What is the future of cinema? Are the budget race and the competition of creation of even more crazy and colorful special effects going to continue? Or maybe on the contrary, modern technology and the Internet will allow low-budget and auteur films to enter the big arena of cinema art? Youth Time spoke with Emiliano Dante, Italian director, screenwriter and teacher of art history at the University of L'Aquila, about the latest trends in the world of cinema.
“At one time, full-length movies overshadowed TV and it seemed that filmmakers had won a landslide victory,” – the Italian director begins, – “For decades, cinema was a popular medium of cultural diffusion, propaganda, a mirror of the contemporary world, especially, the synthesis of the arts. But now it’s clear that it was only a temporary success.
The 21st century brought TV back”. Today, high-quality TV shows do not concede to the popularity of feature films. It goes without saying that in order to maintain its place under the sun, cinema has to search for different formats. “The first trend and found format is that cinema is undergoing the transformation from art to public sources of pleasure for private consumption. This can also include the development of special effects, and 3D, and 4D movies,” – explains Dante, – “Certainly this is explained by the fact that the film industry takes full advantage of new technological discoveries, but when pursuing only this direction, it is not clear how we will structure the market and if it is at all possible. To say more, in this scenario there is no space left for serious, intellectual works of directors”.
In Emilliano Dante’s opinion, the genre of intellectual cinema is going through a serious crisis today. If before full-length feature film was a “fantastic fusion of image, music and word”, today this path is somehow interrupted. Giving an example, Dante says: “Part of contemporary cinema eliminates the music to seem erudite or, on the contrary, gets rid of a word in order to look more musical”.
The Italian director sees the second trend in personalization of high technology. He believes that this will help to find a way out of the situation and keep the interest of fans of “serious” cinema. The Internet, quality small cameras, personal computers and special software allow almost anyone to display their talents and express their opinions – these are enough to significantly influence the world of cinema. Even now, a lot of people prefer auteur films to full-length feature movies and this is a phenomenon that we have to consider. “Digital cinema filmed at home by amateurs can be a worthy continuation of the history of art cinema. And despite the fact that they are somewhat different from the classic film, it is a complete art. A product made on the same computer and by the same person with the usage of digital video and editing, digital music, a screenplay/digital writing conquers any other dimensions and features. This piece of art is undoubtedly more intimate, painful, and emotionally intense”.
Dante emphasizes that the author’s film, made entirely by one person could be the real future of cinema. He adds: “At this moment in cinema, traditionally a symbol of handedness, in the literal sense, are triumphing artists who are not even performing their work, but just designing it, and real people with their feelings and stories might as well appear on the screens in replacement of them”.
Personalization of the movie can be displayed in the third trend – the development of online-cinema theaters. As the Internet pulls over a large part of the audience of classic movie theaters anyways, it is only logical to assume that cinema goers are going to organize the first-run movies in HD quality on the Internet sooner or later. Business, also, shall not remain on the sidelines as online – cinema theaters are much cheaper to maintain than the real thing. But by and large the audience has already made its choice, often preferring to watch movies, even if after the premiere, at home and at a convenient time.
It goes without saying that trends outlined in this article are only the personal opinion of the YT expert and we’re only going to see what cinematography will bring after some time. Anyways, this text might turn out to be useful for young beginning filmmakers as well as for the audience. Create and stay updated with the latest trends.
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