In this blog post, we will examine the reasons and background behind why we naturally accept omissions and exaggerations in movies.
When we watch a movie, we don’t question why a character gets into a car and then gets out at their destination in the very next scene. We also don’t question why he happens to find a parking spot in a crowded city center so easily. In reality, no audience member wants to spend time in the car with him. In this way, we willingly accept omissions in movies that exclude non-essential parts of the story. This is a characteristic of movies and an important technique for maximizing the audience’s senses.
Movies often convey stories by freely crossing the boundaries of time and space. For example, a scene in which the protagonist leaves home and arrives at the office immediately makes the audience imagine the time in between, allowing the movie to focus on the core of the story without any unnecessary details. We also naturally accept the use of extreme events to create dramatic developments, the insertion of poignant music that does not exist in the reality of the film in scenes where lovers part, and the sense of realism and emotion created by camera movements. In this way, the audience accepts these elements that are different from reality as realistic, and this is one of the attractions of film.
When we say that a movie is realistic, we mean that we agree with the way the movie is made and see the content as real. The content of a movie is not the same as actual reality. We do not want movies to imitate the complexity of reality, nor do movies strive to do so. Movies sometimes simplify or exaggerate reality to elicit a stronger emotional response. In this process, omissions and exaggerations become natural, and we accept them as normal.
This tacit agreement between the audience and the director is called “cinematic convention.” Cinematic conventions have been established since the early days of cinema and help facilitate communication between the audience and the director. Through repeated viewings, the audience learns cinematic conventions, and the director uses them to make the film familiar to the audience. These conventions apply not only to the way films compress and expand time and space, but also to various cinematic elements such as dialogue between characters, sound, and lighting.
It is not easy to ignore or challenge established conventions. However, the French New Wave directors led the modernization of cinema by destroying classic film conventions. They loosened the plot by introducing unnecessary events and disrupted the chronological order of events without warning or explanation, thereby confusing the cause-and-effect relationships. They destroyed classic film conventions for the sake of self-satisfaction and original aesthetic achievement. These attempts had a huge impact on the film industry at the time, and audiences gradually became accustomed to new formats that broke away from the existing cinematic framework.
Even commercial films often break with convention in small ways. This differs from the New Wave’s destruction of convention in that it is done for the purpose of entertainment and box office success. For example, in recent action films, just when the conflict seems to be resolved with the death of the villain, the villain is brought back to life, intensifying the conflict once again. Audiences who encounter such convention-twisting for the first time may be confused, but once they become accustomed to it, they relax and look forward to the villain’s return. In this way, cinematic conventions are not simply repetitive rules, but are constantly changing and being recreated through ongoing interaction between the director and the audience.
When a broken convention is repeated, it becomes established as another convention. Therefore, cinematic conventions cannot be fixed norms, but can be seen as changing over time. The audience learns new conventions, and the director expands the expressive power of film through them. Ultimately, cinematic conventions are a dynamic concept that is constantly being reconfigured along with the evolution of film, and in this process, films continue to create new stories. These changes and challenges are one of the important factors that have made film a form of art beyond mere entertainment.
