What does it mean to be a cinephile in the 21st century?
A cinephile is a person with a deep love of the moving image (it’s not creepy in any way so don’t say that it is). Cinephiles of the past were a merry little community going from theatre to theatre lapping up even the dirtiest of film sludge that even brushed against the moving image. They watched every movie they could get their greasy mitts on, and they loved every single sweaty second of it.
But alas, it is quite the difficult task to practice the art of cinephilia in the modern age that we call the 21st century. The introduction of digital films have given a plethora of eager film makers a simple tool to craft their (sometimes pretty crap) vision. To practice cinephilia one must watch a lot of media content, actually an impossibly large amount of media content. Just when you finish watching the “Best 100 movies of all time” (as listed by COOLRETROPOPCORN.COM article) you realize that their are hundreds of similar list all with different movies that all tell you that you NEED to watch THIS film.
The fact of the matter is that unlike cinephiles of the past, we just don’t have enough time to watch every movie. This can create FOMO (fear of missing out) in a lot of cinephiles. “Should I watch this?” “Which film will make me look better in the cinephile community?” These are common questions that arise from many a cinephille.
Unfortunately it seems that in this modern age the word “cinephile” is a term that is no longer relevant in it’s current definition. In the past, cinephiles were people that would watch any film they could get access to in a much more manageable time where not many films were released (at least not as many as today). Today, like I stated before, we just don’t have time to watch everything. Today a cinephille is almost indistinguishable from the average movie goer. Cinephilia used to be a proud practice, a closed in club of dedicated movie goers. Now it seems (thanks to streaming) that every one can join the club. Is it bad that anyone can now start to become a cinephile? I guess that's an answer for another day.
