images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_1.jpgCuando hear about the influence of cinema in our lives, it is easy to poke our lips twisted with skepticism: Again the apocalyptic vision of the movies! And indeed it has been said often, but rarely from an anthropological perspective. The truth is that, since its origins, cinema has always acted as a forming pattern of attitudes and lifestyles, like a mirror in which we all look to decide our models and our patterns of behavior. So the films so remarkably influence our perception of reality. Here are some examples.
A film like Amadeus (1984) completely changed the cultural image of Mozart had the public; he became a child genius who created the sublime works and-time- immature and boorish to the limit. But he not only changed his image, but that turned this musician from another time in a popular idol and extremely current, causing an authentic "Mozart-mania": their CD were sold for tens of thousands and became a cultural phenomenon important in the mid eighties.
There is also the famous case of Roman Holiday (1953). This film, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, completely changed the image deteriorated and decadent, during the forties, had created the Italian Neorealism around the Eternal City. The films of Rossellini, Zavattini and Vittorio de Sica spread a myth of decline; but this ribbon enough William Wyler in 1953 to return to see the Americans as the "city of love", the symbol of illusion and romanticism.
More decisive still was the worldwide premiere of Club Dead Poets Society (1989). Directed by Australian Peter Weir, he told the story of a young professor of literature (Robin Williams) who joins an elite private school in Puritan America of the fifties. With new forms of education (they do walk around the yard, so that each one take "passing"; encourages them to find their own voice, and encourages them to be actors, to read poetry, to dream of other things to make money and follow the pattern of their elders), suspicion of school officials garners. And his message "Carpe diem!" -aprovecha The moment causes a revolution, on par that ends in tragedy. Nobody thought that this film could influence the awareness of young people. Moreover, by its thematic high court (parent-child relationships, freedom in the choice of career, educational systems in conflict) thought that the boys were bored and could only appeal to parents and educators. It took some previous passes to discover that the film aroused real enthusiasm among teenagers. New passes in schools and colleges confirmed that trend, to the point that the film was received as the champion of "teaching revolution" then eager students. With these data in view, the producer of the film decided to completely change the originally planned marketing: the poster, which was to be centered on the figure of the actor, to make way for the young protagonists changed; It was promoted as a symbol of the student rebellion and reached a success among the youth as he had not imagined even close.
Moreover, the films have not only influenced our image of reality: an artist, a city or an educational system. The films have also changed, and much, our attitude toward specific products and our traditional consumption patterns.
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_2.jpgCitaré just some especially memorable examples, all related to fashion. In 1934, Clark Gable was considerable damage to manufacturers of men's underwear when he appeared shirtless in the movie It Happened One Night. That memorable scene shows the moment when, arriving at a motel in one of the stops of the interminable bus ride, so the shirt to intimidate the young Claudette Colbert, who was determined not to leave the room he took off. That an idol as Gable vistiese at least in the cinema without inner motivated shirt that millions of Americans stopped using it and therefore buy.
It was not until seventeen years to recover Marlon Brando in the film A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). In it, Brando appears in much of the footage with shirt, but not as undergarment, but as a basic element of dress, replacing the actual shirt. Thereafter, and renamed T-Shirt, it will become the symbol of informality and the rejection of established, thanks to the character played by this actor.
Something similar happened, for example, in the film Rebecca (1940). Costume designers, to emphasize the simple, shy and introverted character of the protagonist, Jean Fontaine, had dressed in much of the footage with a cardigan: the typical peasant clothing of the time. It was a constant visual symbol of his character Cinderella in an aristocratic world that rejected But the commercial success of the film, which also won the Oscar for best film- made that pledge became fashionable: became the symbol kitsch, than sophisticated and modern. Spencer is far sold throughout the decade, and even came to be known, at least in Spain with the name of the protagonist and the film: Rebeca.
Finally, perhaps the most famous case of changes in consumer habits -and continue in the sector of the fashion-led James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). In many of the sequences, basic clothing is a jacket: one conceived as its name suggests to the camps and hunting situations garment. But the actor's constant association with that particular garment, motivated young membership that piece jacket and turned into a symbol of youthful rebellion (1)
2. Cinema as a factor of socialization
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_3.jpgEn the first chapter we saw some relevant examples of how a film changing behavioral patterns, consumer perception or reality. Let us now delve into the reasons for this influence on the values and patterns of behavior.
The starting point is that cinema is today-what has been almost since birth the most powerful means of informal education that we have. Already in 1917, during the silent era, the National Council of Public Morals UK published a report entitled The cinema: present situation and future possibilities, in which it was said: "It may be doubted whether we are sufficiently aware of the strength and consistency with the movie theaters have trapped the people of this country. The rest of other recreational forms as much to attract a small part of the community; magnetism film, however, is universal. In the course of our investigation we have been impressed by the evidence brought before our eyes, of the profound influence that cinema has on the intellectual and moral point of view of millions of young people "(2).
Perhaps this statement can be judged alarmist, but the truth is that has been proclaimed and defended by various theoretical regular insistence of the Seventh Art. At present, the trial could be further justified by the growing indifference to the values observed in the school and family education. As Blumer and Hauser said: "The influence of cinema seems to be proportional to the weakness of family, school, church and neighborhood. Where the institutions that have traditionally transmitted social attitudes and behaviors have broken (...), the film takes on greater importance as a source of ideas and patterns for life "(3).
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_5.jpgPor regard to formal education, it is true that, increasingly, teachers instruct -transmitir limited to renounce knowledge- and education: to transmit a model of life, values, an ideal of behavior; and this for fear of being criticized to "impose their beliefs" students. Faced with this crisis in education and values, the film takes on an increasingly prominent role as an educational youth instance: he is telling young people how to behave and act, what should be the family and couple relations, where It is good and bad, what they consist of happiness and personal failure. A film like Titanic, which was seen in theaters by 10.8 million viewers in Spain (one in four Spaniards), has influenced the consideration of dating, commitment and premarital sex than all the explanations in the classroom on these matters.
And, in the background, lies the problem of authority in education. The indifference or disorientation of the elderly, young people today give more authority epistemological (knowledge of reality) and ethical authority (how it should be reality) to movies than to attend ethics and morals in school, the guiding conversations with their parents and siblings, and even the evidence of their experienced family life for years. A famous European producer David Puttnam, openly admitted: "I am aware that most cultural and social influence I had was the cinema. (...) All my ethical foundation was formed not at home or in church, but through American movies of the fifties. The awakening of a set of ethical beliefs to face life, came, in my case, the cinema "(4).
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_4.jpgEsta gets its fair share perspective (rather should speak of "disproportion") when we realize the scope -audiencias millonarias- who have achieved some devastating films, or at least , solvents in which it refers to the family picture. Films like A Clockwork Orange American Beauty Basic Instinct or exceeded in theaters in our country four million spectators: that is, have seen one in ten Spaniards. And in most cases those who saw them were not aware of the bitterness, cynicism and critical review of the family institution that these tapes had left them.
This sociological perspective that affirms the consolidation of a common frame of reference through cinema, is the main influence of movies on society. When Andrew Tudor studied film functions as a social institution, explicitly notes the role of socialization, which is the consolidation of a uniform culture, socially shared, homogenized in a few (politically correct) values refer to a moral relativism and hedonistic . In this context, any speech -pronunciado in the classroom or in the family that advocates discipline, sacrifice or personal requirement will be rejected by the recipient, which have previously been "educated" in other moral and other vision happiness: that daily assimilated in movies and TV series.
3. Film as legitimizing factor
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_6.jpgEn the previous chapter we saw that film contributes to the international dissemination of films, cultural homogenization of all countries. But this is only part of the influence that movies have on audiences. Tudor says, by the socialization function, another function of legitimation. "First he says is the process by which the films as part of our culture, provide us with a 'map' culturally for us to interpret the world. The second is the more general process by which films are used to justify or legitimate beliefs, actions and ideas "(5).
Today, cinema has legitimized behaviors and perceptions of reality that once caused the rejection or inconsistency of the majority of the population. However, today these issues are accepted as inevitable or even as "just right time" for the letter of legitimacy that have given movies. Among other things the film has helped legitimize, they could be identified that directly affect the family:
- Homosexuality in films like Brokeback Monutain, Philadelphia, The Hours and My Best Friend's Wedding.
- The coexistence during courtship: youth audience in television series like Companions and After school, or in many other TV series: Aquí no hay quien viva, Los Serrano, etc.
- Family breakdown -incuso the adultery as personal liberation. Other films include Out of Africa or The Bridges of Madison.
- Euthanasia, with the uproar promote ideologically oriented films like Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside.
Certainly, cinema has always been a "dream factory". We project on them and try to shape our identities. Therefore, because they are a benchmark for ourselves, cinema has also been compared to a large mirror in which we look and search our true face. What that image authorizing act or think, it will be assumed by us as legitimate, validated and fully acceptable in our lives.
4. Capacity suggestive movies
So far, we have reflected on two important aspects of the films that affect the social sphere: socialization factors and legitimacy. This has required adopting a consideration of man from an external and collective perspective. Now we go into two areas that directly affect the psychology of suggestion capacity of the films and the "transfer of personality." In short, we try to discover the influence of cinema in our mechanisms of cognition and interpretation of reality. This will take a consideration of the individual from a more personal and introspective perspective.
With regard to the suggestion of films, it is evident that this medium far exceeds the capacity of any other. The representation of reality in films is always alive and strong, emotionally dramatic, and often assimilating just as an experience. For example, a young girl may think, "How am I going to tell my parents how I relate to my boyfriend? If I know how (epistemological approach) and how it should be (axiological approach) that relationship! I have seen with my own ojosimages / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_7.jpg, I have lived ". In fact, he has seen and has "lived" in the film, but he has assimilated as something experienced first hand. Those images have allowed him to take the witness instance: who has starred truly believes those facts, and therefore seem more real than real and speeches from parents and educators. The treatment of the subject, the "living" or "experienced" in that film, history acquires the status of something incontestable, said his own experience.
This facet of "manipulation of experience" is much more important to young people, as they are more vulnerable to the fascinating power of the image. When at school he is talking about behaviors or beliefs, or when parents intend to speak "something serious", immediately put a filter to what they hear, because they interpret it as "imposing values" as "sermon" or, the worst case, as Open handling. But none of that happens when you see a film: stories (assumed as personal "experiences") will not face any intellectual filter: penetrate his inner world in the wake of the emotions experienced.
Moreover, the film has a multidimensional impact, which can hardly away from. Unlike newspaper or magazine, which affects only the sense of sight; Unlike radio or that affects just over the ear, cinema affect various senses at once. It features an image, such as painting and photography (with a studied treatment of light, framing, composition and chromatic), but adds both the suggestion of movement (as in dance or dance); and at the same time, we are surrounded with the soundtrack (as in a musical audition), and enhances the action with sound effects, and modulation of voice actors, and with a verbal rhetoric in the script. All this is simultaneously affecting our psyche, which is unable to separate all these stimuli and putting each of them the appropriate filter. Therefore, it is very difficult to avoid the impact that can produce a well planned sequence, and practically impossible to temper emotions play unfolds the plot of the film: the story because it "feels" to the beat of the music; and the interpretation of the actors, with light or decoration that have been chosen for that scene.
The ambience of the room helps "put ourselves" in the fictional story. Lights out, a projector onto the screen of major proportions is on and starts the sound of music coming from all directions. Nothing distracts from the plot begins, and there is no coterie, as when we see the TV, no phone calls or pending tasks. Everything is designed to invite relaxation and contemplation; and indeed, the eyes can not see if it is not in the direction of the screen.
It is in these circumstances when it happens what Woody Allen reflected metaphorically in the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo: the viewer feels driven to cross the space that separates you from the screen, with your imagination, enters the world of fiction Film itself and experience the emotions that the characters live: it is happy, sad or he falls in love with the protagonist, and makes life concerns and ideals.
5. "transfer of personality" in movies
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_8.jpgAl start watching a movie, the viewer looking unconsciously which character must identify you will see it from a point of view, live from one of the characters, and this It takes you to a process-usually empathy with the protagonist who is known in the film industry as "image transfer or personality." This process is achieved when the viewer is put in place of the character assumes his ideals and empathize with their emotions.
When the identification-something that does not always happen given, but much more often in young people and teenagers-the viewer tends to reduce the differences in attitude and conviction that wants to look as much as possible to it. If the character is averse to betrothal, he will feel it too; and whether to approve relations during courtship, approve the viewer emotionally, but their convictions go for a completely different way. The desire of identification raised by the plot is achieved by minimizing any possible dissonance, hence the implicit emotional acceptance of the proposals of the protagonist, although they are clearly contrary to his convictions.
This transfer of personality is particularly strong when there is a previous line of the viewer with the lead actor. If a spectator, for example, loves Tom Cruise or Leonardo Di Caprio, when you see him on film tend to want everything he wants and hate what he hates. And if a viewer is attracted by Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley, also you tend to identify with her emotions, seeking harmony in attitudes, issues and behaviors taken by the character in the film. Emotionally, it comes to commune with these approaches, especially if their training is poor or beliefs are more or less superficial.
The impact of such identification, also known as "vicarious experience" may have little resonance and a more or less fleeting permanence; or, conversely, it can be fixed strongly in the mind of the viewer and remain long in his soul, decisively influencing the interior judgment of behaviors and attitudes that have "experienced" vicarious way of fiction. In any case, when these impacts are strong and add to other films oriented in the same direction, the result can transform radically different initial approaches. And so, to question deeply held values over the years such as marital fidelity, for example, canceling the example he lived in the family or in the school itself, and turning suddenly to all the training for years.
6. A film in defense of the family
But if the movie has that ability to influence, why not use it for good? If you can influence the behavior and attitudes of millions of people, why not promote stories that build, transmit values and positive lifestyles, to disseminate a more joyful and enriching image of the family institution?
images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_9.jpgEsto is what, in 1994, decided to undertake the League of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic institution dedicated to pious Mississippi and social purposes. He created within it a film producer, the Gregory Productions, with the intention of making a low-budget film "to encourage the public to a greater understanding and appreciation of the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and to welcome them as their own, in special love and reverence for God. " After two years of fruitless searching for scripts, they were hired as a writer Lee David Zlotoff, a practicing Jew, father of four children, who in less than a month wrote the screenplay for The Spitfire Grill (1996), and later He would direct. The result was a great moral melodrama, long acclaimed in the prestigious Independent Film Festival Sundance, where it won the Audience Award. Not for less. Because this movie clearly gives primacy to moral clarity of its sentimental story about efficiency. Zlotoff appeals to both the heart and the head of the viewer and, with a subtle mastery of staging achieves a rich mosaic of situations where converge the big issues of today and always: love, family, compassion, forgiveness, relationships with God ...
One such project is the Italian production company Lux Vide, Ettore Bernabei, who was born in boosting audiovisual products aimed at the family and to try to promote values. In 1991 he started a gigantic serial on "The Bible" (21 miniseries), which received numerous international awards. Central to this major project in 1999 produced with the American CBS miniseries Jesus of four hours, which was broadcast by 144 television stations around the world coinciding with the Great Jubilee of 2000. In the US alone was seen 24 million viewers and received Emmy nomination for best miniseries of the year. Completed the serial Bible, he began another documentary series about famous people of the twentieth century: Marconi, Golda Meir, Coco Chanel .... But that reaped wider audiences were precisely those dedicated to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, John XXIII and John Paul II. The three reached on Italian shares over 25% television, so that made the leap to the showrooms, where also obtained millions of viewers.
In an interview, Bernabei said: "This television fiction of religious argument has been successful because of its quality. And because ordinary people need spirituality, he wants to know what appears as mysterious, unexplained reason alone, because in the bottom of each there are questions which it is difficult to give an answer. " Later, about vulgarity on television programs, he stated: "Television in the world is not contrary to a religious conception of life, but prefers to avoid it. And by dint of neglect it, do not worry about those moral rules that are linked to spiritual life. Vulgarity is born from this "(6).
Significantly, the prestigious American Film Institute, when drawing up lists of the best films ever, has wanted to publish year after year, its list of "The 100 Most Inspiring Movies": the hundred most inspiring films of the history, most have helped inspire positive attitudes and values. The film number 1 is always a Wonderful images / stories / imagenes_articulos / articles / influence cinema / influence-jovenes_10.jpges Life (1946), Frank Capra: a song of hope, representing the best of the Christmas spirit and extolling the family values in that community support who has spent his life in service to all and your family. Number 2 is occupied Kill a Mockingbird (1962), which transmits beautiful lessons about integrity, justice, sense of duty, the value of family and the importance of serving others. Other films included in the top positions are: The Miracle Worker (1962), the true story of a determined to teach language to a deaf and blind girl teacher; Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film of heroism and dedication amid miseries and weaknesses; or The Shawshank Redemption (1994), a prison drama beautifully facing three main themes: friendship, hope and redemption. The moment in which the protagonist "gives" a few minutes of classical music prisoners better than a thousand speeches reflects that inner freedom that any prison in the world can ever muzzle (7).
Certainly, the film can have its dangers, but can also inspire, provoke provide that transfer values and personality in an enriching and positive direction. The only requirement is that you know tell stories well worthwhile; stories or biographies whose example is a role model. The aforementioned producer David Puttnam, stated about this in an interview: "I remember watching A Man for All Seasons hundreds of times, not for its cinematic qualities, that is, but by the effect it had on me: the fact to afford the enormous presumption leave the theater thinking, 'Yeah, I'd let me beheaded for safeguarding the beginning'. He knew well that it was not, and probably never find anyone to do it, but the film allowed me the feeling; It allowed me, for a moment, feel that everything decent in me had stood. This is what the cinema can get "(8).
Achieving this is a difficult and not easy but achievable. And it requires the commitment of all. Filmmakers, first, that must feel responsibility for their task in conceiving his films. Governments, secondly, that should enhance and facilitate those productions enhancing social and family life. And viewers -first, families and educators-that we may see, and teach our children to see, movies and TV series with a critical, selective and enriching look.
7. Annotated Bibliography on "Film and family"
To complement this exhibition, I would like to summarize here a number of studies that have analyzed in depth the relationship between family and film: both the influence of movies on the family as the treatment of the family institution in the most emblematic films. Next to the bibliographic reference is a brief comment about its contents.
1. MARTIN, Jerome Joseph. "Models of family in contemporary cinema" Carthaginensia: Journal of Studies and Research, ISSN 0213-4381, Vol 23, No. 44, 2nd Half 2007, pp.. 431-443.
In an accurate introduction says the three elements that distort currently accepted for centuries -pacíficamente consideration of the natural family: relativistic anthropology, gender ideology, neo-Marxist feminism; three elements match to deny human nature and abolish the distinction between the sexes. It then analyzes ten models of family present in today's cinema: some, unfocused, as the "gay pseudo families" (eg .: Philadelphia.); others, who recovered the family in the so-called "social cinema" (Secrets and Lies, Hector, Stolen Children); and others reflect on the trauma of divorce (Infidel, Kramer vs. Kramer). Perhaps most interesting is the consolidation of the model of "large family" (Dozen, The winner, Shreck III) or the proliferation of "strong families", the style Capra (The Tiger and the Snow, After the Wedding) . In any case, the model of "parent family (The Pursuit of Happyness) finds the reality of social change.
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