#kinodebatte

The young man who is searching for “the one” among the limited number of his few million compatriots, will be able to easily establish a connection with a young woman in Sydney, and she—ah, she—will blush softly on the glass screen as she nods in agreement, or not, for the eternal flickering of love will roll past technological achievements, and I almost fear that the telefilm would be more likely to increase the number of heartbreaks.

In the beginning, there was kitsch. Bloodthirsty and sentimental, gaudy and gruesome. Across the screen, stretched between the timber walls of musty dives that smelled like cats and bad tobacco from furtive cigarettes, flickered the frissons of endless crime films, full of outrageous felonies and debauchery. There were murders, manslaughter, bull’s-eyes, poisoned weapons, trapdoors, and secret passageways. [...] Cinema is the desire for thrills...But cinema is also, first and foremost, the satisfaction of man’s innate curiosity, his longing for the grand, exciting life of the present and past. For colorful stories in faraway places. For people and things created by fantasy and history. The many millions who sit in movie theaters every evening, under the spell of a life that flits over screens in countless kilometers of illuminated celluloid strips—at first they are still just salespeople, laborers, artisans, academics, clerks, snobs, and high-class ladies, but after a few scenes they become a homogenous mass, brought together by a single issue, a problem, a thought, a movie star, caught up in the suggestion of passion—they all want to see the world created anew.

well, this is creepily prescient