It might sound predictable — almost suspiciously so — coming from someone who studies Radio, Television and Film: Cinema is powerful. But the power I’m thinking of isn’t confined to filmmakers or the craft itself. It belongs to the viewers and how movies affect our worldview.
The word “cinematic” has become a bit corny. We throw it around casually, talking about beautiful sunsets, fire escapes mounted against brick walls or even a shopping cart abandoned in a parking lot.
The word is everywhere. And yet, the fact that we reach for it so instinctively says something important. When we call something cinematic, we’re not just talking about the way something looks. We’re talking about how it feels to notice beauty at all.
Cinema gives us a language for attention.
We are constantly bombarded with information. Everything. Everywhere. All at once. Much of it passes through the mind, crowded, unfocused. Cinema offers a return and gives our minds somewhere to rest.
When you watch films, you see things differently. All of a sudden, a pair of shoes resting by the door stops looking cluttered. Cinema trains us to linger, to resist the impulse to rush past what seems ordinary. It renews our perception by revealing the one we already live in.
There is something deeply human about this. We are always longing for freshness, for moments that feel newly discovered. What cinema does so beautifully is remind us that novelty isn’t always about newness. Sometimes it is about attention. The camera shows us what we have been forgetting to see.
This is where cinema’s power lies. Not only in spectacular grand narratives or carefully composed images, but in its ability to confront our habit of taking things for granted. Films teach us to slow down. They insist on the pause. In doing so, they expose how often we move through life on autopilot.
There is also something uniquely irreproducible about the camera itself. We can look at the same scene in real life, but the camera frames it and asks us to commit to seeing it fully. The right camera framing can give weight to the moment. Through composition, cinema reminds us that perception is a deliberate act.
Cinema, then, is not just about telling stories. It reshapes the way we inhabit our own. In that sense, cinema is not an escape from the world, but a return to it. One that reminds us that the world does not need to be spectacular to be meaningful.
It only needs to be seen.
Aizere Yessenkul is a NU-Q Communication senior and author of “Yes-sentials.” She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
