Images from film and TV run through the novel. Saleem's uncle Hanif is a failed script-writer and his aunt Pia is a beautiful actress. More than this however, Midnight's Children is concerned with film as artifice - the illusion of an unproblematic portrayal of reality:

Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible. Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at first in the back row, until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the star's faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque proportions; the illusion dissolves - or rather, it becomes clear that the illusion itself is reality ... [p.165]