A little over 123 years have passed since the birth of cinema. The Lumierè brothers projected us, literally, into another dimension, into a new era.
Who knows if they ever imagined that that projection of a few minutes would forever change people's habits and influence choices, ways of living and imagining life for all generations to come.
Throughout its short history, cinema has undergone countless transformations. It has lived more lives than we could imagine. A film about cinema, that would be an unforgettable film.
At the beginning there was no sound, cinema was defined as silent cinema. Imagine going to your favourite UCI Cinema or cinema today and going through a list of silent films from which to draw.
Wouldn't that be the same thing? Get used to Blockbuster, action cinema, special effects and so on.
The sound came but the colour was late in coming.
Imagine if today your Netflix catalogue was dominated by black and white movies alone. Would you lose the fascination that cinema has today?
Oh my God Netflix!
We're talking about movies, what's Netflix got to do with it?
Vade retro.
The cinema is a huge screen in front of us, while we lie down on a typically red armchair, maybe munching popcorn and hugging our partner, we graze our eyes in front of that giant sheet that acts as a space/time portal for those 2 hours of entertainment.
Yet it happens today that a movie entirely produced by a streaming platform can win 3 Oscars. A film seen and experienced on the small screen and away from that space/time portal that has dominated the scene for over 120 years.
Is cinema that big screen or is it indifferent to the way we enjoy a film?
Is it part of the experience or is the experience all in what we watch?
Cinema has lived millions of lives, as we said at the beginning. The concept of editing didn't exist until 100 years ago. Can you imagine what Inception would have been like without editing or Star Wars? And the fades of Sergio Leone? Without that technical magic called editing they would never have existed.
Cinema is magic and imagination but it is also technique and technology.
Kubrick knows well that to shoot his The Shining he lost who knows how many hours of sleep to study an innovative and artisan method that would allow him to chase that child now a legend in the corridors. He invented or at least perfected the steady cam.
Without the right tools there would not have been so many masterpieces.
This is true for the advent of sound and the advent of color, for the large zooms and for the sequence plans made on giant trolleys driven by the wise hands of the director.
Every year technology advances and the more we move forward, the more a good director is also the one who is able to better master the instruments in his possession.
Perhaps this is why many people regret the years before, those in which means were limited and only the great geniuses, the Fellini masters, those with a foot in the past to remember who we are and an eye in the future to imagine who we could be.
The advent of digital has revolutionized everything. Today we too could make our own film or mini documentary with a few thousand euros. Unthinkable 25 years ago when the cost of film alone required a production company.
Some say that poetry has been lost, others say that the best and not just the richest and luckiest will emerge in a natural selection that will launch only a chosen few towards immortality.
And then a note of merit to those like Tarantino or Nolan, like Scorsese or Eastwood who have been able to ride the analogical and digital wave with the same wisdom, shooting masterpieces in film or bit.
To them everything is granted.
Like the God of cinema, the only God capable of being raw and ruthless in telling the truth and just as benevolent and dreamer thanks to his fervid imagination.
The only God who cannot be blamed for not being just and omniscient. For real.
