Uses and Abuses of Cinema
What is a Cinema? A cinema ( also movie theatre) is a theatre where films (movies) are shown to the public. A building (or part of a building) consisting of several cinema halls is called a multiplex.
Cinema is a good medium for entertainment. Cinema is no doubt one of the wonders of the present age. There is hardly a man who is not fond of the film. That it is a cheap source of recreation for the people has been accepted by all.
Cinema exercises a great influence upon the popular mind. A popular movie , when shown in the T.V., can be as large crowd-puller.
There are many young men and women to whom the screen hero or heroine appears no less than a hero or heroine of the actual world. They imitate their appearance, make-up, speech, walking, and acting as far as possible in their real life.
Uses:
Many stand to gain from Cinema. Cinema proves advantageous to a large number of people.
Earning source for many: The hall-owner ( also multiplex owner) and his staff, artists, producer, camera-man, sound recordist, make-up man, lyricist, script writer, original writer, studio owner, playback singer – who do not stand to benefit out of the film?
Encourages Artists: It is a medium that encourages artists – such as performers, singer, dancers, script writer, camera-man, and director to show their talent at their best.
Refreshment: If we feel tired, we can go to a cinema house and see a film. It will relieve our monotony and give us a lot of refreshment. The cinema affords us much relief of the anxieties of life.
Entertainment: It also has great entertainment value. Most of us lead a poor, dull, and humdrum life. We want some thrill and romance, and a means to escape from the hard realities of life. In this respect nothing provides us so many interesting and entertaining things as cinema does. Movies cater to the tastes of different men and women. A light-hearted person would like a comedy film. Some people have liking for action movies. Some like drama films while other have liking for devotional films.
Exposure to Excellent Art Work: Besides acting, it presents us excellent camera work, songs and dances, exciting and romantic love scenes, and heavenly natural scenery of distant places.
Educative value of Cinema: The educative value of cinema is no less. Almost every film tries to teach a moral lesson. In the end the villain is vanquished and the hero, despite enormous difficulties, ultimately winds.
Seeing famous foreign places by travelling is too much costly. Cinema presents us the same in a more alluring way but at a negligible cost.
Intelligent people use it as a medium of culture and education. History and geography, art and sculpture, song and dance can be taught much more lively and interestingly through cinema than through dull lectures on them.
Knowledge acquired in this way remains deeply imprinted in our mind. Subjects of epics or myths can be made livelier if they are presented through cinema.
Scientific lesson (Such as marine life) and space travel can also be easily explained when they are shown through the film. Truly speaking, cinema can even turn an illiterate person into a man of knowledge and experience.
Abuses:
The cinema world is a source of great entertainment. However, there are some kinds of film, which do more harm than good. The harmful effects of cinema are discussed below:
In most cases ethical values are thrown to the wind, and tinsel glamour and immoral ways are made highly attracting and charming. Taking the glamorous cinema world as real, many lose whatever they have by trying to copy such a world.
Even boys and girls of poor families want to be dressed like their favorite heroes or heroines and thereby cause a lot of misery and suffering to their families.
Instead of stressing hard work, honesty, and perseverance cinema creates an unhealthy attitude by emphasizing on luxury and comfort.
We read news of accidental death of young ones when they tried to do some daring act as displayed in a film it drives some tender-minded young ones to get involved in some shameful acts like stealing and gambling, smoking and drinking.
Dirty and obscene songs, dances, and scenes put too much pressure on the minds of the adolescents and break their moral restraints at ease.
We may, thus, say that unless some control is exercised on its harmful sides, cinema can really spoil the youth force of our country, and its evil effects are found to be seen in the various spheres of our society.
