Cinema Is Not Expensive Compared with Other Pastimes, but Audiences Don't Want to Spend Their Money There

According to Khabar Online, the newspaper Ettela'at wrote: The reality is that today's audience does not buy only a product; it decides for its time, attention and experience. So a ticket may be cheap, but if the film cannot convince the audience to devote an hour of its life to it, that same ticket ends up expensive for them.

The real cost of cinema is not just the price on the ticket; the main cost is the time the audience must spend commuting, being in the hall and watching the film. In such conditions, the film must be able to offer the audience something more than a seat and a screen; it must create an experience.

This is where another paradox shows itself: sometimes films whose artistic and content quality is questionable achieve considerable sales, while serious, creative films or those with greater cinematic values face low-audience halls. This does not, of course, mean that every best-selling film is necessarily of poor quality, or that every low-selling film is necessarily a valuable work of art. But it cannot be denied that in part of Iran's cinema market, a thought-provoking gap has formed between sales and quality.

The answer must be sought in the change in audience taste and in the way entertainment is consumed. Today's audience is surrounded by a flood of images, videos, series, social networks and instant entertainments. At any moment, with a few taps on a mobile phone screen, it can entertain itself. In such a competition, cinema no longer competes merely with other cinemas; it competes with the entire attention economy. On the other hand, an important part of audiences, in going to the cinema, looks for feeling good, a shared experience, and getting away from the pressures of everyday life. Perhaps that is why comedy films and entertaining works, in many periods, claim a considerable share of cinema sales. Indeed, it is natural for a society struggling with economic problems, social pressures and everyday anxieties to devote part of its leisure time to a product that can distance it from these pressures for a few hours. But the problem begins where entertainment is taken to be one and the same as superficiality.

To attract audiences, cinema does not necessarily have to be bitter, complex and intellectual; just as an entertaining film does not necessarily have to be vulgar or devoid of content. Successful cinema can both make the audience laugh and give it something to think about. It can be entertaining while at the same time having defensible characterization, screenplay, directing and story world.

The issue is not why people go to comedy films; the issue is why sometimes the simplest and cheapest possible form is chosen to make the audience laugh.

On the other hand, part of the audience crisis must be sought in the distance that has formed between cinema and people's real lives. When the audience feels that what it sees on the screen has no connection with its concerns, experiences, aspirations, fears and real issues, it is natural for cinema to become a secondary choice for it. Cinema is alive when it can recognize the pulse of society; not merely present a clichéd image of society. Meanwhile, the issue of advertising and how a film is introduced is also important.

Many films get lost in the advertising commotion before they get a chance to be seen. The audience must know why it should see this film. Being known is different from being seen. A film may have well-known actors at its disposal, but fail to promise the audience a distinctive experience.

Today, more than ever, it is necessary to think about the philosophy of cinema's existence in the age of social networks. Cinema should not be merely a place for showing films; it must become a cultural and social destination — a place for experience, dialogue, memory and human connection. If cinema only hopes that people come to the hall to laugh for a few hours or escape from routine, it may sometimes break sales records; but it cannot gain the audience's lasting trust.

The film industry truly flourishes when, after leaving the hall, the audience feels that it has not wasted its time and part of its life in vain, and feels that cinema still has something that no small screen and no other entertainment can give it in its place — namely, a real, shared and memorable experience.