Understanding the Essence and Beauty of Cinema

Endlessly streaming your favourite films this lockdown, Have you ever wondered while watching them what is this cinema? Why are we crazy about it and why do we spend our time watching and rooting for them? Scroll down to decipher and understand the aesthetics of this visual medium called cinema.  

Let us start by quoting French New Wave Movement's leader Jean Luc Godard’s words, "Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world". It is true, in a way.

For most people, it is a shortcut to escape from reality for some time. 

I would like to consider cinema as a suspension of disbelief that offers the mind relief from the grief of everyday existence. Feels too intricate to process? Let us decrypt with some examples.

Whether it's dinosaurs coming back to life or even mankind discovering a new planet filled with blue-skinned human hybrids, cinema has made the impossible possible. Everything on-screen charms and mesmerizes us just like a magic trick. In both cinema and magic, the audience wants to be fooled.  

Fritz Lang quotes, "For me, Cinema is a vice". In simpler terms, an addiction. Every weekend, you spend money, get tickets, rush to the movie theatre no matter whether it's scorching hot or heavily raining. 

Once the title card appears with the lights fading out in sync to slowly rising music, you forget about the rest of the world. It is no different from a drug addict spending money to buy and use drugs to forget his world.

A visual medium like cinema also allows filmmakers to make films based on real incidents, problems and characters. When this happens, you see the words "Based on a true story" in bold size right before the movie begins. Such movies strive to bring a change in society and reconsider our moral actions.

Movies like The Pursuit of Happiness, Dangal, Article 15 and Pariyerum Perumal (Tamil) not only inspire us but also make us question the society that we live in. 

The best thing about cinema is that irrespective of what happens in the outside world, in the dark ambience of a theatre we can't see the differences within us. 

There is only one thing visible in front of us, through the 70mm screen is a story that will make will make us laugh, love, weep and believe that a small philosophy that you perceive through the story might change our lives forever.

Since cinema is impartial, it doesn't belong to anyone. It is universal, beyond borders, flags and the only thing you need is interest plus a tax which is called perspective that adds value to your life. 

Netflix, Amazon prime and several OTT platforms have allowed people all around the world to watch any movie, at any time irrespective of the language barrier. Cinema is the only portal that possesses the power to unite people of different states and countries and ignites a vibe of surreal connection.

For a moment, let's forget about uniting the world and be selfish. Let's focus on how it aids an individual to fill in the void spaces of life and erases loneliness. Even if you feel alone amidst a large crowd, cinema doesn't leave you to feel alone in the darkness. 

It refreshes your memories, makes us forecast the future. Might help you move on from a breakup or spark a new love arc. It heightens your spirits when you are low and when you are flying high, it humbles you. Another unique aspect of cinema is that it makes you relate to it. 

You feel entranced while watching Marvel movies with superheroes battling out to save the world because they reminisce the comic books you read and cartoon shows you binged during childhood. You love the Malayalam classic Premam, because of the memories you had back in school and college times. 

To connect with an actor, a director's style of film making, a genre or any particular film, there will always be a subconscious reason or an emotion behind it. 

When we watch a film, we not only consume the story of the movie but also our memories, dreams, difficulties, bliss, sorrows along with it. All these combined is what makes a movie, an experience.  

Cinema requires every technical department from writing screenplay, cinematography, editing and sound design to work in a coerced manner to offer a wholesome experience. But most importantly, cinema is also about "YOU". What matters is if you can connect with it or not. 

Being a cinephile myself, let me derive a chemical formula to decode cinema and summarize it in a single sentence. 

"Cinema is a captivating science of art and commerce mixed with equal proportions of truth and fiction, prepared by employing the main catalyst called the individual human emotion".

Written by - Deepan R

Edited by - Ivanova