Portal:Film

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Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.

Film is an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten, and inspire audiences. The visual elements of cinema need no translation, giving the motion picture a universal power of communication. Films are also artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and in turn, affect them.

Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to a combination of physiological and psychological effects. One in known as persistence of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers also perceive motion due to psychological effects called beta movement and the phi phenomenon.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.

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Lage Raho Munna Bhai is a 2006 Indian musical comedy directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It is the first Hindi film to be shown in the United Nations and is the second film in the popular Munna Bhai series of Bollywood. Sanjay Dutt stars in this film as Munna Bhai, a Mumbai underworld don, who begins to see the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi. Through his interactions with the image of Gandhi, Munna Bhai begins to practice what he calls Gandhigiri (Satyagraha, non-violence, and truth) to help ordinary people solve their problems. His sidekick, Circuit, is portrayed by Arshad Warsi. Lage Raho Munna Bhai has had a strong cultural impact in India, popularising Gandhism under Munna Bhai's notion of Gandhigiri. It was praised by the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, who stated (using Gandhi's nickname, "Bapu" or father) that the movie "captures Bapu's message about the power of truth and humanism". The film was generally well received by critics and at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, declared a "blockbuster", and was the recipient of a number of awards.

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Credit: John Mueller

The cast and crew of Monster House at the 2006 Annie Awards red carpet at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. The Annie Awards is an animation award show created and produced by the Los Angeles, California branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972.

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...that the 1932 comedy Pojkarna på Storholmen, starring Fridolf Rhudin, is one of the most successful Swedish films in history?
...that Hell Below, a 1933 WW I film, set the pattern for many WW II submarine dramas, and featured the deliberate sinking of USS Moody, slated for destruction by the London Naval Treaty?
...that the phrase "Up to eleven", inspired by a scene from the 1984 film This is Spinal Tap, was entered into the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 2002 with the definition "up to maximum volume"?
...that Tanaz Eshaghian's film Be Like Others explores the experiences of transsexuals in Iran, a country that outlaws homosexuality but sanctions sex-reassignment surgery?

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Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress of film, television and theatre. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were romantic dramas. Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was the first actor to receive ten Academy Award nominations and the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Her career went through several periods of decline, and she admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was once widowed and thrice divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, however she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than one hundred film, television and theater roles to her credit.

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We in Hollywood say that the script is a blueprint. I think a script is more. I think the director, the actor, the cameraman, have to be servants on the script. I hate to change anything in the script on the stage. I prepare my directions on the desk. Sometimes naturally to change something in the studio, but generally I'm not changing anything.

— Fritz Lang

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