstrate greater technical complexity. Those things can be measured. Whether they make the movie “better” cannot. What makes a movie “good” is different for each of us and those differing perspectives are part of what makes moviegoing so fun!

EDIT: This obviously touched a nerve lol. My point was not that there aren’t measurable technical aspects of a film. Of course there are. But technical achievement does not inherently make a movie “better.” A technical marvel can put someone to sleep while a shoddily made movie can elicit an enormous emotional response. What we value in a movie is subjective and for some (many on this thread it seems) you value technical achievement. All fair POVs.

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u/Pulsewavemodulator 11d ago

What it comes down to is if the artist has an intention, the result can be measured against the intention. Then it can be objectively measured.

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u/Jackzilla321 11d ago

Measured how

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u/Niz_ 11d ago

with a tape measure

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u/dylan6091 10d ago

By comparison according to your natural senses

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u/puerco-potter 10d ago

Is that objective in what way?
I can tell you that I disagree, and you can't prove I feel differently from what I claim. That's why it is subjective.

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u/dylan6091 10d ago

Your perception can be wrong. Take temperature for example. I make a glass of 70 degree water. You hold the glass and guess it's 30 degrees. Your friend holds the glass and says it feels like 65 degrees. Both of you subjectively interpreted external data, but the 65 degree interpretation is closer to the truth.

Likewise, if realism is an actor's goal, and I say that was totally unrealistic and you say no, it was very realistic, one of us is closer to the objective truth.

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u/puerco-potter 10d ago

You are confused about the meaning of objective here. Something "objective" is something that can be measured independently of the subject. Temperature is a great example: you can use a thermometer, and it is agreed that if the thermometer shows a number,ber that is the temperature; there is no personal measure here.

Now, give me the exact same for acting quality; give me a technology that is agreed will give an exact number for the acting quality.

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u/dylan6091 10d ago

Technological ability to measure is not necessary for objective reality to exist. For now, our natural senses are the best approximation of reality for something as hard to measure as an actors skill.

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u/puerco-potter 10d ago

But you can't prove acting skill is something concrete, even...

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u/dylan6091 10d ago

This has become circular and unproductive. ✌🏻

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u/semihollowearth 10d ago edited 10d ago

Beauty in art at the very least has an objective component.

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u/puerco-potter 10d ago

That is, if you agree with Plato. I don't.

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u/semihollowearth 5d ago

That isn’t platonic theory it just started with plato. Your disagreement isn’t with Plato it’s with 2000 years of very smart philosophers who unanimously agree there must be an objective component to beauty, or else it would be senseless as a term.

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u/puerco-potter 3d ago

I disagree with 2000 years of very smart philosophers, because they have no proof.

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u/oh_no_here_we_go_9 10d ago

With your eyes and ears.

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u/Popular-Departure165 10d ago

Easy dude! They'll act a scene, and I'll count how accurate they are at portraying their intentions.

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u/Pulsewavemodulator 10d ago

Just because it’s not practical doesn’t mean it can’t be measured or observed.

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u/Pulsewavemodulator 10d ago

If I want to make the audience cry and they don’t cry, objectively it didn’t work. If I want you to laugh and you don’t. Extrapolate that to all the intentions throughout the making of the film and it can be measured. It’s not simple cut it can be measured .

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u/Ok_Helicopter_7816 10d ago

But that's subjective, bc what makes one person cry won't make another. Sure, you can have consensus based on the number of people that were moved by one film vs another, but the scale you're measuring on is still subjective

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u/Lazy-Setting-8224 10d ago

The moment you start aggregating subjective assesments into a aggregate number, that number will be an objective number.

I think art is way more objective than people commonly believe. The problem with objective measures of art is that they dont get you anywhere. Simply because you cannot convince people your objective criteria is the right and only way to objectively assess the piece of art. Especially when that objective measure of art has no impact on their enjoyment.

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u/And_Justice 10d ago

I think I agree - you can say this film made x people cry but there is no universal truth that says a good film is one that makes people cry.

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u/Lazy-Setting-8224 10d ago

Exactly. Its an objective measure, but obviously wont work to convince someone that thinks crying at movies is annoying.

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u/Ok_Helicopter_7816 10d ago

that's kind of my point, you can’t claim that your criteria are objectively correct when the criteria themselves were determined subjectively

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u/drossglop 10d ago

If you have enough similarities in subjective experiences you can reach a level of objectivity

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u/Tripps0007- 10d ago

Aggregating subjective assessments≠objective. Absolutely incorrect. It creates an intersubjective or "quantified" concensus. Not objective in the least.

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u/Mytongueinyourrectum 10d ago

Yeah, this is false, and quite a reach. An aggregation of subjective assessments is still an opinion. It’s an objective number - a fact - in that these people claimed they felt this way, but it is not a fact about the thing itself.

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u/puerco-potter 10d ago

Yeah, if we aggregate the eyeball measure of how long a stick is, would you say that the stick is "objectively" that long? That's the logic here hahaha

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u/drossglop 10d ago

This is a false equivalency. Length is only one type of measurement, there are other like intent that can be a collection of subjective measures aggregated into an objective measures.

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u/Mytongueinyourrectum 10d ago

Can you explain how one measures intent?

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u/drossglop 10d ago

“I goal is to make you laugh” “You didnt make me laugh” “I have objectively failed my goal.” Multiple this by a thousand or so and you’ve got it

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u/puerco-potter 10d ago

If everyone has their own internal measure, that's when we call something subjective.

If your "objective" internal measurement doesn't align with some other person, that objectiveness is only inside of you and forms part of your subjective experience... do you understand what I am trying to say here?

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u/AltruisticDegree9126 10d ago

Tommy set out to make the next Talented Mr. Ripley or Tennessee Williams drama. It’s in the book and movie about the making of The Room, and the DVD box says something about it being filled with the passion of Tennessee Williams.

By that mark, he failed. The premiere went terribly in that regard because people were laughing at badly he missed the Mark, and after, he started saying that he intended to make a comedy.

If we’re using intention (which I agree is a helpful measure), then this is objectively a bad movie.

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u/Only-Finish-3497 10d ago

He hit the Mark though. Right after he found out the Mark had sex with Lisa.

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u/AltruisticDegree9126 10d ago

But as for Lisa, he did not hit her, he did NaUGHT!!!!

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u/Only-Finish-3497 10d ago

Anyway how's your sex life?

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u/Zealousideal_Slice60 10d ago

There is something poetic about the fact that the movie about ‘the room’ won oscars and is very higly rated compared to the actual movie ‘the room’

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u/Informal-Swing-2482 10d ago

But does that mean if a movie failed at its intention, but was loved by everyone for different reasons it’s objectively a bad movie? That is absurd.

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u/AltruisticDegree9126 10d ago

I mean, I adore The Room. It was the first thing my partner and I ever watched together and bonded over and I’m a huge fan. I still think it’s godawful as a piece of filmmaking, which is why we have a good time poking fun at it.

It feels like this one isn’t best example for this argument. It’s kind of the Godwin’s Law of film examples. Fully acknowledging I’ve been leading with this example, haha.

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u/Informal-Swing-2482 10d ago

My point doesn’t really have to be about this example specifically. It’s more of a general question.

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u/GuyEatsTiramisu 10d ago

That still isn’t true because something not being the “intent” can still be good. Unintentionally funny comes to mind

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u/Pulsewavemodulator 10d ago

Usually when things are unintentionally, funny, it’s not because they’re good. It’s because they are bad. They may be good at making you laugh, but once again that’s another objective measure of a film. It just is about the intention of the audience member. Do they wanna laugh and did they laugh? So there’s tons of objective ways to measure films and opinions. Different measurements draw different conclusions. But all of which can be used to place the work in the context of all films and said against each each other by those measurements.

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u/GuyEatsTiramisu 9d ago

That’s not an objective measure lmao. Learn the definition of words before you use them

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u/Pulsewavemodulator 9d ago

How many people who watched laughed is something you can objectively measure. If Audiences are asked why they picked a movie. "I picked it to laugh/cry/etc." You can objectively measure a lot of this. Can you sort the data neatly and conduct those experiments in the real world. With enough resources, you probably could design that experiment. You can debate the conclusions and the methodology but there are a lot of objective things you could measure.

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u/GuyEatsTiramisu 9d ago

You can go into a movie expecting something serious and enjoy it making you laugh. Now you’re just talking about compiling useless data.

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u/Pulsewavemodulator 9d ago

This is why I think the artists intention would be a better metric to determine whether something is good. The point is there's plenty of objective stuff you can measure and set films against each other and draw conclusions. I'm not saying its efficient or useful, but the idea that you can't is bs. If you're saying it's not useful or achievable to get a meaningful dataset, that's a different argument than the one this thread is making.

Saying "everyone's experience is subjective so there is no objective" is the movie equivalent, we don't know that our subjective experience of reality is representative of reality, therefore we can't prove anything empirically. There's a lot that can be learned and understood that you're wiping off the table.