Impact of Cinema on Social Issues: Auteur's Perspective

Auteur theory holds that, ‘a director’s films reflect that director’s personal creative vision, as if he/she were the primary author. From the earliest silent films to contemporary times motion pictures have crossed over and both entertained and educated the viewing audience.
Filmmakers are one of the social interpreters reflecting and commenting about society and the times. Motion pictures can highlight social issues from economic and environmental justice, racial lines and discrimination, violence against women, worker rights, homelessness, and poverty to all forms of human rights abuses. Good films can raise awareness and be a start to addressing local and global issues. They can educate about cultures, and give a broader political, religious, or social context. For example the movie “Blood Diamond”, starring Leonardo Dicaprio, depicts a country torn apart by the struggle between government loyalists and rebel forces on the control of the diamond mining market. After the movie was released

worldwide, the interest of ensuring that diamonds sold at credited jewelers weren’t conflict gems. This movie nearly single-handedly resolved long-held misconceptions. Many films have started awareness to social problems, and it’s up to the people to change as a permanent solution or just another catalyst for social change.
Since the dawn of film in the early twentieth century, many social issues have been addressed from abortion, labor issues, voting rights, domestic violence, mistreatment of minorities, and others.Director DW Griffith and his pioneering and controversial 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, and the subsequent 1916 film Intolerance are the most well known of films that made social commentary in that time.

Birth of a Nation turned out to be a controversial film because of its depiction of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan. The film was considered sexist and reinforced representations of African-Americans. It generated so much criticism and controversy that Griffith followed it with Intolerance, which showed the dangers of racism and prejudice. However, it too was deemed racist with tones of anti-Semitic and anti-Arab representations. Birth of a Nation generated so much criticism that an entire movement, race cinema, evolved to counter the negative stereotyping of

African-Americans.
In Europe, Italian neo-realism set the stage of films that addressed the difficult social conditions brought about by World War II in the 1940s. Films like The Bicycle Thief and Umberto D reflected the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances facing poverty and anxiety. There were similar movements in Germany, with the rise of New German Cinema. France followed the Italians in the late 1950s and 1960s with ‘The New Wave’, which not only addressed cinematic form but also addressed the social and political issues of the time with films like The 400 Blows.
In India, the Indian New Wave, also know as Art or Parallel Cinema set the stage for films that made social commentary. Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal are two of the many famous directors that helped set the stage for the new wave. Many of these films won major prizes at the film festivals at Cannes, Venice and Berlin including Bimal Roy’s Two Acres of Land (1953) and Ray’s Apu Trilogy consisting of Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959).