Lights, Camera, Action: Human Life and Movies

Long queue of people waiting to buy tickets, popcorn stands, blockbuster hits- conscious
or not, movies are part of our daily lives. From its humble beginnings, early innovators of
filmmaking such as Georges Melies, Edwin S. Potter and D. W. Griffith, and the first superstars
of the medium such as Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow and Fatty Arbuckle, movies travelled a long
and circuitous road that eventually lead to the development of film. But how does cinema
affected human society in general? Lets shred to pieces the different sides of the silver screen.
What is a movie? Movies are considered as an art. It has the visual aspect like a painting
and sculpture. Like dancing it also occupies space and time. It uses language like a song. And
finally it tells a story like theater. Another definition of film is according to Wikipedia.org goes:
cinema is the art of simulating experiences, that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions,
feelings, beauty or atmosphere by the means of recorded or programmed moving images along
with other sensory stimulations. The definition from the most used online library, though not
as credible because users may edit and change the contents of the entry, summarizes that movies
convey, narrate or describe life.
There are different genres of movies, which are basically drawn from theater: romance,
comedy, suspense and horror. Romance talks about love, mostly clich plots like fairy tales,
where there is a protagonist, full of suffering and pain, sometimes scorned by community, fell in
love with another person. And there comes the third wheel and the list goes on and on. Romance
can be tragic, like the various film adaptations of Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet and the 2nd
top grossing film in history, James Camerons Titanic, or comedic in nature, sometimes called a
rom-com, a genre popular in the Philippines due to the success of John Lloyd Cruz-Sarah

Geronimo loveteam. Comedy is a genre with a definitive purpose: to make the audience laugh.
There are many types of the genre; among them are slapstick comedy, films first marketable
genre thanks to Chaplin and his antics, where moviegoers laugh because of mostly physical pun.
In this subgenre viewers produce a superficial laugh, with little or no emotional content. Another
type is the tragicomedy where due to funny but subtly sorrowful circumstances the protagonist
undergoes, audience produce a thoughtful laughter, like UP professor once said, tragicomedy
makes you laugh for 5 seconds and think for another 5. Down to other genres, suspense and
horror are always intertwined. But while they both produce a thrill from the viewers, there is one
thing that sets horror apart from suspense: horror involves supernatural beings such as ghosts,
spirits and elementals. Suspense, on the other hand is more factual than horror, involving real-life
physical circumstances.
After all of these presented facts, there is one question that is lurking: What is the
relationship between movies and society? Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? The
answer is both, cinema affects society and society dictates cinema all the times.
Why? Lets talk first about how society affects cinema. During the silent era of cinema,
movies with war themes like The Birth of a Nation by Griffith dominated the box office because
at this period, World War I was still happening, breaking enemys front, crossing trenches and
killing people. Thus war, through which viewers are apathetic, became relevant in society, and
creating war films will capture wider audience. After the dominance of war films, a new
development was invented: the introduction of sound. This exact moment happened on Alan
Croslands film The Jazz Singer, when Al Jonson sang some of the lines in the movie. After this
moment, silent era signaled its end and viewers, impressed by the new technology, craved for
more sound. This resulted movie producers to create musical films, again another sign that

society dictated what movie should be shown. And like history, viewers taste repeat, this time
due to World War II, war films again became blockbuster hits, like Gone with the Wind, a
historical film which hold the Guinness World Record for the number 1 top grossing film of all
time with inflation adjusted. After the resurgence of war films, musical films returned to their
box office ways until, quoting giving a taste of its own medicine, a new development was
made: the use of special effects such as CGI. This development amazed moviegoers, and this
resulted to a high demand of science fiction films such as Star Wars, E.T. the Extraterrestrial
among others. As 21st century entered, novels become more attractive to people and as a result,
this resulted to production of book adaptations such as Forrest Gump, Harry Potter series, and
the controversial and what the church deemed as blasphemous Da Vinci Code. Why does society
dictate cinema? Its simple: producers make films based on which theme would capture wider
audience and thus larger profits. And the theme on which they make the film came from the
tastes of the society, which is either a result of present events or advancement in technology.
And how does cinema affect society? Like any literature, a movie, together with its script,
cinematography, musical arrangement, and acting, affects each of its viewers through
intervening factors which may come in the form of similarity in ideology, religion, beliefs,
among others. Another point is that movies convey, narrate or describe life. This story telling
about life gives us an insight about society in general: how it operates, struggles and triumphs
over adversities. In this story telling it also gives us inspirations, exposes us the realities of our
individuals lives and by synthesizing what we have learn from movies, we create a set of morals
and philosophy that becomes an important part not just on ourselves but on society as a whole.
And lastly just like any other literature, movies can be used as tools of propaganda like what
Adolf Hitler did the Germany, exemplified in the film The Triumph of the Will by Leni

Riefenstahl, and in the World War II era United States, where the government recruited the
greatest filmmakers of the era like Walt Disney and Frank Capra, to educate the people the
governments war aims.
Author Sir Terry Pratchet once said: The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only
it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell
you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues. This correlation between life
and the movies will continue in each of our lives until the Grand Director and Producer of our
lifes film shouts Cut!