As these camera’s can offer what is considered as ‘advanced’ today, the many film directors now take full advantage and a modern film is often based around its use and level of special effects and stunts. These directors are given the opportunity to take everyday life activities and add to them in the most exciting or surreal ways possible! As viewers, we can relate to these scenes but the additional, experimental effects cause our minds to expand and think into more depth about our daily experiences. This is how film today in the Twentieth Century can be argued to be the most important art form.
No matter how it is done, art has always represented something or someone from our lives today, in the past or even in the future. Paintings and photography for example portray still image, whereas film and theatre works through conveying image, sound and movement! It could be argued that therefore theatre can be just as important as film, though theatre arts cannot be multiplied and spread worldwide as efficiently as film, film has a greater effect on a wider and less precise audience as it can be viewed by anyone in the world at any time providing it has the right support, funding and facilities! I am sure that more people can relate to film than any other art form as it is usually a re-enactment of what we can see every day.
In my opinion the creation of film has pushed the boundaries of art onto a whole new level and continues to do so year by year. The three key aspects of film; image sound and movement, is such a powerful combination that it can represent horror, romance, comedy and more to a full, genuine effect or possibly with slightly more extravagant enhancements! Though the importance of film, to me, exists within the fact that it is the closest we can get to actually watching our own humane mannerisms in full flow! We can all view and appreciate still, silent art but no-one can be sure as to exactly what is being connoted and therefore we can’t wholly relate to it realistically. This may be the same with film in some cases but with film there is more chance of an accurate assumption because it displays events in more than one real-time scene and the viewer doesn’t have to use as much imagination to understand exactly what is being portrayed.
In terms of artistic levels, it may be argued that there is more talent involved with still art such as paintings or even still advertising because they can convey as much as a film through one striking, silent image but this doesn’t add any importance. I suppose we could also look into the art form of music, books and poetry but these can all be included within the aspects of a film even though they are individual art forms in themselves.
Filmmakers of the Twentieth Century on a whole seem to have had the opportunity to progress the art of film-making from a fairly steady platform, whereas before it seems film-making was always on a slightly less reliable level, as film was not as readily available and accessible as it is today! Pre-Twentieth Century directors were forced to experiment with effects and ways of capturing the images so that they could create the perfect image required and progress the use of film. Today, it seems we have achieved that and it cannot progress much further unless we move onto advanced use of 3 dimensional films so the action is occurring around or within its actual audience! This suggests that the Twentieth Century has shown us peak the potential of this art form technically so the artists/film-makers now seem to have as much as they can ask for to produce such an array of imagery in whichever way they wish! Again this shows the importance of film today as it is clearly the most advanced art-form technically!
Towards the end of the Twentieth Century one director who has influenced society and pushed film onto more advanced artistic levels has to be Quentin Tarantino, director of films such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and most recently Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2. Tarantino strikes me as someone who makes his films have an important affect through his ignorance to goriness and what is considered to be ‘unattractive’ or disturbing. For instance Kill Bill Volume 1 opens with a paradoxical scene as we see a wedding ceremony, looking as perfect and beautiful as ever but seconds later a gang burst into the church and shoot everyone down in very realistic, therefore disturbing ways. However Tarantino obviously believes if its possible, it can be shown and he goes all out to shock with most of his films! I suppose in terms of having an important affect on society, scenes such as this one help us to hit home and realise what is actually possible in the worst of conditions! I wouldn’t say he is suggesting this may happen at our wedding days but Tarantino simply portrays the far-fetched possibilities of the world we live in today and keeps suggesting we shouldn’t ignore the fact that possibly something on this level could become reality in our lives or our children’s lives one day.
As well as Tarantino there are many other directors who have influenced viewers of the Twentieth Century in many other ways such as one of the best known directors of all time Stephen Spielberg who usually likes to create a fantasy world for the viewer to relate to and fantasise about or Alfred Hitchcock who made films in the 1950’s and made these of a horror genre and will possibly be remembered for making one of the scariest films of all time, ‘Psycho’. All directors create such a variety of messages and images to our minds, without them we would have to rely on people around us to do this and this wouldn’t provide the same affect as film is able to provide.
All films made in the Twentieth century, whether big or small influence different people in different ways, depending on what inspires or attracts you as a person. I suppose the best way to think in terms of importance would be to imagine this world without film and how different it would be! It certainly strikes me as the one form of art, which really has the ability to influence our minds in a way that isn’t possible outside of the screen! What we see on an every day basis is life, whereas what we see on film, on the screen is an image which our brain often accepts as life but isn’t actually real therefore it can be adapted in all kinds of ways, this is a very powerful way of communication and enhances our minds experience in my opinion.
One strong argument for the importance of still art is that it has a much more historic background, we are known to still have paintings dating all the way back to the Fourteenth Century, therefore these can tell us and help us realise what history was like. Though again, film creates a much more accurate image and in the future when people look back at film of our lives today, they will surely find it easier to understand than still art.
All art-forms are important in their own ways but film offers so much more information to its viewers and these can be absolutely anyone because it isn’t forcing us to do anything we wouldn’t do anyway. We naturally, live, look and think, this is what is required to watch a film, it is the easiest art-form to inhale so whatever’s being portrayed holds a great importance as a way to educate, inform and inspire society today.
