Cinema in Modern Life
Cinema & New Media Arts | On May 22, 2013
“[Movies] are a way of imprinting time — capturing and preserving events in re-produceable ways,” says Joshua Sikora, a former Biola cinema arts professor who is now head of the media arts department at Houston Baptist University and founder of production company New Renaissance Pictures. “It’s about defining moments interesting enough to share with people, then capturing and sculpting them into a final product that works.” Sikora touches on the fact that cameras are made with the intent to capture and immortalize moments we deem important of remembrance, be it a backyard birthday party or a multi-million-dollar trainwreck on a Warner Bros. backlot.
Glenn Cook, an undergrad philosophy major, offers a more romantic sentiment on the medium. “Movies are really the fulfillment of man’s desire for nostalgia,” Cook says. “They’re an extension of his storytelling tendencies that have existed since the dawn of language.”
Movies are too often diminished to pure spectacle, unrecognized as major influences on the world around us. But films like “Citizen Kane” and “To Kill A Mockingbird” sparked important dialogue in the times they were released, and movies today continue to represent ideas, both political and social, that make us think.
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