The Greatest Film Ever Made: Epilogue

“Old age – it's the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don't look forward to being cured of.”

What makes someone or something great? Incredible talent, brilliant performance, innovations, influence, test of time – all of these contribute, but there is one more thing essential for that final stamp of ‘greatness’. It is the legend associated, the folklore, the paradoxes, the enigma. Whether it is the symbolism of Muhammad Ali’s fight against racial discrimination, or the tragedy of Guru Dutt – these socio-political, poetic-philosophical elements always contribute to the unanimous acceptance of something as ‘great’, and often these have nothing to do with the actual performance of the act.

So here is a story, true, unbelievable…

At the time when the Hollywood Studio System was at its powerful best, when studio executives held more power than the stars or the directors, a unique contract suddenly became the talk of the town. RKO, one of the major studios, had just offered someone to produce, direct, write, and act in two feature films, without any interference and with the privilege of the final cut – something even the most established directors could not dream of. This offer was made to a 25-year old young man and this led to phenomenal jealousy in the Hollywood community against him, whom the world later identified as Orson Welles.

Welles decided to base the first movie on the life of a newspaper tycoon – William R. Hearst, playing the lead role himself. The name of the character in the movie was Charles Foster Kane, but the Hearst connection could not be retained as a secret. Fearing a negative portrayal of himself, William Hearst attempted to buy and destroy all negatives of the film but couldn’t. He then attacked the movie through his newspaper, and threatened to retaliate against theatres that showed it. The industry was terrified. A group of studio bosses offered RKO money to burn the negative. But the studio refused.

‘Citizen Kane’ opened to extraordinary critical acclaim. And my last three posts on it, which are only a glimpse into its brilliance, should at least justify that. I still feel that the unprecedented praise by the American media had definitely something to do with the controversy surrounding its production and release.

However, the movie failed to recover its costs at the box-office. Despite several nominations, it could not win more than one Academy Award in a ceremony where it was booed and insulted. Eleven years later, in 1952, Sight and Sound magazine voted it as the 11th greatest movie of all time. A group of French critics, who were soon to kick-start the most influential film movement in world cinema, the New Wave, were praising the movie highly during the 50s, and it was revived in America in 1956. When Sight and Sound released their next list in 1962, ‘Citizen Kane’ was voted as the greatest film ever made. Since then it has retained that spot for each subsequent decade, and today it occupies the top position in almost all great movies list. The story, though, does not end here.

The film did an everlasting damage to the career of Welles. The industry had realized that this man will always place his artistic aspirations over the finances. RKO violated the same contract by taking his next film away from him and changing the ending. Welles went into a self-imposed exile in Europe for much of the rest of his career where he found a more sympathetic audience. He acted in others’ movies to raise funds for his own. Two years before he died, he accepted that he “made essentially a mistake in staying in movies”. In the end, his first movie also became a prophecy for his own life which ended lonely and unfortunately like that of his character – Charles F. Kane.

‘Citizen Kane’ in my opinion, is definitely one of the greatest American movies. It is a wonderful film text, rich, influential, enigmatic, and also, once you start understanding it, entertaining. It is a brilliant expression of an auteur, a purely original work, an aesthetic and technical watershed in cinema history. But is it greater than ‘The Godfather’, ‘Seven Samurai’, ‘8 ½’, ‘Bicycle Thieves’? I don’t know. I’m not qualified enough to comment. However, when filmmakers and scholars and critics all over the world vote it as the greatest, I better listen to them. They know the medium better than me, and they have no reason to lie! "Everyone will always owe him everything" – believes Godard about Orson Welles. And just for this reason, I also recommend this film as a must watch (#21). You can not die without watching ‘the greatest movie ever made’.

The Sound of 'Citizen Kane'

“You never should've married a newspaperman, they're worse than sailors.”

Before making his first film, Orson Welles was already a name in theatre and radio, and was thus aware of the power of sound. While working on ‘Citizen Kane’ he employed all his experience to create the ‘right’ sound for the film. “If it sounds right, it’s gotta look right” – he believed. And the sound of this movie turned out to be a great achievement on its own. Here are a few examples of his innovations and imagination.

To complement his Deep Focus photography, he created ‘deep focus sound’ by carefully regulating his sound levels so that voices in the depth of the image sound farther away than voices in the foreground of the image. ‘Hear’ carefully the Colorado scene to appreciate that. Also note that in the shot that ends this scene, Kane’s sled becomes increasingly covered with snow, and the whistle of a train can be heard from a distance. It is so subtle you might miss it the first time around. But once you discover that, the image of the snow-covered sled becomes even more poignant.

Welles made his characters interrupt each other’s lines resulting in the overlapping of dialogue. He considered it more realistic than the tradition of characters not stepping on each other's sentences. Then there are scenes, like one between Kane and Susan in a tent, where apart from the characters talking, we can also hear the voices of characters around them who are not really seen (people outside the tent in this case). Welles also pioneered the J-cut, the technique of putting the audio ahead of the visual in scene transitions.

The efficient use of texture of voices is another remarkable achievement of this film. Susan’s voice is soft and warm when she first meets Kane, only to turn into high-pitched screams later. The palace of Xanadu appears even more alienating because of the reverberating echoes whenever Kane and Susan shout at each other from across the room. Also compare the might expressed through Kane’s voice during the political rally speech with the sterile flatness when he threatens Gettys.

Another brilliant innovation by Welles was the ‘Lightening Mix’. One sentence started by a person at the end of a scene is completed in the next and this new scene is at least a few years ahead in time. So, by using sound bridges, Welles devised an interesting way to signify passing of time. The best example is the Breakfast Montage where Kane and his first wife talk over the dining table and more than a decade of story time is compressed in two minutes of screen time. This scene amazes you every time you watch it.

The musical score of the film by Bernard Herrmann was also a landmark. Instead of the traditional practice of using non-stop music, Herrmann used musical cues lasting between five and fifteen seconds to bridge the action or suggest a different emotional response. This is superbly done in the Breakfast Montage. Also notice the score simulating the ticking of a clock during the bored life Susan and Kane are leading at Xanadu. Herrmann went on to become one of the prominent musicians for Hollywood, working in films like 'Vertigo', 'Psycho', and 'Taxi Driver'. But even he believes that he was at his best when he worked on this movie. If ‘Citizen Kane’ was a technical watershed, and it definitely was, its sound had as much to contribute as its cinematography.

The Cinematography of 'Citizen Kane'

"There's only one person in the world to decide what I'll do. And that's me."

Film scholars and historians view ‘Citizen Kane’ as Welles' attempt to create a new style by studying various forms of movie making, and combining them all into one, though Welles himself denies that. He believes it was his ignorance that led him to those technical innovations, all of which were not essentially pioneered by this movie but eventually became inseparably associated with it. The director here does not indulge in taking stand on the Realism versus Expressionism debate, but rather uses the best of both schools in order to create his cinema. We will discuss this with respect to the cinematography of ‘Citizen Kane’.

Observe this snapshot from the scene at the Colorado home. It might be difficult to appreciate it here, but in this shot all characters are in focus – including the kid Kane playing outside (he may appear out of focus, but it’s actually snow). This kind of photography is called Deep Focus, where the depth of field is enhanced and a lot of things appear to be in focus together. How is this achieved technically – I don’t know. Some of my photographer friends can help me understand. But Deep Focus photography in cinema has now become synonymous with ‘Citizen Kane’. We read this technique as being ‘realist’ – since everything is in focus the audience can choose what to focus on without the director ‘directing’ their attention to something in particular.

The shot on the left is also an example of Deep Focus photography.

Any time Deep Focus was not possible, and I guess it has something to do with the availability of light (though I may be wrong), the makers employed other tricks to create the deep focus effect.

In this shot, Kane is in foreground and his friend Leland is at a considerable distance. Yet both appear to be in focus. This was achieved by shooting the two separately and then visually layering the films together using an optical printer.

However, notice that in this shot after Susan’s suicide attempt, the imposing bottle and glass in the foreground as well as the men entering the room are in focus, while Susan herself is out-of-focus. This was achieved using in-camera effects. The foreground was shot first, with the background dark. Then the background was lit, the foreground darkened, the film rewound, and the scene re-shot with the background action. Of course, this choice of focus enables a crisp storytelling where no dialogue is required to explain what happened. The unconscious woman in soft-focus definitely enhances our perception of her delirious state. And focusing on her husband, and our protagonist, makes sure that this remains as much his scene as it is of the wife.

And then we move to the most expressionistic camerawork that this movie employs. This extreme low-angle shot is so different from our perception of reality. More such bizarre angles and lenses were used at various points in the movie. Here the director is producing his own version of reality. Welles had to create ceilings over the sets and dig the floors to create trenches that could accommodate the camera. In those days, all of this was unheard of. Why does he do that? May be it was a stylistic choice, but here is how the famous French critic Bazin reads this shot: “the gaze upward seems to come out of the earth, while the ceilings, forbidding any escape within the décor, complete the fatality of this curse. Kane’s lust for power crushes us, but is itself crushed by the décor. Through the camera, we are capable in a way of perceiving Kane’s failure at the same time we experience his power.”

This is only a glimpse into the bag of tricks that this movie is. You can watch the film again and again just for its cinematography, the importance of which can be assessed by the way Welles credited his cinematographer. There is no separate title card for Welles as the director. He shares it with the cinematographer! I have never seen something like this elsewhere.

The Screenplay of 'Citizen Kane'

"You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich I might have been a really great man."

Statutory Warning: I am assuming that you have watched the movie before reading this. Please don't read further if you plan to and haven't.

Let's go through the narrative structure of 'Citizen Kane'. It begins with the death of the protagonist - Charles Foster Kane, followed by a loud 15-minute news film on his life, revealing to us almost every major landmark, almost all crests and troughs that came to him. At this point a group of journalists decide to find the relevance of the last word uttered by Kane. The word is 'Rosebud' and the journey that a journalist called Thompson undertakes to find its significance forms the body of the film. We hardly get to see Thompson's face, though we are constantly with him. And in the end we hardly come to know anything about 'Rosebud' - possibly the most famous MacGuffin, arguably the most talked about secret in the history of cinema.

The rest of the movie is a jig-saw puzzle, going back and forth in time, often repeating the same incidents with different perspectives. It is definitely not as twisted as '21 Grams' or 'Memento' or other such modern puzzles, but is definitely more mature in its narrative structure than most. Interestingly, unlike other 'time-twisted' films, it doesn't complicate matters just for the sake of it, nor does it rely on seducing you to solve it, rather it tries to prove the futility of such an exercise and revels in its inherent complication - the journey to explore the life of an enigmatic man. What puzzle can be more interesting to experience, more challenging to solve? And since the 15-minute short-film has already narrated to us his life, we are more interested in knowing 'why and how' rather than 'what'.

The film is told from the perspectives of multiple narrators. Like it would happen to all of us, after one dies, his life-story can only be constructed from others' memories of the person, and depends significantly on his relationship with them, and on their respective world-views. Furthermore, all narrators here - the news film, the memoirs of Kane's guardian, his old manager, his ageing friend who later turned against him, his alcoholic and depressed second wife, and the obviously greedy butler - are unreliable. Naturally, it makes us think - perhaps Kane was not as bad as he appears in the film. The eventual hint at the meaning of 'Rosebud' also creates an out-of-character image for him, thus establishing the limitation of the entire endeavour to try to understand a person through the perspectives of others. I believe that this helps us admire Kane better with repeated viewings, and an apparently anti-hero emerges to be someone we'll always want to know more about.

Go through the preceding three paragraphs again, one by one. You will agree that each has the promise for a truly fascinating and complex screenplay. Even today, to write something structurally and philosophically as complicated as this will be an arduous task. 'Citizen Kane' had it all organically woven into one, not to forget that most of these tools were unheard of back in those days.

However, the screenplay of this movie is not great only with respect to 'its time'. In my opinion, despite the various technical accomplishments of this film, it is its writing that remains its most timeless and unparalleled achievement. A screenplay as good as this will always end up as a memorable film, whether its translation on film employs the best of technique or not. If it can ever be considered a yardstick of cinematic excellence - the Oscar for Original Screenplay was the only win this movie could manage out of nine nominations. Even the worst of hostility towards it during that year's Academy Awards function could not prevent this to happen. Today, for all screenwriters, the script of 'Citizen Kane' remains the ultimate challenge, and inspiration, though ironically, no one can actually learn or teach to write something like this, a story which manages to impress and entertain without adhering to the classical screenwriting rules, and eventually mocking them with its sheer brilliance.

P.S. If you are interested in reading this screenplay, please send a request to s.satyanshu@gmail.com. I will mail it to you.

Understanding Cinema Lecture: The Greatest Film Ever Made

The biggest problem with ‘Citizen Kane’ is the baggage it comes with, the tag it has earned over the last seven decades, of being the greatest of all films. Our first experience of the movie is generally a useless exercise – trying to question, appreciate, and criticize at the same time different aspects of a movie that is bogged down by its reputation. In the end we are still not convinced about the reason behind its hype, our final reaction being – “Well, may be… I don’t know.”

If only we could watch it without the enormous expectations…

For the first time on this blog I’m going to discuss any one film in such detail, and it is merely a coincidence that the first such movie is going to be ‘Citizen Kane’. But somehow, I feel good about it. Starting with the best!

The posts to follow will focus on three aspects of the film:

- The Writing

- The Cinematography

- The Sound

An Epilogue will then conclude the discussion. I’m really looking forward to it…

Getting Cinemate: #13 Realism versus Expressionism

You might believe that motion picture photography captures reality and hence it is honest and true and real. You also believe that as a filmmaker it is wrong to try to modify that reality. So, you will pay more attention to ‘what to show’ when you make your films rather than ‘how to show’. If you think like this, you are a ‘Realist’ filmmaker.

However, if you believe in using cinema as magic, and using your expression to alter reality to create a different reality, you are an ‘Expressionist’ filmmaker. ‘How to show’ gives you greater satisfaction than ‘what to show’.

If you are shifting focus in the running shot, you are directing the audience’s attention. This is Expressionistic. However, if everything in your shot is in focus and you leave it to the audience to focus on what they want, this is Realistic. The ‘unreal’ sets of a Sanjay Bhansali film can be defended by the concept of expressionism – it is the director’s wish to supersede reality with his own way of looking and showing. The complete lack of background score in various movies can be defended by the concept of realism – we do not have background score in real life!

It is difficult to find examples of films relying totally on either of the philosophies of filming. Generally, the best of cinema uses the best of both.

Understanding Cinema Lecture: ‘Pulp Fiction’

In an essentially commercial film industry like Hollywood, or even ours, cinema has the tendency to be complacent, the tendency to identify successful formulas and limit itself to those. From a creative field, it changes itself to something churning out products as in a mass-production unit. And then we need movies that shock and stun, not only the audience and the sociologists, but the film industry, and redefine the possibilities of movies as a commercial venture. When we talk about such a movie, the first name that comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994).

Made at the modest budget of under $9 million, the movie grossed around $240 million worldwide, apart from acquiring a cult status and a worldwide fan-following. This achievement by a movie that broke several rules (read Commandments) of conventional cinema was shocking. And hence it could stir a revolution, apart from helping the indie movement, and went on to become possibly the most influential movie of the decade.

It is easy to understand why some people do not like the movie, as is obvious why some are absolutely crazy about it. In fact, there is a lot in this movie (drugs, violence, sex) that can be instantly popular among young filmmakers and audience. And though it is not inimitable, it is extremely difficult to create something as good as it. Because making something like ‘Pulp Fiction’ can not be taught or learnt in film-schools or through years of practice and making movies. You can only be a born Tarantino.

Ironically, when the script of this film was making rounds of the studios, one of the executives remarked that “This is the worst thing ever written.” Today, it is perhaps the most widely read script around the world. In fact, you can read ‘Pulp Fiction’ like a work of literature, you can listen to its dialogues without watching the pictures and still be entertained. The film has an infective ‘aural ambience’, apart from a stylized visual one.

How a cinema borrows from popular culture and then, if it is good and memorable enough, itself acquires an iconic status in that pop-culture is easily illustrated by this movie. There are numerous tributes to other movies, TV shows, and popular music, within the movie. And today, all those lines on ‘hamburgers’ and ‘foot massage’, and the mystery of what was inside the suitecase have become a part of popular consciousness.

One can go on talking about ‘Pulp Fiction’. But there is one thing I wanted to highlight. Despite all screenwriting rules that it breaks, it does not break the most vital rule – it is the characters (in conflict) that make a film. If you can create an orchestration of characters as colourful and memorable as these, you can go ahead and break all writing rules. All screenwriting gurus made a little change in their ‘dos and don’ts’ after the success of this movie – don’t do ‘this’ and don’t do ‘that’, unless you are Quentin Tarantino. Well, most of us are not.

P.S. For its innovative narrative structure, delicious dialogue, incredible characters, and unforgettable scenes ‘Pulp Fiction’ truly qualifies as a must-watch-before-you-die (#19).

Understanding Cinema Lecture: How to Divide Your Scene to Shots for Shooting

Shots are the units that make a film. They are like sentences in prose: each unit conveying one complete idea. So, though I discourage the idea of visualizing the film in shots, especially at the writing stage, once the screenplay is ready, we have to finally go through this exercise, of dividing each scene into shots. And if there is one mantra that we should never forget, it is this: ‘Each shot should be significant, each cut should be significant.’ To achieve the most correct shot-division, the director needs to understand the screenplay and investigate on it. What appears so normal and obvious on screen is actually a matter of individual decisions taken out of hundreds of options. And the pain and the wisdom that go into this make a good film great.

We have to answer three basic questions to understand our scene:
- Whose scene is it? (Which characters’)
- What is the purpose of the scene? (Narrative and/or dramatic, expository, to create a mood, to shed more light on characters etc.)
- What are the Dramatic Blocks that constitute the scene? (Look below for details).

Every scene has an arc of its own, which is generally through the perception of the person whose scene it is (the answer to the first question). This arc exists because there is something to be achieved through the scene (the answer to the second question). If it is compared to a prose piece, a scene can be composed of one or more ‘paragraphs’. One idea is generally covered in one paragraph. The only way to get what idea is being conveyed in the scene is by finding the answer to the first two questions. And once we know that, we can divide the dramatic arc of the scene into these visual paragraphs called Dramatic Blocks.

Each paragraph is composed of sentences. Similarly each Dramatic Block is composed of shots. But unlike prose, where a change of paragraph is easily communicated, we can not have visible ‘breaks’ in the action of the scene to make the audience understand the change from one dramatic block to the other. Hence we need to design the shots in a manner that ‘renders’ this information to the audience. This design is again driven from the answer to the three questions above, including the ‘idea’ being communicated through that particular dramatic block.

For example, the scene when ‘Bhuvan’ is introduced in ‘Lagaan’ is also when the antagonist – Capt. Russel is introduced, as is the seed for their rivalry. Remember how it is shot? The two facing each other, and a ‘shot-reverse shot’ pattern capturing the drama. However, in the next scene as we see Bhuvan and Gauri together, and the scene establishes their romantic relationship, we see them sitting together, thus establishing their ‘togetherness’ which does not have any real friction despite the conflicted love affair of theirs. If we do not understand the purpose of this scene, we might end up rendering it in shot-reverse shot pattern which suggests a conflict, each cut truly ‘separating’ the characters.

We thus realize that each shot carries a syntagmatic connotation (the connotative sense we comprehend by relating the shot/sentence to the shots/sentences preceding and succeeding it) and a paradigmatic connotation (the connotative sense we comprehend from the comparison of the shot/sentence with its unrealized companions – other potential shots/sentences). This is the basis of cinema – shots colliding with each other to create a narrative, tension, or mood.

So if your scene begins with ‘togetherness’ between characters, and then they start arguing to finally ‘separate’ psychologically, you can divide the dramatic arc into blocks – the first showing togetherness, the second showing rise of conflict, the third showing the climax of conflict, and the last establishing the separation. Once you identify that, you can divide your shot more meaningfully.

This is not something that can be covered in one article. Thanks to the wonderful book ‘Film Directing Fundamentals’ by Nicholas Proferes I have started to understand this concept. We can spend years trying to learn this, by reading the movies of Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, among others, who were the masters of film grammar. The topic might look intimidating, but with reasoning and practice, it can be learnt. I hope we as young filmmakers can incorporate some of this learning into our work, and understand the function of a shot better. Shots are important, eventually.

The Greatest Shorts

My students are presently scripting their short films for the 'Understanding Cinema' project. I thought of using this opportunity to list some of greatest short films in the history of cinema. All movies mentioned here are 40 minutes or shorter in length, as per the Academy's definition of a Short Film. I have also searched for these movies on YouTube or elsewhere on the net, except for a couple of them that I could not find. Click on the movies to watch them. And share your comments.

• Le Voyage Dans la Lune (1902) by Georges Melies
• Un Chien Andalou (1928) and Land Without Bread (1932) by Luis Bunuel
• Partie de Campagne (1936) by Jean Renoir
• Rose Hobart (1936) by Joseph Cornell
• Listen to Britain (1942) and A Diary for Timothy (1945) by Humphrey Jennings
• Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren
• Un Chant d’amour (1950) by Jean Genet
• Night and Fog (1955) by Alain Resnais
• Les Maîtres fous (1955) by Jean Rouch
• The Red Balloon (1956) by Albert Lamorisse
• La Jetee (1962) by Chris Marker
• Scorpio Rising (1964) by Kenneth Anger

Understanding Cinema Lecture: The First Modern Movie

“Why did you show us this movie?” one of my students complained politely as I started my lecture. I was not surprised. It had taken me a lot of reading, two re-watches, and several years between them to figure out myself – what is so great about ‘Breathless’ (1960).

I have a parameter for identifying a great movie. If you enjoy a movie more while watching it for a second time, and even more during the third, it has to be a great movie. ‘Breathless’ sure is. However, it is important not to take it too seriously in order to enjoy it. I have not seen any movie made before 1960 that is as ‘modern’ as ‘Breathless’. In fact, if we make a shot-by-shot remake in Hindi today, it would still be too modern for Indian audience, more than half a century later! It also is one of the most influential movies in history. And the much talked about ‘jump cut’ is just one of the ‘influences’. What makes this movie important is its inherently rebellious nature, its voice against authority, a tendency that defined the decade of the 60s in the West. What makes this movie special is the philosophy that drives it, the philosophy of its maker and its characters.

Jean-Luc Godard was a vehement critic of the French cinema of the 50s. He believed in cinema as cinema, an art in its own right with its own language and aesthetics, without any narrative obligations. He also believed that the director should use his film as a medium for personal communication. So when he made this movie, his first, he selected a story that suited his philosophy. Like him, his characters are narcissistic rebels, revolting against all norms of the society, not caring much about life, and not giving too much of importance to death. Michel fancies himself as a gangster from American movies, with apparently only one real ambition – to stay fearless, and to live and die like a hero. Patricia roams around the streets without wearing a bra, makes not big deal about being pregnant as a result of her promiscuity, and is not sure whether she loves Michel. In fact, the director’s view of impossibility of love is evident through the (mis)communication between the lead pair. They indulge in meaningless conversations and confused actions, and the director makes sure we follow them closely, thus building a narrative that is extremely opposed to the classical form of storytelling. But the content and the philosophy of the movie remain in perfect sync.

As does the style. Godard’s innovations with the camera and editing and the actors’ improvisations add a youthful fearlessness to the movie. The biggest achievement for ‘Breathless’ is the way its philosophy, content, and style are interwoven to create one organic whole – a film that is proudly aware of its medium and makes sure the audience never forget that. It never pretends to be imitating life, the‘filmy’ background score surely helps. By keeping the audience at a distance the film celebrates itself, and communicates with them with surprising effectiveness. A huge commercial and critical success on its release, it was one of the first celebrated movies of the French New Wave. And its impact on cinema went on to be enormous. The same student, who complained in the beginning of the lecture, remarked rather profoundly – “this film is exactly like its protagonist.” And also like its maker, I would say. With ‘Breathless’ cinema finally establishes itself as the medium of the director, independent of studio-system, moral censoring, and most importantly all pre-conceived expectations.

P.S. It would be interesting to ask Godard how he feels about this movie today. How does he, who always defied authority, feel about his first rebellion’s rise to become an iconic authority? Is it really possible to achieve what one character in the movie considers to be his greatest ambition in life – “to be immortal, and then die”?

Understanding Cinema Lecture: The Legend of the Seven Samurai

A few years ago when I watched ‘Seven Samurai’ for the first time, I could hardly appreciate its greatness. The poor print and watching it on my laptop did not help. Recently I revisited the movie on big screen. In all these years, it kept growing on me. I have watched more than 600 good movies since my first watch of ‘Seven Samurai’, and I have not watched anything close to it. In fact, in all of my cinema experience, despite its elements being borrowed by several other movies, I have not seen a movie that could match this Kurosawa classic in its achievement. Today, I can sit through its 210 minutes every time it is screened near me. Some movies are made of the stuff of legends.

‘Seven Samurai’ can easily be considered as great an achievement of cinema as it could possibly be. The very idea of something like this is intimidating, an action-adventure period epic set in a village, with a long running-time, huge ensemble of cast, big budget, and gigantic ambition. At its inception itself, it goes beyond most of the movies ever made. And then by crafting it with timeless storytelling devices without missing on its incredible artistic appeal, Akira Kurosawa ended up making an extremely entertaining film that could appeal to all, and thus exploring the medium of cinema to its fullest. It was the biggest blockbuster of Japanese cinema when it was released. However what makes it timeless is the strong socio-cultural context and a philosophical undertone, that gives the movie its exotic yet universal appeal. Close to six decades later, it remains one of the most influential films in the history of cinema. Cinema would have shaped itself differently, if this movie were not made.

A village in medieval Japan is oppressed by a group of merciless bandits. The helpless villagers decide to hire a group of Samurais to help them protect their next harvest. What follows next is ‘Seven Samurai’, one of the first action-adventure movies, featuring elements that were to become repeating motifs of the genre. The introduction of the action hero through a sub-plot totally unrelated to the movie is a celebrated style today; it started in this movie with the introduction of Kambei, the leader of the pack, played masterfully by the versatile Takashi Shimura. Building up of a team for an upcoming task is another celebrated plot element. It takes close to one hour for Kambei to get his Samurais together and head for the village. Then we witness the strategizing – how they plan to defend the village. The storyteller shares these wonderful details with us, using maps, showing the training of the villagers, and constantly teasing us with the sense of ‘something is going to happen soon’. This main narrative graph of the film is refreshingly intersected with some extremely involving sub-plots, interwoven elegantly with the central spine. The forbidden romance between the youngest Samurai and a village girl, the story of the peasant whose wife has been abducted by the bandits, the old woman who avenges the death of her son in a chilling scene, and the occasional hinting at the back-story of Kikuchiyo, played by another Kurosawa regular, Toshiro Mifune, add so much to this otherwise straight-forward story. These sub-plots, I suppose, appeal to you more when you watch the movie for the second time, like various other elements that keep coming up in the subsequent re-watches.

Universally loved and respected, ‘Seven Samurai’ is also one of the most watched movies. It is not surprising that Hollywood and Bollywood never cease to pay homage to it. ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and ‘Chinagate’ are the closest adaptations. But you will find ‘Seven Samurai’ in ‘Sholay’ and ‘Lagaan’, and ‘Guns of Navarone’ and ‘Dirty Dozen’. George Lucas admits to have been influenced by the Samurai epics of Kurosawa that inspired him to create ‘Star Wars’. As I write these words, the signature tune of the movie fills my ears and my mind, and I am looking forward to experience the movie again, with hundreds of people, in a darkened theatre, on the big screen – this is one movie that goes beyond celebrating the medium of cinema, it actually fulfills the invention of motion picture.

Understanding Cinema Lecture: 'Salaam Bombay!' and the Initiation of the UC Project

It was really heartening to see the positive response to ‘Salaam Bombay!’(1988) among the students. I was a little confused after the relative ‘failure’ of ‘Pather Panchali’ and was reconsidering my selection of movies. Well, I don’t think I was wrong in selecting ‘Pather Panchali’, but perhaps could not time it well. I should have screened it later, at least after ‘Salaam Bombay!’

Through these two movies I have started explaining to the students the limitations of the classical narrative structure that was introduced to them through ‘Vertigo’. Sticking to the classical narrative definitely limits cinema and it is indeed necessary to defy these rules. However, I have also, and I will keep repeating this, stressed upon the importance of the classical narrative. It is very important to understand it completely, before denouncing it. And for all practical purposes, it is safe, and generally rewarding, to obey these rules.

I also briefly covered some cinematography topics, like camera equipments, and FPS. It was also interesting to note that the students are generally more interested in learning these film-making aspects, rather than understanding the ‘greatness’ of movies I screen. I would try to incorporate this observation into my future lectures.

The most exciting thing, however, is the initiation of the ‘Understanding Cinema Project.’ I am dividing the students into film-making teams, to be led by the Producers. After briefly explaining to them what a producer does (and he does not just put in the money!), I selected all producers I need from the volunteers. They will now select the directors they want to work with, and then divide the entire batch into their film-making units. There is still time before the topics are allotted and they start working on their scripts. Before that I want to make sure that each group consists of people who share good rapport among themselves. That, in my opinion, is the most important thing in a film-making unit, more important than the collective or individual talent.

Understanding Cinema Lecture: Cinema as Art

It is easy to understand the narrative function of film, of studying film as a medium of telling stories, a medium for entertainment. So much so, that soon after its invention, cinema easily, and obviously, helped in the evolution of a commercial industry, with its own rules and surprises. But the medium is not limited to money-making or storytelling, and there are two other important functions of film: one, as a medium of communication (where the filmmaker wants to convey a point-of-view through his film, e.g. political and propaganda films, films carrying a strong social or philosophical message, and so on); and two, as a medium of pure art, free from its obligations of telling a story or communicating a message.

However, since film is one medium born out of form and obvious sensory signals, unlike poetry or music that are more abstract, it is very difficult for film to let go of its narrative function completely. Even an incoherent montage of shots, when perceived by the observer, inspires him to try to understand its ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’. Stanley Kubrick had famously proposed a marked departure from this when he said: “A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” Going by what the famous art critic Walter Pater believes: “All art aspires to the condition of music”, we definitely can observe such a trend in cinema over all the decades of its journey. But the biggest question would still be, whether cinema is a form of art.

Art critics were initially disapproving of cinema’s acceptance as art, and considered it a technological gimmick, a passing fancy. Surprisingly and ironically, Louis Lumiere, who is credited as one of the inventors of motion picture himself believed that “cinema is an invention without a future.” It took cinema some decades and several films to ascertain its position as a form of artistic expression. And the credit for that goes to some of the greatest filmmakers who dared to take cinema beyond the dimensions of commercial entertainment or political statement. One of those masters was Satyajit Ray, and his most famous film, also his first – ‘Pather Panchali’, is considered by many as cinema’s great achievement as pure art.

‘Pather Panchali’ is not an easy film to watch. It requires patience to be enjoyed. It requires multiple viewings to appreciate its effortless beauty. And it requires watching hundreds of other films to realize its unique purity and truthfulness. Roger Ebert says “[Pather Panchali] is like a prayer, affirming that this is what the cinema can be…” This huge compliment is a sharp contrast to the understated, underplayed brilliance of the film, reading which can help us understand cinema’s potential as a form of art.

A musician uses musical notes arranged to form a melody, often based on a certain rhythm to create his music. A poet uses words and syntax, a painter uses colours and canvas. A filmmaker has three basic tools for his expression: the shot and everything contained in it (and eventually all individual shots), the arrangement of shots or the montage, and the sound underlying and connecting the shots. There are sequences in ‘Pather Panchali’ where the narrative is totally forgotten, and the filmmaker uses these three tools in order to create a moody audio-visual segment. If we let go of our preconceived notions about cinema’s narrative purpose and lose ourselves in the sensory effect that is thus created, it can affect us like music does – we react intuitively and instinctively to a sensation that is vague (vague because it does not necessarily ‘mean’ or ‘communicate’ something) but powerful and even memorable. This again is difficult, because cinema is more ‘obvious’ than music and always ‘seems’ to be trying to mean or communicate. Also we can not close our eyes to ‘float’ in it as we do while experiencing, say, a Pink Floyd instrumental number. In fact, I had never experienced ‘Pather Panchali’ like this until recently. Films like these are an acquired taste. Only now, I hope, watching the movie will be easier and each subsequent experience even more magical. ‘The Song of the Little Road’ – which is the literal translation of the movie’s title, seems so much more appropriate, when we are willing to experience it like music – what Kubrick had aspired and Pater had asserted.

Understanding Cinema Lecture: Italian Neorealism and ‘Bicycle Thieves’ (1948)

Italian cinema in the early 40s was dominated by ‘white telephone’ films – a derogatory term to describe bland mainstream stories of the affluent class. This and the best of Hollywood provided the escapism the Italian audience aspired for – especially in the situation of poverty and depression post the Second World War. As a reaction to this, and further forced by limited resources, some film-makers started making starkly different films. Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Vittorio De Sica were the prominent makers who gave birth to a movement that has been celebrated in cinema history by the name of Italian Neorealism.

These films were strongly and unashamedly political, set among the poor and the unemployed. Instead of taking the audience on a fancy ride, they exposed the bitter reality of the contemporary period. Mostly shot on real locations, using natural light, simplistic camerawork and editing, and most importantly employing non-professional actors in leading roles, these films, perhaps intentionally, tried to imitate newsreels rather than movies, and hence appeared so much more real. They attacked the Church, the government institutions, and often did not provide any solution to the plight of their characters. The impact of these films on world cinema was exceptional. The Americans, especially, were pleasantly surprised at the realistic acting, a sharp contrast to the Hollywood style of acting during the then Studio Age. Academy Awards and other international recognitions followed, though the power and people of Italy remained allergic to these ‘grim’ films that were ‘washing their dirty linen in public’. But the biggest achievement of Italian Neorealism was that it freed cinema from the restricting domains of studios, sets, and stars.

A young Bengali artist, and film-buff, watched De Sica’s ‘Bicycle Thieves’ (1948), and decided to turn into a film-maker. He knew that if he had a powerful story to tell, he can just go ahead and shoot it, using non-professional actors, and in real locations using natural light. The boy was Satyajit Ray and the film that resulted – ‘Pather Panchali’ (1955) – went on to become the most celebrated Indian film around the world. Satyajit Ray was just one of the filmmakers inspired by Neorealism – the aesthetic style of which is evident in films all across the globe, over all decades that followed. From Bimal Roy’s ‘Do Beegha Zameen’ (1953) to Majid Majidi’s ‘Children of Heaven’ (1997), Italian Neorealism continues to be reflected in some of the most loved films we have seen.

Coming back to ‘Bicycle Thieves’, also known as ‘The Bicycle Thief’, I must share my first experience of it three years ago. I knew it was historically important but had never expected its impact would be so powerful. The lump in the throat remained throughout its 90 minutes, but the biggest blow came in the end. After the devastating climax, as the film closed, I shut the laptop, and let my emotions flow. I wanted to go back in time, to that part of the world, and somehow help Ricci and Bruno – two of the most unforgettable characters in film consciousness. Knowing that it was not possible, I cried, uninhibitedly, inconsolably. This, I’m sure, is a reaction common to everyone who loves the film. And I believe it will evoke the same reaction in anyone who watches it now, or even fifty years later. For its universality of emotional impact and timelessness, ‘Bicycle Thieves’ is a definite must-watch-before-you-die.

Understanding Cinema Lecture: Hollywood Studio System and Alfred Hitchcock

The two decades of the 30s and the 40s are considered the Golden Period of American Cinema. The year 1946, in fact, is till date the most profitable year for Hollywood. This was also the period of the Studio System – when a handful of filmmaking companies dominated the American film business. Close to 75% of the revenue was shared by the Big Five – MGM, Fox, RKO, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Then there were the Little Three – Columbia, Universal, and United Artists. Their oligopoly was based on some malpractices like ‘block booking’, and in order to ensure greater profits, studios adopted Vertical Integration (that is, the entire chain from film production, distribution, to exhibition, being controlled by respective studios). The much controversial contract system bound talent (stars, directors, etc.) to different studios and the studio executives controlled the films they made – directors were often not allowed in the post-production stage. Films were treated as commodities, produced through an assembly line, with respective studios specializing in specific genres. However, the most important and long-lasting contribution of the Studio System was how it helped in the aesthetic evolution of cinema by development of certain styles and conventions – the concept of continuity-editing, maintaining the sense of verisimilitude, closure-ending, etc.

By the 50s, though, this dominance had ended. Some legislations passed during this period brought an end to the malpractices and vertical integration. Stars began to seek greater independence from the studios. A rise in independent productions, import tariffs imposed on American films abroad, migration of Americans to sub-urbs, and rise of the TV were other important factors that cause this change. The Studios are still functional, and to some extent they still dominate film-business, but the scope for independent players and for artistic expression beyond the control of studio executives is much more.

One major contribution of the Studio era was the evolution of the Classical Narrative – the classical way of story-telling on film. The rules were simple – tell a story the audience wants to hear, and in an easy to comprehend way. The chronology of events should be linear, from beginning of the story to end, with the permissible use of flashbacks for specific elaboration or exposition. Everything should be connected in the thread of cause and effect. The characters should be believable and must have clearly-defined wants and functions. The protagonist should be likeable and motivated to achieve his/her want against all odds. In the end, there should be a closure that would fulfill the audience. I believe it was important for the evolution of this narrative to make cinema such an integral part of the popular culture it is. I would also like to add that the Classical Narrative can be understood better when compared to other alternative forms of narration, including some that totally defied the narrative approach.

The lecture on 20th June covered these topics. And it was followed by a discussion on the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock,‘Vertigo’ (1958) in particular. It was interesting to see how the students reacted to this movie. Some thought it was painfully slow and predictable, some thought otherwise, and defended its ‘slow’ pace. Most of them liked the film, some even loved it. However, the acting of James Stewart did not go down too well with the students. They thought it was hilariously theatrical. Perhaps I would have felt the same as a 19-year old. But I’m happy that they have been introduced to the cinema of Hitchcock so early. This is a discovery they will thoroughly enjoy. And they too will wait for those blink-and-you-miss cameos by the master, who stood tall amidst the dominating Studio System, one of those few filmmakers who exerted complete control over his film-expression, and rose to the status of a star himself.

Understanding Cinema: Intro Lecture

Film semiologist Christian Metz had famously stated that cinema is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand. Last Monday I started taking lectures at National College. The paper is ‘Understanding Cinema’ for the Second Year in Bachelor in Mass Media. Going by Metz, seems the work for the students (understanding cinema) is easy, but I’m up to a difficult task (explaining cinema)! More importantly, it is going to be a challenge to make the subject simple and accessible for those 19-20 year-olds, to encourage them to look at cinema with a new perspective, without trying to turn them to film makers, critics, or film scholars.

I’m therefore forced to devise a method to make that possible. So here is what I am doing, though it might appear contradictory to my intention. I have divided the batch into groups – filmmakers (writers, directors, producers, editors etc.), film journalists (including reporters, critics, and gossip columnists), marketing and promotion experts, and above all, audience. The students have respectively opted for the roles they want to play. I’ll try to encourage them to look at the movies to be screened with their perspectives as these professionals, and then try to initiate a discussion among them that would result in covering of the important topics. The flip side is that this method relies a lot on the participation of the students. But I’ve always been an advocate of making education interesting and involving, and hope I won’t be disappointed.

In the first lecture I also tried to cover topics like: ‘Star System in Hindi Film Industry’, ‘Hindi Formula Films’, and ‘Modern Hollywood Cinema’. These topics are to be covered as per University guidelines, but I believe the students already know about these. So I just tried to give them an enhanced perspective on these issues. The real fun begins from the second week when we will actually start ‘reading films’. Today the students were screened the first movie of the semester – Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ (1958). Looking forward to the discussion on Monday.

Boxing with the Idiot

Eva Green’s cinephile character in ‘The Dreamers’ proudly claims that she does not watch TV. ‘We are purists, the purest of the pure.’ That moment in this amazing film is what I could relate most to. I don’t have a TV set, I don’t want one. And I consciously stay away from the best of American TV – soaps that have a huge fan-following all around the world. I’m sure they must be well-made, and I would love them, but I’m afraid of being addicted. Reason – they will encroach into my movie-time!

Cinema, or at least the movie-watching trend in theatres, has never felt as threatened by anything as by the ‘Idiot Box’. In fact, various evolutionary milestones in the history of cinema were reactions to the advent of TV. For example, despite having produced successful colour blockbusters in the 30s, B&W movies continued to be made in Hollywood, so much so that 88% of those released in the year as late as 1947 were in B&W. Then came the TV, moving images brought home in a small box, gaining popularity in the 50s. In order to keep the audience interested, as many as 50% of the movies adopted colour. And when colour TV came in the 60s, it was the end of B&W era for cinema.

Another innovation made to counter the threat was the adoption of the Widescreen. The Aspect Ratio of 1.66:1 or more provided a visual experience that TV could not emulate. This not only led to dramatic changes in the cinema aesthetics: exploring the horizontal space, and using longer, uninterrupted shots as each frame was now wide enough to display a close up, a medium shot and a wide angle simultaneously, it also led to a natural proliferation of genres more suited to this format, like the Historical Epics and Westerns.

Hollywood also started experimenting with 3D as a ploy against the TV. The early attempts were flawed. However, the evolution continued and today 3D movies provide a strong attraction for the audience to come to the theatres. The idea is to provide them with something they do not usually experience, as is the idea behind the IMAX (Image Maximization) technology: to fill the field of human vision by producing an image as large as 20 metres high and 26 metres wide. OMNIMAX (or IMAX DOME) uses a fisheye lens for projecting a 165-degree image on a giant dome screen surrounding the viewer with high-fidelity sound, thus increasing the spectator's feeling of immersion.

These technological advances, however, continue to affect cinema in more ways than one. With improved CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) technology, the option of 3D, and a giant screen for projection, movie theatres are turning to amusement parks, with the preferred genres being Sci-Fi, Action-Adventure, and Fantasy. Drama, the most prominent film genre, is dying a slow death. Filmmaking was once a costly business. Today, with inexpensive but good-quality digital cameras around, anyone can shoot a Drama or a Comedy and upload it on the internet. In fact, the current American media is already showing such trends, where the genre of Drama is being limited to its widely popular soaps and serials. It will be interesting to see how, in the years to come, cinema responds to this. More technological innovations and increased focus on specific genres will be the oxygen for movie theatres. And perhaps the only way for Dramas, Comedies and Art-house/Experimental cinema to find its audience would be the way through the idiot box.

(A lot in this post comes from ‘Studying Film’, a book by Abrams, Bell, and Udris.)

P.S. On the insistence of a dear friend, I just finished watching Episode 1 of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, something that seems to be tailor-made for me, because of its setting in a hospital and the characters being young doctors – things which have already become nostalgia-elements for me. Seems I have taken the first step towards exploring something I kept delaying till today. And the first thing that came to the mind of this “purest of the pure” on watching the first episode was to start the second!

Melodrama

While watching Pedro Almodovar's 'All About My Mother' (1999) today, I felt the need to find the definition of 'Melodrama'. Those who are familiar with the popular Hindi film tradition may feel they already know what the word means. But since, Hindi films hardly follow genre conventions, they might find it difficult to define. Hence the need to read what experts say. Following are excerpts from various sources:

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work which exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. [Wikipedia]

In film, the term 'melodrama' denotes a subgenre of the drama film which generally depends on stereotyped character development, interaction, and highly emotional themes. Melodramatic films tend to use plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience, often dealing with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship". Film critics sometimes use the term "pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled, campy tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences."[Wikipedia, T. Dirks]

My observation is that the script of a melodrama relies mainly on coincidences, twists in the plot affecting the characters. The following statement by Sidney Lumet sums this up: "In a well-written drama, the story comes out of the characters. The characters in a well-written melodrama come out of the story."

'All About My Mother', in my opinion, is the perfect example of a Melodrama Film. And it is a successful one as well. I recommend this to everyone - at least it will easily illustrate what goes wrong when 'lesser' filmmakers try this difficult genre.

P.S. The film ends with a post-script:
"To Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider...
To all actresses who have played actresses...
To all women who act...
To men who act and become women...
To all the people who want to be mothers...
To my mother."

Also, you will enjoy the movie more if you have watched the classics 'All About Eve' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.

Another Dimension

Some exciting things are happening. I am presently in Vrindavan, shooting a 3D documentary. The project came as a surprise; I wasn’t expecting to get into something like this anytime soon. But now I am enjoying it thoroughly.

It started with a workshop at Lonavla held between 29th January and 1st February. Panasonic is launching a 3D camera – AG-3DA1, and to create a market, and this far-sight is admirable, they decided to introduce this to the students of film schools around India. So teams from seven film schools signed up, and each was given a mentor from Mumbai film industry. I am one of the seven mentors and, I must admit, the least experienced of them all. All of us attended this 3D camera workshop. Our instructor was Barry Braverman from LA, a cinematographer and 3D expert.

It was a wonderful experience. Apart from the luxury of the scenic resort at Lonavla, it was the introduction to a new technology that we truly cherished. 3D opens the doors to an enhanced visual expression in cinema. This is something all of us already knew. What we didn’t know was the limitations of this technology. I won’t go into technical details, but let me just state this for you. You can not shoot close-ups in 3D – a hand counting notes, a gun being loaded, lips kissing – nothing. You can get a medium-close-up of faces, but have to make sure that no part of the face is outside the frame. That is, you can not cut the upper part of the head and the lower face in 3D, something that is often done in 2D cinematography. Also, it is extremely difficult to push in the camera forwards, with objects in the frame moving towards the camera, unless it is done extremely fast.

Apart from these general ‘contraindications’ of the 3D technology, there are more limitations imposed upon us by this user-friendly camera, which is otherwise good enough. It is a digital camera, making things less expensive, but it has all limitations of digital cinematography. It doesn’t have a wide-angle lens. We can not zoom in during the shot, at least not in every situation. And the worst of all – we can not change its FPS (Frames per Second), hence we can not shoot in slow or fast motion. (Please refer to ‘Getting Cinemate’ section of this blog to understand about FPS and Lens, if required).

Understanding the merits and demerits of technology is essential for every level of filmmaking. The writer of a 3D film can NOT write something like: “We look into her eyes, brimming with tears. She blinks, and a tear drop makes its way down her cheek. The drop falls on the dried-up rose petal nestled in the yellowed pages of her old diary.” It will be nearly impossible to visually interpret these lines. Interesting, uh?

I advised my team to make a non-fiction film, more of a visual poetry than a documentary. They, being from Delhi, suggested we capture Vrindavan. I am captivated by this place and hope the film my team makes is a truly beautiful experience, especially with the addition of ‘the new dimension’. By the way, it is tentatively titled: ‘Krishnamaya: God Lives with Them’.

A Dream Come True

Last week I got the opportunity to talk to a group of Mass Media students, 50-60 of them, on Screenwriting. It was a wonderful experience and I feel like thanking them for their patience. The lecture ran for close to two and half hours, and though there were a few dozing heads and heavy eyelids, it was a fairly successful affair! I had gone there to learn, rather than to teach, though teaching has always been a dream. But I did learn a lot, about myself, about the students, and about the subject. There were some interesting experiences that I thought to share here:

• A long time was spent on explaining the difference between a screenplay, and a script. Some brought up the issue of a shooting script; some were obsessed with the idea of storyboarding. You can go through the “Getting Cinemate” series of my posts under the label “Reading Film” for a quick understanding of these.
• Surprisingly, it was not a problem to convince them that screenwriting needs to be learnt. Not a single one of them objected to me saying something like: “A storyteller is a born storyteller. Why does he need to learn anything?”
• I explained them about the inherent three-act structure contained in every purposeful bit of communication. One of them shared a joke – I broke it down to three acts. I did it with the poem “Johnny Johnny, Yes Papa.” And then asked someone to share a random dream he had. And showed to them how a dream does not have a universal appeal because it does not have a distinct beginning, a purposeful direction, and a definite conclusion. It is a product of the subconscious and the conscious storytelling is a different thing. Also, while sharing the dream, we actually give it a ‘structure’ because now we are consciously “telling a story”.
• I chose the structure of ‘The Matrix’ to explain them the three-act paradigm. It is a popular film and has a very conventional three-act structure (you can find the discussion in my “Getting Cinemate” discussion). Also, the inquisitiveness to ‘understand’ the story of this film helped. I’m pretty sure these students have taken the first step towards understanding the classical structure of storytelling.
• While talking about protagonists and antagonists, we had a little debate over the antagonist of ‘Titanic’. Some believed it was the fiancé of Rose, before I convinced them that it was nature. Also, I loved it when someone did answer my question regarding the antagonist of ‘Inception.’ Cobb is the protagonist and he himself is the antagonist: his past, his fears, his weaknesses are proving to be the biggest hindrance in his desperate pursuit of fulfilling his dramatic need.
• I didn’t want them to take notes during the lecture. But if there was one thing I wanted them to take down, and take home, it was this: “Make sure you know the end of your story before you know the beginning or anything else.” They appreciated the illustration, and I hope they will remember it forever.

A wonderful experience indeed, for a student of screenwriting to test the theory in front of a group of enthusiasts. I wish some of them write a great script some day that would teach me a thing or two. It has to be a two-way process, or a self-centered man like me would hardly be interested. Teaching is fun, learning is life.