Cinema is an ideology, not a business

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Most people believe that modern cinema is primarily a business. And within the framework of this approach, in their opinion, the task of screenwriters, directors, producers and customers of films is to entertain the audience as best as possible and make a good profit. But this is a big delusion, which is artificially supported by the press and film critics in order for the cinema to remain a convenient field for manipulation.

The essence of the deception is extremely simple: while the general viewer is sure that in cinemas he is simply entertained, he does not think about the influence and message of the films being shown. A person who comes to the cinema just to relax does not perceive the movie critically - questions from the series do not pop up in his head when watching: what ideology does this film promote? What values and behaviors does it show as the norm? What does it teach? How will it affect society? Etc. However, in reality, mass cinema is primarily an ideology, and it is filmed not in order to entertain, but in order to control, broadcasting certain views and ideas to the audience. Therefore, the question of money is not in the first place here, and it is quite easy to prove it.

Recently, the Russian media spread the news: the Ministry of Culture and the Cinema Foundation published data on the results of state support for Russian films. Now everyone can go to the official portal and see how much the state spent on the filming of a particular picture, and how much it earned at the box office. This is a useful site, now we will use it, but first let us pay attention to the second news, which simultaneously with the first went through all major media under the heading: "A third of the films supported by the state did not pay off at the box office." The primary source of this news is the Vedomosti website. We cannot find out on the pages of the publication how the journalists made such conclusions, since we are shown only the first paragraph of the article, and then they are offered to pay for a subscription. Of course, we will not do this, and we will look for the same news in another large agency, for example, in Izvestia. H

We read the text of the publication. The authors refer to Vedomosti and report that according to the published data on the results of state support, a third of the films do not pay off at the box office. The following are examples of specific paintings and the sizes of their budgets. After reading such a headline or such an article, what will a regular user think? His train of thought will be something like this. Cinematography, of course, is a rather risky business, and in every third case you can go bankrupt, but with a probability of about 70 percent, cinema makes a profit. Which is quite acceptable from a business point of view. And now let's go to the official website with the long title “The Unified Federal Automated Information System for Information on Screenings of Films in Cinemas” and personally check what percentage of films that have received, in particular, government support, are paid off at the box office. To do this, let's compare the budget and the collection of the last 100 films that came out on the wide screen. So, on the left we see the names of the films, and on the right, next to each other, there are two columns with the size of the budget and the amount of fees. We will compare them. Usually filmmakers receive no more than 50% of the money collected at the box office (the rest goes to cinemas).

Therefore, we will introduce 4 assessment parameters and their symbols:

• Fees exceeded budget by 2 times - two ticks
• Fees Over Budget - One Tick
• The fees turned out to be less than the budget - one cross
• The fees turned out to be 2 times less than the budget - two crosses

So, now you see this list of 100 pictures, next to each of which we have placed a symbol with the comparison results. If you wish, you can press pause and check the data of the numbers in two columns or go to the site yourself.

As shown by the statistical analysis of the last 100 films:

• 12% of paintings paid off completely at the box office
• Partially paid off at the box office 10%
• Failed at the box office 12%
• Failed completely at the box office 62%
• No data on 4% of films

Total: According to the most optimistic estimates, only one film out of four pays for its production costs. Agree, this information differs greatly from that published by the central media, and looking at it, an ordinary viewer with a high probability may think: why the state, TV channels and big business sponsor all these films if the risk of losing the invested funds is so high? And these thoughts are not far from understanding that the main function of cinema is not entertainment, but ideological: to exert a certain influence on a mass audience. The big politicians themselves understand this very well.

Of course, there will be those who will defend their right to mindlessly amuse themselves and insist that films are made primarily for the sake of money and the pleasure of viewers. They will tell you that part of the funds can be raised by selling discs or copyrights for showing a picture, something can be attracted through product placement and other mechanisms. But after all, we rounded the data up, not taking into account, for example, advertising costs, which are often not reflected in the budget of films, and you can get less than 50 percent of the amount from rentals. Therefore, our assessment of financial risks, although crude, is close to the real state of affairs in this area. And now let's still figure out how the media launched a "duck" that only a third of the films that received state support do not pay off at the box office, if in reality the situation is completely different.

Having rummaged a little on the Internet, we will find another site that also links to the original source of Vedomosti, but gives more detailed information from the original article. And here we read: “It turned out that out of 38 paintings that have received 100 million rubles or more from the state since 2015, 14 have collected not less than their own budget, but less than the amount that the state gave them. That is, the journalists of the Vedomosti agency made a narrow sample of films according to one criterion and, on the basis of it, published a conclusion that does not correspond to reality. And then this conclusion was replicated by all other major media outlets, citing a source that an ordinary person cannot even see, because for this you need to pay for a subscription. This is such a manipulation of public opinion, aimed at making the masses have no idea about the real state of affairs in the film industry. A huge army of film critics, film awards and sites like "KinoPoisk", "Film Ru", "Kinoteatr Ru" and others are working for the same purposes. They, too, openly or in silence put the entertainment component in the first place, avoiding discussing the issues of the impact of films on society.

But today there is already a real alternative - the KinoCensor website presents its own algorithm for evaluating cinema, which takes into account not only the form of presentation, but also invites everyone to think about the content and message of the work.