Art is the manifestation or implementation of human creativity, talent, and imagination. It can influence our society in ways that we cannot comprehend or rationalize. Art is everywhere, but to generalise it, it is categorised into seven different forms: painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, theatre, music, and cinema.
The personas and the pictures that every film generates, whether it is fantasy, real-time, or a depiction of tangled genres, always try to lie in line with society’s ambitions and the inherent need for humanity to co-exist. Over a century, the cinema industry has come a long way from being a taboo and an outright abomination to being a lifestyle.
Cinema provides a platform where we see the depiction of our world grow in several sectors, like the economy, technical advancement, political choices, love and life. A film is just another depiction of joy in the eyes of its audiences, but it is a story that brings out the real essence of the political, economic, and sociological instances in our day-to-day lives.
Despite this, the power of cinema is still unknown to more than half the world. Cinema holds the massive power to spark revolutions. In the past, a lot of films were used as propaganda, specifically during World War II. There are many ways in which movies reflect and leave an impression on their audiences. For example, a movie delivering a compassionate message makes many individuals empathetic. Films, in more than one way, successfully furnish the thought of having a positive impact on society, encouraging people to do well and contribute to humanity.
Cinema is a filtered version of reality, and it truly is a reflection of society. Films are frantic and really look forward to connecting with their audiences, trying to fulfill what society truly desires. Films contradict societal morality by showing us the world through the eyes of our storyteller. We see different worlds through the eyes of others, making us realise there is so much out there, so many distinct cultures, languages, and people, giving us an insight into how the world changes and how we are all connected by the world of cinema.
Life has no purpose, as we see it, has no purpose. We have to create a purpose. In one of his interviews, Javed Akhtar, the well-known poet, screenwriter, and lyricist, said films make this life better, until we leave it, and this is what cinema owes to society; they create purpose.
OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime have connected the world of cinema so tightly that people all around the globe can watch movies in so many languages with the aid of subtitles. The subscribers of these platforms have access to a plethora of movies, web series, documentaries, and cartoons depicting various cultures, languages, people, costumes, and traditions, making us familiar with parts of the world we could never experience.
Apart from the fact that cinema and films reflect on our society, the films we watch surely shape and influence our ideologies. Therefore, cinema does, without a doubt, strengthen some cultural factors while disregarding the nuances. The directors of the new world cinema are surely generating ideas that reflect bolder subjects and ideas amongst their audiences. The cinema has started to show and touch on the stringent topics and issues that are happening around us. However, Gulzar, in an interview, said that cinema is not the bible; it can try to show us, but it is not meant to teach us. It also depends on us what they perceive out of what is projected in the movies.
The movies we watch are like the mirrors we have at home; they show us our reality. That is how cinema works. It brings to you movies from all parts of our world. Cinema assists us in understanding the dark realities and detecting the wrongdoings of the society we co-exist in. Some movies are picked up from real-time stories of people, some are inspired by a random thought, some are fiction and some are abstract, but no matter what the genre, they always have a message to deliver. These movies that we watch mirror our daily lives; they impact our thoughts and how we function. Films depict changing representations, morale changes, and the transformation of their audience.
There are many opportunities to learn from in the world of cinema. It is influential and can create awareness in many aspects of society. Movies like Thappad and Pink in Bollywood carry a very strong message, inspiring many women in today’s society to stand up for themselves.
As we know, there are archaic traditional methods like historical materials that tend to focus on major events and important political figures. Movies are more akin to connecting us to the vents of the past; the film is possibly more akin to these recordings of everyday life than it is to historical documents. Motion movies may be the finest way to understand what it felt like to have a walk down the streets of Paris, how fascinating a Japanese tea ceremony was back in the days, how Hitler declared the war, or how randomly people worked throughout their Sundays, or just sat down in parks. It has always proven to be the best way of retelling historical events since the early decades of cinema.