I think films of the respective eras they were made in tend to be rather accurate portrayals of the general temperament of their times… though there are also landmark masterpieces which were trendsetters ahead of their times – more so than reflections of the then current trends. The first films, as we all know, were in black and white. Other than ‘quirky’ but silent Charlie Chaplin styled comedies, the first filmed movies with audio effects were set to a relatively slower or even meditative pace, with meticulously articulated dialogue… which many of us might find a drag these days.
This is in sharp contrast with the unparalleled frenzy of modern handheld camera techniques… which reflect the dizzyingly shifting short attention spans that many of our generation have. Set these fast-moving images to a frantic soundtrack with snappy dialogue and it all makes up the story of our lives? Life seemed much simpler back then, literally more black and white… as compared to the countless shades of ambiguous complexity these days?
Here is a ‘paradoxical’ question – Has life become more clear or more blurred, now that we have millions more high definition colours to tell the stories of life itself? Has life become more real, or is it just more ‘reel’? If we spend much of our lives watching and being moved by these ‘reels’, at what point do they become real life itself? Does it just depend on how absorbed we are in the stories being told? How does being absorbed in a story make it more real, and does it make real life less real? Virtual reality is still a form of ‘reality’, albeit an illusory one!
Related Article:
Movies too Fast or Slow?
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