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!

Must Watch Before You Die #11: The Apartment (1960)

There are films that transcend the ‘cinema as art or entertainment’ debate and end up as examples of supreme achievement of the medium. One of those immortal classics is Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’. Its script is one of the best you are ever going to read, and reading which remains pleasurable whether you have watched the film or not. (Click here for the screenplay). And Wilder re-writes it impeccably on screen through his masterful use of the tools of the craft, and of art.

‘The Apartment’ is a must-watch because:

• Of its wonderful and memorable performances. Note how the actors make sure you empathize with their characters without being overtly dramatic, and at the same time keep things funny without trying too hard.

• Of its immortal dialogue.

• Of how the movie stays true to its genre – which I believe is its biggest achievement. It is handling the issues of forbidden and extra-marital sex, lonely but ambitious city life, and romance, without losing its fun feel. For the self-assured balance it maintains, this film will remain a text book for all filmmakers.

• Of its universality and ability to entertain at any given time, it will always have the widest reach to the audience.

This film was entirely copied in one of the stories of ‘Life in a Metro’. So I was aware of the graph its story. Despite this, and I can never forgive Anurag Basu for that, ‘The Apartment’ has made a huge, and I hope an everlasting, impact on me. I am also confident that the repeat viewings are going to be even better, effectwise, and otherwise-wise!

A River Ran Through It

Until recently I thought Mumbai was a peninsula. It was a day of revelation when I realized it is actually an island – the Mumbai City and the Suburban Mumbai are actually surrounded by water from all sides and connected to the Indian mainland only through road and rail bridges. And today, another geographical truth hit me. There is a river running through Mumbai – it originates in Sanjay Gandhi National Park and after traveling 18 kilometers through the heart of Suburban Mumbai, it joins the Arabian Sea at Mahim Bay, near the now-famous Bandra-Worli Sea Link. I realized today that the filthy, stinking ‘naala’ that we cross while traveling on the local train between Mahim and Bandra is actually what has remained of the same river – Mithi – its name all but a misnomer today.

These recent discoveries about Mumbai are like discovering some essential truths about your beloved after being in the relationship for three years. And then you start looking at her, and at yourself, with a different and enhanced perspective.

So I’m thankful to a friend of mine who invited me for the screening of her documentary film on the Mithi River. ‘Making the Sewer a River Again: Why Mumbai Must Reclaim its Mithi’ is a small but hard-hitting film on the sad state of the river. Most of it is like a horror story, like most discussions involving man’s misadventures with nature. And you sit through it captivated and tensed, especially if you love nature, and more so, if you love Mumbai. But it ends with a hope, that if we work towards reclaiming the river, we can actually have an 18-kilometer long stretch of river-park corridor, with water fountains, pedestrian bridges, cycling-tracks, amusement centres, concert halls for performing arts, and even roadside shopping stalls. It can be one beautiful site of tourist attraction, like Venice, and a river will run through Mumbai again.

What can we do at this stage to help this ambitious initiative? It is simple. Just watch the film by clicking here. And forward the link to as many as you can. If you love Mumbai as much as I do, you’ll find this simple exercise extremely fulfilling.

European Art

A mundane rural area scattered with ruined buildings is the site of a meteorite that landed on earth twenty years ago. The meteorite was never found, but it was rumored that the site had the potential to fulfill a person’s innermost desires. As the government has declared the area, or the Zone, out of bounds, a Stalker (guide) illegally leads his two clients to the forbidden place – a dangerous expedition where the three will approach the unknown to seek their deepest desires.

Consider this plot. And you would agree that it has the potential to become a gripping sci-fi mystery Hollywood thriller, full of unpredictable twists, visual effects, and action. But then you watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ (1979), and find it completely different from your expectations. It is long (close to 165 minutes), slow (only 140 shots cover the entire film, many lasting more than four minutes), and demands extreme patience. Most of it is in sepia, devoid of colours, and there is hardly anything fantastic to watch, with no visual effects at all, except for some normal trickery in the celebrated closing shot of the film. Yet, it is one of the most acclaimed works of the Russian master. And I believe it is European Art Cinema at its best.

What Tarkovsky has achieved through his unique cinematic language is not a sci-fi thriller, but a poem in a sci-fi setting, not a roller-coaster ride through plot elements, but a study of the characters, going deep into their minds, and fears and obsessions, away from the materialistic scenario the plot promises to deliver. By consciously, and painfully so, staying away from the genre parameters, he has penned a novel on film, and has delivered one of the most personal and truly artistic movies ever made. I have always found Tarkovsky the most difficult filmmaker to watch, and did require more than one sitting to finish ‘Stalker’, but could watch it again as soon as it ended. The best of European cinema guarantee you this – that the movie experience will rise much above the promise made by the premise, genre conventions will be demolished under the powerful voice of the auteur, and the impact will last a lifetime, unlike the weekend Hollywood entertainer.

Following is the poem that ends the film. Read this and imagine how it can conclude a film that belongs to the sci-fi genre:

“I love your eyes, my darling friend,
Their play, so passionate and brightening,
When a sudden stare up you send,
And like a heaven-blown lightening,
It’d take in all from end to end.

“But there is more that I admire:
Your eyes when they’re downcast,
In bursts of love-inspired fire,
And through the eyelash goes fast,
A somber, dull, call of desire…”

P.S. Here is another plot:

Rome, 1938. A weak-willed Italian man, working for Mussollini, is ordered to assassinate his one-time professor in Paris. He takes his young and beautiful wife, whom he has just recently married, with him, for supposedly a honeymoon. But on reaching Paris, he discovers his professor has married a former love of his, and the two of them work together in their fight against the Fascists. Can our protagonist kill them both and fulfill his duty?

On the surface it appears like a regular political thriller. Watch Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘The Conformist’ (1969) to discover how a piece of art, a visual masterpiece has been constructed from this. Nobody does it better than the Europeans.

Crowd-Sourcing and 'Source Code'

Watched 'I Am'. I was not interested in the movie per se. But in what went behind its making. The director and his associates approached friends and the aam janta to contribute for the movie. 400 people from 45 different cities across the world made financial contributions. Though not a first, this film will remain a fine example of what resolve and relationships can do. For those involved, I believe, being able to make it possible would have been the matter of greater pride, over what they finally made. And even otherwise, the movie does work, because of its issues, stories and, as Rajeev Masand rightly puts - its 'inherent honesty'. I would not say it was a very good film, but definitely worth a watch. Even on a very critical note, I'll have to admit that each story in itself was so affecting that my attention to technical deficiencies gradually waned. And there was not much to complain about.

Also watched the sci-fi thriller 'Source Code' that according to Roger Ebert is the best movie of the year yet. I hope that is not true, though I liked it a lot. Two things that I felt about it - one, the same merits that make it a good film, are its limitations and keep it short of being great; and two, it is a fairy tale, after all... For debating with me on these points you'll have to watch the film. Do it. You will be entertained, for sure.

Must Watch Before You Die #10: '8 1/2' (1963)

Most 'must-watch' films are great. Some are really unique in their intent, approach, and achievement. Almost all of them are unforgettable. And then there is '8 1/2'...

Many filmmakers are great. They defy the genres and develop their own cinematic expression. Some of them truly earn the reputation of artists. They dare and they do. And then there is Federico Fellini...

A film about the making of a film, and that film is the film itself. Aptly described as "a self-reflexive modernist art-film fairy tale" by Marilyn Fabe in the book 'Closely Watched Films', '8 1/2' is the best way cinema could celebrate itself... It is outrageous, and it is sheer magic.

"I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help to bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I'm the one without the courage to bury anything at all. And now I'm utterly confused... I wonder why things turned out this way. When did I go wrong? I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same."

Must Watch Before You Die #9: ‘Chicago’ (2002)

I remember that evening, one of the many horrifying ones, during the fresher term of my AFMC life. The seniors were hell-bent on ‘orienting’ us during that period of six weeks. And twice each week, we could escape the post-dinner session with seniors – Tuesdays and Fridays – they were movie days. In the Open Air Theatre of our college, movies are still screened twice each week. But during the fresher term it was more than a movie theatre – it was the place where we could sit with dignity and relief, and smile. Even back then, movies were what relieved us from our everyday trauma. So, I remember that evening when ‘Chicago’ was screened, and I was anticipating something wonderful – it had won the Best Picture Oscar a few months ago. I remember being disappointed – nothing in the movie made sense to me. Back then, not many English movies made sense to me.

‘Sound of Music’ was perhaps the first Musical I really enjoyed. Three years into my college life, I had already discovered cinema. I wondered – why doesn’t Hollywood produce more movies with songs and dance – they did it so well! My review of that film was perhaps my first User Review on IMDB. I showed that movie to my mom. I kept watching the songs repeatedly. I downloaded the lyrics and sang along. I still do.

So later, after having loved ‘All That Jazz’ and ‘Sweeny Todd’ and ‘My Fair Lady’, I was looking forward to watch ‘Chicago’ again. This time, I was sure, it would be magical.

And magical it was. It has been close to one month now, since I watched this Rob Marshall film for the first time. And my brother and I keep revisiting it again and again. I watched a portion of it in altered sense of consciousness this Holi, and what a trip it was! But all this while I kept wondering – whether I should recommend it here as a Must-Watch. I really wanted to, but my mind cautioned me – recommending ‘Chicago’ would mean recommending a whole bunch of musicals. After all, the critic world-over rate many other musicals above it.

But when I found myself revisiting the movie compulsively, so much so that it started interfering with my writing; when I kept humming the songs for days altogether – even during the World Cup euphoria; when Renee Zellweger’s charm started chasing me even in my dreams, and I obsessed myself with the plans of making a Musical, how could I keep listening to the sterile logic of my dominant cerebral hemisphere? So here it is - my first recommendation in months – ‘Chicago,’ a movie that you will fall in love with. And I don’t care how many Musicals I end up recommending on this blog.

“I’m a star. And the audience loves me, and I love them. And they love me for loving them and I love them for loving me. And we love each other. And that’s ‘cause none of us got enough love in our childhoods.” – Roxie Hart in ‘Chicago’

Deserving Winner

It has been really hectic all these days. There were so many things I wanted to write about, but just could not get the time. I wanted to write about a conversation I had with Kundan Shah a few weeks ago. I can summarize that as: “Do not cater to the audience. But respect them.” I wanted to write about Sudhir Mishra’s ‘Dharavi’ – that I managed to catch on big screen, and which is definitely one of the better Hindi films you will see. And I wanted to write about the best birthday gift I have received in a long time – a 9-movie collection, all Satyajit Ray films.

But yesterday was such an important day that I forced myself to find time and write these words. As mentioned in a previous post, I had been mentoring the making of a 3D film, a non-fiction visual poem on the town of Vrindavan. Yesterday was the award ceremony. Our film stood 3rd and won the Best Editing award. (The only other awards were Best Cinematography and Best Film). The winning team is going to have a trip to Hollywood and I was a little disappointed. But in the end, I think they were the deserving winners – ‘Goli Aatam’ – a Tamil film about a little girl who challenges a bunch of boys in a game of marbles.

But there is more news. The organizers have selected one film to be sent to Panasonic Japan. And that is ours. More than anything, we are proud of the movie we made, and are glad to be part of an experience we will never forget. Some of the readers of this blog contributed in the making. I must thank them for everything they did.

After the award function, I went to watch ‘The King’s Speech’. And despite my awareness about the movie’s subject, it moved me deeply. I was amazed by ‘Black Swan’ and dazzled by ‘Inception’. And I really appreciated ‘The Social Network’ and ‘True Grit’. But ‘The King’s Speech’ in my opinion really deserved the Best Picture Oscar. Cerebral entertainment is great, and a difficult thing to achieve. But being able to appeal to the heart is even more difficult. And more often than not, they do it by keeping things simple. Two winners – ‘The King’s Speech’ at the Oscars, and ‘Goli Aatam’ at Panasonic Dimensions, just reinforced that.

Here are the links for you to have a glimpse at the competition, and what we did there:

• 3D Workshop at Lonavla
• Shooting at various locations
• Editing in Mumbai
• Award Function

And here is a Triveni that closes the chapter for me, and opens others:

एक अवार्ड फंक्शन में हार मिली आज;
अभी चाँद तले मरीन ड्राइव पर बैठा हूँ।

और क्या-क्या देगा ये शहर मुझे - ये ख़याल है...

Just Another Obsession…

People collect stamps, coins, and items of artistic importance. I collect movie ticket stubs. I was waiting for a long time to share this on this blog. A few days ago, the 100th stub entered my album (actually a card holder). Thought, this news must be celebrated in this space.

The collection contains remnants of various movies, good and bad, I have watched over a few years, and across cities like Pune, Noida, and Lucknow, but mainly Mumbai. Some are as old as the first-day-first-show of ‘Rang De Basanti’. But most of them date back to only a couple of years. 33 of them are first-day-first-shows. Also, I have watched as many as 36 of these movies alone. The festival passes of French classics ‘Pieerot le fou’, ‘Cleo de 5 a 7’ and ‘Jules et Jim’, and the ticket stub of ‘DDLJ’ at Maratha Mandir on my brother’s birthday are special. Also, there are four premiere/preview passes, including ‘Udaan’. But my proudest possession is ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. It was the time when Hindi films were not released due to a conflict between producers-distributors-exhibitors. This Sergio Leone film, one of my favourites, was being screened at Sterling. The moment I read about it in the newspaper, I was on my way to the theatre. It was the most urgent decision I have ever taken to go for a movie. Most of the crowd in the theatre was older people, who must have cherished this movie way back in the 60s and 70s. My brother and I were the youngest, and the only ones to clap and whistle and scream as the movie unfolded on the big screen. This little stub in my album will always remind me of the joy I felt that day. Many more to come, hopefully.

Favourite Firangi

If I have to choose one international filmmaker I have most closely followed, as I have done with a Vishal Bhardwaj or an Ashutosh Gowariker, it has be Darren Aronofsky. His cinema has always affected me, and several others of my generation, but more than that I’m fascinated by his personal journey as a filmmaker. I have watched all his feature films. And today I watched his latest – my first Aronofsky film on big screen. Here is an account of my discovery of him.

I was not particularly interested in watching ‘Requiem for a Dream’, although it was extremely popular in our hostel. I am generally turned off when a film is popular for its sensational content (it was a drug movie), or for the individual brilliance of its ‘shots’. And this film left everyone talking about both. So, I started watching it reluctantly. When it ended, it had changed my vision as a filmmaker. I remember making notes on the innovations that film brought on screen. But the impact was mainly at a deep psychological level. ‘Requiem’ is not a drug-film. It is a film about love and alienation, about dreams and obsessions, about the fragilities of human mind. And then I realized what the film called itself. Suddenly, it was a profound film before my eyes, and its maker – someone I had to follow.

‘Requiem’ is one of the most popular ‘rare’ films in boys’ hostels around the country. So, there were many fans, and we soon managed to find Aronofsky’s first film, ‘Pi’ (1998). After the film ended, I sat for 45 minutes, making notes on what it was about, and was glad to ‘interpret’ it in my own way. I don’t know how correct I was. But since then I realized the importance of independent cinema. Made on an initial budget of $60,000, with contributions from family and friends, the film became a huge critical success, and grossed 50 times its investment. This was Aronofsky’s first film. If I think of it today, arranging its equivalent of Rs 30 Lakhs does not seem much of a problem, getting an idea like ‘Pi’ does. The success of his first film led him to make the $4.5 million ‘Requiem’ in 2000.

We were waiting anxiously for his next film. Made after Aronofsky declined the offer to direct ‘Batman Begins’, ‘The Fountain’(2006), is a timeless love-story, incredibly shot, and featuring some great performances, but a commercial disaster. It was the most ambitious and indulgent Aronofsky film, $35 million went in its making. It was difficult to comprehend, and did not have the thrilling nature of his first two films. But for his worshippers like us, it was a big thing. He had upheld our trust in him. We thought of him as a cerebral, fearless filmmaker, and he had delivered more than expected.

So, we were disappointed when his next ‘The Wrestler’ (2008) arrived. It was a very good film. But it was not a Darren Aronofsky film, we thought. However, the trade didn’t mind and the film became his biggest commercial success, and was also critically acclaimed. It changed my perception of him. I thought, and perhaps rightly so, the filmmaker now wanted to surprise us, and more importantly, surprise himself. Thus he made a film no one would have thought he would make. And he proved that he can tell a simple story with as much finesse as his cerebral, surreal tales.

Cut to 2010. ‘Black Swan’ was in my list of ‘Dying to watch these fresh and upcoming films’ that you find on the sidebar of this blog for months. The world is already raving about it, so there is hardly anything that I can add. I would just say this – a filmmaker who can manage to blend the best of writing, drama, music, dance, and art into cinema is for me the truly complete filmmaker. After all, this is what cinema is all about, a confluence of the best forms of expressions. I had the downloaded version of ‘Black Swan’ on my laptop for a month but I waited for its theatrical release. And I’m so happy today. To be honest, one reason for that happiness is that the film gave us our original cerebral and psychological master back.

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’.