How Is Modern Cinema Used as a Means of Denunciation?

Abstract

It seems to be an oxymoron to talk about and denunciation because it opposes artwork and oppression. Thus, it comes down to wondering how artwork can be a means to rebuke authoritarian regimes. In fact, Art is commonly defined as skill, the ability of people to do something expressive, beautiful, and aesthetic (Benjamin Walter, 1936). It is therefore a human activity, the product of this activity, or the idea which is made of it, deliberately addressing the senses, the emotions, the intuitions and the intellect. Actually, nowadays we cannot talk about without talking about its artistic side. Art becomes thus an integral part of cinema. Since its beginnings, has been intimately linked to magic. Georges Melies informs us that was born of optical experiments called pre-cinema, where the illusion of movement was in the center of his research (Georges Melies, 2012). By its hypnotic nature, is the most penetrating language that human beings have conceived. As Henri Langlois said so well, cinema is an art and art implies artifice. The spectators of are thus immersed in a sensory and dynamic universe where sounds, shapes, materials, vibrant colors and phantasmagoric images evoke real life and create an atmosphere both mysterious and captivating. However, how can - which is considered somehow as a high art (Bourieu, 1998) - become a means of denunciation? This is what I am going to discuss throughout the following lines of this essay.