Life is hard to explain.
It can be a challenge to know what direction you want to go in. And you know the worst thing? There’s sometimes no one to help. Sometimes you need advice that the people around you cannot give or don’t know they should be giving. In my opinion, our current education system fails to teach you about life and about yourself; there are no formal ways of learning these things. This is where films come in.
I believe that the right film at the right time can help you immensely. Sometimes with things you didn’t even know you needed help with, and can prepare you for at least some of the highs and lows of life. In 1999, ‘Fight Club’ taught us of the dangers of our own masculinity and made men all around the world examine their idols. In 2015, ‘Inside Out’ taught kids that it’s okay to be sad, and 9 years before that, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ taught us how important it is to be yourself. Need more convincing? In 2015, ‘Whiplash’ taught us the cost of working hard whilst in 1994, The ‘Shawshank Redemption’ showed us the rewards from hard work. ‘Juno’ in 2008 taught us more about abortion than any biased pamphlet or Facebook page. Way back in 1946 ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ taught us the importance of friends and family in times of need and became a staple of family Christmas viewing.
Everyone is affected by the movies they watch in different ways. Some may see the original ‘Back To The Future’ as just another sci-fi adventure flick, but for me, it showed that my parents had a life before I came along. They had dreams, loves and youth that, otherwise, I would never have thought about. I believe that is what’s important here: what a film means for you. In a world where it’s so easy to get wrapped up in your own life, film gives you the vehicle to consider other lives and your own, all whilst eating popcorn on a plush leather seat.
Films can deliver messages to millions through a medium that allows its recipients to draw their own meaning from what they see. At their best, films can be a window into a part of life you haven’t come across yet or one that you may never see. In 1993, Jonathan Demme released ‘Philadelphia’ and it changed the discussion on HIV and AIDS. Marla Gold, a former assistant city health commissioner and HIV doctor said, “Philadelphia managed to do what health leaders had tried and tried to do, yet often fell short: fostering an accurate public awareness about the AIDS epidemic.”. The film gave the public a window into the life of someone with HIV by using a huge movie star (Tom Hanks) and Jonathan Demme who was hot off ‘Silence of the Lambs’ to, at least partly, remove the stigma associated with the disease. ‘Philadelphia’ allowed people to empathise both in social situations and in the courtroom. The film spread awareness on a global scale by delivering a story to millions, and giving hope to thousands, by changing the conversation and shedding light on a real life issue that many were facing at the time.
Films are important culturally too. In 2014, the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy, ‘The Interview’, nearly caused a war by portraying the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, as an idiot. That, however, is an extreme example. I think the best way to analyse the cultural impact of film is to look at Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jaws’, released in the summer of 1975. The film opened in 464 cinemas across the US and was seen by millions. Needless to say, the film did not paint sharks in a good light. In fact, National Geographic commented, ‘Before Jaws, very little was known about the predators. After the film’s release, interest in sharks skyrocketed’. This ‘interest’ was not exactly positive.
The film had a direct impact on people’s behaviour. Due to the extremely negative depiction of sharks in the film people were actively hunting sharks soon after the film’s release. This rush was called ‘The Jaws effect’ and there is evidence that this has had a hand in Great White Sharks now being an endangered species. Many sources also reported that beach attendance dropped that year, most likely as a result of the killer shark. ‘Jaws’ was a phenomenon. It cemented the idea that films impact the world in very real ways.
Even if none of the points I have put forward so far were relevant, the fact remains that film is a form of art. I am not simply stating this as an opinion; film falls very clearly under the definition of art. In the first chapter of James Monaco’s ‘How To Read A Film’, he breaks down what art is via the current definition that now includes both representational media and recorded media. He says: ‘[Today there is] a spectrum of the arts that looks like this:
- the performance arts, which happen in real time;
- the representational arts, which depend on the established codes and conventions of language (both pictorial and literary) to convey information about the subject to the observer;
- the recording arts, which provide a more direct path between subject and observer: media not without their own codes but qualitatively more direct than the media of the representational arts.’
The medium of film easily fits into this spectrum. In my opinion, art should be preserved as a representation of culture and as an interpretive medium on equal standing with that of other more established forms of art.
Therefore, the decline of cinema should be seen in the same way as if there was a major threat to any other form of art culture. However, with film being a relatively modern medium, established in the last 100 years (and even more recently in the form that we see today), many dismiss it as inferior. I would strongly disagree as I believe film as art can evoke emotion in a way that no other form of art can. I believe that this alone is enough reason to try our hardest to preserve film.
SteffHMovies 