The lost art of cinema

There was a time when people went to see films. Nowadays, people go to see movies. They may sound similar, but there is, in fact, a world of difference.

When moving pictures were first invented just before the turn of the 20th century, they were a novelty; sitting in a crowded theatre watching a few minutes of a train moving in real time on the big screen was a fun family outing. The art form evolved rapidly and by the 1910s, films were being made.

The greats of the silent era like D.W. Griffith, Erich Von Stroheim, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin truly began to cultivate their films into artistic expressions. Griffith's masterpiece, The Birth of a Nation, while admittedly one of the most racist and controversial films ever produced, was an epic. At more than three hours long, people went to multiple viewings of it, largely because, though harsh, the story was essentially true. Keaton and Chaplin, on the other hand, cleverly disguised deep, socio-political messages with their outrageous slapstick comedy. During the silent era, films had meaning and a message.

With the invention of synchronized sound, or talkies as they were called in the late '20s, the art form reached even greater heights. The first wave came from Hollywood. Classic romances like Casablanca and A Philadelphia Story made women fall in love with not only the men they saw, but with the way that watching movies made them feel.

At the height of classic Hollywood, you couldn't just throw on an old pair of jeans and a hoodie and head out to see a movie. Instead, dress codes were observed in many theatres, and besides that, people wanted to dress up and have a classy night out watching the latest Humphrey Bogart film.

By the conclusion of World War II, when people were loving films as an escape from reality, the Italian directors gave the world a look at their dark, desperate realities though their neo-realism movement. The Bicycle Thieves is heralded as one of the greatest films of all time, though its story has not an ounce of optimism or cheer in it.

The French New Wave came next with its so-called "art house films" like Pierrot le Fou and Jules et Jim. All the while, great directors were emerging all over the world like Akira Kurosawa in Japan, Ingmar Bergman in Sweden and the unforgettable Orson Wells in America. These three men gave the world what are considered to be the most artistic films of cinematic history; Rashomon, Persona and the pinnacle of cinematic art, Citizen Kane.

Sadly, for those cinephiles still alive and well out there, films have all but disappeared and movies have taken their place. We now live in a movie culture that revolves largely around torture porn horror flicks, endless rounds of sequels and remakes and Michael Bay's penchant for blowing up anything and everything on screen.

I do believe that some artist films are still being made — The Artist seems to be the best example — but they are becoming ever rarer. It saddens me to think that the art of cinema is getting lost in all the new technologies that are available to modern-day directors. Saturated with CGI and 3D effects, movies are becoming more and more of an attack on the senses than anything else.

I don't see any way of reverting movies to the great art of films, so I'll just keep sitting around with my fellow cinephiles, watching The Lady Eve and longing for one great artist to come along and bring my beloved art form back.

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