Cinema has emerged as a strong medium of culture, education, entertainment and propaganda. In a 1963 United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization report on Indian Cinema and Culture, the writer (Baldoon Dhingra) referred to a speech by Prime Minister Nehru that said, “…the influence in India of films is greater than newspapers and books combined.” Already at this relatively early period of cinema, the Indian film-market served more than 25 million individuals per week- a ‘fringe’ of the population as it was thought to be.

Modern studies have also uncovered deeper dimensions to film’s influence upon society. In a 2005 article by S C Noah Uhrig (University of Essex, UK) titled, “‘Cinema is Good for You: The Effects of Cinema Attendance on Self-Reported Anxiety or Depression and ‘Happiness'” the author discusses how, “The narrative and representational facets of film render it a genuinely singular form of art.”. Furthermore, the shared experience of cinema as art makes it an entirely unique recreational activity. The special qualities of going to the cinema can have resoundingly beneficial impacts on mental wellbeing. Cinema going can have autonomous and strong impacts on mental health since visual stimulation can trigger a variety of emotions and the shared experience of these emotions through the cinema offers a secure setting in which to experience roles and emotions we may not otherwise be able to feel free to experience. The social nature of the story and visual stimulation renders the experience enjoyable and controlled, thus providing advantages over simple visual stimulation. Additionally, the cinema is special in that it is a very accessible social art form, the engagement with which tends to cross economic boundaries. On the other hand, going to the cinema provides for the exercise of individual choice and the human desire for distinction. In short, going to the cinema can be an expressive individual experience, good fun, and therapeutic all at once. In a very innovative study, Konlaan, Bygren and Johansson discovered that regular cinema goers have especially low risks of mortality –those who never went to the cinema had mortality rates almost 4 times greater than those who go to the cinema from time to time (Konlaan, Bygren, and Johansson 2000). Their discovery is still true when other social engagement is held constant, indicating that social engagement per se in an artistic environment matters to human existence.

So how did cinema develop to be so dominant as an aspect of human culture?