Why Movies Just Don't Feel "Real" Anymore

Brief Summary:
This video takes a deep-dive into why modern movies often feel less "real" or immersive compared to films from previous eras. Exploring concepts like perceptual realism, indexicality, haptic visuality, and cinematic qualia, the video explains the psychological and philosophical mechanics behind the sensation of "realness" in cinema. From technical choices to deeper sensory engagement, it reveals how cinematic craft shapes our ability to be truly transported by stories on screen.

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1. The Question: Why Don't Movies Feel Real Anymore?

The video kicks off with an intriguing comparison: a scene from the latest Jurassic World movie lined up against one from The Lost World. Interestingly, the selected shots don't contain dinosaurs—"that's not what this is about. It's not about CGI." The real focus is on a deeper level of immersion—that special quality that makes a movie not just look, but feel real and vivid. The speaker recalls classics like "The Lord of the Rings made me want to visit New Zealand. Those movies made me feel like I could actually stand in those same rugged landscapes. But The Hobbit… not so much."

This creeping sense of unreality in modern blockbusters isn't just about bad CGI, poor lighting, or flat color grading—those are merely technical details. The speaker senses deeper, more philosophical forces at play and wonders, "If we truly want to tackle this issue once and for all, then we need to understand those as well."

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2. Perceptual Realism: What Makes an Image Feel Believable?

To start unraveling the mystery, the video defines a crucial point: the feeling of realism in movies doesn't require the movie itself to be real. Even with fantastical elements like dinosaurs or aliens, films can transport us into convincingly real worlds. That's because of a concept called perceptual realism.

"A perceptually realistic image is one which structurally corresponds to the viewer's audiovisual experience of three-dimensional space."

This comes from film scholar Stephen Prince, who describes perceptual realism as a match between what we see on screen and how we encounter the world day to day. The details, light, movement, and sound all layer together to help us immerse, even in imaginary worlds.

Movies that master perceptual realism use deep focus and show plenty of their environments, letting the viewer's eyes wander. "[Deep focus, long shot compositions like these] invite the audience to scan the frame for meaning in a way that was more analogous to how we perceive affairs outside the movie theater… They were more realistic because they were more like ordinary perceptual experience." (Noël Carroll)

This approach is not about digital versus film cameras—it's about how much of the world is included and how it's visually organized. Even recent digital films like The Revenant or A Hidden Life can look as immersive as classics, especially when they use real locations and let your eye explore the space.

Yet, it's not just about real backdrops: CGI worlds like Avatar: The Way of Water can be "beyond beautiful, and in many ways, more engaging and more perceptually realistic than some movies shot in the real world." What matters is how richly and thoughtfully the movie builds its world, giving you lots of details to sense and scan.

In sharp contrast, movies with blurry, uninteresting backgrounds or excessive close-ups (like Quantumania) lack that sense of space. They end up feeling artificial and "virtually two-dimensional."

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3. The 'Cinematic Look' and Its Influence

The next major idea is the prevalence of the "cinematic look" in modern movies, marked by shallow depth of field and lots of medium close-ups. While this style can be beautiful and purposeful at its best, when used indiscriminately, it often blocks our ability to perceive the immersive world around the characters.

"Deep focus, that's only if you want to make your movie look like a documentary. But if you want cinema—then a shallow depth of field and the medium close up are your main instrument."

Directors like Zack Snyder have been cited for making movies that, once they became their own cinematographers, "feel virtually two-dimensional," losing the thick, tactile sense of place. Piling on digital effects without care for integrating them with real elements can diminish the impact of practical stunts and locations, causing them "to look fake, even when they're not."

Another key culprit: excessive post-production manipulation. Instead of making clear creative choices on set, many filmmakers now leave decisions for later, resulting in "bland," overly "flat," and non-committal visuals. As Patrick Tomasso observes:

"We shoot it bland, we shoot it boring, we light it flat, we don't commit."

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4. Indexicality: The Connection Between Image and Reality

Next, the video dives deeper with "indexicality"—a philosophical concept about the connection between a movie image and the real world it supposedly represents. Traditionally, film was valued for having a direct, physical imprint of reality, as light hit the film stock.

"A footprint is the index of a foot, with the former being directly caused by the latter."

But digital images convert light into data, and are considered less 'indexed' to actual reality—they can be tweaked endlessly, breaking that physical bond. Even movies shot on film are heavily altered in post today, so, as scholar David Davies notes,

"There is no reason to think that the viewer's experience of a moving image in a fictional film is affected either by the indexicality or non-indexicality of the image, or by her beliefs about the indexicality or non-indexicality of the image."

What really matters is the feeling of physicality in the final image, regardless of technical process. This feeling leads us to the next key idea: how images connect with our senses.

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5. Haptic Visuality: 'Feeling' a Movie with Your Senses

Here comes one of the video's most exciting concepts: haptic visuality. Philosopher Laura Marks explains that films aren't just watched—they're felt with your whole body.

"Film is grasped not solely by an intellectual act but by the complex perception of the body as a whole."

She introduces "haptic visuality"—a form of seeing where your eyes feel like organs of touch:

"Haptic perception is the combination of tactile, kinesthetic, and proprioceptive functions—the way we experience touch both on the surface of and inside our bodies. In haptic visuality, the eyes themselves function like organs of touch."

While optical (ordinary) vision is about distance and depth, haptic visuality is about texture and closeness:

"Optical visuality depends on a separation between the viewing subject and the object. Haptic looking tends to move over the surface of its object rather than to plunge into illusionistic depth, not to distinguish form so much as to discern texture."

This enriches perceptual realism, letting us "imagine myself touching the grass, and have such a visceral response to that playful fluidity of water." It's why films that focus on material details—like close-ups of rain on metal, hands grazing a surface, faces covered in sweat—feel so immersive.

Filmmakers use several tricks to evoke the sense of touch:

• Extreme close-ups of faces or objects
• Detailed sound design and natural element effects (like fire or wind)
• Texture in visuals (film grain, digital "noise," or gritty settings)

Why is touch so powerful? It's our first developed sense and essential for bonding and emotional connection; "to touch is also to receive." Haptic visuality, then, creates a two-way relationship—the image 'touches' us, and we touch back in an imaginative, sensory sense.

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6. Cinematic Qualia: The Essence of "Being There"

This immersive strategy leads to another layer: cinematic qualia—the felt experience of being in someone else's shoes on screen. Qualia means the "feeling of what-it-is-like" to be in a certain situation. Highlighting scenes where every detail—the sweat, the grime, the uncomfortable heat—comes through, the speaker points out:

"The camera is close on the skin, the lighting is sharp, both of which help to emphasize the textures… which in turn, gives the audience a visceral impression not just of those specific material elements, but also of the more general feeling of what it is like to be in that place."

In contrast, flat lighting, overuse of medium shots, and excessive make-up in modern films can rob audiences of that feeling, making "everyone just way too pretty now." The true magic of film immersion is not ticking off technical boxes, but "purposefully trying to elicit a feeling, to make a meaningful connection to the audience, and to actively immerse them into a story."

As Laura Marks says:

"Thinking of cinema as haptic is only a step toward considering the ways cinema appeals to the body as a whole."

Great movies can tap into other, more abstract realities—emotions, memories, dreams, states of being—and combine these forms of realism:

"This deep immersion doesn't so much arise out of a single image, as much as it is created over the course of a carefully constructed continuation of them. With each shot, each scene, building on the other, creating sensory dynamics and feedback loops that map out spaces, add details and textures… so on, can make a story come alive in a way that feels more immersive, more vivid, and more impactful than the sum of its various technical parts."

Ultimately, the goal is simple yet profound:

"To be transported, to be moved, to be touched. To feel like we just watched something meaningful, that we just experienced something real." 🎬✨

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7. Contextual Intentionality: Where and How We Watch Matters

As a final point, the video notes that meaningful cinema is not just about how films are made, but also how and where we watch them. Curated platforms like MUBI are highlighted for helping viewers find intentional, quality experiences—introducing them to "hand-picked movies from around the globe," from classics to hidden gems.

"Whenever I know I want to watch something with intention, whenever I'm feeling truly curious, that's when I turn to MUBI."

Even in streaming, the atmosphere and context of viewing can nurture the kind of meaningful, immersive engagement that classic cinema offers. 💡

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Final Thoughts

Movies don't just need to "look" real—they need to feel real, connecting on a deeper sensory and emotional level. True cinematic immersion draws on perceptual realism, indexicality, haptic engagement, and the crafting of qualia—reminding us that the most impactful films aren't only a technical feat, but a profoundly human and shared experience.
"To be transported, to be moved, to be touched. To feel like we just watched something meaningful...that we just experienced something real."