What’s the difference between real-life and cinema?
The more accurate question would be what makes a story or let’s say a real-life story cinematic.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is inspired from a true story. It codified the complete slasher horror genre to another realm. An iconic, tightly edited scene using 77 different camera angles to create panic and violence without showing the knife actually cutting skin.
Ironic isn’t it. Yet it ended up frightening audiences for generations.