Film has amazing capacity for good and evil. On the surface, film merely offers an alternate reality for those who are willing to focus their senses on the images flickering by. This is both the brilliance and the danger of film. It is brilliant when it allows overly stimulated people to escape, forget, rest the snapping synapses in their brains. People can release tension into the quick escape proffered. This allows us simple folk to return to everyday tasks and face our fears. The same expunging catharsis and epiphanies have been engaging us since the days of the ancient and classic Greek dramatists.
The dangerous side of film is its evangelical quality. It has this naturally and intrinsically. Most filmmakers will mouth the oft quoted "If you want a message, use Western Union." But film cannot escape its magnificent ability to communicate. The unreal shadows sppear like a more favorable reality to the watcher, cut down into clear, bite-size morsels. Film changes what people think, wear, do, and even lifestyles according to what the audience sees. Where would the Third Reich had been without Riefenstahl? Where would the new deal and WW2 be without Capra and Ford?
The sorriest dread of humans is our ability to decline. Theater went from the height of Greek drama and comedy to Roman gladiatorial games that basically entertained with a lot of hacking. Our film history is following much the same pattern. The Silent Era could be seen as our Greek time and reality tv could be seen as gladitorial hacking.
Film has the possibility of changing society or dragging it down. Because it is driven by money, it will likely succomb to the lowest common denominator. "Garbage in, garbage out," claim the filmmakers--film merely reflects the society it is composed in. Without challenge, teaching, guidance---humans fall to their most base form. The hope of Classic Film File is to remember the noble shoulders film stands upon for a sense of film that can heighten the human condition.
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