the diminishing virtuosity of cinema

What happened to us? No, really, what happened? We used to be good at this.

I always talk about my love for movies and television shows, but do I rarely ever describe my love for the process of film-making. The how, and the why, almost always convey infinitely more than the what.

More than a hundred and fifty-odd years ago, this small group of people took these long strips of celluloid photographic film, and armed with a shutter and a lens, tried to see if they could get some moving pictures. Portions of silver halide tapered on the surface of the strips would only be accosted by light for moments before the next bit, and the next, and you get the point. Develop the film, roll into reels, and project it with light quick and bright enough, shit, the pictures might just start moving. And, what do you know, it did.

Cinematography, from the ancient Greek, kìnema ("movement"), and gràphein ("to write"), literally translates to compose motion. To create and capture something that lives and moves, an entity that exists, and to record and store its vitality in a form so real and true, that it lives forever. Call me an old-school romantic but ideas like these are ones worth living for.

Hand me a camera, and I would probably go lifetimes before I mastered the art that I so sincerely devote these inconsequential paragraphs to. But I'd be lying if I said that once in a while, when I wonder at the unparalleled ingenuity and exquisite calm of artistic work that has been so eloquently crafted by generations of filmmakers before me, that I'm not tempted to try.

Perhaps that, is why the bastardisation of cinema now, is an everlasting torment that I have to suffer through for days to come.

We used to make films. We used to tell stories which were honest and tender. Poignant reflections of our deepest selves. We used to shroud ourselves in luminous brilliance. Infinitely possible worlds, bound finely together in imaginative spectacle. We used to gaze at screens with shock and awe. Fragments of time, framed in majestic beauty.

Bicycle Thieves. 12 Angry Men. Casablanca. Pather Pachali. Seven Samurai.

These were films. And the people that made that happen, they were heroes. Ray, Welles, Kurosawa, Bergman, Spielberg.

The things we watch now are a shallow imitation of what cinema used to be. Cinema used to be about truth. Being true to yourself. Your audience. Creating an idea that lives in a form so visceral that even centuries later, the truth may stand alone for people to adjudge.

So if anything, consider this not my absolution but a plea: watch a good movie, your life might just change.