"What makes cinematic depictions of disaster so compelling - when they're done right, that is - is the uneasy dance between plausibility and fantasy. We watch from the safety of our seats as horrible things happen to these characters, and we feel both the spine-tingling excitement of thinking, Yeah, this could totally happen, and the reassuring comfort of knowing that we ourselves are safe."
"(One of the very first narrative short films was Edwin Porter's Life of an American Fireman, from 1903.) Maybe that's because film is the one art form that can do proper justice to this sort of spectacle: You can't re-create it onstage, and who wants to read about a disaster when they can see it? It's also one of cinema's most resilient genres."
Cinematic disaster films thrive on the uneasy interplay between plausibility and fantasy, offering audiences both spine-tingling possibility and reassuring distance. Viewers experience excitement imagining events could happen while remaining physically safe. Real-life disasters can alter audience reactions, rendering onscreen portrayals unbearable for some and more voyeuristically thrilling for others. The disaster movie is one of cinema's oldest and most resilient genres, with precursors like Edwin Porter's Life of an American Fireman (1903). Film uniquely recreates large-scale spectacle that cannot be staged onstage and continues to draw attention despite fluctuations in other popular genres.
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