Cinema! sweet cinema!

Cinema! sweet cinema!

It can be discussed at length whether a culture based on written texts or one based on images is superior. What cannot be denied is that cinema, made up of moving images, was the art that most characterized the twentieth century.

Nobody imagined, when the Lumiere brothers at the end of the nineteenth century conducted their first cinematographic experiments, that the cinema would have had such a widespread and planetary diffusion.

Entire generations of people have grown up making the passionate attendance of cinemas a regular date, one, two, three times or more a week.

During the twentieth century the rooms where films were projected, with various and suggestive names, Luxor, Rex, Odeon, Embassy, ​​Excelsior, Ritz, Majestic, Capitol, spread all over the globe, from the metropolis to the most remote villages. 

Over the last century, cinema has provided to millions of spectators fun and cheap escape, even in the darkest periods of history, characterized by wars, widespread poverty, and ferocious dictatorships. It has spread dreams and new lifestyles even in a reality where it was difficult to satisfy the most basic needs. Everyone, even the most sedentary, gave us pictures of the most diverse districts of the planet, allowed us to travel with imagination while sitting comfortably in a padded armchair. It has expanded otherwise gray and ordinary existences, allowing them to live adventures in the most exotic and distant spaces and ages. It has enriched the individual and collective imagination.

Socializing in different social classes took place in cinemas. Making a date at the cinema was a must for couples in love. At the cinema we end up going there also out of boredom, to occupy an empty afternoon.

In its highest and most classic forms, cinema is used as a work of art, it has widened our knowledge of the world, of life and of ourselves. He contributed to our emotional and sentimental education, he made us mature as individuals and as citizens. It has been and continues to be a school of freedom.

Directors such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Dryer, Ejzenstein, Rossellini, Fellini, Antonioni, Bunuel, Bergman, Wenders, Woody Allen all belong to the restricted circle of geniuses of universal civilization. Many films have a narrative ability and density that exceeds that of many novels and stories, even of quality.

In its industry dimension, the cinema has created thousands of jobs. Producing a film requires the work, often obscure, of hundreds of people. Just read the credits to realize how many professionals compete in the production of a film: actors, directors, cameramen, editors, production secretaries, stuntmen, stand-ins, machinists, toolmakers, costume designers, scenographers , sound technicians, musicians, special effects technicians, electricians, makeup artists, tailors, hairdressers , first aid workers . Every self-respecting newspaper or periodical has a column, edited by a specific employee, often an intellectual, a film critic. Or every newly decent projection room has a cashier, a projectionist, cleaning staff, besides the so-called "historical" masks, who take care of finding space for the spectators and enforcing the rules.

For some decades the cinema seems to be going through a period of crisis. Started in the United States in the mid-1950s, the crisis spread to Europe and, to since the seventies, also in Italy. The spectators are lowered, the proceeds have been reduced. Many historical halls have had to close. The shoulder to the screen, at least the one seen in the projection rooms, was given by the advent of television.

Already in the late fifties, television also shows itself in Italy capable of overcoming cinema in favor of the public. Mike Bongiorno's quiz or double quiz program is so popular that it is broadcast weekly in the cinemas themselves.

However, if television contributed to the extinction of many cinemas, it gave them another chance at survival. In fact, television broadcasts many films, purchased by major film majors or produced on their own. The use of the film directly in the home, in the living room, in front of the TV, is different from that of the room. If you lose the solemn aura of the giant screen and collective enjoyment, watching the film on the small screen is, in some respects, more informal and freer. You watch the film, without having to change clothes and leave the house, perhaps while chatting or doing other things.

This does not mean that when the story is good, the attention of the TV viewer is not caught. Witness the success of many fiction and many films broadcast on TV. A hint of an interesting plot, a meaningful dialogue, a beautiful panorama, attract the attention of the spectator, even if he is the most distracted, and oblige him to follow concentrated development of the story told. I believe that many happy cinematic discoveries today take place this way, in a seemingly fortuitous way only. I myself discovered, throwing a casual glance at the TV turned on, authors I didn't know and enjoyed films that improved my life. These unexpected, unplanned encounters increase, in my opinion, the mysterious charm that cinema has with each of us.

Today, in addition to television, the means of communication that distract us from attending cinemas have multiplied. First, video recorders and DVD players, then PCs, video games, and elephants, social networks have changed our habits and our way of using leisure time. The orgy of tools and digital connections that characterize the contemporary era constitutes a factor and a crisis, but also a new opportunity for the film industry. Internet and pay - TV are, in my opinion, the new frontiers that will allow the seventh art not only to survive but to know a new renaissance.