When Louis Le Prince patented the first moving image camera in 1888, I doubt he understood the magnitude of what he had set in motion; the way we communicate and tell stories was changed forever. No longer do we need to imagine the stories in our head, told around the campfire, for better or for worse, we can put just about any story imaginable right before your eyes on the big screen.
It is incredible to think that this medium is less than two centuries old, yet it has developed so much and asserted it's dominance across the globe. The popularity and success of film as a medium is undeniable, we have reached an age where singular films can gross revenues of over a billion dollars, but how often do we ask ourselves why?
I remember hearing Tarantino talk about this, saying there is something special about the communal, shared experience of watching a film in a cinema, sharing the ups and downs of the protagonist as a group. Never have I felt this more than recently watching Spiderman: No Way Home. Hearing hundreds of viewers cheer when their favourite childhood villains returned to the big screen is certainly a moving experience. Nostalgia certainly is a powerful tool, albeit one that I feel Hollywood is exploiting too much with endless remakes and stretching out franchises. Therefore, I would say nostalgia is one big reason we watch films in our current era, to re-explore our youth.
Scorsese believes that one should learn something from watching a film, or else what's the point? When a man like he speaks, we tend to take it as gospel, however, Pulitzer prize winner David Mamet has a very different view. Mamet states in his masterclass that a films job is to entertain and only entertain, what more do you need? He even goes as far as to say if you are taught something, it is not a dramatic film, advertising or political expression perhaps, but not drama. Indeed, he goes on to say, as an audience, we should be outraged that our viewership should be abused as such as to push ideologies or (heaven forbid) try to sell us something. So are films watched to learn something or for entertainment?
If we turn to some academics for advice, we certainly don't make things any clearer. Freud would tell us we make and watch films to experience catharsis by vicariously living out our latent fears in a safe environment. A sentiment that horror master Stephen King might agree with: King writes in his essay that we are all a little crazy and we view horror films in particular to fulfil the need to satisfy our natural darker urges (what Freud would call the Id) since we no longer have gladiator fights or public executions.
Horkheimer would suggest films are used to essentially brainwash the audience as ideologies are injected into our brains with no filter.
Perhaps the uses and gratification model was most accurate, claiming there are several social needs that we watch films to gratify, including: escapism, build relationships with characters, distinguish our own personal identity and monitor what's happening in the world.
So who is correct here? Perhaps all. Perhaps none. These are all people at the top of their respective fields and all have amassed great success off their own individual theories. This is the beauty of film - you can't pin down the secret. Humans are strange and complicated creatures and film fulfils so many of our wants and needs in many different ways, it is like a match made in heaven. One thing is for sure, whatever the reasons we watch films, we will continue to do so.
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