Cinema is the popular name for
motion-picture which is made of a integrated series of innumerable photographs
project with the help of light on a celluloid screen. When sound is introduced
along with the projection, the pictures reflected on the screen are found to
talk and sing. Such pictures are called talkies. Cinema is, in fact, the result
of optic delusion.
No other invention of science has
evoked so sharp difference of opinion than cinema because nothing else is so
evenly divided between good and evil. Cinema is useful-immensely useful to all
classes of people, young and old, rich and poor, duffer and intellectual. But
cinema also can be immensely harmful and lead a whole generation of man to the
dogs. It all depends, however, on how it is organized and for what purposes
motion-pictures are utilized.
A right kind of motion picture
with an edifying theme is an invaluable source of delight and recreation which
is so essential for mental and physical health. We get recreation also from
other sources-books, radio and the stage. But none else can give it so thoroughly,
nor can absorb the mind so completely. That is why thousand throng around the
cinema halls every day.
Cinema has also great educative
value. Only the literate section of the people has access into books and
papers. But all without exception can enjoy a cinema show and learn therefore.
Besides, as the motion-pictures teach through entertainment, the mind receives
the lessons quickly and easily.
They turn up for sheer recreation
and return unknowingly with a lot of instruction too. What an admirable method
of teaching indeed! If properly organized, films can yet become more perfect
agencies of teaching all subjects of human study-literature, philosophy,
science, ecinimics and so on. He who has once seen the picture of ‘Macbeth’ by
Shakespeare or ‘Caeser and Cleopatra’ by Shaw knows much better of both the
books than he who has read them even twice or thrice. “Fall of Berlin” is a
better history of the Russo-German fight during the world war OO than any book
needing days together to read. Similarly, if a government wants to propagate a
scheme or even to inculcate a lesson of health, there is nothing on which it
can depend more than the screen.
But, the cinema has as well a
dark side as it has a bright side. At times and not infrequently, cinemas
ignore higher ideals and motives in order to appeal to the vulgar taste of the
multitude. Designed primarily to return the investment several times, producers
often make their pictures too vulgar for
any man of taste to see-throwing in silly romances, absurd situations, corrupting
songs and vulgar dances. Such pictures demoralize society as a whole,
particularly the young. Censor Boards are always there and exist in all
countries. But their scissors have so far failed to cope with the producers’
crafty brains.
In order to prevent the evils of
cinema and to harness it to the higher needs of society, every country should
have a board of cultured men with high powers to check the production of
unhealthy pictures. Instead of subjecting pictures to post-production censor,
the story, the sceneries and the outlines of songs and dances should be got
approved by that board. In short, every conceivable measure should be taken to
ensure that the power of the cinema may not be used to reap individual profit
at the cost of social morality.
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