Current film theories based on a so-called film realism are only the ideological camouflage of a decadent idealism. In no way can they help Indian cinema to serve the developmental needs of the country. An alternative approach to film, materialist in many ways, can lead to the creation of a new cinemythology with heroes and patterns of life that encourage the spectator to the pursuit of life-oriented goals. This book is committed to the support of such a cinema.
not for the fact that their context is fluid. There is no consensus on the very premises which can make a definition of the cinema possible. The debate opposes idealism and materialism. So far it seems there can be no compromise between the two schools of thought. Thus the movie goer who takes a candid, second look at his movies is caught, much to his bewilderment, into an ideological whirlwind. And there is no escape for him but to orientate himself and struggle in his chosen direction. In other words, the serious movie- goer must commit himself. His movie experience has prepared him to anything but commitment. Yet, he cannot help it. What is at stake is not a film or an art, it is himself, the direction of his history, the creation of his personality.
The image of the world and of himself had appeared 'objective' to the movie-goer. Were not his favourite films 'realist'? He now discovers that the movie image is also the image of his own mental structure. The images he sees on the screen, he discovers with amazement, are not so much images of the world as images of how he himself sees the world. What is then reality? and how to represent it? The antagonism between the idealist and materialist aesthetics centers on 'realism'. The movie-goer whose self-confidence rested on cinema realism is now being told that his realism is nothing but a privileged convention and, in fact, an acute form of idealism.
Before we can tackle these questions, it is necessary to view cinema in a very large context, the context of the radical evolution the human family (what an euphemism for people interkilling and exploiting one another!) is undergoing. It will be necessary to sensitize ourselves to some of the transformations occurring around us so as to develop a readiness for change. Without this readiness for change, a discussion of the cinema risks to create irrational oppositions, to harden opinions, to make change impossible. Any change in the cinema means a change in ourselves. What has to change, finally, is man. That is why the effort is worthwhile.
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