Movies have become one of the most influential factors in modern society. From starting new trends to educating the ordinary people, movies undoubtedly make an impression on the general public. Since the discovery of the very first motion picture in 1890s, movies have become a visual documentation on events of human evolution. Talking about the movies that are produced for entertainment purposes, here is a quote, from the Pulitzer Prize winner film critic Roger Ebert:
"We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls.They allow us to enter other minds not simply in sense of identifying with the characters, but by seeing the world as another person sees it."
-Roger Ebert
Roger once said that art is the closest that we could come to understanding how a stranger feels and movies as an amalgum of audio and visual form of arts, makes a very complex and sophisticated form of art. There is an undeniable effect that movies have in our thought process. When we exit a theatre after watching a movie, we leave with the definite kind of thoughts depending upon the movie we watched. With our responsibilities of daily life we skip through myriads of social and emotional aspects that keep us humane. We live in a world with so much colors and variations of human aspects but we fail to recognize and enjoy, while busy in our commitments. And that is where movies are a sweet reminder of what we are and what we have. Let us take "Forrest Gump" for instance that portrays the innocence of a guy, with the spirit to make something out of himself despite all the shortcomings. Or the more recent one "Happythankyoumoreplease", which shows characters, no different from the ones in our neighborhood. The characters in the reel world are no different from those in our real world and the challenges they face are just a version of the ones we face. And movies help us understand life through different perspectives.
Let us take modern historical period movies and old classic ones, they are a depiction of how things were in the days gone by. As ordinary people they tend to be a reminder of our heritage, a source of reminiscence and nostalgia. There are also movies like "Blade Runner" which give us a peek into how things could be in the future, and there are ones that make us laugh and have a good time. Educating us, tickling our funny bones to cautioning us about the future events that could fall upon us, movies have an undeniable influence on our thoughts and actions.
There is little bad with every little good
Movie as a technology has grown from a simple fast moving collection of pictures to a complicated industry. With the technology's ever growing popularity, movies have now become an integral part of our daily life. Be it in a friendly chat among friends or the daily news broadcast, movies are one of the subjects of discussion. Primarily a form of entertainment, movies as a whole is also listed as an informal source of education. Many people tend to learn from movies more than any other formal source, although that might seem like an overstatement. In many under developed countries movies and television series are used as the means for educating the population for social reform and bring an overall change. There is no denying on a vast reach of movies, this however could have a very bad effect, as not every movie carries the same humane values.
Movies that fall under the genres like historical drama, historical war movies and biopics are often criticized for taking liberty with the historical facts. They are accused of bending the story to dramatize events and make interesting movies. One of such movies is "Pearl Harbor", which was released under much criticism. With film makers taking such liberty with the historical subject matters, it is both disrespectful and unforgivable. Due to such movies gullible audiences go on to believe a fiction to be the fact, which is not a good thing. On the other hand there are movies that fall under action and horror genres which are criticized for violent contents. Directors like Quentin Tarantino in Hollywood and Anurag Kashyap in Bollywood have their respective reason and logical explanations regarding such contents. Despite their reasonable explanations there is no denying that the exposure to violence may cause personality disorder in kids and other receptive demographic. There exists proper processes of identification and allotting category a movie goes through before its release to diminish such adverse effects. However their presence is only as good as the implementation