Film versus cinema

I’ve noticed this recently. A few years ago, movie snobs who wanted to set themselves apart from the vulgar intentionally used the word “film,” wherever they could. This didn’t bother me too much because, elitism aside, it is technically more correct. “Movies” is an anachronism borrowed from a time when a distinction had to be drawn between movies with sound and those without–”movies” and “talkies.” I never bothered to adjust my own speaking when someone politely corrected me once–I still use the two interchangeably–but I couldn’t begrudge those who did. But now it’s just getting out of hand.

Now I’m seeing “cinema” start to replace “film” in everyone’s vernacular, and it’s almost indefensibly pretentious. You could make the argument that it’s a reflection of the current shift toward the discussion of film now centering around the way we watch movies rather than their textual content, but I’d counter that argument by calling you obtuse.

There’s more to this.