Cinema as Poetry and My Taste in Film

I like to think of films through the lens of poetry (importantly different than a film poem). Or maybe its perhaps simpler to say that I prefer films that feel like poetry. Not all films are best understood through this lens, like Marvel movies for example because of their primary focus on entertainment and narrative arcs over thematic messaging (which isn’t to say that there is no thematic content). How might we judge cinema as poetry? How do we judge poetry? “Much of the muddle one finds oneself in when theorizing about poetry results from the fact that we look at a poem from two not easily reconcilable perspectives: we demand that the poem be successful by virtue of its form, yet we also find its significance by virtue of what it communicates. A poem is incompetent if its form is flawed; trivial if it fails to make us feel or think more deeply.” - The Philosophy of Poetry | Issue 114 | Philosophy Now A good movie then uses its formal elements to make us feel something or think…