Published by: Anurag Kashyap
Published: on Dec 20 2008 @ 9:20 am
It was during the FIFA world cup 2006. I was at the Mariott watching a
match, Abhay was with me. The match wasn’t happening. He told me he had
an idea, a story. I said ,”ok tell me”. He narrated me a story of a
stripper in a L A strip club and a guy who is attracted to her. The guy
had a back story, an unrealised love story. After he narrated the whole
story, he asked me guess what is it. I couldn’t. He then told me it is
Devdas. I looked at him. I never thought before that moment, that Devdas
could be retold like that. That was where Dev.D was born.
Now me and abhay go way back. Much before he wanted to be an actor.
Vikramaditya Motwane my co-writer on dev.d has been abhay’s best friend
since they were in school, probably 8 or 9 years old. Vikram i met in
1994 but really got to know him in 1999 when i was working on water and
he was assisting deepa. We spent some great time together in Varanasi,
doped out rebelling and generaly happy. Water wasn’t to be made that
year, but we stuck with each other. I went on to make my first movie
Paanch that very year and Vikram was the director of songs and also the
sound designer of the movie. I met abhay through him. At that time I had
a general aversin to people from film families. Abhay was refreshingly
different. He stayed on his own, he sketched( Abhay before he became an
actor , did some story boards for the blast scenes of Black Friday for
me), he would make cartoons on the T-shirts and sell them in Goa. He was
a hippy born in a film family, Boston educated, sketching, drawing,
artist. We hung out. I introduced him to sanjay routray who introduced
him to imtiaz ali and an actor was born. The actor who I think is the
indian equivalent of an early Johnny Depp. I never thought he had even a
remote chance as an actor. He always told me that,” you don’t think i
can have a career.” and because i didn’t wan’t to hurt him, i would lie
but i believed that. Today I eat my words. After “socha na tha” Imtiaz
told him that how will he make a career or even expects to survive
without wanting to sing and dance and he smiled, he didn’t care. same
Imtiaz after “oye lucky…” told him that you have made a place for
yourself and there is no way they can throw you out. Abhay was right, we
were wrong. After I saw Ek Chaalis , and i talked about it here on PFC i
really wanted to work with him. Before that I would humor him and say
lets do something but let the right script come my way. Well, he showed
me the way. And today I feel very happy when Zoya Akhtar tells me, I
always liked him, Farhan said , he is very exciting and even Nikhil
advani goes on raving about him.
Well dev.d was conceived but nobody really wanted to do it. They were
scared and No Smoking put the fear of devil in them,until i met Vikas
Behl. I actually met him to pitch him Aamir but ended up pitching both
and he was excited. Amit Trivedi was someone Shilpa Rao recommended to
me. I remembered her from the the time she was a kid and she came to my
house to meet me with her mother. She was participating in some talent
show. Much later when i was doing no smoking, i met her and told her to
make me meet a new exciting voice on the music scene. Does not matter if
he hasn’t done a thing, but he has to have his own voice. Two days
later she brought Amit trivedi. I had my doubts on him. Largely because
of his name. He did not sound like a musician. I heard his sample music
and that was brilliant. I did not have a script at that time. I gave him
a situation based on what Vikram told me , he was doing with the script
and asked him to come up with a song. This was seven months before i
met vikas and then i forgot about it. After Vikas liked what i told him i
wanted to do with devdas, amit called me one day and he said he has
arrived at a song. I took vikas with me and went there. He played
“duniya” to me. Was I blown!!!! and then he said it took him six songs
to arrive at Duniya. I said can i hear those six. And he played them.
Six bloody brilliant songs, i told him i will take them all. They are
all in the movie. That is the moment that dev.d became a musical.
I went back to the script and rewrote it. and what came out was
brilliant, brilliant in terms of temptation, it made me greedy, i wanted
more music, more songs to make it feel complete. Emotional Atyachar
followed and its rock version and more. The film changed, music changed
the film, Amit trivedi changed the film. The essence, the soul remained
but the way it is told. The way it unfolded, the way i looked at it
changed.
And that was just few days before we were going on the shoot. Something I
was yet to figure out. When you make a film like Dev.d , one is dealing
with hell of a lot, perceived indian morality being the mother of them
all. one has to practice some kind of self censorship without killing
the soul of the movie. My dev is not just an alcoholic, he is a today’s
kid, he goes beyond alcohol, he is a coke-head, he experiments with
other drugs too, but is it necessary to show it. i wanted a way out. I
wanted to figure out a way where without showing the drug abuse and a
lot of drugs we could somehow portray that. I did not know the way out.
Our shooting began. first schedule in london, again talked about on PFC.
I called Danny Boyle. A social call because I was in london, because i
would often meet him , infact hosted him once when he was in bombay.
Danny invited us to lunch. Me , abhay and Rajeev Ravi my camera man
went. A small place in Soho where apparently a lot of film people hang
out. We got talking about his post on Slumdog and my Dev.d. I told him
what i wanted to do, and he told me about how he shot slum dog on SI-2K
and he also told me about a still camera, a nikon DS-3 or something that
was developed for war photographers that can shoot up to 11 frames per
second. He shared the entire technology(now public knowledge courtesy
American cinematographer) that he pushed for, got developed and used for
SDM. He gave us the details for where to get that camera from. He got
them from germany or holland. I immediately ordered for it, got it while
we were shooting in Punjab and did a test shoot on it, saw the results
and decided to go ahead with it. All the trippy shots you see in the
promos after abhay throws the glass at the wall was shot on that camera,
thanks to Danny Boyle.
Well rest later.
_________________________________________________________________________________
327 Responses to “Dev.D- genesis”
Plz sir let us know when the music is releasing…eagerly waiting for music from amit trivedi…
keep rocking..
(keeping my fingers crossed that the censor board doesn’t throw any tantrums this time)
Ari Presler
CEO/Founder
Silicon Imaging
www.si-2k.com
Here is the link of brand new Promo of DEV.D…
Emotional Attyachar(Dev D)…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QykJg4aDO-c
btw looking forward to the music release, promos had some good stuff.. I really hope the movie breaks the fear of no smoking…
Cheers,
Deep
Cheers
Faridoon
Very interesting to know the genesis of Dev-d.My admiration for Abhay Deol keeps increasing day by day.Looking forward to reading more about the movie.And yes eagerly awaiting the music & the movie.
Dev D!!!!! The name sounds so interesting and to top it you have Abhay Deol playing the lead. None of his movies has failed to impress me! Another factor that works for the movie is UTV! Rest assured, I have utmost faith that the movie will be fairly screened all over. Advance congratulations for the success of your movie!
I’m waiting for this film like fucking hell… the only Hindi movie i think i had been waiting for eagerly so much after No Smoking
It’ll be wonderful to view the film in Delhi, instead of some theater here in US, assuming it is still slated to release on January 9th?
Thanks Mr. Kashyap, for always pushing the envelope!
cos i thought it was 9 jan, but u say music’s coming out on 10th. so, when’s the release?
i am not a writer or anything close, but just have an idea.
The movie is scheduled for release on Feb 6th
No offense, and since I assume you are a level-headed man by the manner in which you took No Smoking’s criticism, I am sure you wouldn’t take any. But…
What’s with the self-important, pompous, vain displays? Why do you have to share all this unimportant, insignificant ‘knowledge’ with us? I mean, yes, all your fanboys will latch upto it, and think they have been gifted the secret of nirvana, but surely, you do realise that this is more blind worship than careful thinking, right? Or do you do this just to please your vanity? Just to get some people to tell you that you are their God?
Why don’t you let the film release? Why don’t you let the film talk for itself? If its good, all kudos to you, applause, and touch your feet. If its bad, all the otherwises. But why this unpaid for publicity blitz? I mean, sure, its a nice barter setup you guys have here, but why misuse it to the extent that it becomes abuse?
And to all the fanboys : Whats with the idol thing mates? Kaul and Shahani have been upto it for years men. Surely, you have gotten a more watchful approach to film watching than this. Right? The guy’s best film is Last Train to Mahakali. You heard of it? No? You worship him for making Paanch, which strangely enough, none of us have even watched yet. Or for Black Friday, which reduces the filmic medium to the most regressive form of literature, even chapters. Or No Smoking? That confused rigmarole.
Let the guy breath, and guy, let the guys breath. Tell me, when the film is releasing. I’ll be there.
1. Saali khusi
2. Emotional atyaachar
“Daney was one of the last to do that work. He described the actual thing, you’d want to go or not, in any case you’d make your judgment based on the evidence. An entire paragraph of his article on L’Amant is devoted to a lace-up boot. You understand what takes place in the film. Likewise, when Rivette spoke about the tracking shot in Kapo, he described it straightforwardly, like Thucydides describing the Peloponnesian War. That dimension has been lost because we no longer see the film. You tell me it’s good. You’ll have to show me. I don’t believe you a priori. What you say is interesting. Maybe you’re even more interesting than the film.”
Anuj, chill bro! what’s vain and pompous about a talented director blogging about interesting nuggets of info about his forthcoming movie? And Anurag talking about a mostly unheard of cinematographic technique (unheard of to a majority of movie watchers) is “insignificant” knowledge? Grow up man and appreciate a director’s effort to showcase new age Indian cinema to a larger audience instead of accusing him of showboating. As for fanboyism and idolising, you need a reality check! Go check out the David Fincher fanatic blog or the millions of Christopher Nolan fan sites out there!
I do agree with Anuj, because I believe in the age old tradition of evidence in form of criticism. And no fan-boy talking about their supposed love and filmmakers proclaiming their love either
Since there is no ‘school of thought’ where cinephiles, criticism or filmmakers are born here with the idea of history and tradition of the medium. Anything and everything is like a great boon. So…if you talk about David Fincher blog, go check the movies he made that is uniquely ‘cinema’ or about Nolan go check again.
What is the good use of an unheard a cinematographic technique when the implications are still the same? So what good a new jimmy-jib imported from Mars do if all the industry does is shoot in the same manner like every Tom, Dick and Harry. And if he has done something different let’s wait for the evidence of the film and then judge.
Received wisdom is something that kills of any form of criticism, and our own ideas to question.
Beside which new age Indian cinema are you talking about, because cinema itself is not being reinvented here, so lets not be confused, are we talking about the ontological values of cinema or just the narrative,acting, so on so forth.
“what’s vain and pompous about a talented director blogging about interesting nuggets of info about his forthcoming movie?”
Interesting nuggets? Those are pieces of self-serving praises of his entire crew right there. That’s promotion, blatant and obvious. Those are not interesting nuggets about how the idea developed into a final film, or about how the genesis of an idea takes place. Its basically information about how his superlatively talented team developed THAT idea, which is fair enough, but that judgement is not the filmmaker’s task, is it? It’s his audience’s, isn’t it? Here, the ‘team’ takes more important than the ‘idea’ itself, and the maker becomes more significant than the film. Interesting nuggets.
“And Anurag talking about a mostly unheard of cinematographic technique (unheard of to a majority of movie watchers) is “insignificant” knowledge?”
Sure. He did talk about it, didn’t he? In an elaborate detailed manner. In a brilliant vivid description. In 4 lines. Even here, the intention of his writing is to inform us about the discovery of the technique through his meeting with Boyle. Its not about the technique itself. But this is being too critical, and I will attribute Anurag Sir for the info he provided us. Now that that’s cleared, next time, tell us about the technique in a detailed manner, and about how 11 frames per second enhanced your film. Write a post about that. Or maybe, let us just watch it, eh? Or should I read it in the American Cinematographer?
“a director’s effort to showcase new age Indian cinema to a larger audience instead of accusing him of showboating”
New Age? Indian? Cinema?
Clearly, neither you, nor I have seen Dev D. Out of the question. No Smoking was not new age Indian Cinema, and if it was, that’s hardly the direction we are looking at, right? So basically, you base your reading of Mr.Kashyap’s intentions as a filmmaker on ONE SINGLE FILM? - Black Friday? - No? Really? Haha…
BEAT.
Really?
“Go check out the David Fincher fanatic blog or the millions of Christopher Nolan fan sites out there!”
Go check out the films they have made first. While Anurag Kashyap is definitely a talented writer - what with his contributions to various TV shows and Satya - as a director, well.
Besides, do avoid these invalid comparisons and superfluous name-throwing exercise. Because if its reasonable to compare the state of film boards(which it isn’t, but on your incitation), its also fair to compare the state of our cinema with others, right?
You. Chill.
“Interesting nuggets? Those are pieces of self-serving praises of his entire crew right there. That’s promotion, blatant and obvious”
You talk as though he owns the crew - his crew here is Abhay Deol (we dont need to discuss his acting credentials here, suffice to say he is better than most people out there today), Amit Trivedi (a talented music director) and Rajeev Ravi (you can pick on a lot of things about No smoking, but one thing that stood out is the cinematography). As for promotion, when did PFC become a mass reader website like Rediff for promotion to have any effect? Manorama SFU would have been a much bigger hit had it really been “promoted” well.
“Sure. He did talk about it, didn’t he? In an elaborate detailed manner. In a brilliant vivid description. In 4 lines” - Yeah, what do you expect? Anurag and Rajeev bring out a 20 page manual on how to employ a lesser used cinematographic technique to budding directors? i am sure they have better things to do.
“Clearly, neither you, nor I have seen Dev D. Out of the question. No Smoking was not new age Indian Cinema, and if it was, that’s hardly the direction we are looking at, right?” - Clearly, you havent understood what i meant by New Age Cinema - i am not talking about Dev D and No smoking or any particular movie here - i am talking collectively about the small/medium budget movies that have come out in the last 2 years from talented directors with little support from the established cine people. People like Anurag act as a bridge for such people, and he doesnt just showcase his own movie.he has written enough in support of other movies.
And yeah, i am chilling with a beer on a sunday afternoon. so, chill again.
Can you take US “Fanboys” out of the equation over here for a while and tell us Whats wrong with the blatant publicity of a movie if that is what AK is trying to do.And what other way should guys like these go about publicizing their movies when you have rigged critics (read suckers) like Khalid Mohammeds sitting in their armchairs giving the most unconvincing 3 star reviews to films made by Dynasty run Filmhouses in the Nation’s leading dailies which obviously caters to millions of your prospective viewers and not even caring to write a 300 word movie review of Dasvidaniya.(Case in point Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi review on HT, god only knows what the freaking bugger was trying to write but i dont want to digress).
Or should Mr AK put in an glitzy item number song and beg the actors, both of the current and a foregone generation to dance in it the pretext of the “CELEBRATION OF INDIAN CINEMA”.(WTF)
Or do you want AK to go about making a musical about one of the most common teen fantasies(i.e. Being a lead singer in a Rock Band),star in it himself and publicize it as the gist of the Pink Floyd classic ‘TIme’ on TV’s leading song channels and their gazillion chat shows.
My friends if this genuine prostituting of yourself in front of TV to make your movie work is acceptable publicity then why cant you accept this blog as the other way of it.
I guess what you guys have a grudge over is how in a seemingly blindfolded manner are we, the so called ‘FANBOYS’ are lapping every word of AK.Well that is hardly AK’s fault,is it.
YOu dont have to hang the guy just because he wrote about what camera he’s tried and used in his movie.And dont you think a if a ‘Talented WRITER’ (to which you admit that AK is) had to publicize his movie through a blog he would atleast format his blogs with suitable indentations as has been pointed out in one of the comments above.
And the part of the Fanboys that you dont understand is that we are not licking it up to AK, we are licking it up to the brave new face of Indian Cinema which is willing to challenge the staus quo and be commercially viable at the same time.We are unquestionably licking up to the new Idea’s which are being thrown up and being made into wonderful thoughful movies.AK just happens to be one of the hundreds of metaphor for this which are budding up.We are licking up the idea of spawning even more AK’s.
And Dear Mr Anuj, well if you think Black Friday and No smoking was not good cinema you can go FUCK YOURSELF.
Ontology - The branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such.
So what exactly are the ‘ontological values’ of cinema?
please answer that ontology thing navdeep asked…sort of confusing….you think too much man…saw your blog..why don’t you go out and make movies when u saw so many movies and know so much about movies…why end up becoming a movie scholar or something and being cynical about everything… i actually liked what all anurag wrote in his blog…and your cynicism is caulfeld-like ??? haha… read that part where caulfeld meets that “intellectual guy”, whose father is a psychonalyst, in the bar. you are more like him…and by the way caulfeld hates movies i think…;)
Give the link for your blog please. (mad about guys named caulfield…:))
Man, Amit Trivedi gave such a fantastic score in Aamir. I hope its equally good over here.
.
I find the back story interesting. Seems like a debate raging over here but haven’t got a chance to read it. Office mein vaat hain babu.
sorry no thanks
“anuj did u see RNBDJ:)”
Yes I did. I loved the first fifty minutes as well. Do you want to discuss it, or did you just use the film as a symbol of the ‘bad’ films that I watch? Because if its about using films as symbols, then I also watched, recently-:
a) Apu Trilogy
b) The Day of the Jackal
c) Oye Lucky Lucky Oye
d) La Jetee
e) Letters From an Unknown Woman
f) La Plaisir
g) A Man Escaped
h) Taare Zameen Par
i) The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting
to represent, what you, my sir, would deem ‘good’. Anything else?
Yossarain
1) About his owning the crew or vice-versa, we have conveniently chosen to veer the discussion into meaninglessness. The argumentation is hardly dialectic, and you seem hardly enthused in building/debating upon my previous point, i.e when the creator assumes a more significant position than the creation, and the team becomes more important than the film. Instead, you move on a tangent, clearly redundant point, which holds no relevance in this discussion. Why have you begun discussing the credentials of the team members? Did I ever initiate a discussion on them? How can we comment on their work before the film releases? We were talking about the blog post preferring execution over an idea. Can we thus, please, do more than mere hoodwinking and backslapping here?
2) “As for promotion, when did PFC become a mass reader website like Rediff for promotion to have any effect? ”
“People like Anurag act as a bridge for such people, and he doesnt just showcase his own movie.he has written enough in support of other movies.”
Only one of the two can be true, isn’t it? If PFC is not a mass dispersion tool, and promotion here does not have any effect, then Anurag acting as a bridge would not have much too, agreed? Carrying this point forward, it should also raise another question - Who does he act as a bridge between? The filmmakers and a site like PFC? Which according to you, does not have much of an effect except on a small group of self-proclaimed cinefans. His promotion is a failure then? If, on the other hand, however, we agree that the promotion on PFC DOES have an effect, and is relevant in the context of it being consequential in terms of evoking popular interest, then again, that strengthens my claim, and in that scenario, he should let others write about his film(not the crew’s work on it, atleast not before the film’s released), and not write about the film himself. Ever noticed how that is never the trend?
“Manorama SFU would have been a much bigger hit had it really been “promoted” well.”
So?
“Clearly, you havent understood what i meant by New Age Cinema ”
A cinematic movement is a collective guided by the motivation of a cohesive unit of filmmakers to take cinema as an art form towards a more refined, superior, and more importantly, common ideological, cultural and aesthetic goal. A set of filmmakers who lie scattered without an ideological commonality do not make a cinematic movement. Even more essentially, a cinematic movement is highly consequential in terms of its impact on both a society’s cultural, political and spiritual perspectives. If not that, the movement is a failure. A cinematic movement, thirdly, exists not in a vacuum, or in a niche, but within a popular realm, while criticising it.
Assuming you talk of the New-Age Cinema as a cinematic movement, what are the defining coherent set of goals our ‘New-Age’ filmmakers have set for us? Do they share anything in common or in tandem with each other, other than the fact(s), that they are-:
a) Low-Budget
b) Without major stars
c) Stimulate faux ‘realism’, ‘grit’,'edginess’.
Are there any aesthetic or ideological objectives of this movement, or is it merely a version of the mainstream? Also, what impact does this new-age cinema hold over the mass tastes, or is it content to exist on a site? Is the spread of knowledge its purpose or containment of it? The latter, seems, ruefully, the more valid option.
For a cinematic movement to be effective, it needs to expand, and not contract. Besides, exactly, in which direction is it developing cinematic form? Are we looking at new narrative forms, or are we looking at developing a new form using editing patterns? What and where is the growth if its indeed a cinematic movement, as you so proudly emphasise?
“Yeah, what do you expect? Anurag and Rajeev bring out a 20 page manual on how to employ a lesser used cinematographic technique to budding directors? i am sure they have better things to do.”
Obviously, he is too occupied explaining how Abhay Deol was a Bohemian who used to sketch on T-Shirts and sell them in Goa, to have any time on elaborating on a new cinematic technological idiom. He has time for that. Sure enough, the readers are satisfied with the meagre trivial knowledge he passes on, and we are more interested in how they were watching a football match when they developed the idea. Its, by its very conception, a more relevant cinematic topic. Isn’t it?
In the future, for any conducive and eventually useful discussion to take place, take care to not go off on needless tangents. Thanks.
“And yeah, i am chilling with a beer on a sunday afternoon. so, chill again.”
That was the one thing I was sure you would be doing.
Anuj let me tell u something here, no new movement starts off with clear cut objectives and statements. And this is true of any movement be it the European New Wave or the American Indie film movement or the 70’s Beatnik Generation movies.
Basically most of these movements start off with a higher purpose, they are not satisfied with existing things, and want to make a difference. But their objectives are not clear cut. And thats fine, but give them space to grow, give them space to learn. No we dont want to do that, we want them to run even before they learn how to walk. Yeah sitting on my arse, even i can raise a 1000 questions, but its when you are actually hands on, actually doing the work, that you understand things as is.
As the movement grows along, as it matures, it will find its ideas, its objectives becomming more concrete. Growth does not happen instantly, it takes time, it needs groundwork, it needs a commitment to keep going. And basically it needs support.
If we are serious about letting an alternative cinema movement grow, then back it, support it, give it space, give it time. The people who make the movies know better than you and me, it is for them to define their objectives and way of reaching out.
“like Khalid Mohammeds sitting in their armchairs giving the most unconvincing 3 star reviews to films made by Dynasty run Filmhouses in the Nation’s leading dailies ”
But pray, do tell me sir, how does a critic influence the box office success/failure of a film? Because if I assume that your argument is to state that a critic’s review influences millions of prospective film watchers, then Black Friday should have been the biggest hit of our times with the reviews it got, no? You make it seem as if the critics bear a personal vendetta against all the ’small’, ‘New-Age’ films, and have a tendency to support the big-budget studio systems. First, its simply false. Except Mr.Taran Adarsh, we have no example of the above. Every critic, howsoever inclined towards disguising the story of the film as his review, and uninformed, atleast gives appropriate star ratings. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, for instance, has been given a maximum of 2 stars in various publications. The argument is invalid, and cries foul where there is none.
“Or should Mr AK put in an glitzy item number song ”
He already did that. Besides the point.
“beg the actors, both of the current and a foregone generation to dance in it the pretext of the “CELEBRATION OF INDIAN CINEMA”.(”
Ah, now why are we functioning in relative greatness here? I never said Farah Khan makes cinema that sends a chill down my spine by its greatness, did I? But as I see it, it really should not be of no apparant outcome, as to the films Mr Kashyap or any of the new-age filmmakers make, right? Why has this been reduced to a ‘us vs. them’ debate? They are the conformists, and we are the rebels. Sounds fancy, but each film should survive on its own merit, and its own intrinsic qualities, instead of pointing at a film and saying, ‘Look, atleast, I am better than that.’. And I am not talking about commerce here, I am talking about the quality of the film.
“My friends if this genuine prostituting of yourself in front of TV to make your movie work is acceptable publicity then why cant you accept this blog as the other way of it”
Right, so we DO accept it as another form of that?
“so called ‘FANBOYS’ are lapping every word of AK.Well that is hardly AK’s fault,is it.”
I never said it is his fault. Infact, I quite pointed the otherwise. Let the guy breath, remember?
“not licking it up to AK, we are licking it up to the brave new face of Indian Cinema ”
First, whats with the so many ‘we’s’? Brave new face of Indian cinema? Sounds nice, but as I said earlier, there is more to a cinematic movement than questioning the authority of commerce, or big studios. The more important question is : WHY are you questioning that authority?
“And Dear Mr Anuj, well if you think Black Friday and No smoking was not good cinema you can go FUCK YOURSELF.”
Now thats a really healthy argument in favour of a film.
Semi-Santusht
About Caulfield, since that particular article is mine(just that one article), his cynicism is only a symbol, its not meant to merit a discussion on how rightly, or wrongly placed it is. And yes, ofcourse he hated films, but he spent half the book describing and talking about them. Good times…
Ravi
I wouldn’t believe it if you say so sir. If Mr.Kashyap tells me that PFC is his personal blog where he can write whatever he wants to, I am backing off, immediately. I thought of it as a communal website. My bad.
Ratnakar Sadasyula
You are wrong sir. Each movement constructs itself based on an ideological foundation. I am not sure what you mean by the European New Wave, but if its the French New Wave, they have to be amongst the most theoretically sound and ideologically principalled group of filmmakers ever. I do not have to mention the Cahiers, do I? There should really be no debate there.
The American Indie Movement - which one? The ‘84 Movement initiated by Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise, the ‘92 Sundance reinitiation by Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Rodriguez’s El Mariarchi, or the more recent, consummation of the earlier motivation, as carried out by Wes Anderson, Reitman, Linklater. Any of these, as you will discover, are less cinematic movements, and more non-conformist ones, where in low-budget filmmakers, from varied schools, and of diverse beliefs make their films. They do not HAVE to have an ideological ground to share, because the only common factor is, that they make films in less money. Their motive is not to change the face of cinema, but to make films like they want to. Now if you categorize the current film movement in India as that, I might agree with you on the similarity, and then, we can initiate a debate on the merits/demerits of individual and specific films, rather than a discussion on the whole movement that contains them.
The Beatnik Generation Films - Which one again? But because you mention 70’s, I presume you mean The New Hollywood. They did not have to build an ideological ground, because the Beat Generation from the 50’s, and the European Counterculture movement of the 60’s had already set up a ground for them. Combined with the French New Wave, which emphasised on the reproduction of reality as the FILMMAKER saw it, and ofcourse the placement of the director as the central figure, they had their aesthetic guidelines presented to them, so they did not have to plan, they merely had to implement/consummate, and some implementation it was. An analogy here is the Woodstock Festival. The inception in ‘69 did not have to first decide on a target audience and consequently, its principles/values, it already had them built.
“Yeah sitting on my arse, even i can raise a 1000 questions, but its when you are actually hands on, actually doing the work, that you understand things as is. ”
First, the comparison is not even valid. Its a baseless, last-resort, last straw argument. If it were valid, then we are basically eliminating the whole concept of text-based criticism, of film, art, politics, culture, anything. You are saying that people who sit and write have no evident right to write critiques on people who actually work. If that were the case, the whole concept of healthy film criticism, or raising questions, will go down the drain. More importantly, does that also mean that your recent criticisation, on the same site, of the terrorist attacks and the media coverage, are unimportant and irrelevant, since you sat on your arse and wrote them, thereby adopting an objective perspective of the situation and not being actually involved. This argument serves no purpose. Its useless.
“As the movement grows along, as it matures, it will find its ideas, its objectives becomming more concrete.”
So it is a movement after all? Then where is the ideological ground, or its ambition? Which direction does it intend to move into?
I like how Mr.Kashyap says that his films make an effort to expose the debauchery and shallowness of perceived Indian morality. Thats a start. That, atleast, is an intention there.
Sir, no film movements just begin, shoot randomly, and then recognise their targets. No, that’s not how it has or does happen.
“The people who make the movies know better than you and me, it is for them to define their objectives and way of reaching out.”
Return to wasteland. Useless argument. If they know better, then let us just stop praising/criticising, and become silent viewers.
We tend to digress here a lot. I simply propose a discussion on the post Mr.Kashyap wrote, but you are willing to tell me about systems, hierarchies, glass ceilings, what not and ultimately what?
If the size of the post matters, by the size of your post it looks like you aren’t a fan at all.
By talking about Danny Boyle on your post and SI-2K camera, are you trying to justify the cinematography and the look of the film which was talked about on PFC? here is the post if you haven’t read it http://passionforcinema.com/thinking-without-thinking/
@Anuj fundu comment “you are saying that people who sit and write have no evident right to write critiques on people who actually work. If that were the case, the whole concept of healthy film criticism, or raising questions, will go down the drain.”
Looking forward to your answer Anurag
@navdeep, Thanks for the definition
Answer- mise-en-scene
Etymology- French, year- 1893
Family Resemblance- Theatre.
Growth- Editing.
Hey I think everyone seems to be getting the wrong message. I’m not here on a rampage or flaming crap, let’s get this clear first. We all fighting for the same cause- to promote, write and discuss good cinema in the country. But the difference is that we are particularly interested in how the mise-en-scene (form) works in order for a rise of a cinematic expression. That as a cinephile to me, or generation of new cinephile who want to be filmmakers is important; provided we are interested in doing something later in life. So that the expression in turn, is not only Indian, but transcends boundaries. Else if u think I’m wrong tell me… why is that anyone of our ‘New Age filmmakers’ have not crossed boundaries, judging from there same age group/years in cinema and films themselves to other countries?
.semi-santusht
So u think…a cinephile should stop thinking? Cynical? What cynical? In every profession it does not matter if people analyze, compare history or inform. But the problem here lies with cinema and our cinema culture. People find it hard when their generalized vocabulary of the medium is threatened and they start hiding instead of accepting. If you people believe that a support is necessary for this system of ‘ New Age Filmmakers’ to come up, it definitely needs to be talked about in the right manner- to be seen critically. And as for L’amour, Rissent put it, ““It’s not about just loving a film, and one must love it for the right reasons”. So please do provide your right reasons for loving a film any form of superlative that is a ‘ reader response’ is not to be confused with ‘ criticism’.
It should be about acceptance and learning, if I don’t know I learn and inform. Godard, Kurosawa, Ray or our great cinematographer like KK Mahajan were eternal student, always learning, re-inventing that is something missing from most people here. That is one core reason why we are not able to mould real film lovers, people who cannot define the difference between the tradition of our cinema from the rest of the world or vice-versa. And I’m sure one cannot deny the fact, ‘That any form of stylistic revolution cannot come forward without the knowledge of tradition”, and in the right manner.
.
And about me making movies…sure, will do so…tell one of the PFC author or a producer if he is ready to believe in my idea, and I’m ready with a script. And about your remark…well, doesn’t bother me, anything in cinema that is obliged to run behind literature is not my cup of tea.:)
anuj, ankit , nitesh completely agree with you.. but how ever much we aspire to do we are working in a system that would just not allow that. Imagine what i do is not even called envelope pushing here, one of them said , “you always kick the stationary shop is why we do not wan’t to make your film”. Guess how would they react to real pushing of the envelope. I guess instead of waiting for that day to arrive or like or wait around for what nitesh said,”tell one of the PFC author or a producer if he is ready to believe in my idea…” i don’t have that kind of patience. I would rather keep working and take it bit by bit. And believe me that day is not far when nitesh will find that producer and hopefully it could be me.
As far as discussing the genesis of the real idea or what the film is about, will do it after the release. I don’t think even Nolan or fincher or anyone discusses what they have done with the film before it releases. That would kill the surprise and build expectations based on the reader’s or the listener’s imagination.
However much one tries to runaway from the truth, fact is eventually it’s the commercial viability of an idea that funds a movement.
Anuj, you talk of the french new wave, well , it had the advantage of the artistically educated audience and the atmosphere ready for it. The cinema that existed in france and europe prior to the wave, was and still is so far ahead of what we have here. Lets reach that point first before the ideology becomes a wave. Till then sitting around and waiting and dreaming and hoping is not going to solve anything. For that you have to let go of a lot. It has taken me seven tears to complete Gulaal and we could do it on the basis that the entire cast and crew of Gulaal did it for free over those many years, and the loss was not just monetary, a lot of families broke up, friendships turned sour , teams changed because everyone had an ideology there. Had i just pursued that one film or waited for Black friday or paanch to release, my ideology would have achieved nothing.
Gulaal happened because i did other things, Because i wrote films like main aisa hi hoon, shaka laka etc.. Are you willing to let go of your ideology because you believe in it, believe in it so much that you will let go of what people percieve of you, that somebody might call you a sell out, if you don’t have that kind of strength to be called an ass, to be the other to your very own, then that new wave is never hitting our shores.
I need to promote not just my film, but me and my team. If no smoking was a fucked up movie, who fucked it up.. me .. but why were the crew ignored by the industry while there work was world class. Once the film comes out, the crew is never discussed, due credits are never given.
so here is all i have to say..
and regardless of what anyone thinks, i will continue to write, that’s my job. You feel something is missing, ask questions, ask me i want to know more about this and that. The problem with us is that we form judgements rather than asking questions. We have killed our curiosity, because we have already found out the meaning of life, we know what cinema or anything should be about. We don’t search, we already know. And that is sad.
So thank you for opening the platform to question. At the end of the day, being a cinephile that is an important proposition for learning. Be it for a movement of camera or editing. Beside it’s not that one is not aware how closed the system of films are here, and filmmaking in general and how much crap is floating around. Perhaps, call it my naiveté that is the only reason I advocate for a reinvention of mise-en-scene by our new age filmmakers, because the representation of social and economic woes without that of cinematic reforms I’m sure won’t get us anywhere. That is the reason whether it was Ray years back or Jia Zhangke in China it needed to be done.
The received wisdom of the European audience being far more literate is not quite so, the problems with France back then is similar what we face, it took the Cahier group about ten long years to achieve that. Yet their mainstream films continued to be produced only a peer group of (Bresson, Melville, Becker, and Dassin) and others could offer something different that they championed before breaking out with their fresh mise-en-scene. So if in true sense you know it as much as I do, or maybe more, there has to be a call for a individual cinema, that could seem personal from the content, but remains part of the public domain in the form bringing it onscreen.
Maybe…the only time I show a ray of hope where in one of the scene in Oye Lucky Oye…DB had used all three spaces on-screen. The time when he introduced Abay Deol to Paresh Rawal.
Thanks for the words on making a film, just that wanted to make one small clearance, here I’m no different from the bit of bit you did… writing criticism in the large context for me is making films. One writes essay on a paper the other on a canvas, and like how a critic is lost/alone before a blank page a director is on the set. So, for me, it’s the same process, and depends how one looks at cinema and criticism in general. The only reason I mentioned that because in the long run of writing we do need our Baurnberger and George de Beauregard to believe in things, a wave, else it won’t happen.
“The cinema that existed in france and europe prior to the wave, was and still is so far ahead of what we have here. Lets reach that point first before the ideology becomes a wave.”
Sure the cinema there was far ahead of what we have here. But then who is responsible for that. 2 persons- Filmmakers and audience. Mainly its the filmmaker who should be involved here because the audience sees what you show them. But then you might say filmmakers present what audience wants to see, but then who developed that mindset of audience - Filmmakers. Its thats not very hard to make a good film, after all in Hitchcock terms it only requires a good script to make a good film.
So if a few people in France can do that, so can we, but then the point is who should take the initiative - You(Already a known filmmaker) or us(Anuj, Nitesh and me) who are as of yet an audience to the films made by you people. If Dibakar Banerjee can make a good film that serves both the intellectual and an average person, so can everybody including you, instead of making a completely surreal movie like No Smoking and then blaming it to the audience for not understanding it. Is should go step by step. So if you as a filmmaker think that India cannot have this new wave, and rather say that we are far behind the cinema that existed in France and Europe, I am sorry to say but you as one of the filmmakers is responsible for that.
One simple example from your post is for making one good film Gulaal(that too it may be good,as of now i haven’t seen it), you gave the industry more than 2 bad films(Main Asia Hi Hoon, Shaka Laka….etc.). So in a way you are nobody to criticize the present status of Indian Cinema.
You also said that crew which was very good in No Smoking - I am sorry but John Abraham who in my opinion didnot give a good performance but managed to look his best till now, is now a bigger star than he was before the film. Vishal Bharadwaj gave the music to the film. He doesn’t need any introduction. Sure there were many more technicians and crew members involved in that who are not recognized but this happens and is a part of the industry. You should better know about the behind camera ones and promoting it to people in PFC, is not going to help them get better contacts IMO.
“As far as discussing the genesis of the real idea or what the film is about, will do it after the release. I don’t think even Nolan or fincher or anyone discusses what they have done with the film before it releases. That would kill the surprise and build expectations based on the reader’s or the listener’s imagination.”
You wrote an entire post on No Smoking on the very day it was released. Before anybody could have thought of the film was about, you made it clear on PFC. And I bet would have got your idea of the film. That itself says the film was incomplete. Because you just made complicated film without giving the right number of clues to solve it.
yaar fan ho gaye tumhare ,you brought the jaan back into the discussion ,or else all I would have heard is Anurag Sir Anurag Sir……….
Thanks for replying directly, and putting a lot of things back in perspective, and letting the discussion preserve its status and not become a mud-slinging competition. None of us want that.
I, and all of us, are completely aware that the system has assumed a rotten state, and refuses opportunities, while suppressing talent and encouraging mediocrity, but as Ankit says, I am not sure till what extent can we absolve ourselves of the responsibility for it. What I have had a problem with from the beginning of this thread is not the cinema we have, since that is obvious and merits another discussion, but with the concept of exonerating ourselves, reducing all the bad cinema to ‘their’ stable, and accusing it on ‘them’. Somewhere, all of us are equally responsible, for not, as Nitesh says, examining and inquiring, and thus, as a result, moving from the darkness of one bad cinema, to the darkness of not questioning what SEEMS to be great cinema.
Another issue here is the absence of a definite collective. There is no movement. Each filmmaker lives to make another film, but in the long-run, that will not serve any purpose, apart from having a few films to look back at from a full year of a ridiculous roster, year after year. Thats not a movement. Its merely an illusion of it. Fine, all you filmmakers do get together, with your fans and discuss cinema, but the discussion is unfruitful if it does not yield a result which impacts a popular realm. Any debate, for that matter, which completely separates itself from the responsibility of improving or evoking further argumentation while involving more people is unsuccessful. I find that attitude missing here. They have become snobs who like to keep their information close to their chest, not letting it go, and afraid that it will get corrupted if they meet some people who do not know as much as they do. Somewhere in the process, sir, you are accountable as well, for creating this feeling of a cozy group which remains self-satisfied, and this is genuine criticism, not meant to derogate your status, but because its essential, in my view, for great filmmaking to exist, it is imperative that great criticism should do too, and its my assurance, that we will ostracize you for each wrong move you, or any filmmaker makes in this nation, and write elaborate analysis on every step towards genuine progress.
“I don’t think even Nolan or fincher or anyone discusses what they have done with the film before it releases.”
Ahh, those comparisons are needless. One of the responses brought it up, so…
“Anuj, you talk of the french new wave, well , it had the advantage of the artistically educated audience and the atmosphere ready for it. ”
Its a vicious cycle sir. We wait patiently for the audience to develop a keen acumen and receptiveness for art, and they wait for art which genuinely pulls them out of their comfort shells and makes them anxious, excited and engaged. The wait is never consummated, and both groups place their respective accusations on each other. Fine, agreed, the audience is ignorant, but in that situation, are we, or anyone here, doing anything to initiate them, or are we merely lamenting? That’s the question.
“Gulaal happened because i did other things, Because i wrote films like main aisa hi hoon, shaka laka etc.. ”
I agree with Ankit again sir, because while that move may eventually help you achieve the filmmaking stature you aspire to reach, it will, in the process, populate the cinemas with films which corrupt the audiences further. Will this take the cinema of the nation forward, I am not sure. Will this build your eventual reputation, obviously. The decision of an individual over a collective is upto you, and your own, and no one has a right to question it, but then, it must be clear.
“, if you don’t have that kind of strength to be called an ass, to be the other to your very own”
But is that the only method sir? Its sad if that is.
” Once the film comes out, the crew is never discussed, due credits are never given.”
Sir, both you and me know that due credits are given where they are deserved. Actors are always praised, beyond the praise that they deserve, but you dedicated half your post to the lead actor. You know its not a valid point sir. I have no doubts about your intentions, but am merely questioning their ultimate execution. Enough debate on this. As I have been told here, you have the choice to write what you wish to, so I will keep that in mind, but because you have reciprocated in the process of questioning, we will question, and we will expect answers.
And I will hope that your film is indeed a masterpiece, and then, we can write glowing reviews of it, but if it is not, we will question the validity of the film’s celebration the Indian tendency to revel in self-pity, rather than criticise it.
Sure, I’d love to know about the period. Infact, I was reading this great blog.
jdcopp.blogspot.com and more specifically, a July 2006 article, where the critics provide us with valuable thumbnail critiques on various ‘massy, mindless’ film directors.
Do check it out when you can.
I am sure the ‘tradition of quality’ or the ‘cinema of papa’ continued well into the 60’s, and its existence is true even now, when most criticism guided against French Cinema of today, accuses it of being escapist and not in touch with reality.
But,
Now that you have quite openly compared the potential of this, the emerging(according to you), emerging new-age Indian cinema to the French New Wave, by believing that our ‘few good films surrounded in a large proportion by bad films’, is similar to the New Wave films being surrounded by the ‘massy, mindless’ films, then we can deduce the following conclusions-:
a) This new-age cinema of ours will be remembered as fondly(or otherwise) by the world fifty years from now as the French New Wave - Going, however, by the initial response, the early films of our new-age cinema, say a Bheja Fry or a Black Friday, really have not had as much as an impact as that of a Breathless or a 400 Blows, so the initial battle is lost. Moving on,
b) You open a more interesting prism of discussion - You believe that ‘great’ films will ALWAYS continue to exist among a horde of mindless films, and it is only those films that will be remembered years later, when the others are forgotten and have faded from public memory.
To this, my essential argument is this-:
a)Most great films, or classics, which are remembered with great fascination today, created a furore, or an impact(whether negative or positive) ALSO, at the time of their release. There are exceptions in the form of Murnau’s Sunrise, Hitchcock’s Vertigo, or Dutt’s Kaagaz Ke Phool, but barring these few, most renowned films were subject to great critical scrutiny, as well as public admiration, upon original release. But we rarely see a single such film now. Films have become like the moist celebration foam, which disappear as soon as they evaporate. They exist only in the temporality of their short eras, or till the next year’s award function. Which leads us to the next conclusion.
b) We will not have films to show for this, the existing era, 40 years from now. An analogy can be seen in how the era of 80’s is mostly marked by the death of parallel cinema, but apart from that, the era is a vaccum, in terms of how we associate with it, since it did not produce great films. (Not counting the times when we remember the films for how ‘bad’ they were) Our association is mostly attached to the 70’s and prior. A same vaccum, could be what this era might eventually yield.
So while I immediately agree with your argument upon how even the New Wave emerged from within a definite mass of bad films, they now have three factors strongly going for them-:
a) Their collective ideologies had an enormous impact on how films were made, all over the world, and forever after.
b) Their films, upon release, were either subject to erudite critical championing, or to mass popularity in a way that they affected both cultural and ideological identities, and in some rare early cases, to both.
c) Their films, as you say, are still studied, for their aesthetical and formal impact, all over the world.
Sadly, none of it is going for our movement. You might tell me that option c) is open to waiting and watching, but its results, sadly, are a direct consequence of factors a) and b), which are not, as of now, functioning our way.
Thanks for the response.
I leave the change to you.
Let me fool myself that our cinema is changing, and i will remember this time fondly, probably.
there is no point discussing anything here.
You sound like those 100 of filmmaking students that come out of filmschools in india, overnight wanting a change, guess what, 80% of them don’t do anything ever because the atmosphere is not such. 15% after a while give in and become worse than the present scenario. The only ones who have ever achieved anything significant, and changed things are the ones who pour themselves headlong into work and find their way.
I know the great hopes of our cinema that could have been, the cinema that did not go beyond discussions, Whenever you want to take a walk through that, let me know, you just might end up kill yourself, seeing those erstwhile huge egos,now not even a whimper.
Discussions and debates have never solved anything when not backed by action. So I m happy believing we are doing something because that is what drives me.
All the best once again for Dev.D.
“The only ones who have ever achieved anything significant, and changed things are the ones who pour themselves headlong into work and find their way.”
GREAT LINE, AK !!!
GK
Enuf of emostional atyachar …pls release the music asap
You don’t expet an overnight change in the quality of films made but you do expect an overnight change in the audience. You give them No Smoking and then either you or your crew members say it a film made ahead of its time. Great.
Movie fan,
Why blame Yash Raj always?? What about Shaka Laka……where Anurag Kahsyap participated!!!!
do i need to say more???
as for SKLBB I think anurag already explained why he did that movie
search for SKLLBB on PFC and u will anurag’s article about that movie
Well said Sirji!
Kitna dialogue maarte hain kuchh log.
Sounds like some of them want to directly jump into the league of classics and straightaway make a Citizen Kane or a Three Colors or a 400 Blows, and anything below that would be a sin against the art itself.
Any artistic movement worth its salt is based on an artistic imperative to convey things the way you want to. It does not emerge from board rooms or discussions where creative people sit together and decide how to change the world. It happens. It is organic. It is always challenging and always comes too late for those who really want it. It is also stupid to want a movement for its own sake. You seem to want to force it out.
My friend is a filmmaker in Singapore and he is killing himself for his first feature, everyday. The project is self funded and completely independent. I admire him as I do Anurag because these are the people who will bring about a change. Not by roundtables and rallies, but by just being who they are….
As far as this article is concerned, I think it’s more of a casual update than anything else. Where’s the vendetta kids? Also, what’s wrong with an artist enjoying his work and wanting to talk about it? It just shows faith and excitement.
Thanks for responding sir.
You do see my point here, don’t you? You have become more than a person, and you have become a symbol, a symbol of rebellion, and cinema in this nation. So much so that people rely on you to supply them with their opinions, ideas and viewpoints. You write something about a slow, gradual change, and two people, who did not have anything, remotely, to do with the debate until now, follow you, copy paste your lines, and simply agree with whatever you said, word to word. They did not have a single original contribution to make, but feel obliged to support you blindly. As someone who has watched much more films than I have, read much more than I have, tell me, is this the cinematic environment you want?
I am not in a tearing hurry to reach anywhere sir, and realise that its an ancient fools’ dream to believe the mountain can be moved in a single day, and I am ready to stand here for years to come to achieve the cause, but I need indicators in the present that assure me of a greater future. I cannot sit and analyse each era’s attributes as and when they come, so as to wait for our future to come, and realising that things have not changed, and that we did not make a difference when we could have - I’d be heartbroken if that happens. Today, I do not demand great films, I do not demand of you to win us the Palm or the Bear, I merely wish that you, as a symbol, encourage the formulation of a central objective, of a central ideology, for the movement, and not let it move in random directions, eventually moving its hands in darkness. It’s brilliant if you are selfish and plan to achieve as a filmmaker the goals you have set for yourself, but you surely realise that you, specifically, have come too far in proposing a new cinema, and a cinematic movement, to now express individual concerns. There are filmmakers, on this site itself, who have cleverly distanced and then built closeness to the cause, at their convenience, so as to derive their vested gains from it, but never be responsible for it, but sadly, you have kept too close to now refuse participation.
The film school student analogy only reiterates the point we have made thousands and thousands of times - that the system is rotten, or did you want to suggest a similar eventual, death of ambition, end for me? Thanks for the encouragement sir, but I assure you that I have, as of now, nothing, remotely, similar to those film students, and am too concerned with our cinematic state to not end up being a minute part of a change later on.
Sir, for all the erstwhile egos you mention, I agree, they are erstwhile, but the whole issue is, they are still egos. They could never let go of their dream, and yes, they ended in a whimper, but that’s hardly our celebration, right? Why are we pronouncing it in such a lauditory tone?
“Discussions and debates have never solved anything when not backed by action. So I m happy believing we are doing something because that is what drives me.”
Precisely. According to you, you deem action more potent than words. Fantastic. I assume, by action, you mean ‘making films’. That again, should diminish the importance of a multitude your own blog posts, which if read in context with the above pasted message, should now become meaningless, or were you merely promoting your upcoming films?
Sir, I apologize if you consider no discussion possible further. Entirely your wish, though I am here if I’ll be beckoned.
Kenny
“straightaway make a Citizen Kane or a Three Colors or a 400 Blows”
First of all, saying this in as polite a manner as possible, why these films sir? You could have included some more ‘classics’ in the list, so only as to appear informed and studied. Or is there a pattern to it, that I do not notice.
Second, why is this expectation SO wrong and blasphemous? Overnight? We’ve had a proper cinematic framework in place since 1907 sir, but we still do not have an identity. Overnight?
Thirdly, I do not expect an overnight change. Do refer to my reply to Mr.Kashyap.
Chalo. Abhi itna hi.
It is always interesting to read story behind filmmaking,
Anurag please keep on writing,
-
@Anuj
bas kar teri bakar bakar
Apologies for misreading your ‘action’ proposition. Ignore the reply.
If you read my comment again, you’ll see that it is in response to your enlightened explanation of movements and how they begin.
Things didn’t happen because Eddie Vedder sat around at a coffee shop one day with Kurt Cobain and said, “I am going to start a movement, I think I’ll call it grunge”.
If you want structure and rules in this artistic movement, why don’t you tell us what we’ll see when we get there? What are your goals?
Is it not enough that ‘different’ films are finding ’sizeable’ audiences? That producers are willing to take chances and new voices are being heard? That we are going to move away from the three four things that people insert into their films for commercial success? That art and commerce get to breath in the same space without destroying each other?
Or are we going to have to wait to hear the words “We’re there” from you, kind sir?
Man, how I wish someone really comes up with that killer script that can be taken to Warner or Fox straightaway!
Coz, this kind of abilities shall have to be taken all the way.
In fact, a friend from LA production house was just in touch and lamenting the absence of good scripts. I chose to keep quiet then.
And here I see such command over films, writing and all else!
Anurag Kashyap did Shakalaka Boom Boom for money so that he could complete Gulaal…right? Now why do you think Yash Raj did Tashan…to make money. So what’s the difference now. Even Yash Raj gives an odd good film, RNBDJ was pretty much average film 6/10, Chak De India was very good. Surely Tashan, Laga…., Aaja Nachley were very bad films but then you cant expect goods to come out every now and then especially seeing the current status of cinema, the chances of good film is minimum. There was only one good film I can say India made this year, Oye Lucky!……that too a 7.5/10 IMO. And if you dont know or remember it was Yash Chopra who gave India those evergreen Waqt, Deewar, Silsila, Lamhe, Chandni when everybody was busy doing cheap action movies. He is onle of the legends of Indian Cinema. You might not appreciate those films, those films didn’t have Anurag Kashyap. Having said a lot against Anurag Kashyap, he wrote some very good scripts like Satya, Kaun and worked in other great films like Shool, Yuva, Water.
they contributed to what i call NRIizim of bollywood which is regressive cinema at its best
as of right now i have more respect for UTV a
Being following this discussion, below are my thoughts on what you have written to Anuj.
“I leave the change to you.
Let me fool myself that our cinema is changing, and i will remember this time fondly, probably.
there is no point discussing anything here.
You sound like those 100 of filmmaking students that come out of filmschools in india, overnight wanting a change, guess what, 80% of them don’t do anything ever because the atmosphere is not such. 15% after a while give in and become worse than the present scenario.”
On the above quote, I have to agree with Anuj’s point here. You are one of the founder members of a movement, it’s too late to show Individual concerns, there are a million film making hopes and dreams riding with your movement, it will all come crumbling down for them if you say the above.
Imagine if one fine day, Gandhi decides that Non Co-operation is not paying my bills so I am going back to South Africa and be a lawyer, you guys continue with your movement, Let me fool myself change is happening and I will remember this time fondly, go get screwed up fighting the British and eventually join them and I’ll meet you in South Africa years later for a drink.
What would have happened?
All I am trying to say here is if you have started the movement to challenge the system, lets not say and accept the fact “we cannot do anything about the system, at least I am working towards the system, or at least i am trying, or I am happy existing in this system”.
Lets continue what you had started, lets challenge the system and reinvent. Indian cinema is slowly becoming global, so we need to have that voice, not a voice that listens to the system and tells us the same, that’s screwing up the system completely. You already have support here and you will continue having the support and respect, from the people who admired you for the reasons you have set yourself apart.
I don’t know if that is sad or not but that is what happens most of the times. I think cinema, like all art forms can at best question the viewer, the viewer’s got to find his own answers. As with the discussion going on, one can keep arguing counter arguing-analyse each and every word , quote-interpret misinterpret(baal ki khaal) but it’s leading to nowhere..like we say something and then we say something else and we are trying to figure it out..Ethan Hawke said that..it’s absolutely fine but we have to be honest about the fact we are trying to figure it out..i think we are thinking through the words and it should be the other way around.
Need to sleep now..
You’re so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you’re so smart tell me why
Are you still so afraid?
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out
You got so much to do and only
So many hours in a day
But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want
Or you can just get old
You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize…Vienna waits for you
Slow down you’re doing fine
You can’t be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it’s so romantic on the borderline tonight
Too bad but it’s the life you lead
You’re so ahead of yourself
That you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you’re wrong
You know you can’t always see when you’re right
You got your passion you got your pride
But don’t you know that only fools are satisfied?
Dream on but don’t imagine they’ll all come true
When will you realize
Vienna waits for you
Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
It’s alright you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize…
Vienna waits for you.
And you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want
Or you can just get old
You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
Why don’t you realize…Vienna waits for you
When will you realize…Vienna waits for you
dot dot dot
…is it because he comes here naked and answers your filth?…you are judging which shot is tribute to which film…if you have problem finding his writeup as promotion…switch to all the news channels where Amir is promoting his version of Memento, shaving every head coming his way, showing his colour sprayed 8 packs…save your arguments for him…but yeah for that you need balls..
…Pinjare mein band sher ko bacche bhi moongfali se marte hain(Dialog from some film)…
Each and every single alphabet of AK’s comment of 65 is TRUE, I stand by his words and vouch for them as I have seen him go through what you can ever imagine in the next life or if you are that fortunate enough, than this life maybe.
I liked your line “There are filmmakers, on this site itself, who have cleverly distanced and then built closeness to the cause, at their convenience, so as to derive their vested gains from it, but never be responsible for it”,
Carry on and make that OVERNIGHT PATHBREAKING FILM, I will be the first guy to applaud it !!!!
GK
When he came to Bombay, Anurag even worked as an extra on film sets to keep body and soul together. He’s seen Manoj Bajpai not win a Filmfare supporting actor award for Satya - Salman Khan got it for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. He’s battled tremendous odds to make his kind of movies. Sure, he may have his human flaws - who doesn’t?
That said, this is his blog, the one platform where he can say what he wants without it being spiced up or filtered by a journalist. What’s the objection if he wants to share something with the world? If I don’t care I’ll just skip it na.
Some of you write extremely well - even your hyberbole seems to make sense. And it looks like you’ve got tons to say and you know how to say it. If you believe that Anurag’s films should do the talking, then let that apply to you too, mate. Go and make your astoundingly great movie so that we can hail you as the new Kiezlowski or Goddard or Bergman. Seriously, with all the energy and thought you’ve given into guiding Anurag here you could’ve easily written the first 8 pages of your magnum opus.
Anurag doesn’t owe us anything. He’ll make films the way he wants to. Some of us incidentally happen to love them, and some of us have the fortune of personally knowing him, so I’m not ashamed in any way to be defending him. The day he goes crazy, I’ll stop.
Till then, register your script at the FWA and send it around. We’re waiting for your GREAT movie
This IMO reflects a kind of seige mentality ,wherein we think that we are being attacked by someone (read Big banners like YRF ,Mukta arts) and hence we need to support every single small budget film that comes along ,just for the sake of it. we have almost forgotten to analyse a film objectively.
You assume we are not making these self-financed, independent features. All of us are. We know the issues involved. Movements are organic in creation, and the motivation for creation is supplied by a prudent system that takes people for granted. So here we have two elements : The movement and the system.
What we demand is not that the system be uprooted overnight, for we are well aware of the time that would take, and are patient, but the organisation of the movement, for the motivation of creation has been supplied, for a long long time, but we do not witness it being used as anything constructive.
As for your reiteration of the point thousands have made : that of the futility of discussions around roundtables and rallies, you are sadly mistaken. While ultimately, ‘action’ is obviously the most important component, some of the greatest action’s success is only possible due to a long process of evaluation and examination that precedes it. You can keep pushing a wall for hours, for even that will be action, but evaluation will tell you to walk through the door. As for vendetta, I hardly know Mr.Kashyap except as the face of this ‘movement’, so there is no question of me being inquisitive in any other context than that. As for superiority, I will only advice you to not confuse curiosity with superiority.
Anurag Kashyap
I am so sorry that I expressed my expectation of greatness from you. From a distance, you seemed to be the person on this site who represented all its values, of rebellion, of ideology, of radicalism - but as we move further on, I discover that you not only absolve yourself of any such responsibility, but place it on those who question. So now I know, that whoever makes a demand out of you, since you have been promising so long, you merely challenge the other person to fulfil the demand himself. ‘Jaake khud kar lo’. Its not assuring, but fine, I will take it, and stop asking. As a conclusive statement - I do not expect a change overnight, I am ready to work constantly, and maybe you have lost patience, and maybe at my age, you were more enthused about the future than I am, but then, in that case, you are not my role model - sadly.
Kshitij
Fantastic poem.
Loverboy
Yaar, tu chaalu kar de thodi bahut. Achche maze aayenge, sachi me…Sirf sunna aur dekhna band kar bhai.
Super!
Thanks for the encouragement. I also consider Aamir’s convenient use of the media and his constant projection of himself as a perfectionist ridiculous. Want to discuss him?
And if you know that Aamir’s doing a wrong, then begin questioning it instead of sharing it among your friends for a laugh.
G K Desai and Kenny
First, if you begin bringing your personal experiences with Anurag into the picture, then things move completely out of perspective. I know him only through his films and his blog, and to me, thats sufficient knowledge. If you want to tell me how he is in his personal life, I am not interested, because that is not objective criticism, its standing up for a friend. There is a technical difference between the two, and I am more interested in the former.
Secondly, about your demand of me making films, its a useless criteria that you apply to judge others. Its what Mr.Ratnakar did 35-40 posts ago. If that were a valid demand, you could ask all critics in the world to make films themselves, stand up for elections themselves, play sports themselves. If that were the case, all the Kaels, all the Eberts, all the Rosenbaums and all the Malcolms of the world should make films themselves. All the news channels should shut down and begin the subject of their own gaze. All the democracies should stop voting, and opining, and everyone should stand up for elections. It will all collapse. There is a maker, and then there is a critic. Since we haven’t really had an atmosphere of criticism, except the Calcutta Film Journal in 40’s and 50’s and Rangan, and Rao now, I can accept your ignorance towards the importance of the process, but do appreciate that criticism is to enhance, and not meant as a vile abuse meant to distract the filmmaker from his course, but to help him along it.
Just a last sentence - We do not demand an overnight change in terms of how films are made, we just demand that a certain ideology is formed, so that thirty years from now, we aren’t still fighting, ‘bit by bit’.
I don’t know where this is heading, but definitely not in the right direction. Every form of a Wave has a predecessor whom they admire or people whom they want to see becoming masters. So the criticism coming towards ‘ New Age filmmakers’ is not that we hate them or don’t appreciate their commitment, but want them to make films in a new manner, that could transcend boundaries. No school of though could develop without constructive criticism, because the world has the tendency to get complacent. People seem to be confused by telling that the films that our coming are breathtakingly- new, I think, we must first be cleared what we talking about whether it is cinema, or the sub-ordinate part of the cinematic mise-en-scene.
That’s why I think and hope our filmmakers look into themselves, just because Indian never had a pool of cinephile/critics that really love cinema and can talk in the right manner doesn’t mean we will never have. And talk about the form that governs cinematic existence. And we hope filmmakers atleast give it a food-for-thought. Even a dialogue would be great. That’s who anything develops.
This is the only plane where we ask, request or want our filmmakers to look into matters, we can’t ask Karan Johar because he is not the one the new group should, could look upto and neither would they bring a revolution. If the Cahier group criticized John Pierre Melville, because he was the forerunner of their wave, and Godard even shot Breathless in the apartment and on the same street because Melville office was nearby. It’s in the same manner we outlining our talking about our point.
Publicity, Marketing and every other thing if fine…Godard did the same while shooting Breathless, he had two journalist cover the entire shooting. But, what Godard was doing is revolutionary. Why? Because when he shoots, he broke tradition ala mise-en-scene so that cinematic expression was new. That is where we pointing. That look sir, look, please, not for our sake but for the sake of ‘cinema’ make the camera yours. So that as cinephile/critic/audience (who are informed) one does not have to think that only Korean New Wave or the Chinese Fifth of Sixth Generation filmmakers can do things. Even we Indians could put our pool of peers into the same pantheon of greats. Because they have the means to do so.
In the end, if you think, I’m wrong at asking the aforementioned things…I have no qualms in believing what I hear from everywhere.. Indian cinema..damn, its all Bollywood. And the history, tradition of our own cinematic culture and world cinema does not exist here.
I appreciated AK’s response against the brickbat, except comment # 86. well,like so many on PFC and around , I am also a big admirer of his attitude , his guts and of course his work and waiting anxiously for Dev.D.I found it disturbing when AK wrote that all this debate succeeding in creating self-doubt. Please, there is no parameter to success or failure and you know,that you are definitely contributing in your own way towards the progress of cinema , at least in India. Hence there is no point in getting depressed over the critics.
I dont think , i want to say anything more and I am loving it more now than ever (PFC).
Keep the debates going on!!
The sleep does good to people.
Cinema unlike music and literature is an expensive art form. And often the money is someone else’s. Till we do not find those patrons of art, it’s almost impossible to give volume to your voice. The idea is to bring forth that patron, there is one right now in spotboy, and they also have to take babysteps, and those babysteps will grow in size, with boxoffice, success of one gives confidence to do the next, and that will happen in it’s own time. And all you need for that first is the “intention”. And there is intention, the most incredible thing being that all my future films that i m looking at making , none of that are written by me, some not even commissioned by me. Reason is not that i m in the mood for charity, reason is that these are some really incredible scripts, by incredible new writers, who have a voice so powerful that i feel awe for them. Which is why i say, “go do it”, what are you afraid of. I m not passing the buck on you, i really want that to happen.
I’m sure spending years writing criticism, in a way, does prepare one to make films, and yeah the Cahier critics were filmmakers and even their 80s writers. Personally, that is something I do believe in and so do the others. Because when we write that Indian cinema has brought a death to the jimmy-jib and murdered the tracking shot, in a way, its talking about cinematic vision.
So not that I’m personally sacred to make a film or someone else shouldn’t be either, the patron is needed, as you rightly put, and as I had mentioned in few of the comments above about Barunberger or Gegores De Beauregard who gave chance to the young Turks to make shorts and then films.
However, it’s great that you giving chance to a new “voice” to develop, and do agree the script is an important component in realization of a vision, but definitely it should not trail behind the text that all I think we should agree upon…and mise-en-scene is important.
Not a big feature film dear, for a start make a short film and I am damn sure you will be in a better position to critic any movie of any format for that matter, it will give you the real perspective of filmmaking and as far as standing for a friend is concerned let me INFORM you the makers of the following pathbreaking films
BANDIT QUEEN,SATYA,BLACK FRIDAY,MATRUBHOOMI,CHANDNI BAR all are my soulmates !!!!
GK
am not a film buff/maker or anything related to the field.. am an internet entrepreneur.. read your blog on and off, and only think u ll make a lot of sense of it.. cant relate to a lot of the stuff made today too.. let me know if you would like to hear it sometime.. cheers!
UTV suspends commercial deals from Pakistan
Mumbai, 23rd December ‘08: UTV Software Communications Ltd. today announced that it temporarily withdraws all its plans for dealings with the Pakistan market in an endeavor to support the Indian Government in demanding stricter action against terrorism emanating from Pakistan. UTV has decided not to release any of its forthcoming films in the Pakistan market until this issue is satisfactorily resolved. Also UTV is withdrawing plans of launching Bindass and Bindass Movies, two prominent channels from its stable, in this market.
“Pakistan is an important market and we have the highest regard for its people but in the present situation it is important for all companies to support our government in its demand for strong action by the government of Pakistan against terrorism. We would be happy to resume business in Pakistan once we all see affirmative action. We have so far had a wonderful relationship with our distributors there and it is unfortunate that these events have come to pass and we hope that this matter is resolved between the two governments at the earliest” clarifies Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO of UTV Motion Pictures.
Also AK is completely honest…he writes it from his heart…i can feel it…
i’m desperately waiting for his movie..
You are completely correct about the need for a patron in the process. A producer, though not often viewed as such, is as important as the director. Brave producers are as essential as brave directors. Hope for the best for your future films.
G K Desai
“Not a big feature film dear, for a start make a short film and I am damn sure you will be in a better position to critic any movie of any format for that matter, it ”
Pls. refer to comment no. 49, 73 and 93, for my reply to this inane message. Lets not reduce making a film to a challenge that people throw at each other. As far as my making films is concerned, a prior reply to Melanie should serve the purpose. We all make films as well. Thanks for the concern, howsoever misguided.
“let me INFORM you the makers of the following pathbreaking films
BANDIT QUEEN,SATYA,BLACK FRIDAY,MATRUBHOOMI,CHANDNI BAR all are my soulmates !!!!”
And do inform me, also, of how the above serves any purpose in the ongoing debate.
With all clear “intention”… Goodluck on all your future projects..Waiting for some great films that’ll kick ass
you r always an inspiration
dev .d ke liye bekaraar hain hum
be happy and live your dream
Ontology is the study of the nature of being for any given concept or medium.
In the case of cinema, like Nitesh said, its own nature is the filmic form (mise en scène, directing, editing, dynamic visual composition…).
Because acting is borrowed from an older medium (theatre) that existed before cinema, when we talk about acting performance we refer to everything that was invented and put in place by millennium old tragedy from Greek antiquity. Nothing new about it. When we talk about screen writing it is largely borrowed from literature, a medium that installed a full set of narrative conventions long before cinema saw the light of day.
As far as film criticism is concerned, the ontological values to be evoked in a review should refer to what makes a movie become real cinema, what turns a literary plot into a visual story, what turns a Broadway stage musical into cinema about dancing.
Also, Satyajit Ray brought to India a level of cinema quality as high (critically acclaimed international profile) as Renoir in pre-New Wave France. But nothing followed from there. You don’t need to wait for this preparatory context… it already happened. You have to catch up with it, in the margin of the Studio-controlled industry. It’s up to you. The industry goes for the easy money, don’t count on them to pave the way for a risky “New Age”.
I also think AK is doing a great Job of sharing his experiences with us and Anuj would do a great job if he talks about himself and his own work instead of pulling down others. As a movie fan, I am more interested in AK than Anuj/Nitesh because AK’s words are backed by actions(Good or Bad-doesn’t matter)
“let me INFORM you the makers of the following pathbreaking films
BANDIT QUEEN,SATYA,BLACK FRIDAY,MATRUBHOOMI,CHANDNI BAR all are my soulmates !!!!”
And do inform me, also, of how the above serves any purpose in the ongoing debate.
It serves the purpose of shutting you up because you have no soulmates on PFC. Just Go away..!! Get a life..!! You’re eating too much valuable blog space on PFC with Bull-Crap. And I request you this with just as much politeness as you have shown Mr. AK. No offence but why can’t you just stop writing on AK’s blog-posts.
“he is publicizing himself.”
“Anuj would do a great job if he talks about himself and his own work instead of pulling down others.”
Which one should we believe?
“fact is by critisizing AK, sucking him into an endless, meaningless discussion”
“btw you guys did manage to trouble me.. my thoughts.. created self doubt, hope it’s for the good..”
AK, sadly, doesn’t think so.
“And he accuses AK of dropping names”
Instances? A single instance?
Our stance is as clear as it can be. The dispute is meaningless.
that’s bollywood for ya
i m 100% sure if charlie kaufmaan was bollywood writer all of his movies would have been Ripped apart by everyone
even if movies like eternal sunhsine of spotless of mind was made in bollywood everyone would have said “yeh kya banya hai salla dimaag khraab kar diya”????
“Anuj would do a great job if he talks about himself and his own work instead of pulling down others.”
Which one should we believe?
Believe both actually. I believe that publicity is good for any film. so what AK is doing is good for Dev D and all it’s patrons. But what you are doing by talking about AK is not good for anyone except you. If you so desperately want publicity then let’s just talk about you sir..?? what do you do..?? Have you made any films yourself..?? Exactly how have you contributed to the New-wave indian cinema. The only achievement I can attribute to you is “you will be remembered as the guy who put a self doubt in AK-A potential greatest Indian film-maker of our time.” Take my word. If AK doesn’t achieve what he strives to achieve, a lot of it would be your contribution. Congratulations..!! His obituary will mention your name.
you are like Nathuram Godse-an intelligent, well-educated brahmin who had a valid point-of-view but he chose to showcase it to the world by killing a lot of goodness personified by Mahatma Gandhi. That guy knew no better and niether do you. So pay heed to my advice and just shut up. All will be well again and potential talent will be allowed to flourish again.
No offense, but seriously, you just wrote the worst, most tepid, most inane comment in the history of cinema.
Any arguments and you people result in abusing, but abusing want solve anything.
And which movie fan are you? This one makes you sound more like that video game fan boys who are fighting that my psp is better than your Xbox.
If you haven’t read the discussion, please don’t talk crap here. And talk about publicity? What publicity? Not that we fell from the sky today, did we? Just that you haven’t read what we write, where we write, we think we are some bunch of moronic, idiotic kids who haven’t heard that life is hard in Mumbai. Or how about that we never heard that film production is tough, or how about that cinema cannot become a pure form of art because its requires money?
Truffaut was write when he wrote there would come a time when people would judge cinema without having heard of F.W Murnau. Sadly, it’s here already.
Beside, we are not going to be blindfolded in believing any more what you people have to say. Its either you agree or provide a reason to disagree and with all this abuses don’t’ worry we wont go anywhere. We going to be here and, don’t think we want to hide faces behind this computer desk, any day, any time, any place- we are open to talk face-to-face: tea, coffee, beer, food everything on us.
And talk about “action”, just to tell a spade is a spade is action, and spending years behind cinema and writing on it is an action.
You people talk about changing cinema, look, as a viewer if you cant mold yourself and look a skin deeper into the truth and support the growth than imagine the state of the whole country.
And it’s because of the immense love you people to show without critical space that AK has remained AK within the fragments of cinematic convention that is sill Bollywood.
We talking to improve you talking to deprive, but the hour of departure has arrived: be it today, tomorrow or twenty years form today- don’t worry this time once and for all, we not giving up.
Sorry.. it wasn’t you dropping names. it was your friend Nitesh. About my innane comments. How ironical that you should point it out to me.
@ Nitesh
Yeah I know all about Truffaut and Godard that I need to know. I read AK’s blogs to know more about AK. If you have something to say, why don’t you blog yourself? You sound like an intelligent person. I assure atleast I would read your posts. But for heavens sake, stop pulling-down someone who’s trying to do good and bring about a change.
BTW, since you’ve already accused me of abusing you, which I haven’t done. I might as well do it now and settle scores. “FUCK YOU AND ALL YOUR LIKES” Not good enough..?? Here..!! “TAKE A DOUBLE FUCK”
“Just that you haven’t read what we write, where we write, we think we are some bunch of moronic, idiotic kids who haven’t heard that life is hard in Mumbai.”
Read the lines dude. You said it yourself.. Now we all know who you are and where you dropped from.
i bet he will be crying a river like he usually does
anuj i doubt if he can match up to your writing style
A (sic) potential greatest Indian film-maker has a seed of doubt planted by an insignificant Anuj. Wah! what potential! An insignificant Anuj will contribute to some potential greatest filmmaker’s failure.. Wah! what potential!!!
Anuj, I really admire your sense of control and need to be courteous, and polite all the while dude. It is really admirable that you chose to reason out and substantiate your points with well etched out points, than just saying I agree, or disagree. I don’t mean to preach you, or advise you but a very friendly piece of suggestion Anuj,kindly stop it here. You are displaying this decency in a post where being arrogant has become fashionable.
Have you started your film as yet?
aby, no need to abuse on this platform..
I do agree with many things anuj says is why the self doubt, but i am also the one who deals with my world which i do my best to try and explain. make your points but don’t abuse..
Their passion is not misplaced..
When a debate reaches the stage where one has to resort to abuse means you have nothing left to say.. I would say avoid that..
We all can learn from each other.
this anuj guy claims to like RNBDJ what a surprise
A lot has happened since I last checked this site.
Whatever you say about people agreeing on ‘problems’ and ’solving them’ is quite out of place here. I still disagree with you regarding the nature of such a rebellion. Any rebellion, starts with a thought. That thought usually goes on paper or is said out loud. This thought leads, hopefully, to some kind of action. What you seem to be asking for does not have any action emerging from it (and here I do not mean that you must do things yourself). You can be a commentator and that would be enough. But tell us, through your comments, what you would like to see? It is great to criticize, deconstruct and analyse everything, but something should be offered as a way forward too. This is no different from people sitting in a cafe pontificating and feeling happy about their command over a subject. Structure it. Benchmark the new-age, if you think that can be done. Any attempt in that direction is going to lead to frustration, because art comes from people. A writer/director needs to want to say something in some way desperately. It’s just that. A great story told well. If we achieve that, we won’t feel the need for a movement because, we are it, the greatness and joy is incidental and emerges from doing what we do.
Good luck to you, with your work.
You make me laugh. What do you watch - Films or Names. SRK- BAD, YRF -BAD, Anurag Kashyap - BRILLIANT.
Have you ever tried to see what SRK and YRF makes?
If you have then I am sorry you either don’t know what cinema is or you are just here to show off that you don’t like YRF and SRK, as you appreciate a new kind of cinema. You are one of those who is not willing to like a good film by SRK or YRF even if they made one although you might be the first person in the queue to buy tickets for a SRK movie. You just pretend because you want to make yourself superior and feel superior from others and think that you have a better taste than many others. The fact is you have got a pathetic taste. In fact you don’t have any taste because you don’t see films, but the names associated with it. Because the only defense you got in all your posts is YRF is responsible. Why???? Sure they have made bad films. But who in this industry doesn’t?
If you haven’t, the answer speaks for itself.
The issue here, sir, is that we are constantly running a risk of sounding like misplaced revolutionaries, who are overtly cynical and skeptical of everything, but it is none of that. We have the same envisionment as everyone here - that of a better cinematic future, just that we plan to keep our eyes a little more open.
Anurag Kashyap
I hope your encouragement of a process of continuous learning initiates a chain reaction. In cinema, if Spielberg, the greatest technician of our times, can learn on the sets of his 15th or so feature that there is a lens, designed specifically, to simulate an explosion, and thus provide an intentional jitter to the camera, then we all have umpteen discoveries to make.
Melanie
“What you seem to be asking for does not have any action emerging from it”
Its ironical, how I am constantly being reminded of the need to wait patiently for a change to happen, and here, some tangible discernible action is being looked for, within two days of my appearance on the site. For us, the fact that we made a filmmaker think, even if its for a second, is aa initial achievement, and there are no qualms in admitting it. That is the ‘action’ that criticism yields.
I assume you address us in collective, if so, for a set list of objectives that is being demanded out of us, we have a manifesto prepared ma’m, we have a structure; the only issue being - its revelation here would completely obliterate any further chances of communication with people here, since they will begin looking at us as someone separate from them, organised within our own set of motives, and if their motives differ from our list, then they will naturally assume that we exist on another distinct plane as themselves, thus deeming any further communication with us, either undesirable, or useless. Thats hardly what we need.
“A great story told well. If we achieve that, we won’t feel the need for a movement because”
I, for one, do not believe a movement as such is completely indispensable. If individual filmmakers can provide us with their own unique films, we would already be looking at a change. But our very present is the most emphatic circumstantial evidence I can provide you with. We are our change, but are we changing?
Moviefan
I love the cinema that YRF gave us for nearly three decades. A denial of the relevance of that cinema throws you further into the dark. No one else has anything to lose. I would be the first person to criticise their blatant conversion of a film into a circus, a freak show at the local fair; the obvious commercialisation which renders most of their present day films soulless. But your study of a film should not be affected by what the trends in the past have been. Each film should be measured and examined for its own intrinsic values, and that is it. Which leads me to a more important question : Have you even watched RNBDJ or merely assume its a weak film? If so, I have no further argument.
I have read all your posts,first and foremost what you have got into is not a debate(watch “THE GREAT DEBATERS”) but meaningless discussion, why ??? because you have all the questions/queries but no answers. Your comments are not offering any strong solutions/answers to the problems but adding more problems.Forget making any film or writing a script from your end ,even if you offer one single original idea here on this platform which can better CINEMA at large we all here will remain indebted to you, I think i am not asking from you now !!!
GK
You are making much more sense now sir. Now you’re talking your agenda and your planned contribution to cinema. This is far more interesting read than AK bashing and I’m glad that you decided to take this positive approach.
“we have a manifesto prepared ma’m, we have a structure; the only issue being - its revelation here would completely obliterate any further chances of communication with people here, since they will begin looking at us as someone separate from them, organised within our own set of motives, and if their motives differ from our list, then they will naturally assume that we exist on another distinct plane as themselves, thus deeming any further communication with us, either undesirable, or useless. Thats hardly what we need.”
Do share some of your manifesto and structure with us. Trust me, it’ll only improve your chances of communication here. Maybe you’ll start a movement and all of us at PFC including AK would join you. You’re obviously very intelligent and even AK has admitted that. Please don’t let any fears stop you from doing your bit for Hindi cinema.
“…they will begin looking at us as someone separate from them, organised within our own set of motives, and if their motives differ from our list, then they will naturally assume that we exist on another distinct plane as themselves, thus deeming any further communication with us, either undesirable, or useless. Thats hardly what we need.”
Isnt that the same thing you think about AK? Are you afraid of being questioned now?? You did the same to AK throughout this forum and you got a constructive response from him.That resulted in quite a healthy and intelligent discussion. I dont see any reason why you think you will be unjustifiably lampooned in PFC for being candid with your manifesto(?). There were odd abusive comments but I think your points were well taken by many of us(including me).
Please go ahead and show us your thoughts. Hope you dont mind being lampooned if its for the right reasons.
Yes,i am in total sync with you , it is high time that Anuj shares his/her manifesto and its structure,may be who knows we all may get enlighten together after all PFC supports/offers a learning platform to all here !!!
@Anuj
Way to go Anuj enlighten us !!!!
GK
You know what they remind me of ? A coupla months ago there was a screening of Body of Lies at UCLA. I didn’t wanna see the film but I snuck in for the Q/A with the editor Pietro Scalia who’s won 2 oscars for Black Hawk Down and JFK. The kids were asking him general questions bout his working process with Ridley, how did he start out etc etc…
Until a known blowhard amongs the UCLA fraternity stands up and asks a 5 min long question, proceeds to answer it himself and dares Pietro to dispute it. I swear I couldn’t figure out what the question was and Pietro looked equally dumbfounded. He could only smile in return. I asked one of my pals who got an undegrad in Pol Science grad from Harvard before enrolling in UCLA wtf just happened and he was clueless as well. Some people just like to hear the sound of their own voices.
Plus they called Spielberg a technician so that automatically puts them on my shitlist
Thank you for the word of encouragement on the process of discussion. Hoping in the long haul of things it should be interesting.
Because, If Bazin can think he was wrong and change…I’m sure we all have lot learn.
@ aby….
Good to know you know your Truffaut and Godard, but I’m sure not for the right reasons and as for dropping names are concerned, I can’t help it, because in cinema they all belong to the same genealogy. So if I talk about my identity and then talk about cinema everyone comes into a larger picture.
And as for my blogging is concerned, you can click on my name here and it will take you to my blog- so you can see we do write. Again…abuse… does not bother us.
@ melaine, GK Desai.
I think its clichéd to repeat it again but here is something we stand for and would continue to stand, and folks Harry quite explained the difference between story and cinema in a comment above you people should read that:-
Our stance
Indian cinema needs to undergo a reinvention in order to become global identity. To enforce/inform an emphasis on mise-en-scene. And to subsequently question, examine and criticize.
@ chets
That is the point we trying to make. What use this discussion be for most filmmakers who are complacent and not bothered. But those willing to change, and are working it helps to fortify the base so that the other people can be questioned. That’s who history has been witness to any form of cinematic revolution.
But its not easy, if at PFC that we believed had readers who “knew” and we thought could collectively question and re-question the struggle but here people are pulling the curtains down just like they would do in every other place.
@ UCLAGrad
Good to see a film school graduate(If I’m not wrong) and by the remark you wrote you don’t seem different in your own history and background of cinema. Because the Q/A shows that how American film institute are becoming too technical focused and dumb about aesthetics and only once a while few cinephiles who pick up the nuances of both can bring a change. And if you have such contempt for critical theory then I think you should pick-up something else. Cinema would not have reached this stage without critical theory.
This is also reminds me of interaction and reading about how most important film schools are clueless about cinematic idiom and process. And if that guy was lost in his own question that is definitely sad- he could be clearer- but atleast he had the balls to question what needs to be questioned.
And if u have read what we’ve been writing, and I’m sure your more qualified than us, since we neither film school educated or masters but eternal student- cinephile, and I think we’ve been clear in our voice.
And our question.
Guys..!! You are missing the point here. The reason why we all are “fanboys” of AK is that he allows us to flourish and prosper with our own ideas. He’s intelligent enough to concede defeat when he sees a burst of cinematic energy coming forth like he’s done here. By admitting his self-doubts, he’s handed the baton to you. PFC as a platform is all yours now. The movement you talk about is already there, was always there and each one of us including me and you are equal participants of that movement. And it so happens that AK is consciously/Sub-consciously/Unconsciously leading that movement. Like any good leader would, AK through PFC encourages and allows his followers to go ahead, take charge and bring about that change. By creating publicity about small films, He’s shown us the way. It’s upto us now to grab opportunities and open forums like PFC and take our cinema to the world. In the same breath, I admit that some of us mistake his effort as an excercise in YRF and K Jo bashing but that is not the idea. It would be naive to blame AK for it. I think AK is a breath of fresh air thats come our way beacuse he’s given us the space to breath our own. we can do our bit in return by encouraging him and by questioning him. He’ll be happy to answer all our questions. But what you are doing is judging him. You have pre-concieved notions about what AK is and what he stands for..?? There’s a thin line between questioning and Judging as ULCAGrad so rightly points out. Think about it. On a more positive note, I’m very impressed by the Cinematic knowledge of Anuj/Nitesh. My apologies for abusive language used earlier. The Idea was to shake you and wake you up from your critical slumber, so you can join our cause and potentially be the flag-bearers of our new-wave hindi cinema. Don’t let your knowledge go to waste. Please..!! Cheers.!!
The largest problem i have faced when teaching in film schools wether india or at colombia and princeton, is theory. Too much theory being taught, which is always based on the post analysis of any film. I did one exercise long time back. There used to be a magazine they brought out in delhi, now defunct, The journal of arts and ideas and i was a regular reader, impressionable(which i still am) but then i was impressionable without experience, and i believed it took something really extra ordinary to be a filmmaker. I gobbled up all the theory. It amounted to nothing. I started reading the criticism on a film, then would go hunt for what the filmmaker had to say about his very own film, and trust me they contradicted each other. My theory is that it’s too much stress on theory is what has held back our filmmaking students from becoming filmmakers.
To change anything , what is very important to know is that, why do you want a change? then knowing one’s own point of view, a lot of imagination, compassion, a lot of undefined vanity, and a keen eye for observation. A lot of great artists became intellectuals much after their art, actually all of them. They found intellect after they were trying to, because they were asked to define their work.
For the filmmaker and the artist , the need is to create, it’s for the intellectuals to discuss. A great number of great filmmakers have a huge disdain for theorists and intellectual analysis.
Theory puts you in a hole, between the covers.
leave that part of it to the anthropologists.
lets talk about concrete steps of what one can do to change things. because that is not going to happen with protests and flags and endless discussions. eventually there will have to be a script, money to make it, and the one to do it. the script and the one to do it exists in large numbers, what does not exist is the money. what are we going to do about that. The day you can either find money or various institutions tu put forth things in kind, as gratuity, nothing can happen. Make a fund, where you have access to equipments, no money probably to pay people but a camera(a hi res), a editing setup( a laptop sometimes is enough), people who can pitch in with their own clothes, act for free, locations given voluntary, a kitchen, whatever the basic needs are. Put together a fund, then invite scripts, choose one and go with it. Thats how there will be a concrete change. Something real, not just conversations.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
However much we criticise Aamir khan, he has become what everyone wants to be. They don’t want to be SRK anymore, they want to be Aamir. To bring that about aamir had to be selfish, he created success out of it, today we have decided what he should and shouldn’t do. We don’t want him to do Ghajini, but he wants to do it, he is selfish, he needs success that way too, that will give him more power. After that power it’s up to him what he does with it, because his job is done. He has made,” doing something new and different” fashionable. Now somebody has to take it one step further, and that will only happen with making that one film, that probably wins a palm d’or or a golden bear. Gets the kind of success india has not seen in a long time, because whey it did, via mrinal sen and murali nair, they got no visibility, no publicity(no promotion and marketing) .
And that is where marketing and publicity becomes important. Though it’s a much abused word, but when their is genuine, bonafide success based on merit, everyone should know about it and see it. You want a change, pack the cinema halls that are running these foreign movies, make NDTV lumiere super successful. Let more buyers and distributors of that kind of cinema flood the market. Save your money to buy that one ticket of the next movie that needs support. If we patronise those films, we will find our patrons of change.
Movement has begun, just that one film is yet to be made, and it can not come from someone who already exists. The most beautiful inspirations are when a nobody becomes that somebody.
I appreciate what you people say , but quit saying start doing.
~
When a man’s creation delights me as one, like having a smile gently kissed on my face, which has its trace as an afterthought of words. I just have an overflowing gratitude for the creation which inspires me to create. To be the source, the chef of the food that will nourish me the most. The maker whose creation is going to lead me to the source of the maker. Filled with gratitude that leads to myself. To be able to thank myself. To be able to be earnest n say to the horizon in me, no matter however softly, by looking at it feeling proud (in the purest sense of the word) two words, “Thank You”.
~
I’m sure cinema dint fall out of vacuum? It has a rich history and tradition, and when I personally look at mise-en-scene of a filmmaker I compare his uniqueness with the rest of the world. That’s how one usually equates ones own identity of uniqueness. AK is unique because we all exist. Else he would not never remain unique or an individual. His uniqueness(aesthetics) is known against all us(aesthetics)
Similarly, its not about who defines, it’s about what is defined and what is to be defined. Every guy who makes a film think he has broken a new narrative or form ground without realizing the fact that what he has done or what he is advocating is already been done, recycled and finished. So his idea of uniqueness is redundant in cinema, it may be new to him and people around him but in the large global context- nothing.
And as for the different style (aesthetic) of the cinematic medium, I’m sure from when the train arrived at the factory by Lumiere till when Lumiere decided that fine some people move here, some move there, and proposed mise-en-scene in cinema. The medium has got different properties. If you ask me how Lumiere got his ideas- the answer impressionism. So his aesthetics were no different from the impressionistic ideas of representing reality.
So the ideas of mise-en-scene from lets say Lumiere to Griffith to Eisenstein to Rossellini to Ray to Godard to HHH and till today has moved because of a major backbones of the genealogy of cinema. I’m sure I don’t need to go in detail explaining the different forms of cinematic idiom.
Beside it’s not about where one takes his influences from that defines cinema, but where they take them to that matters. And its simple rule of the world. Any form of growth would not have taken place if everyone defined their own ideas to live and propose their own hierarchy of things in the world.
I do agree there is too much theory floating that is the reason we are not talking about theory we are simply saying. Sir if you listen to everyone here please listens to us also. Not that we are great, or know something, but having spend years in front of the screen we saw a truth and that you as a filmmaker should know. Since you have the power.
And I’m sure we not wrong in asking you people to look into the fact of the matter at least once. I’m sure it won’t do you that much harm. Beside theories and to shoot films in theoretical manner is something that we don’t advocate. And neither am I holding myself to make films because of theories or the others.
There may be great artist who became intellectual after their art whom I don’t know, but I know and we all know great many filmmakers who advocated a change and later mate films before their art. Starting from New Wave in France, Ray/Ghatak/Sen/ Chidananda Das Gupta/Bansi Chandrapgupta/Suborto Mitra from Bengal in India, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Govind Arvindaram and others in India, and there plenty more examples that I think would be unnecessary to call here.
I know how great filmmakers have disdain for people who talk about cinema the example being when Spielberg refused Godard advocacy for a debate. And that is also the reason we know why dinosaurs in cinema are disappearing.
Thank for the advice AK, its true one has be self-suffient. And, yeah, its more true that funds are needed. That’s is the reason I wrote and will write again that we need our Baurnberger and Georges De Beaurgeard who believe in things…and that is the also reason why we writing here, because you and me are looking at the expression of the same principle that of cinema.
You have face problems reached there and making films, and we are not taking away anything you have done. But again I repeat to atleast look into matters once. That’s all.
And we never said or say that marketing or publicity is wrong, and yeah we support them. Being one of the first people to write about Palador go for Lumiere press screening, but that’s without a point.
We agree whatever you say about publicity, economy and model. But AK can only win Palmde d or and seriously we want you to win, when AK realizes that its important to either advocate a style implicit in the sense of Golden Hollywood director or explicit like post French New Wave. In short when say about mise-en-scene, we want our directors to be spoken in the same breath and for once look into form as much as content not just technical competence.
And I think hopefully we are not wrong in doing that.
“Our stance
Indian cinema needs to undergo a reinvention in order to become global identity. To enforce/inform an emphasis on mise-en-scene. And to subsequently question, examine and criticize.”
I dont mind myself working as a Spotboy on any film set for as a Production guy myself i know the dignity of that job.But dude are you even ready to involve yourself/immerse in active filmmaking , for even if we get to read your names in the last credit-roll among the hundreds of them we’ll be happy !!!
GK
mohbatein, mere yaar ki shaadi hai, JBJ, tashan, veer zarra, RNDBDJ(yes i haven’t seen the movie and don’t intent to)
these so called “star studded” movies are like cheap circuis where logic and good story takes a backseat
now there is exception for movie like CDI but chances of movie like that in YRF is less than Big Bang itself
and i consider Srk a non actor so shoot me for saying that
Concretize your ideas.
Get people to be part of it and you start doing that first by sharing it.
Btw read your blogs. V. good but talk about filmmakers no one talks about. Just one Ray won’t suffice. Do not drown what you have to say with unrelatable, examples. Ray has been towering over all film enthusiasts so much that i refused to watch his single film until two years ago. Too much pressure to appreciate him. I like discovering them slowly not because i m suppose to discover them. Today i can appreciate him. But times are different, and if u really want a change, the ideology has to be invisible initially because it can be intimidating. Have a practical approach, then let the ideology flourish through work and not words. I have made that mistake in the past and am trying to learn from it. Take it slow but with solid steps.
“And I’m sure we not wrong in asking you people to look into the fact of the matter at least once.”
Again you are presuming things and judging us. what makes you think AK and anyone of us are not already doing it..?? All the big names of cinema you repeatedly keep dropping are just that now-Names.. They are history. dead and gone. They are best relegated to history books. They are not here to bring about that change. So move on buddy. Come in the present. The change is here and happening every second of the day. There. A change just happened. Time will not stop for anyone, forget about turning back the clock into history. The difference is AK realises that and he stays in the present. He actively participates in pushing the cinema clock forward. He may make mistakes but he’ll only live and learn. And if you want the change to come faster, help him push the clock faster instead of just looking into history, quoting hearsay and running in the opposite direction. You’re simply making a fool of yourself by doing that. This is not the place for you to do this. You’re much better off in History classroom. LOL
One question…Nitesh/Anuj/Ankit..are you the same person..MPD..hehe
I really don’t know but i have understood the importance of trying to connect and then taking it further. I am consciously trying to do that.
When you talk about uniqueness then the uniqueness of indian cinema has always been it’s tradition of songs which i believe has never been used in a way where it is given that artistic platform . I don’t know how do it, i don’t even know how to shoot it, i always use it as a backdrop, and whenever i have done otherwise have failed miserably. Can the indian song become the global artform, or it’s aesthetic be in syllabuses across the world? Can it be a RESPECTED genre? possibly.. How? i don’t know. Just throwing something your way blindly.
“ankit and anuj name one good movie by YRF this decade”
You have already named it. Refer to your exception part of your post. So question answered.
And you are making it clearer and clearer by each post that you don’t appreciate a good movie by the content, story, technique, etc. Instead you look for whether a movie has got a star or not. If yes, it is bad.
Good, You are a Moviefan.
Answer to your question-
No we are different identities. However, we know each other.
exactly .. one has to create evidence that becomes an example. “example that becomes evidence in form of change”
Three guys from IIT-B, while doing their grad there felt like they didn’t want to be engineers. They wanted to be film-makers as they used to do a lot of theatre in college and in the process their plays had won almost all the prizes on offer. As a natural next step, they wanted to be film-makers.
Problem.
A play cost 20-30Ks. A film costs Crores.
So, they don’t join no company and after some initial romantic ideas like, ‘We would do theater’, ’stay on roads’ and stuff, they decide to make money themselves.
They open a company that would convert the NCERT chapters into very very exciting films.
And their idea gets a buyer. The company is a 100 crore one now. With the marketing to begin in 1-2 months now, it aims at turning itself into a 1000 crore company in a year. They will do it. I know.
Then, they will make those films. What kind? Remains to be seen. But they will, for sure.
I don’t say there’s the only way. But they had a way.
Concretize ideas, true we doing that, Ray is someone I discovered lately too, not that I was born with Ray mania, today we write of him as one would write to a father.
If on runs too much behind the audience you will only see their asses and neither we planning to die a virgin in an ivory tower of art. The balance is important. If you talk about songs begin uniqueness element of Indian cinema that owes its existence to Parse theatre and other folk forms coming to cinema
And its cinematic uniqueness was take step further only by Guru Dutt, and if you talk about song picturalization we are not blind to see what Vijay Anaand could do. So obviously I see the redundancy of visualization of songs when all the camera does is move in move out and jimmy-jib maneuvers.
So yes why can’t songs become an important part of our cinema- an idiom. If the world has had great musicals and works, I’m sure we can do that. But our filmmakers suffer from amnesia of history both world and Indian. And that is the reason we can’t make one decent musical. That’s why we act that past does not exist. Perhaps that’s why when one of our songs comes we know we can go to pee now. Because its boring. I see New York in NGC and watch the filmmakers boosting the same locale as part of a backdrop in a song, what use does it make- nothing. Rather its pornographic. If song has to become an important part of idiom, we must go back to our roots and see how did Jatra/theare/Guru Dutt implemented them so that we can think how the context of our own subject matter can be shown and taken in new light.
I know works are important that’s why I believe it has to start from home- u. Maybe discussion can’t change the world. But discussion helps ideas, and ideas( based on shot/revershot) of past and present makes a better movie of future. Whether we plan to become implicit like Howard Hawk or show our bravura of takes like V Shantaram.
@ Desai.
Don’t know why you keep repeating the same thing. Not that we are tired or saying that oh we can’t do this and this bad. The first step of learning practically was when an an art assistant told me that no work is bad, learn to do things. So we not sitting here advocating without any exp. If that is you only vendetta against us.
I’m sorry its pretty futile.
@ aby
Your the first person blocking him from becoming who he is, what you wrote is seriously funny, because it shows ignorance and offers nothing substantial values in return. How can you forget history? And say you unique? Without history there is no present or future.
In the process, bahut khoon baha but vultures like me gained a lot in terms of film knowledge and a sense of if a change is upon us, from where it’s coming (or not coming, as Trimurti will say!!:)
(Though the only one left from commenting on this post is Obama himself, claiming ‘I am the change you are looking for, baby.’)
Ha ha ha.. There I forgot our little history again. Yes..!! It’s that simple.. As for blocking AK from becoming who he is..?? Why don’t you press the question To AK himself..? I promise if he takes my name, I’ll quit this forum immediately. Now tell me what can you promise.?? Anything..?? The question is do have the guts or courage to do this..??
“The answer my friend is blowing in the wind” - Bob Dylan
Awaiting your reply boss..!!
Anurag I remember one of ur interviews with First City(2006 January edition..i still hv it with me & Im goin to quote frm it now)..the magazine called the article ‘The Aviator’..Black Friday hadnt released yet..in that interview there ws a portion where u talked abt ur experience of the same Journal of Arts & Ideas that u hv mentioned saying - “there used to b this Journal of Arts & Ideas that used to come out, and I would take it damn seriously, but I never understood it..there 5-6 people in the discourses & discussions, intellectualising everything from Tarkovsky to…I never understood it.So I ws like what the hell is Tarkovsky,I’ll go watch it..first film of Tarkovsky I saw was Sacrifice..to phir mere ko Sacrifice samajh mein nahi aayi,but film mere ko achchi lagi..i ws fascinated by it..so i picked up the journal & I was like yeh aisa kyu bol rahein hai?..maine Sacrifice paanch baar dekha,aur paanch baar dekhkar bhi Sacrifice aaj tak samajh mein nahi aaya but the impact was so much that subconsciously I took a shot in Black Friday by the riverside thats exactly like the opening shot of Sacrifice”..then u talk abt expressing urself on the issue in another discussion saying “I dont know what you’re saying but I didnt see that in the film.I dont think the filmmaker meant all those things,he was just doin things what he wanted to do”..later u tell abt Journal of Arts & Ideas being shut down & all those ‘intellectual snobs’ in those discussions askin u to write their films & how they stopped intellectualising things and “goin frm one intellectual extreme to saying yaar kuch commercial karte hai” & u go on to say “toh kitna idealism hai sab dikhta hai”..awesome..sorry if I hv done smth wrong by reproducing this part of the interview of urs but I had to ..I related to what u said in the interview immensely & hence the edition is still with me :)..my point is acc to me the idea shudnt be to challenge any kinda idea/cinema but to open the minds of viewers to new ideas & if then in the process the older ideas/’type of cinema’ is/were actually irrelevant, then it will die its ‘natural death’..we dnt need to spend our energies to destroy a ‘certain kinda cinema’ or idea that we disagree with or actually is in opposition to ‘our kinda cinema’, by being negative..so I believe that evolution shud be organic..there is another quote by another filmmaker that inspires me at many times - “Saeed Mirza taught me, you can drown in the quicksand of detail and I keep this very close to me. You are not making a film about details. You are creating an ambience, colour, time, and within that you are telling a story which means something to you, now” - SUDHIR MISRA in one of his PFC posts…Im afraid I hv not sounded like a snob :D..thanx..take care..God Bless
the way you mentioned the need for a “patron”.
I suggest first start with a workshop for producers in basic film education from our POV, but also being considerate to commerce, to let them see a side beyond commerce, Once they are able to see that side of the film, they will realize the USP of their product and begin believing in it and will figure out a way to market it, pouring their hearts into it.
Make them understand the need for a Unique film/voice/language and if it does not exist, what are the larger implications. Show them by examples by popular classics with the business that it’s done and why are they classics without focusing too much on theory.
Make them understand why a director’s vision or a writer’s voice should not compressed because of limited because of market/ star demands, explain them the idea of “free thought” and how it goes on to create the same classics they viewed.
Show them as a film making fraternity, we are also concerned with the commerce of the film, but also the values and the aesthetics concerned with a film is important to us. Explain to them a FILM is a FILM is a FILM. There is not art/ commercial bracket, the need to find an audience etc. Let them not decide the success of a film based on commercial statistics and economic predictions, much before it is commissioned. Explain the idea of a Black Swan in their industry, “almost all consequential events in history come from the unexpected—while humans convince themselves that these events are explainable in hindsight”
You have only mentioned one patron in UTV, we need more patrons like them so more voices are heard by them. We need their support in getting good content out, they definitely are not our enemies. When they realize not to suppress visions and voices, not to run behind stars, beleive in what the director’s vision, a lot more voices and better quality will emerge.
I would be happy to volunteer in some manner for such workshops to encourage better content.
Will throw in more ideas as it matures in my head.
I admire UTV’s approach to film making. Apparently they identify a subject, its target audience and then make sure its made in a budget which is recoverable easily.
Others will definitely follow.
Good suggestion but I don’t think it’s practical. No producer would show up for this workshop. AK is correct to point out that the change is happening with the success of UTV spotboy. Coupled with the recent economic turmoil, a lot of corporate production outfits are begining to see reason in UTV’s business model and are evaluating their own options. I guess it’s always more gradual in the begining. It’ll gather more steam and momentum with more likes of AK joining the cause with better scripts and more dynamic original ideas. I’m very happy to see sanity return to this forum. Cheers..!!
“one will have to become a producer, raise money and show success with the alternative cinema, to achieve it..”
If UTV can bring Syd field for a workshop, if there can be a Screenwriter’s conference because of Mr. Rajabali.. I am sure getting a workshop organised with UTV is no big deal for you..Plus a name like Anurag Kashyap and UTV coming together for a workshop for producers will create enough buzz for the “know it all” producers to come and attend a session organized by a “Doing it all” UTV…get other industry experts from India and abroad to talk on mixing business and aesthetics of films well…Most production houses envy the position held by UTV…if they have something to say..others including stars who are producing will attend..I am definitely sure you can get things rolling for that…you can pull the right strings … what they take out of the session cannot be predicted… but something in mind says this will drill sense into a lot of producers..
Aamir Khan + UTV + mehra = Rang De Basanti
Aamir Khan + PVR + Amole Gupte = Taare Zameer pe
yash chopra + SRK + Shimit Amin = Chak De
Can’t they see on their own body of work the occurrence of a Black Swan, products that have defied the conventional, tried and tested ideas? Can’t you coax and pull the strings because you are pointing out examples from their own body of work to drill sense? It’s definetly not impossible.. maybe not organised by you, but because you are saying and supported by them, if they are convinced for the need for finding the right content ? Do give it a thought..
Roadrow
“Please go ahead and show us your thoughts. Hope you dont mind being lampooned if its for the right reasons.”
You need a manifesto with a list to get to know my thoughts? You did not read the twenty comments which I wrote, to express what I think? Do go through them. In them, you will thoughts, and you will find clarifications, defenses, and justifications. Overall, a good read.
As far as our revelation of the manifesto, its a mere condensation of our demands, expressed in a rather elaborate manner all over the forum. Its revelation should, please, not be read as an analogy to Indian filmmakers making good films. Thats a pathetic idea.
UCLAGrad
If you did not even care to understand what the question was, then we all know who was at a fault. The guy got his answer. He did not lose much.
“Plus they called Spielberg a technician so that automatically puts them on my shitlist ”
Thanks. Moving on…
Chets
“HE NEVER WASTES HIS TIME PROVING HIMSELF OR JUDGING OTHERS. KEEPS ON MAKING MOVIES WITH PASSION GOOD, BAD AND UGLY! lol”
That is why he has populated the market with a spree of masterpieces in the last five years, because he treats his critics with disdain.
Aby
My friend, do you realise how criticism evokes ‘action’ and becomes ‘action’ itself? From writing posts at two swear-words per minute, you have begun to write evaluatively, and more cautiously. The transition is something this discussion, and nothing else, has helped you achieve.
As for the rest of the post, its blind love for Anurag Kashyap, and if he lets you flourish with your own ideas, fantastic for you, and I have no debate there. But as you proclaim him the leader of the movement, it is him we will question.
“Sorry for abusing earlier”
No issues at all, we have to develop a thick skin attitude to deal with it, I realise.
“Again you are presuming things and judging us. what makes you think AK and anyone of us are not already doing it..??”
By reading your earlier comments, and by watching AK’s films.
“All the big names of cinema you repeatedly keep dropping are just that now-Names.. They are history. dead and gone.”
Fantastic, so if your past is dead, shall we say you did not have any ancestors? We never got freedom, did we? We should stop watching films from the past, shouldn’t we?
“They are not here to bring about that change. So move on buddy. Come in the present.”
Present does not exist in vaccum sir, it is a consequence or derivative of the past. A man who lives in the present without awareness of his past is merely directionless, lost and completely at odds. Or Leonard Shelby.
“The difference is AK realises that and he stays in the present. He actively participates in pushing the cinema clock forward. He may make mistakes but he’ll only live and learn.”
AK is your God, isn’t he?
To AK Sir, listen to anyone, but please don’t listen to aby. For he will not only cover your wounds when you are injured, he will tell you they do not hurt.
Sourav
No sir, had we been the same person, we would have been admitted for fractured fingers, the amount we wrote.
G.K.Desai
You have made the same point that you made in your last post. Only that you disguise these points as different versions of the same.
No rocket science
“my point is acc to me the idea shudnt be to challenge any kinda idea/cinema but to open the minds of viewers to new ideas & if then in the process the older ideas/’type of cinema’ is/were actually irrelevant, then it will die its ‘natural death’
Brilliant point. I completely agree, and believe a cinema can never be replaced with a new cinema, and that the new cinema will only be a derivative of the old, or a version of it, but never a complete overhaul. The only thing I hope for is that the new derives the qualities of the old, while rejecting its vices, and further polishing those qualities to create a new idiom.
Kenny
We are sure you are sleeping. And we remain assured of your never waking up as well.
Anurag Kashyap
“For the filmmaker and the artist , the need is to create, it’s for the intellectuals to discuss.”
And maybe both of us serve our roles well. We appreciate your importance in the overall scheme, and we hope you appreciate ours.
Eventually, yes, we all want to become filmmakers. But we also want to be sure why.
“eventually there will have to be a script, money to make it, and the one to do it. the script and the one to do it exists in large numbers, what does not exist is the money. what are we going to do about that. ”
Thats a rather simplistic view of the situation sir. Because-:
a) You reduce the entire challenge to the want of money, which is, in a way, saying, that the moment we have an influx of capital, we will become the greatest cinematic nation. In claiming that, you place money above the basic script and the people who write them, and encapsulate cinema into a commercial form. I ask you, as a youngster, is what Amir Muhammed did in Malaysian filmmaking, or Kormine, Sanchez or Rodriguez did in America, not possible here. Creative impetus can not be taken so for granted sir. Money is not the only clog missing in the wheel.
b) If we do believe you, on the other hand, it means that the producers do not exploit untested waters, which is because the audiences do not watch these films, which again, as I said, is a vicious circle. If we have to educate our audiences as to what great cinema is, will we use theories, discussions, or discourses, or will we make films, which they cannot yet appreciate, and teach them? The former, in my opinion.
I request you to please, not only appreciate the importance of discussions, BUT ALSO, to place them in a popular realm, where they affect the mainstream. Discussions in closed rooms, over beers and cigarettes, is containment or captivity of knowledge. You cannot expect that to achieve anything in any case.
“You want a change, pack the cinema halls that are running these foreign movies, make NDTV lumiere super successful”
Again, how do you pack cinema halls? Through marketing in the electric, print or outdoor forms? But these forms are too expensive, aren’t they? So you have to use genuine and elaborate championing of film in a popular medium, which makes people pack those halls.
Some people might pick me for having accused you of using the same method to promote your film, but my issues with your post, though we have digressed too much, can still be found in one of the earlier posts.
“And you have to put yourself in the shoes of the one you are addressing first. First you will have to understand your audience, which i m trying to do now, and then while they see you see them, give them an alternate POV, and back it up with concrete support”
Competely agree sir. We wait eagerly for your film, to see how far you have consummated an approach. But see how, you first drew an approach on paper, or in your mind, and then worked towards its fulfilment. Thats the importance of a founding ideology right there for you.
“When you talk about uniqueness then the uniqueness of indian cinema has always been it’s tradition of songs which i believe has never been used in a way where it is given that artistic platform .”
I am trying to gain as much information about this, but I believe its a misconception that songs are a part of only our tradition. The most popular excuse for the film fraternity when questioned about the inanity of song-dance exercises in our films, is to tell us that that song and dance are a part of our tradition. Its a part of world tradition. Its universal. Restricting it to only our nation is an exercise in narcissism. So the more important conclusion here is : The use of a song and its placement an issue with ALL films, from over the world, and while most nations work their way around the issue, we face it headlong, and so often fail. The answer may lie in how we have built a system of OTS’s and two-shot to shoot conversations, which is a theatrical form; the song, which is an operatic and musical exercise, will have to have its own convention. I personally love the shooting of songs in a Fellini film, which made the viewer a subjective participant, and shot mostly in mid-shots and close-ups, rather than an objective viewer, as the films in Bollywood do, shooting songs, from a safe distance, and placing him in the chair of a spectator sitting at a distance. Also important is the emphasis of European films on the face, expressions and gesture, and that of Bollywood on the perfection of body, and therefore, so much of our film dance relies on how well an actor moves his body(Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor), rather than how much he expresses through his face(Govinda, Johnny Walker, Amitabh Bachchan), which further enhances the feeling of an objective detachment. Another issue is that of lip-syncing, which decides whether a song conveys a general atmosphere or emotion, of the film, and the characters(Khalbali in RDB, Aaoge Tum from JWM) when the song is not lip-synched by anyone, and of the expression of a specific, particular emotion of the character and only his, by lip-synching, of which there are umpteen examples.
About a song’s placement, well, there is really no universal rule. It will always vary from a film to a film.
“Would love to know your ideas. Bring them forth. Share them.”
We are doing that already sir.
Thanks again, for participating in this discussion. It gives it a new meaning where there is direct reciprocation, rather than some supporters speaking for you. I hope you make great films.
The discussion’s been long-winded, and while it might seem convuluted and torrential, the only objective of it when we started was to initiate an atmosphere of discussion, where one can ask questions of anyone, and no one is beyond the scope of questioning. I like to believe we have succeeded.
There is not much left to say in this regard, but we will still write a lot, a lot more. I hope people did not expect us to show them a revolution by Comment#200. And as one user asked, no sir, we have no other designs. We are merely harmless, innocent lovers of film. The scope for discussion is still open, but not on reiterated points, and redundant challenges. Thanks.
A scholar on Bodhism or on Tibbet Issue may easily defeat the makers of Kundun, The last Emperor or Little Budha but they can not make such films.
A director can make a best film on bank robbery but he can not make it happen in real life and a professional thief will defeat him in this attempt but thief, even after knowing all the tricks of robbery or stealing can not make a film on this subject.
A director may not necessarily be best scholar on every subject lying under the sun.
A director may not necessarily be best debator.
Can PFC be left for simple interaction between filmmakers and audiences? rather than to make it a place for endless debates where one has to win ?
Can PFC be left as a place where filmmakers are not attacked on what they were saying yesterday.
Can PFC be left as a place where films are discusssed and not the personal actions and thoughts of individual in great details.
If it has to be done then can it be done by arranging personal meetings with said filmmakers, if they are ready for such a meeting and discussion?
Though every discussion teaches something but sometimes it loses its worth when things start becoming personal.
“Indian cinema needs to undergo a reinvention in order to become global identity”
.
what is this global identity you speak of, and why is that important?
PFC stands for Passion for Cinema. your answers can be found under the ABOUT US link. Please go through that.
Wish you all the very best, God bless!
Open offer in my film-production team , can you all 3 join in as Spotboy,Clapboy and 6th Assistant to my Director respectively ??? I am serious there is no sarcasm involved above so please dont derive any other meanings !!!
GK
1) If you decide to follow the guidelines of imposing a change in mise-en-scene for your upcoming production
And if your team is ready to believe in that cinematic expression.
Count us in..
Else we are gonna be happy supporting our own production system by being a spot boy where its a genuine vision.
So if the first is true we accept
else, we politely decline…thanks for the offer though
However, we have a post in return:-
Come January and we have our own space and magazine, we needed a proofreader? I was wondering if you would be willing for it? With your expertize in organisation of a team, and finding people who can do job well, the organization of text would be easy?
Also there is no sacarcasm involved.
why didn’t they sign manoj bajpai for RNDBJ and i m sure manoj is 100 times better actor than srk
bottomline is all they care about $$$$$$ than actually making good movies
Many parts of the world have cultivated wine for centuries using an astonishing diversity of grape varietals. Most of these wines were meant for local consumption and those who had spent an entire lifetime drinking it were well able to assess each wine on its own merits.
For example, if you are from Sicily and drank Nero D’Avola all your life, you’d know what winemaker makes the best kind.
So you had the Portuguese Porto, the Hungarian Tokaji, the Greek Assyrtiko, the Spanish Rioja and French Bordeaux all happily co-existing with their own admirers.
However, at some point during the last 50 years, a whole bunch of influential wine critics (mostly American, mostly Francophiles) started dictating the agenda of what wines were considered praiseworthy and what weren’t.
Astonishingly, they started ranking wines from diverse regions of the world on uniform standard scales, started promoting certain kinds of wines and wine-making at the expense of others, and basically led to a general bland uniformity in the wine world.
Now if you are someone with an inferiority complex about your wine, you succumb to such “global tastes” rhetoric. However, if you are proud and stubborn like the Italians, you flip a bird to these critics and just continue making the wines that you love and drink.
You see, when filmmakers start making films with an eye on the global indie/alternative audience, they make rank bad films like Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul did.
Filmmakers like Satyajit Ray and Adoor Gopalakrishnan made the films that they made because they were steeped in their local aesthetics while maintaining an open worldview.
I’ve never seen another nation where a filmmaker can get away with proudly proclaiming that he hardly watches local cinema (and I hate bashing up on Dibakar because I really loved his film).
You see, it’s about “pushing boundaries”, and “rethinking the status quo”, which means you start with an excellent understanding of what exists to begin with.
Oh, and watch Vinomondo for the wine spiel.
Seems like you have confused with what I meant. And the analogy of wine quite din’t serve the purpose. No did I ever mention or we mentioned that one looks outside to form inside in their core aesthetics. If Ray was known global because he was rooted in Indian ethos and his mise-en-scene and Adoor Gopalakrishan and that we are aware.
To talk about becoming a global identity means when the mise-en-scene of our own directors transcends the boundaries of their cultural space and become global. Like the example of Ray or Adoor Gopalakrishnan you gave, and that is the reason they were appreciated globally.
That is the also the reason why we putting an emphasis on this definition to form identity of the filmmakers. So when I gave example of Chinese fifth generation filmmakers or Korean Wave, their aesthetics were rooted in their culture and then only it could become someone elses. No great filmmaker has ever become great if he first caters to someone else than his own people. It’s when he does with honesty to his own people than it does become global.
And yes… Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahaini are not bad filmmakers. And if you believe they are I want to know why you think so?
so guys the discussion is not going to lead anywhere and anuj with your arrogance i challenge you to make even a short film worth mentioning in next ten years and i will respond to you then. Until then Bye.
Really i wasted my time over self doubts.. fuck i am awesome compared to you.. rest have a hope, you have none.. keep cribbing.
Why would the mise-en-scene transcend boundaries? You’re taxing audiences worldwide with a great burden then. Not only do you want them to appreciate the finished product, but you also want them to understand every influence and technique that created it?
Or perhaps you mean something completely different by mise-en-scene which is not what I understand from it. Unless you are the cook, or the cook’s apprentice (to use a food analogy this time) why would you read the Larousse Gastronomique to enjoy a sole meuniere?
Kumar Shahani is actually not as bad as Mani Kaul. Kasba and Khayal Gatha are meandering but still watchable.
Mani though is another story. Hopefully the Russians never got to see what a hash he made of the works of one of their most beloved writers.
The Meek One is one of my favourite novels. Mani reduced it to an unempathetic, painful, dreary mess in “Nazar” And he picked a lead actor who cannot act to save his life - Shekhar Kapur. The same with The Idiot.
There are lots of rank bad filmmakers with arty pretensions. Ain’t nothing wrong in calling them out on it.
“anuj with your arrogance i challenge you to make even a short film worth mentioning in next ten years and i will respond to you then. Until then Bye.
Really i wasted my time over self doubts.. fuck i am awesome compared to you.. rest have a hope, you have none.. keep cribbing.”
At last!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ye sab approximately 140 comments pehle hi bolna chahiye tha!
@The Empty Vessels who’re makin’ so much noise
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@Anurag : great, that really should have come much before than that. As an artist , one should have this profound feeling of self-belief. Ego is essential for great work of ART and we love you for this !!.. your attitude.
and we all wud love to hear more from you about DEV.D. If possible and you get some time , please write another article on Dev.D , i mean another post.
Looking forward to Dev D. I wish I had more access to your cinema. If I could make a suggestion, if there was some way for your team to start offering the purchase of legal downloads of your movies, I think it would be a great way to reach out to a niche audience that can’t really watch your movies. Hicktown USA doesn’t leave much options to people like me except illegal downloads, which benefit no one.
And I would also recommend paying no heed to the blowhards, not because you’re perfect, but because you wear your frailties on your sleeve and thats what makes you sensitive enough to be a good filmmaker. Its great to be proficient in film theory, but like all art forms, there is no point having a pedantic knowledge of its science without the heart of its soul.
someone said this once about Saurabh Ganguly’s fall from fame and it has struck me always as being such a zeitgeist of the Indian mindset today “there is only one thing Indians enjoy more than putting someone on a pedestal, that is bringing them down in a resounding thud” You self professed cinephiles out there, if you really wanna put your money where your mouth is, how bout supporting the small guy? instead of wasting your effort finding the cracks in the armor. because the more support guys like AK get, the more people with money are compelled to take them seriously.
And then when he and his kind are winning major awards and being fairly critiqued, you can take him to task for not being entirely original and consistent in his art. Till then, you have an obligation to cinema to propogating what you can of this movement by either creating great art…or supporting it
Thats my take anyways.
Though your questions are directed at Nitesh, here are my two cents. A movement will always work inside-out and not outside-in. Examples such as a Water, or a Salaam Bombay, or a Bioscope, which first sought acceptance at the international level, and having acquired it, targetted the Indian audience, are rare and few, and exceptions to the rule. It is imperative, thus, that the movement achieves local appreciation first, and using that as a motivation, spreads. And though your analogy serves as its purpose, there is a technical difference between cinema and wine. While each country has its own wine plantations, and thus, can remain assured of a continuous and original production, cinema’s production is often a more nervewrecking matter, in which both originality, and quality, can never really be assured. One needs to work towards it.
Anurag Kashyap
“you just like the sound of your own voice and want to have the last word”
Yes, and that is why, we came and wrote on a 10×10cm forum area, in the most popular site of the world, because we are attention seekers. We could have opened our own blogs for that purpose sir.
“with your arrogance i challenge you to make even a short film worth mentioning in next ten years ”
Sure. Best of luck for your films.
On second thoughts, do check the roster of PFC One, edition one, for a film entitled Rolled Urge, that was amongst the more discussed films here, on this site itself. Thanks.
“fuck i am awesome compared to you”
Obviously.
“rest have a hope, you have none.”
I have more hope than all of your fanboys combined here, rest assured. Just not blind hope.
It was I still say, very nice, discussing things with you, and though I am also a bit surprised that you could take questions upto this point, all good things must eventually end. So be it. I will meet you on my own site now.
And as we wind up, I see your fanboys with nothing more than your words, copied and pasted, to contribute, come up and say good-riddance to me. Apologies if anyone, or anyone’s ego was hurt.
do you have any Blog or website to see?
All we realize that filmmakers find it hard to be questioned and resort to, “ You go and make a film” when we positively form criticism, it’s like saying Sarris, stop your bullshit go and make a film and see how hard it is, and feel pity for us, because we “ filmmakers” and his supporters know his greatness.
Challenge accepted.
And hoping we can sit down face-to-face to discuss your own films for our little magazine that yeah only moronic, idiotic, national and international film lovers would read.
@ Dewi
There is a difference between a readers response and art criticism. Or cinematic criticism as whole, and I’m not taxing audience, when Ray made films and achieved International success was he taxing the audience with a worldwide burden? And is it wrong to help inform peolpe about theri generalized vocab of the medium. One can learn, teach, inform and grow as much they want in all other fields, but the moment you talk about cinema- people resort to hiding and abusing.
Were the people wrong in writing in length about him, or was he even wrong writing at length about the filmmakers he loved and the problems the nation faced in cinema. I suggest you read what he wrote in 1948.
Your food analogy doesn’t serve the purpose this time either, rater I suggest you read something about our own medium so that few your ideas are clear and so that you can see things yourself, about your cook.
And as for your facts on Sahani/ Mani Kaul still not serves any purpose.Our space is open if, you can form a solid argument on that, and I would be happy to let that happen on our turf. And I would be happy to learn.
Thank god, he made a hash out of literature or Mani Kaul reduced your favorite book to pieces, Cinema is not to trail behind literature and that is what we seek, if you love the book so much I suggest you keep reading them, don’t look for a book in cinema.
And don’t pretend you talking anything cinematic.
And that’s my two cents for this whole discussion.
I was thinking of those who have a nebulous idea about pushing boundaries, challenging status quo, but do not take the trouble to examine what that status quo is to begin with.
To know how to develop a very evolved Indian aesthetics of cinema, we have to know what those very Indian literary and dramatic tropes are in the first place.
Perhaps Ratan Thiyam’s Chakravyuha is a good place to start. Someone please make a film based on Thang-ta already.
@Nitesh - Ha ha ha. Today’s my analogy day so I have one more for you from Math.
Do you know what orthogonal is? Kind of a fancy way of saying perpendicular. Your response to my comment was completely orthogonal to what I said. Thus the wisdom generated from our debate, that is the dot product of our conversation vectors is zero. Comprende?
You dear sir are truly a blowhard. You haven’t even seen “Nazar” and yet persist in contradicting me. Folks like you totally deserve the French structuralists you usually stuff your brains with.
Vinomondo, the wine documentary talks of precariousness of traditional winemakers in the face of homogenizing tastes.
There’s a charming little book by Hugh Johnson called the Vintner’s Art for an overview of just how nerve wracking the whole process is. Just don’t pay attention to Johnson’s very standard and bland wine recommendations.
I just found this 95seconds film,directed by Anuj Malhotra edited by Ankit Choudhary
http://www.filmaka.in/ratingresultsjournal.asp?Page=4&id=263
GK
just saw the short. The disclaimer was the only thing that was watchable, though. Anyways, now I know why you are so obsessed with Anurag Kashyap. Best wishes for your next venture.
Get your act together, do something constructive. And pls no more random sentence generator output with misc-en-scene randomly thrown in. And next time, don’t celebrate your mediocrity by planting comments. Make a good film, write something worthwhile and people will comment. Lastly, don’t delude yourself about your film being the most discussed film. Live in a real world. The most discussed films were of people like Madhav, Kenny (who has commented above) and shekhar shimpi. As I read their blogs, not surprisingly they have gone ahead and moved in the right direction.
You guys have passion but there is too much of self congratulatory note in your voice. correct it, you will have a future.
thanx fr ur aprreciation bro but when i said - “my point is acc to me the idea shudnt be to challenge any kinda idea/cinema but to open the minds of viewers to new ideas & if then in the process the older ideas/’type of cinema’ is/were actually irrelevant, then it will die its ‘natural death’”..i necessarily didnt mean “new deriving frm old”…”rejecting vices of the old or polishing the qualities to create a new idiom” (which obvioulsy is a good point too which i didnt hv in mind when i wrote that)..my point ws if u believe in smth & if ur belief in it is sincere & is not essentially a reaction to some idea/kinda cinema that YOU think is in conflict with ur idea/kinda cinema, even then dnt do smth just to hv an evidence fr ur conflict to keep the conflict alive(one wud do that sub-consciously of course)..just do what u believe in without thinking how u or ur work wud b or shud b labelled..in the course of time u may end up embracing some elements of the idea that u previously thot were necessarily in conflict with urs,or, u may not end up doing that..thats nt the point..the whole point is ur sincerity towards ur passion & effort to put across ur idea to as many people as possible..here sincerity is a constant coz I believe without that one cannot really learn anything & it is sincerity that keeps the passion raw which I think is very important..thanx again..good luck..tc & God Bless
sorry guys I got confused..my last comment..no.196 is for Anuj..thanx..gud luck
I went for a party and you are back. I thought you had learnt your lessons.
“Aby
My friend, do you realise how criticism evokes ‘action’ and becomes ‘action’ itself? From writing posts at two swear-words per minute, you have begun to write evaluatively, and more cautiously. The transition is something this discussion, and nothing else, has helped you achieve.”
All credit to you sir.. I only give people what they deserve. If you deserve swear-words.. so be it. You are certainly not worthy of any love.
“As for the rest of the post, its blind love for Anurag Kashyap, and if he lets you flourish with your own ideas, fantastic for you, and I have no debate there. But as you proclaim him the leader of the movement, it is him we will question.”
Good..!! Atleast you’ve accepted something. what a relief
“Sorry for abusing earlier.
No issues at all, we have to develop a thick skin attitude to deal with it, I realise.”
Guess what..?? I have an equally thick skin. So FUCK YOU ALL OVER AGAIN..
““Again you are presuming things and judging us. what makes you think AK and anyone of us are not already doing it..??”
By reading your earlier comments, and by watching AK’s films. ”
That’s judging all over again sir. You don’t even know AK and you’ve formed opinions. That’s Judging. Brush up your language skills..
““All the big names of cinema you repeatedly keep dropping are just that now-Names.. They are history. dead and gone.”
Fantastic, so if your past is dead, shall we say you did not have any ancestors? We never got freedom, did we? We should stop watching films from the past, shouldn’t we? ”
True..!! my past is dead.. for it will never come back again.. neither will my ancestors. They are just there in history books and photo albums.
“They are not here to bring about that change. So move on buddy. Come in the present.”
Present does not exist in vaccum sir, it is a consequence or derivative of the past. A man who lives in the present without awareness of his past is merely directionless, lost and completely at odds. Or Leonard Shelby.
Yes the present exists in vaccum sir and I am here to fill that vaccum and there are many more like me. The journey begins at me. So don’t shove your half-knowledge down my throat because I can bite you real hard.
“The difference is AK realises that and he stays in the present. He actively participates in pushing the cinema clock forward. He may make mistakes but he’ll only live and learn.”
AK is your God, isn’t he?
Yessss..!! How did you find out so quickly..?? You are surely not as dumb as I thought.
To AK Sir, listen to anyone, but please don’t listen to aby. For he will not only cover your wounds when you are injured, he will tell you they do not hurt.
Stop begging boss..!! If you’re here to make films then do that. But you’re sounding desperate. You don’t have to stoop so low you shameless publicity seeking hound. AK will decide what is good for him.
You are back too.. Well I knew you didn;t have guts to ask AK that question. But he obliged you by giving the answer. Greatness of the man..!! Now have mercy on yourself and Fuck-off
RELAX GUYS. I SERIOUSLY THINK ITS GETTING A BIT TOO MUCH NOW… AND I ALSO FEEL ANRAG HAS GIVEN IT A REST ALREADY. HE’S GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO. AND SO HAVE U GUYS…
.
saw ur urge. i was really impressed by the emaciated twig with leaves you had in the one shot. i thought it added great depth to your mis en scene, in depicting a life wasting away. I didn’t catch it the first time they appeared around 0:36, but when you repeated th same shot at 0:47, and again at 0:53, I was like, hey, wait a minute, what’s that shriveled stem doing there? It’s partly my fault as I was confused by the zombies in your mis en scene, but more than that, dazzled by your audacity of using a burn victim in ur mis en scene to really drive home the point. If you smoke, you will look like someone threw acid on ur face. You guys packed in a lot into your 32 seconds, and i liked the way you repeated shots for emphasis, because in light of all the short term memory loss going on in the country, we may have forgotten.
.
I’m confused about one more thing. Why did you have subtitles to EXPLAIN everything, because that is reverting to some ancient narrative form like literature, and is totally not cinematic or perhaps i misread ur manifesto.
.
Perhaps your mis en scene was not strong enough that you needed all the help.
.
p.s. thanks for the disclaimer - i was totally like, these guys ripped off AK’s film, and i was waiting for a charred bipasa item number in the end. which you would have repeated 3-4 times for mis-en-sceducation
“misc-en-scene”
It’s ‘mise-en-scène’
“It was as overwrought and pretentious as your comments have been.”
You would have got it if you actually knew what mise-en-scène is.
As ‘dabba’ said
“I’m confused about one more thing. Why did you have subtitles to EXPLAIN everything”
EXACTLY!! It gave away everything.
Still, interesting use of the plant, it appeared multiple times in different locations (spaces).
BTW around the 0:37 - 0:40 mark there is some guy leaning on the wall right at the back. I am assuming it is intentional since he is dressed in black.
You remind me of all those college kids i hated when i was in college.. a whole group of them, who wanted to make films.. two of them write for balaji today..
Stop talking and get to work or else will hear about you too doing some shit like that..
Thanks for bringing up a poor one year old short, getting together, and limp bizkiting on top of it. Your comments on the film have really broken my heart, devastated me, and left me poor and forlorn. Na, kiddin!
The moment I mentioned the film, I knew some typical Anurag Kashyap worshipping monger to come and paste the link, and then all of you to come here and insult the hell out of it. No issues, no problems, seriously.
Roadrow
The film is bad? Agreed. Now, present an objective analysis of WHY it is bad, and I might take you a little more seriously.
Sreya
Oh, so you have been curled up in a corner, in the dark waiting for sometime, so that the 1 minute film is mentioned. And Eureka! Boom!, you got the moment, Congrats! Salvation, right?
“Overwrought and pretentious”
Why? Or do you just like the two terms?
“And pls no more random sentence generator output with misc-en-scene randomly thrown in.”
MisE-en-scene. Sadly, for you, in the 25000 words I have written here, I haven’t used it ONCE.
“You guys have passion but there is too much of self congratulatory note in your voice. correct it, you will have a future.”
Thanks for the encouragement.
dabba
Thanks for observing, analysing and evaluating the film so closely, so as to notice the exact time-markers where events happen, I never noticed them in that detail. Now that you are looking for mise-en-scene, do also notice, without sounding self-congratulatory-:
a) The use of the fore, mid, and the back, all simultaneously.
b) An expressionist lighting pattern.
c) The colour scheme.
The usage of the text is to spoof public-service ads, thanks for asking.
Anurag Kashyap
“saw your film.. man i really wasted my time..”
saw your film.. man i really wasted my time..
“You remind me of all those college kids i hated when i was in college”
Atleast we remind you of something. Thanks for the honour.
“Stop talking and get to work or else will hear about you too doing some shit like that..”
Sure, I am getting down to do my work soon.
All
Objectively criticising, and deliberately forming your buddy group to bang someone’s film, are two different things. I place no special pride in my student film, and I am well-aware of its shortcomings. But if you say its bad, show me why, otherwise, I care two hoots about empty opinions.
And in order to read a more elaborate, and objective analysis of a film, do read the magazine for more elaborate, less hateful review of No Smoking, made by your God, who you believe is beyond criticism. Sadly, he has started sharing the belief. Discussions, from now on, will take there, on our blog, and then we will gang up on you like you have done with your 500 foot soldiers strong army here. Na, it was a nice discussion. Do come there, for a cup of tea. A nice, warm, cup of tea.
Thanks.
Not perplexed with your offering at all. And it’s not about watching a film of Mani Kaul/Shahaini (though I have written and seen no of them), but rather in a case, why u dismissed their works as bad films. So when you wrote there movies are bad. I said, prove it to me, you then went on to talk about Nazar and films that don’t adhere to literature, I objectively said, “ Cinema should not run behind literature” else where is the cinematic.
So, please, don’t misinterpret things.
And I told you before and write again, if you’re so great in forming your analogy and opinions why not prove the comment on Shahaini and Mani Kaul on our turf. Because here the discussion on them can never progress. So if you can form a constructive criticism to show us they suck, we would love to see it and follow the lead. And learn. Till then, I don’t believe in a single world you say. Because behind the desk you’re one person whose knowledge of cinema is as good as the literature book he reads
Yeah and enjoy your scotch, wine and food… And when you plan to teach us…I’m open to learning. Oh and that reference to the structuralism… Thank you.
@ dabba
Yeah…for sure, it will, do watch my space.
@ anurag.
I’m sure you hated the short and felt nostalgic. One cannot deny ones subjectivity, yet for the sake of learning we would like to know why you hated it.
For the short he made, as a student, I’m sure will teach him more, if you offer a constitutive criticism to his work.
That is exactly what we are seeking and advocating.
I m not deriding your short and your passion, i just am cursing myself for giving you guys too much credit and thought. I read all your comments and man are you guys confused, and contradictory. and where is the discussion? except trying to have the last word over everyone.
All the best with your magazine and your career.. but seriously “Do it”
That is what i was saying, if you are thinking with a film like that you will bring a change, i m sorry. Seriously work, make films, find the story, or the idea or whatever you want to do , write it and keep away from all the theory.
After a point your comments have gotten repititive and if you can’t add anything new to say then how will you put together a magazine that grows.
Apologies for hurting you, and being rude because i was pissed off with myself for taking you so seriously. Now i can laugh it off .
sorry
if it fails to connect, no change will come.
I thought i will bring a change with no smoking, you know what’s the worst thing NS has done, no other filmmaker will be given the money to experiment on that level and it’s all because I failed to connect. I made my film that i am proud of of, but it did not connect.
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No, the short was not bad. It was just mediocre. The idea isnt new. Technically too, it isnt pathbraking either. May be you can share your thoughts about why do you think it is superior to others. There is no sarcasm. I am really interested to know.
The way to encourage new talent is not by tearing them apart when we disagree with them. But rather by engaging in civil discourse even when we think what they are saying is without merit.
I think the reason why Indian cinema lags behind on the international platform is because people elevate the ones they like (actors, actresses, directors, etc.) to such a level that anyone who dissents from the group thinking is attacked as a heretic.
I am honestly surprised - and very encouraged - by the amount of discussion about this film. Mr. Kashyap, you have tapped into the most passionate aspect of this viewing audience, and I am reminded of the famous saying: “The only bad press is no press”. THAT is obviously not the case here! I admire the passion of all involved in this discussion and have to admit that it has fueled my craving for this film even more - which is saying a lot, considering it has been on my list of Must-See since last April!
I just wish that this kind of passion would come out when it involves changing the world around us too…
@ Anuj, Nitesh and Ankit
Forget the pretentiousness of it, or the borrowed lines or the name-dropping. What gets to me is that familiar negativity – that quintessential Indian trait of just whining all the time and knocking people. Like Anurag said, you guys sound like film school alumni – and if you’re not, wow, it takes some talent to get your heads so fucked up without any outside help.
Listen guys - life is short and we all have limited energy. Use yours to find your own voice – that’s the only thing of any cultural worth in this world. What you’re expressing is not critique but hostility disguised as masturbatory emissions. Not even a very good choice of disguise as it happens. You talk of Sarris and Malcolm; don’t embarrass yourselves. Somebody like Derek Malcolm takes pride in being a champion of an ignored film – all the well-known critics and commentators of the ages have emitted more positive energy than negative – that is why their contribution is valued.
So you think everybody is doing bullshit in India and we’re all either fanboys or wannabe filmmakers? Fair enough. Just remember - the biggest loser is not one who tries and fails, or who doesn’t even try, but one who doesn’t try and also bad-mouths the efforts of those who do. Reminds you of someone?
We’re all trying to find our voices here. What does that mean really? Some people like our work, some don’t. So you don’t. Why are we supposed to be losing sleep over that? Why don’t you go where you like the work and write about that? Can’t find that place – try and write your own thing, make the film you don’t get to see. Like Anurag also suggests. And no, I’m not his fanboy, just someone who respects his independent mind. Frankly, after the utterly unwarranted attention and respect he has given you guys, YOU guys should be his fanboys.
@Lee:Unfortunately the trio were a coterie at the onset of discussion..using this platform as vehicle to showcasing their immense bookish thoughts…what goes around comes around..as simple as it can get.
Now that’s some elaborate analysis. Really helped me know what is wrong. Thanks.
Lee
Thanks
“I think the reason why Indian cinema lags behind on the international platform is because people elevate the ones they like (actors, actresses, directors, etc.) to such a level that anyone who dissents from the group thinking is attacked as a heretic.”
Exactly.
Anurag Kashyap
If twenty comments made you feel that I have made a 400 Blows, then all your blogging for the past three years makes me expect a Citizen Kane. Its brilliant how roles have been reversed here. You have become the critic, and I have become the filmmaker, the only difference however, is that, I am more ready to accept that I made a lousy film, and more open to genuine criticism than you are.
“After a point your comments have gotten repititive and if you can’t add anything new to say then ”
Because as much as we expected, the only points we have gotten as replies are reiterations of the same points, the same accusations, the same challenges. We have been repeatedly, blugeoned with not only a mob, but a mob making no new points, except telling us over and over again, that we need to find a new idea and make a film, and that the bane of all our problems in India is that we do not have producers. You do not use our previous arguments to build new, but merely keep presenting new versions of the same old and disguise them as your arguments. It is you, who has nothing new to say. You pondered over songs, and I responded with my thoughts - no response from your side. You said my film is bad - I asked why - you said my film is bad. You respond, either with sugar-coated sarcasm, or with direct humiliation.
” And from that pov, it deserved much harsher criticism.”
Let it be even harsher. If there is no difference between criticism and humiliation, and if they were both the same, then Khalid Mohammed wrote the best review of No Smoking.
“when these boys put up the film last year they did not get a response like that. They were encouraged.. ”
Encouraged? That was objective impersonal criticism. Now you guys have a strong collective contempt for me, which I do not care about, but do not believe your opinions helped me.
I knew I was opening a Pandora’s box by mentioning the film. The way all of you have reacted, makes me feel overwhelmed by your hatred. I did not know raising a point or two against your blog post offends you and your followers so much.
We could have carried on the discussion on another blog, but we had the gumption to come here and raise a point, despite knowing it is similar to blasphemy here. It is because we knew what we were saying. None of our replies are rude, use cuss words, and have still been subjected to three-hour moderations. Why? Is it not a symbol of this site to maintain a status quo? Why? You abused me merely because I said your blog post is not well-intentioned. I still stand by that. Its titled, “Dev.D - genesis”. Under that title, you should have told us how Abhay Deol got the idea, not how he told it to you. But no, you ostracize me, subject me to such collective abuse, and hardly any reason. However, I bear no grudge against you or any of your followers. I do realise that you are holding on to them as they are holding on to you as a symbol. And I will write, and I will write more. I reiterate - I will promote your film if it is good, respect you as a filmmaker, dissect each scene and put its greatness out on the clothesline, and I will also tell you why if I think its bad. I will not tell you, “You wasted my time. Your film looks as if it has come from a bad film production house.” And no, I am sorry, but films do not make me feel indifferent. That, I believe, is an impact of age. You keep up your disdain sir. I will keep up my objectivity and my theories. And practicality. I do not wish to change world cinema with a one minute short, and am ready to work. If you accused us of being impatient, you are children waiting at 11:30 PM for their birthday the next day.
As Sudhir Mishra said, “Anurag should remain vary of his supporters.”
Best of luck.
Jaideep Verma
Hi Sir, where were you?
“Including Anurag; it is a testament to his open mind and honesty that made him self-doubt and even say it out loud here.”
And also made him promote your film here.
” that quintessential Indian trait of just whining all the time and knocking people. Like Anurag said, you guys sound like film school alumni – and if you’re not”
But you really are not the ideal person to comment on that sir, since you are whining about us now, and have been whining about the film school students, the tough process you had to experience while making your film, and about the audiences when you film failed. Why complain when you have been practising the same vices?
“all the well-known critics and commentators of the ages have emitted more positive energy than negative”
Have they? We really were not aware. With the way you have treated us here, we really should be more positive and becoming.
“that is why their contribution is valued. ”
Is it? Well, its not valued here atleast. You know, the history is dead, and buried, as I have learnt here. New lessons everyday.
“or who doesn’t even try, but one who doesn’t try and also bad-mouths the efforts of those who do. Reminds you of someone? ”
Actually yes. All of you. Because who decides who is making the effort, and who is bad-mouthing?
” try and write your own thing, make the film you don’t get to see. ”
Yeah, you came late, didn’t you? Twenty people have said to us, and as Anurag tells me, I am repetitive, so I would avoid that, I would just say, read all our earlier replies.
Lets just read an amiable conclusion here. My only intention of commenting on Anurag Kashyap’s blogpost was to both analyse it and incite the spirit of discussion and inquiry, which is extinct in our cinematic realm. It has been achieve here. Most of you have starting spewing hatred, but some of you, have also begun to think. Evidences of that can be found throughout the forum.
Thanks. To anyone who wants to tell me that I am a dork and that the film I made is bad, I have heard that already, so do not bother.
Also, I think you are being rather harsh on yourself when you say
“i thought i will bring a change with no smoking, you know what’s the worst thing NS has done, no other filmmaker will be given the money to experiment on that level and it’s all because I failed to connect”
The last few years have re-kindled my faith in Indian cinema….. I can now believe that there are people who are willing to finance truly innovative concepts….
Emotional Atyachar was simply superb it fitted so well in the trailer….the title was damn gud PATNA KE PRESLEYS (rofl) (whose idea was that??)
dev d, paro, chanda r gonna rock.
and yaa PLZZ RELEASE THE DVD OF THE MOVIE PAANCH.so many of them r waitng 4 the movie..the movie will a big hit in dvds and vcds also.
A quote I love from a fellow blogger, critic, and film festival programmer…
When a Bollywood film does well at the box office but gets negative reviews, the film-makers say the movie is “for the masses”. When a film does poorly at the box office, then the film-makers say the movie is “for the classes”, referring to the middle class and elite sections of Indian society who can apparently appreciate the mature themes shown. And when both the classes and masses reject a movie, then the film-makers say that the movie is too sophisticated for the Indian audiences and is made for the foreign crowd (Indian diaspora, film festivals, etc). When everyone rejects their movie, then the film-makers say that the world is not ready to understand their unique genius. Honestly, how can a critic be ever expected to fight against Bollywood’s built in critic-proof ego?
@ anurag
Not once I think we’ve moved away from our ideology, but stood to talk about cinema and cinema alone. Maybe this discussion won’t go anywhere. But just want to let you know…we do care for the medium as much as you do. You love the camera and I love the camera. You write with camera and I write about the camera, and both methods are aiming to achieve the same thing- cinema.
So maybe I’m not as great/or speak right as you or PFC fellows here and everyone at your film fraternity(since they all have made a film or worked in a film) and I don’t understand: economy, hardwork and disappointment…but not one of them have the “ passion for cinema”, if it was so, this could have been a great discussion to call for a change or bit by bit as you put…practice them..not in the narrative, acting, sense, but cinematic.
You’re people can abuse as much as they want, and even raise flags for you, but beneath the facade we all know that the problem is just not about money and money alone else every ‘New Age Filmmaker’ would have been known from ‘Calcutta to Timbuktu’by know, because they all have made substantial film so either the world can’t see or there is something wrong with publicity.
In the end, hoping, when time comes you do oblige for an interview…and have no hard feelings.
@ Jaideep
Good to see you’re here to defend your friend like he did for your film. If hard work, and money made great films your movie would be one of the best then. Beside, not just dropping names without knowing things.
Oh Malcolm, I did meet him personally, and I think… I do know his criticism better than what you mention. They championed good films but did u know for what reasons?
Sarris- mise-en-scene, ala auteur theory
Malcolm- the same
So how can you say we are pretentious? We do take pride in championing good films and for the right reasons, and when did we emit negative energy? Go check the blog and more but(I’m not here to talk about my CV), been toiling for some time writing on our own cinema and just not emitting negative vibes.
And by saying that a director should consciously look at the film form(mise-en-scene) I’m sure I’m not doing the wrong thing and creating negative vibes. Or am I? If so ? Tell me what is your cinematic identity? I’m sorry if you feel I’m doing wrong thing, but as a student of the medium I want to know this following?
1) How is your CU, MCU, ELS, LS Different from Karan Johar? And if different? How do you know that those ‘ shot’ offer something different in the history or tradition of cinema that your film becomes great?
2) How are your camera movement(dyanmic) different from Farah Khan?
3) How do we know what is Jaideep Verma in cinema?
4) How is your normal stationary ‘two shot’ different from Anees Bazeee?
5) Have you ever used all three planes in cinema?
If you had so understood Sarris and Derek Malcolm I’m sure you wouldn’t be calling by names.
Secondly, I’m not some arrogant, stupid guy just waving and talking in air…if you seriously wish to teach something do so in the right manner and the right learned spirit.I will be your first student, because that is what Bazin taught in the first place. And yeah not names dropping again. If we want we can have a discussion on the ” Ontology of the Photographic Image”
Good luck with your endeavors guys, you surely aren’t winning over anyones respect and any readership here!!
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and you guys need to stop eating bazin. it is staple food. you guys are still hungry that everywhere you go - you end up creating a mise-en-scene. just look at this discussion.
Unlike you, I have enough confidence in my own cultural and intellectual education and good taste to know if a film sucked or not. And in my opinion “Nazar” sucked ass.
Not because it didn’t strictly adhere to Dostoevsky’s text, which is fine by me (although I find deconstructionism dishonest and tiresome).
But because it had terrible actors, sloppy editing, a very poor script and seemed to completely miss the fundamental point of Dostoevsky’s work - it’s very Orthodox Christian philosophical core.
I don’t have to keep referring to derivative constructs like auteur theory and mise-en-scene (which I strongly suspect you do not understand one bit, n’est ce pas?) to form my opinions and I absolutely do not care one bit to explain them to anyone.
Oh and what is this coterie you speak of? I don’t know anyone on PfC and am expressing my own opinions. Just because there are a large number of persons pointing out the obvious to you doesn’t mean they are ganging up against you.
Forgive my act of adressing you as one but since you have so gleefully taken up the role of a hydra it’s only fair that you should be recongnized as such. Firstly your film. As far as films or student films goes its excreable which is nothing to be ashamed of. Most beginning student films mine included have been terrible. My first two films were so badI threw away the negative but I’m happy in the knowledge that by the time I made my thesis I had a much firmer grasp of how to tell a story. I hope you have made films after your PFCone attempt coz I can tell you this with experience you will only get better with practice, not by reading Kael or Sarris.
Coming to your film, you seem to have committed the two most egregious sin of experimental filmmaking. You have been inspired by refuse to wear that inspiration on the shoulder. Your film borrows the visual style and elliptical editing structure of Maya Deren, most notably her opus “Meshes in the Afternoon”. There is nothing wrong to be inspired by her, infact auteurs like David Lynch and Soderbergh have openly professed their admiration for her and her influence on their films. Watch “Lost Highway” and “The Limey” if you haven’t yet. So whatever pathbreaking narrative or editing device you think you exhibited in your short had been done more than 50 years prior. If however you hadn’t watched Maya Deren at all then you’re a piss poor student of cinema. Go out and brush up on your film theory. The second folly in my opinion is your use of symbolism and visual metaphors is pedestrian and dumbed down.It just goes to show that while you can talk the talk you can’t really walk the walk. Much like one other gentleman ie Mr Khalid Mohammed who for all the film theory he has read, all the biting reviews he has written and for all his professed admiration for Ray (on this site as well) hasn’t made a single film of note. I sincerely hope you escape that destination.
I also think that you are fundamentally mistaken in the role film criticism and theory does and should play. I’m confident we can stipulate we’re not discussing the weekly newspaper review which gives stars but rather the careful analysis of a film much like what happens in Sight and Sound. At least that’s what I assume you aspire to eventually with your magazine. I’m sorry to say your entire approach is flawed ab initio. You seem to be of an opinion that AK or any directors shouldn’t talk of any technical details while discussing the films, ignoring the fact that the majority of cinephiles are more interested in how and why it was shot than the ideation process behind it. When I watch “A bout le souffle” I want to know why Coutard and Godard chose to use an MOS Eclair Camera, why he felt that jump cuts were necessary and why they employed bounce lighting for the interior scenes. I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW IN HIS OWN WORDS HOW HE GOT THE IDEA TO MAKE THE FILM OR WHAT IT MEANS. That’s an excercise in futility coz as much as poetry , a film it’s open to interpretation and a majority of times the viewer takes a different meaning from what the filmmaker’s original intention was. And that’s true for all forms of artistic endevour. When I studied Art History, 3 diff experts gave wildly diverging accounts of the use and emotional resonance of chiaroscuro in the works of Carravagio. All were correct and if Carravagio were to be asked he would probably give an entirely different account as well. The point I’m trying to make that if you at all wish to be filmmakers of any repute you need to start making films more than you analyse them. Your analysis is for your own better understanding and if you feel you have an obligation to better educate the casual viewer through deconstructing films it’s sadly a quixotic quest and you would be better served to be in the heat of battle making the damn film. Trust me the day will come where you will have a glorious shot list to be executed with pitch perfect decopauge but then the rain will come and instead of 10 shots you will only have time to get one. What will you do then ? Take out your Cahiers for inspiration of muse on how Truffaut would have done it ? In the end you need to find your own voice and all you seem to possess now (going by your film which is all really one case base your ability on) is a reflection of a reflection which makes you only marginally better than the DVD copiers who proliferate in Bombay. Not that I profess to be a cinematic genius of any sort but I also do not suffer from delusions of grandeur which I have a sneaky suspicion you do. I hope I’m wrong though.
Anuj, big difference between cribbing about the process in a diary and knocking everybody’s work to emphasise your higher standards. But your particular brand of brain may not be able to grasp that so I wouldn’t try too hard if I were you.
Nitesh, your questions reveal your myopia. By breaking cinema down to elements like these, you reveal how little you understand the medium. Film is not about CUs and MCUs and camera movement just as writing is not about nouns and adjectives and adverbs – but about their cumulative effect. It is not about the quality of the sentences you write but the thoughts that they effect. Not something you guys can understand because you see – as the cliché goes – the wood for the trees.
Enough said, I don’t want to waste more time on the likes of you. Have nice lives – in your respective professions – I doubt if it’ll be in cinema.
Thanks for a biting, vengeful, often rancorous, but overall satisfying film review of my one minute film. I feel tensed, pleased and touched by your response, and am rather glad someone actually took the time to write a critique, a negative one, yet a critique nonetheless.
Rather than debating on why you think my film is excreable, and deserve its place in oblivion, let us evaluate what I learnt by your cautious writing-:
a) My visual style and editing pattern resembles that of a particular Maya Deren film.
b) I have used pedestrian visual metaphors. Though you wish to point none of them out, I assume that you do appreciate the existence and the meaning of them, which leads me to believe that atleast in the space I filmed or the filmic space, I placed them at the right places.
This well-done critique, helps me learn two new elements of my filmmaking. I have gained from it, and I have grown in my knowledge of my filmmaking, which I was hitherto unaware of. This, then, vindicates the importance of both a critique and theory for all of you here. Thank you sir.
Now, contesting the points you make-:
a) No, I have not seen any film made by Deren. Naturally, not the particular film you mention. And yet, my technique resembles her. Do I take that as a compliment? On the other hand, you deem me a piss poor student of cinema, because I have not watched any of the director’s films. No, I am not that, because I WANT to see the films made by Deren, and merely the possession of that desire, I become a student. That, there, is the fundamental difference between a student, and a professor on cinema. I am the former. And also, there go your illusion of my illusions of grandeur.
b)”So whatever pathbreaking narrative or editing device you think you exhibited”
That is merely your assumption. I remain proud of the film, yet remain sure of its weaknesses, of which, there are many.
“It just goes to show that while you can talk the talk you can’t really walk the walk.”
Am I glad that I did not put up my other works on the net? If one minute of my filmmaking has helped you develop such insights into my filmmaking, I am delighted.
“seem to be of an opinion that AK or any directors shouldn’t talk of any technical details while discussing the films”
While your review of my film assured me of the presence on the other side, of a cautious and careful viewer; the above judgement makes me dubious as the care you apply as a reader. However, I do care to direct to attention to comment no 32.
“When I watch “A bout le souffle” I want to know why Coutard and Godard chose to use an MOS Eclair Camera, why he felt that jump cuts were necessary and why they employed bounce lighting for the interior scenes”
And what answers have you found? I believe Godard’s jump cuts were influenced by two factors, correct me if I am wrong-:
a) His viewing of Parrish’s All the King’s Men(1949)
b) His producer’s insistence on a one and a half hour long film.
Now, those are technical reasons. As to what ideological effect the jump cut has, I am sure you have found out. Or are cinephiles not interested in that?
About bounce lighting, since you are curious, do tell all the cinephiles the answers you find. Spread you knowledge. Spread your knowledge.
“I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW IN HIS OWN WORDS HOW HE GOT THE IDEA TO MAKE THE FILM OR WHAT IT MEANS.”
That’s your personal demands of knowledge sir. I want to know it, and it helps me understand a film better. Coming back to the context, if an idea behind a film is not so important, I pity your empty, uninspiring film viewing experiences, where you are merely studying the technical aspects, and beating the suspension of disbelief to death. Let the illusion breathe sir.
“The point I’m trying to make that if you at all wish to be filmmakers of any repute you need to start making films more than you analyse them.”
And what makes you, and the people here, so sure of the fact that we have not made films? I mean, why is that such a common, automatic, and instinctive assumption. It is only a symbol of our perception : that those who say, do not do. Suggestions-:
a) Can’t both exist in simultaneous harmony?
b) Why is criticism equated with ’saying’ and making a film equated with ‘action’? If that is indeed the case, then we have had a lot of action all these years, and look where we have reached.
Your next few lines, though better written, are a reiteration of the same point, so I will not respond.
“Take out your Cahiers for inspiration of muse on how Truffaut would have done it ?”
Though we do not remain as devoid of ‘practical’ knowledge, as you seem to think, I would ask a question derived out of a corollary : If you did not know any theory/history of filmmaking, would you even be able to prepare a successful shot list?
“In the end you need to find your own voice ”
Completely agree.
As a conclusion, I would like to clarify that we think we are as normal film-lovers and have a lot to learn. I, for one, am an amateur, willing to know. We write with authority only because we remain assured of what we write. Do not confuse an authoritarian tone with arrogance or condescension. And I am glad your keenness towards film has made you watch films made by DVD copiers who proliferate in Bombay. That is some keenness.
Besides, since you are not a piss poor student of cinema, unlike me, you would also know about the copious amount of film theory that Deren wrote. Right?
Thank you for the effort and pain to write this comment. Worth reading every bit. But few clarification.
It was never stated that a director should refrain from talking about technicalities, rather technical competence is not the only value in making a film, and that is what was being addressed when fingers simply started pointing out for attacking a filmmaker. When the values and ideas where different.
As a cinephile, I have always enjoyed reading about technical specification, so when I read Godard discussing with Jean Pierre Beauvila about the genesis of the camera(Aaton 35mm) the information is just not tech specific but also an explanation about its use and implication or aesthetics. And that’s how one knows, later as filmmaker things can be addressed or explored. And that’s what we were pointing. Or just technical know can make films?
So I don’t see a flaw in approach in process of a magazine. And thank you for your call to make films, not in a hurry, seriously, and Cahier is just not the only inspiration. Neither do we suffer from any form of delusion; this whole thing was a process of learning and hope you din’t confuse filmmaking with film criticism, like everyone calls to ‘make a film’ in order to’ write criticism.
@ jaideep
What u just dismissed shows why u missed the train with your film. Because u simply threw away your own identity, your own tools, and you’re own auteur power.
@Dewi…
Never said you ganging upon me, I just asked you few things and that’s all and in the right spirit.Good to see that now u see different angles of “nazar’ and not just dismiss it on the ideas of literature.
Can’t argue on rest as I haven’t seen this particular film, just few more days and I would. Then maybe can talk about the sloppy editing, script( just curious, when did he actually adhere his allegiance to the various adaption) and terrible actors( and curious again, when did mani kaul films were heaven for acting school)But happy u clarified further, thanks to your cultural and intellectual education. That I think, only I seem to be lacking among so many literate.
Oh, and auteur theory and mise-en-scene I’m sure against your education I’m surely a naive, with no proper film or intellectual education, so do teach me if you ever have the time, since, I don’t understand one bit, je ne parle pa francis. Good you don’t explain anyone, but atleast I like to question and love to learn. And if you ever have the time, not here anymore, do drop in or let me know… I will be ready to gain some insight into the above and move in the right direction.
Yes, your right, everyone is pointing out the obvious..and I’m just blind that I can’t see, reminds me of this anecdote from a film:
We often went to the movies. The screen lit up and we trembled…But more often than not Madeleine and I were disappointed. The pictures were dated, they flickered. And Marilyn Monroe had aged terribly. It made us sad. This wasn’t the film we’d dreamed of. This wasn’t the total film that each of us had carried within himself…the film we wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we wanted to live.
FIN.
I’m aware of the theory she wrote and in fact am the proud owner of The Legend of Maya Deren which is somewhat more than just crit theory. I also confess I only bought it for I wanted to read the scripts of her films, see her storyboards, read her bio and frankly ogle at her pictures coz I think she’s quite hot. I have posessed the book for almost 3 years now and have not once felt the need to read her own or other’s person’s interpretation of her work contained in it. My opinion is this and a highly personal one at that, is that if I am incapable of understanding a film by simply viewing it, then reading someone’s else’s view on it is futile. In my opinion it’s the same as say reading The Great Gatsby, not understanding it and because it’s an acclaimed book, I read the Cliff Notes version of it, where the text and subtext of every chapter is highlighted and underlined. Ergo now I understand it’s meaning and can proclaim it’s genius. My approach to things I don’t understand but have been intrigued by is to visit it at a later date when I feel I have gained further insight into myself and artistic endeavors to see if my coherence has improved. Your approach might differ of course and you are fully entitled to it but I feel it’s one of those get rich quick schemes. I confess to not being able to sit through Citizen Kane on my first viewing but I chalk that down to being 13 and in the midst of my Jean Claude Van Damme phase. I discover it’s magnificence on each subsequent viewing still. I have read the Making of Citizen Kane as well as seen RKO 281 but not once have I felt the need to read someone else’s viewpoint on the same. It serves no purpose since interpretating a film is not an empirical excercise but an emotional one. When it comes to art I feel that using someone else’s analysis to bolster my own is akin to, pardon my french, “screwing that chick with someone else’s dick”. If I can’t appreciate Yeats on my own then would reading somebody’s PHD thesis on him make me more savvy ? As an anecdote I also possess a reading of his poetry in his own voice.
Just that. A reading. No explanations. That magnicient trembling aged voice gives me more joy and provides more illumination into the man than any dry text extolling his virtues would ever do.
You say you here to learn - a worthy goal. But are you really? Or are you here to make others listen? As an observer who just read all 200+ comments, it certainly seems like the latter.
For 22-year olds you guys sound awfully sure of yourselves. The only people who frighten me are those who so sure of themselves that they can’t even fathom being wrong, and therefore… cannot learn. That would be sad considering you have most of your careers ahead of you.
”The film is bad? Agreed. Now, present an objective analysis of WHY it is bad, and I might take you a little more seriously.”
I have had my share of Bunuel and Truffaut. But all this French new wave and 5th generation Korean thing are like car parts to me. I have heard the names but wouldn’t be able to identify if I see one. So much for critical analysis. But if you were really asking for feedback here it goes:
1)What pulls down your short to mediocrity is its lack of subtlety. What were you trying to establish with all those disclaimers and messages? Were you genuinely worried about being accused of ripping off ‘no smoking?’ And with all those funeral processions and crying ladies in white did you have to state the obvious in writing? I don’t want to sound pretentious but let me quote Kubrick:
”The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it is simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.”
2)’Plainly stating’ is not only with words written on screen or voice overs. But also with used and worn metaphors and similes. When you show a man smoking and funeral rites together whatever be the technical parameters I don’t see a dramatic form unfolding but just another health advertisement punch line. You have two images for two words- smoking and death. You put an equal to sign between them by putting them both in the same room. It doesn’t affect the viewer because there is no dramatic structure attached to it.
3)Restrictiveness of the images restricts the concept. The end of Solaris is always a cause of awe because one doesn’t know how to interpret it conclusively. Its open and organic. That freedom doesn’t come with your images. You can say that you had something extra in mind. But audience will not miss sleep over it.
4)As roadrow said technically its not path breaking. but I will give it pass marks. (atleast at my level of expertise). You were successful in producing a certain eeriness with the soundless crying images sometimes reminding me of ‘the ring.’ According to me use of black and white is cliché-yish intended to turn heads but I cant take away the fact it’s a powerful method.
My opinion is that the real thing you lack is an original script or may be even a good idea will do. Rest of it can be bettered.
And my apologies to Anurag for turning his comment section into short film feedback column. Hope you don’t mind.
The primary reason for not accepting the “trio’s” viewpoints seems to be their age. No one is able to accept that people just out of their teens do have formidable ideas and points to think about. We all need people who have struggled and got there the hard way. Reading ALL the comments dispassionately, I did find the discussion meanders off, but also found the validity of Anuj, Nitesh and Ankit’s points. Their agenda remains simple and straightforward. Producing a cinematic identity using only the very nature of cinema. The reason the debate has continued by itself proves that their ideas are something to be paid attention to. The discussion is like a child plugging his ears and shouting out in order to avoid the truth.
And what kind of stalemate is this - panning people who discuss asking them to make the films first and if that is done, telling them that their work is bad and they should not talk. Judging the people and not their ideas? The primary reason for this argument to exist is to encourage discussion and with established filmmakers participating, so much ideas can be exchanged between the audience and the filmmaker, if both of them are willing to listen. And pity that this fantastic platform has turned into a playground of lionization and one-dimensional appreciation.
And Mr. Kashyap,
I was personally proud of our filmmakers coming into the open and discussing with the audience, especially you. I still do commend your worthy efforts to bring a change. But after your series of replies, I realize that you are here to entertain yourself alone. You bestow your comments and experiences with an air of superiority and with a notion of not accepting anything seriously over here. The audience (rather, anyone who does not make films) is a fool eh? The distance between the equally vital halves of cinema - the maker and the audience has not reduced, it still is there. The purpose of your writing (if that was an interaction) is lost. And yes, you need not take me seriously too, because I’m also one of your million pawns who has an opinion on how cinema should be. And Sir, here is the crux of your past 3 comments
“Stop talking and get to work or else will hear about you too doing some shit like that..”
“i did not hate the short.. i wish i hated it.. i was just indifferent.”
“…and man are you guys confused, and contradictory. and…”
And I’m not one of “them”, I just find their points to be very valid and pertinent.
My point was that they are not willing to listen. But seem intent of just talking and talking and talking if someone disagrees. That is not the sign of a willingness to learn.
My only point in bringing up their age is that they have a long way to go in their careers and it would do them well if they were actually open to changing their minds instead of just professing to be open to changing their minds.
I clearly did not intend teh comment at you. I just put the general trand and I pointed out your name to indicate the notion of age into the discussion. That is all.
And learn? What is there to learn over here? that doint is tougher than talking? or that theory is much different from action?
And you think these guys do not know that?
and from your comments , you have either rushed through the comments not really read them or you know them.. i don’t see anyother reason why any sane mind would say what you just commented in 237 and 239
I think there’s a lot to learn - from a lot of the people that have posted here.
The issue is this - when you are starting out (and I’m starting out too), why on earth would you ever be arrogant?? I’m not saying you should accept Anurag’s word as the word of god. But have you seen the tone used by Nitesh and Anuj? “Have you ever used all three planes in cinema?”?? Are you kidding me? By the same token, when their work is deconstructed, there is immediate and total defensiveness with ‘it’s just a first short, a student short, yeah go ahead and rip my little student short’ etc. If you are going to dish it out, learn to take it. Or, a much better alternative, cut out the arrogance and be WILLING to learn!! And yes, be willing to learn from anyone.
In the interest of full disclosure, do you think it’s pertinent that you are a fan of Nitesh’s work (as evidenced by your About page on your blog)… Do you feel that influences your opinion at all?
A . “K” - “nobody tells me what to do”
Keep it going ..
“And Sir, here is the crux of your past 3 comments”…………..???????????????
Looks like you didn’t read the crux of about 10-12 of Anurag’s comments where he indulged them so generously.
@Shripriya
Here’s what Anuj had to say about his film on last year’s PFCOne
“1) The recursion that you see
2) The construction(till the point where he is burnt), and then the deconstruction(where the funeral around him ends and he is back to normal) chain.
Both would have worked well for the conveyance of denial, but I think recursion is surely a better idea, as it covers a longer duration of time.
We are both 18 and 19 respectively, but yes, we have made some short films.”
So with a lot of difficulty, I’ve managed to calculate and come to the conclusion that they must 19 and 20 respectively, now
“If you are going to dish it out, learn to take it.”
Well said! Taaliya! Taaliya!
That about me page is stale and I had written it much before I knew Nitesh (and BTW, I have no idea what you found there)
If you are talking about by blog roll - yes, I liked his blog and what he presented there. There was a lot to discuss and to learn there. That is why.
And I’m not obligated to support a person just because I know his work for a month now. All my comments here are based on what Anuj said and what followed.
And even if there was a relation between my blog roll and my support over here, it has to be the other way round. I support his views and hence like his blog.
Yes, Mr. Kashyap. I did want to deliberately induce insane comments on a highly focussed debate on art and cinema. But you do agree that we have everything - financially, technically and theoretically - here to create a unique formj of cinema, don’t you? I do not accept the notion that the audience is not ready. Case in point the Iranian cinema - unique, powerful and readily lapped up by audience. And you do agree that the bottleneck in India for such films is only the creative drought?
And by the end of this comment, I do realize how futile it all has become. However, such discussions have to take place on their own adn not as an off shoot of a casual post by Mr. Kashyap. Good to see that discussions are still there…
LOL man, nice one I have to accept.
And if you try to trace it. you’ll end up in Dallas, USA…
Anyway, that’s really a minor point and I take you at your word that your admiration for Nitesh doesn’t influence your comments here… But I urge you to read through the thread - do you really believe there’s nothing to learn from the people who disagree with your blog-friends? That’s my bigger point, and… well that’s been beaten to heck already.
Peace, buddy. “nice one I have to accept.” <—- This attitude is missing from our Enlightened Trio - the willingness to accept another’s POV.
But you’re open enough to accept it, so you and I can be friends
That’s quite a presentable and detailed blog you have
In the meantime, request to PFC moderators to please do a background check on Shrikanth and find out where he works in Dallas, USA. Sneaky feeling: He’s software professional.
Some honest clarifications first:
1. I’m not a software professional
2. I’m not starting a magazine. But I wish.
3. I work in our very own Bangalore. You could have just asked instead of all those technical details.
4. You should take care of your virus
But seriously aby, give me an honest opinion. Don’t you think there is a lack of passion in Indian cinema? Do you think it is going for the good? And do you think the filmmakers are trying to give good cinema?
Nice thoughts Janus. I am not sure as to what extent the process of interpretation of a film is devoid of the application of an empirical thought, and for me, more often than not, it requires both the application of rationality and emotion to reach an interpretation that satisfies me as a viewer. More so, the reading of any text on a work of art should work, ultimately, to only enhance your insight, rather than dictate it. When I spoke about the interest in the genesis of an idea, I was speaking in terms of the origin and not its final consummation. The consummation is ofcourse, your own interpretation. The origin stories, however, as you must be knowing, are very interesting by themselves. My bad if I could not communicate my idea properly. Thanks for the info on ‘The Great Gatsby’. Where are you, if I may ask, can you help me acquire Deren works, for us to watch? Will be grateful.
Shripriya
“This has devolved into a discussion for discussion’s sake”
I completely agree. It has become redundant and unneeded, simply because it has gone beyond its scope and also beyond its objective.
Also, at the risk of sounding pompous yet again, I would just ask, why you would be so flustered by Srikant’s liking of Nitesh’s blog is beyond me. You treat it as if it is some sort of an unfair advantage on our side ma’m. Do realise that we have been arguing with ardent fans of a man for a long time.
Temple Oak
Thanks for your points sir. I cannot resort to a defense since both this forum and the people who read it will misinterpret it as my vanity. I would just write one line - If it indeed was a PSA, as you presume, then why would I repeat the same message three times? Just food for thought.
I have no delusions to it being a great masterpiece. It all started with a challenge of making a film of note. The way it has been pounced upon, I am sure it more than merely stood up to it.
Aby
Do not forget to check under your table for the bombs we may have planted.
How can I ask you anything and trust you when you’ve proven yourself a lier. You first pointed me out to Dallas, USA. Now you say you’re in Bangalore. But don’t worry..!! In time, I’ll find out for sure who you are and where you operate from.
@ Anuj
No there’s no bomb under my table. I checked. Thanx for pointing out. Now go check your own blogsite. There’s plenty bombs coming your way..!! Somehow you don’t choose to clarify about your upcoming magezine. Do I see a hidden agenda here..?? Otherwise why wouldn’t you write anything about your manifesto and your need to change indian cinema right here on good old PFC. Let me tell you Boss..!! You are marked Anuj Malhotra. Try looking for a job in the film industry. Or just change your name.
rest have your fun and games..
“But seriously aby, give me an honest opinion. Don’t you think there is a lack of passion in Indian cinema?”
NO.. There is enough passion. We are working towards getting all the other elements of good cinema together. slowly-but-surely we are inching forward.
“Do you think it is going for the good?”
Yes.. And it’s happening much faster than you think. So stop being cynical and join us.
And do you think the filmmakers are trying to give good cinema?
Yes..!! And I love them all and wish for their success.
It’s just the effect of these guys rubbing out on me.
@ Anuj Malhotra
I concede. I went overboard. I withdraw my threat. Sorry..!!
http://www.filmaka.in/ratingresultsjournal5.asp?id=315
Guni logon ka gyan mujhe mil jaye toh mera bhi kuchh bhala ho jaye
u guys should have a bulletin board where jerk offs can just be locked out - or the thread be, after it’s gone too far to serve any purpose.
look forward to dev.d - the film will finally have the final word for me, not some 200 page discussions on what pretentious film school students think mr kashyap should be making.
Some more material can be generated out of the discussion done last year by these three young filmmakers about their own film. Here is the link.
http://passionforcinema.com/pfcone-2007-day-one/
——-
It will be interesting to know if trio has genuine nature or not?
Are they posting whole debate on their blogs?
If yes then it can be simply a method to generate a publicity for them and their blog and nothing else.
- Can these guys opt same tone and aggressive nature, while discussing things in a face to face manner with Mr Anurag Kashyap, which they have been doing here on blog?
Why they are so obsessed with Mr Kashyap and his films?
If he is not knowledgeable or a good or a genuine filmmaker in their mind then they should live happily with this understanding and it can be said in 1-2 sentences, why writing “A Suitable Director” kind of book having 1024 pages?
Everybody is entitled to make any kind of opinion about anyone but why to fight with the same person?
people will have different understanding about cinema.
World has moved from where to where and they are sitting on idea that “…….Mahakali” film has been best of Mr Kashyap. This understanding can actually start a new chapter in the area of film appreciation or analysis.
Quote
“What’s with the self-important, pompous, vain displays? Why do you have to share all this unimportant, insignificant ‘knowledge’ with us?”
i stopped it wasn’t worth reading after that and sorry couldn’t resist to reply
But Anurag Please do share things like “nikon DS-3″ it was great info and it shows your approach and dedication to film making. Btw i am not your die hard fan but greatly appreciate your craft. And lets not some body spoil it through some misplaced words written somewhere.
If I were in India I would have gladly lent you my Maya Deren DVD and book. Since I’m not and have no immediate plans of visiting either I advise you to buy them off Amazon. You can actually find her films on youtube but watching her sublime images in such low quality will be doing her grave justice.
I am however a bit puzzled by your response to me and would appreciate if you could clear it up..
1) We all agree that origin stories are extremely interesting and when Anurag wrote this post about the genesis of the idea and also threw in a cinematographic tool he utilized, your very first post was to protest and say that such tidbits are insignificant and unimportant. Now you agree with me that while interpretation is individual, a cinephile will always benefit by learning about the process. I find those two statements impossible to reconcile and would love it if you would care to dispel my confusion. Were you in fact proposing that AK talk about how Abhay got the idea ? If so why would you assume that AK would and should speak on Abhay with regards to his creative process ?
2) You also mention that while watching a film you employ empirical thought in conjunction with emotional response. Forgive my obtuseness but I’m really at a loss as to how one would use empirical thought while appreciating a film. Do you mean to say you count the number of cuts in a scene or that you clap joyfully that the inciting incident happens on the reccomended page of the script that’s mentioned in Syd Field’s book ? Oh and please don’t quote Kant to me on this. I would like you to respond in your own words if you will as this might open up another aspect of viewing a film which I never thought possible.
the poster of DEV D reminds me of one of the posters of a tinto brass film - P.O.BOX TINTO BRASS…
Just like you guys call people “fanboys”, Srikanth’s comment had definitely fanboy-ish overtures. So, let’s call it out. I hardly care who he’s a fanboy of, but if he’s here defending someone, in the interests of full disclosure, it is best to state it, yes? Just like you would like the other side to do. Just apply the same standards, that’s all.
And now I’m done. I’ve commented way to many times after stating this discussion has become pointless, repetitive, circular and yes, petty.
Anurag Kashyap
if this post has been freed from harrassment finally, could I ask you a question about the film? has been on the mind ever since i saw the trailor…have you seen “the salton sea” by any chance? i don’t know why but some of the shots, reminded me of that.
I just have to say, the three musketeers reminded me of one Mr. Dinesh D’Souza
Reminder : “The Salton sea” 2002 was followed up by “A Scanner Darkly” 2006 !!!
GK
Actually you are referring to the DVD cover of Tinto Brass wearing Glares and the reflection of a nude woman in it,that is not P.O.BOX TINTO BRASS but a 2 part 3-episodes each DVD Collection of Short features directed by Italian Amateurs for TINTO BRASS PRESENTS,One dvd is called JULIA and other dvd QUATTRO !!!
GK
post Slumdog (now that it is considered one of the best in 2008), apparently Danny Boyle has become a huge fan of your work and going around telling American media about it, he tells 3 movie are must-watch, Satya, Company and Black Friday!
Like DevD adaptation, he might be planning English adaptation of these movies! Who knows?
BTW, Amit Trivedi must be a genius - I have heard his work on Aamir, and the creativity blows my mind away! I am sooooo looking fwd to this one!
Hope makes all things work,
Love makes all things beautiful.
Happy New Year 2009 to all you guys..!! Keep up the Faith, Hope and Love for our cinema. Cheers.!!
3 CHEERS !!!
GK
Apologies for starting with an abuse but man it’s been so long since I felt this angry.
I started reading this post because it was about the Dev D, about which I’m damn curious and anxious, but got really sucked into the comments, which I’ve still not completed. Though it is hard to come by me, I should say BRAVO!! Anuj and Nitesh (though Ankit was mentioed in same voice, but I read very little of him). Relevance, structure, clarity, appropriateness and eloquentness of Anuj’s comments were mind blowing. Though I can’t name the Nitesh in same breath but he was also very impressive.
Enough of praise, now coming to the point I always thought that PFC is one place where views and criticisms are considered in a democratic and positive manner, esp when the comments are written objectively. I’m not here to talk about the film movements, marketing, new wave Indian cinema and what not. What really pissed me off here is the way comments are being perceived and responded. I was of the thought that PFC is the place where some sort of intellectual/above average (cinematically) and mature people interact and learn through it. Though this thought was getting disillusioned from some time but this was the nail in the coffin. What I hate really here now is that how people handle criticism here and immaturity pertaining to it.
The two guys who really pissed me off was ABY and KENNY. Man when you say ‘get life’ to the trio you should seriously consider the same for yourself. When you can’t stand or participate in a debate/discussion then don’t get into one. This was supposed to be a discussion forum naki koi chaaplosi ka thikana ya dosti jatane ki place. Man I hardly saw you guys making one relevant point apart from saying yeah AK that was absolutely correct. Don’t abuse others if you don’t have any point to say or any logic to prove. And KENNY there is more to life than zzzzzzzz. Man I’m really not abusive in nature but you guys are too much.
Even normally sane voice like RK commented that ‘Can PFC be left for simple interaction between filmmakers and audiences? rather than to make it a place for endless debates where one has to win ?’. Sorry man but I really don’t agree that PFC is only for simple interactions, why not for discussions which are a notch above and I think it’s not pertinent here to say that somebody has to win the debate. We are here to discuss cinema and differences are bound to happen. If we don’t discuss it properly then we’ll be in our own cocoon, thinking that we are right like Aby and Kenny. Different opinion should be appreciated and discussed, not abused and ridiculed. I’m not no way commenting that Anuj’s and Nitesh’s comment were right or wrong, what I’m saying is that the way they wrote the comments, it was very objective and nothing was there on a personal level.
@AK- Man when you wrote that I’m having self doubts, I thought here is the real man who is ready to accept in public that he’s having weakness. I always thought that acceptance of weakness is a strength. But having self doubts on few comments show little bit of mental weakness and when you retaliated with such ridicule and vengeance, it really showed through your immaturity. If you read through the posts of yours and the trio, you’ll realize that how immature you sound compare to them. If somebody doesn’t agree with you and give a sleepless hour doesn’t mean that you’ve to ridicule them and bring in ally like Jaideep to do so also. Sincerely I never expected this from a person, who gave me one of my fav movies, No Smoking. Its irony that a person who made movie which was suppose to give food for thought to audience in terms of morality would not be able to take food for thought in the form of criticism (I’m in no way saying their comments were right or wrong, I’m stating on a fact that how you reacted to it). As Anuj rightly pointed that a movie should be seen independently and objectively same should be the case with comments.
I didn’t write comment to defend the trio, I know they can pretty very well do it on their own, but to express my opinion on level of maturity we have on PFC.
PS: Time spent in reading the post and comments were my best time in last 15-20 days. ANUJ, if you’ve any blog/forum/community let me know. Will love to see your magazine guys.
Apologies if any of the above comment hurts you, because most of them were personal in nature. I’m in no way wanted to hurt anybody just wanted to show my anger.
I was also a latecomer to the post as you, but as evidenced (you said you read v. little of Ankit etc.), you seem to have not read them all- hence the impression.
That was exactly the impression I had when I at first just skimmed through. But you have to take the time out and read all the comments in the order. Trust me, its fun.
And when I did that, I couldn’t help getting reminded of Dinesh D’Souza. Having all Relevance, structure, clarity, appropriateness and eloquentness- still OTT, spiteful and empty.
You’re welcome bro.
Just to know whether we think on the same lines, I enjoyed No Smoking, although I make absolutely no claim to have understood it through just a viewing. So why is it one of your favourite movies?
Yaar I’ve read through most of the comments (in order) but when I said that I read little of Ankit it was relative. He contributed less on point-counterpoint discussion.
Yeah I enjoyed most of the comments except comments like “so guys the discussion is not going to lead anywhere and anuj with your arrogance i challenge you to make even a short film worth mentioning in next ten years and i will respond to you then. Until then Bye. Really i wasted my time over self doubts.. fuck i am awesome compared to you.. rest have a hope, you have none.. keep cribbing.” You see this comment is from a person who has seen enough of bickering, it shows through the immaturity. I think you won’t find neither of this sort of comment in Anuj’s writing. I hated when people said ‘How can be they are so sure’ and based the logic on age. It’s like Dean asking Roark that how can you think parthenon is not great. I’m in no way saying that they are howard roark and I know they can’t be but what I’m trying to say is people are following same philosophy as of Dean. People should not try to stop criticism/discussion by ridiculing and abusing.
I think most of the comment at the starting were relevant, not necessarily I’m agreeing to them, but then some people (read Aby, Kenny & Co.) took it to some other directions. They were logical and somewhat clear about what and why they think that’s why people hardly could make their own points look convincing. I think they thought through theoritical aspects well but took practical aspects too lightly. We can again start a debate on relevance or emptiness of their points but yaar let’s leave it to rest (though you are free to make your own points).
Just one more point I wanted to make is that if trio is indeed planning to start a new blog/magazine of an other type of media outlet (courtesy aby)and trying to gather attention then what’s wrong in it, they are doing their marketing like any other. They are not putting any banner or any other type of infringement, but showing how they think and write. If this puts somebody from PFC in insecurity then oh man we are on a very weak foundation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjz16xjeBAA
i can make much better movie with my handy camera but it doesn’t mean i should start arguing with those who atleast do try to make diffrence in movie world
Last evening I attended the Masterclass a Q-A session between Mira Nair and Sudhir Mishra , was really interesting, 3 hrs very well spent.Had a gr8 chat with Sudhirbhai after the session, very enlightening !!!! Missed you man !!!
GK
but you need to give credit them. from nobody they have become somebody. in a good way or a bad way they have become popular. that’s marketing. bad product good campaign n all of a sudden people forget about the product and it becomes popular. this is unfortunate side of capitalist society where insignificant people can sell their insignificant shit and become popular.
theoretically it’s very easy to prove something but the practical raw brutality is tough to handle. for example i m some unknown guy expressing my thoughts but u tell me express through ur work not words. then i’ll remain silent becoz i haven’t done anything worthy in life to tell proudly but c my words are still full of pride. we do what’s easy for us and what’s convenient for us and obviously sitting in a AC room and writing on a laptop is much more easier than go outside do the work and feel the heat.
so the most important line for our generation is ‘JUST DO IT’.
but those three people u guys are genius becoz EVEN I HAVE MENTIONED U GUYS AT THE END OF THIS Message. now u guys can die becoz that’s the highest achievement that u guys can achieve and you guys have already achieved it through this POST. CONGRATULATION
i don’t have the habit of writing long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long craps neway!
The 2 truths that percolate down from all the mindless and sonorous drone of pseudo-intellectual masturbation ( I call ‘em “Cam-Shots” with regard to cinema )…are :
1) Anurag has done more for cinema than all of us here collectively.
2) Every film-maker should,…MUST promote his film with all means at his disposal.
Anurag invited me to watch a rough cut of Dev D. many months back and I laud his effort.
I shall refrain from commenting on the home video.
I was on a three day trip, when I return to catch up on this discussion it’s turned out to be who is better than whom in films/ words etc. The last comment I made was in reaction to Anurag inviting suggestions to find the original voice/style etc…He even took a decision to work with more new writers.. what happened to all that? What happened to you’ll Anurag/ Anuj/ Nitesh/ Ankit talk about all that revolution and leadership? I thought there was a mutual agreement somewhere and we were progressing towards some action? weren’t we all throwing ideas to find that global identity ? I feel sad that to say when I left for my trip, to find the original voice was still brewing in my head, i was thinking hard, when I am back I don’t find anything related to that? Anyways this is not gonna deter me from throwing more ideas.
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The last one I suggested, when Anurag mentioned the Patron, was to have a workshop for producers, to which some felt it was impractical, to which Anurag feels his name won’t hold value anywhere else except PFC, which I disagree.
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here is another suggestion, At the Screenwriter’s conference, I remember Navdeep Singh suggesting to have a library of scripts of released films, when we have our own literature to study combined with other world cinema literature that is readily available we might be able to direct young writers/directors to find their own voice. Right now we depend on outside literature, so i think automatically, our new wave follows that form.
@Anurag
isn’t it possible to convince UTV to bring out a volume of their successful film scripts? What about other producers? I think if tied up with film schools in India, you can include some of them as case studies or part of a curriculum? Nitesh you did talk about film schools not having an ideology.
It’s also a business sense to publish these scripts, if commercially available. If you are gonna tell me who will buy these, if marketed well you’ll find your customer.
Here is why I tell you this, two years ago, I was in a roadside Tea shop in Trichur, Kerala. Me and my cousin were discussing films, when the tea stall guy got involved in our discussion, which I actually enjoyed, because i wanted to hear his POV on films. What surprised me was he could actually remember the cinematographer of Josh,(a hardcore mallu recollecting a hindi film cinematographer?) how many know? It’s KV Anand. my point is film appreciation is better in South, why? because their cine magazines also focus on the film making more than which stars make up our films? why can’t film making awareness on Indian films start in these magazines/ newspapers/ newsletters? I remember Anurag I used to follow your write -ups in Mumbai Mirror. I don;t see them anymore. Dedicate a column to film making exclusively every week. Recently I read a Filmfare where they had Vishal Bhradwaj, talk about his favorite scene, where Saif is hurt he does not get Bahubali position, and Vivek gets it. They had the entire screenplay of that scene printed and analyzed, I don’t see such articles. I remember long ago RGV wanted to start something like American Cinematographer, wonder what happened to that project? Does anyone know what are the costs involved to launch a magazine and how many years before you break even? Again if you show UTV there is an audience, they will buy your idea. How many film equipments are made in India? How many will advertise in such a magazine to cover some initial costs?
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Will throw more ideas, in case people are open to constructive discussions that throwing brickbats.
Van Gogh never sold a painting in his life time!
I agree with your suggestion regarding making Indian scripts available. I had searched the net a lot for Indian scripts. I wanted to see whether this 1 page=1 minute thing holds well for our movies considering that our movies are more dialogue oriented. The only Hindi script circulating online is that of ‘No Smoking.’ Published movie scripts definitely has a good market as currently evident in Kerala.
Regarding film appreciation being better in South, there are a whole lot of factors. Like difference in profiles of target audience. One cannot put everything on film magazines.
Columns by film makers pertaining to technical aspects are definitely going to help. Rather than educating the audience its going to inspire the students of cinema to make those first concrete steps towards making a movie.
But arent there some other things thats going to help them more?
We had a screen writing conference. Would something really come of it? The question is what should really come of it. Was it really to increase public awareness about this aspect of movie making? Or to give support to writers? If it is the second one has it really helped? Check this.http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=NLetter&id=e069ac41-b849-47f6-b009-1d3a58ef639d&MatchID1=4874&TeamID1=1&TeamID2=3&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1229&PrimaryID=4874&Headline=Budding+scriptwriters+waiting+for+a+chance.
We dont have a system which ensures that a good script written by an amateur writer will get noticed.
In the west, the solution for new writers is to take part in scriptwriting competitions which will help to show case their work. But here whats the case? How many are there conducted by reliable authorities? I know about atleast two competitions last year where even the results were not published.
Just saw the Duniya promo-longer version. Nice
its an instinct DEV D is a hit ….kp sailing d boat… we r cuming … and u ve spot the money on d rit man :ABHAY} jst kp doin d work so that the inspiraton stays with us ….dont wrry i am doing the marketing of the song by singing in my company…………..now give us a smile and promote dev d to the core…
when is the music releasing?
“story of a stripper in a L A strip club and a guy who is attracted to her ….. unrealised love story ….. it is Devdas”
aw god not again!!!!
Devdas is a quintessential love story of Indian origin. Devdas is story of a guy , who is self-destructing, who loves but doesn’t hv guts to get it, who finds solace in suffering, a guy who might break anytime and yet he continues enjoying his pains and finally succumbs to himself.He is more of a victim of his own weaknesses than outsiders and DevD is story of women,two women,one who was loved by DEV but couldnt get him and other who loves DevD but knows , she cant get him.Read SaratChandra to devour the original DEVDAS, it will bring pathos and melancholy in your eyes.
Its a pure commercial concept for its so close to Indian sentiments and tht’s why as you rightly said,has been explored immensely by directors(watch subtle versions of DEVDAS in Guru Dutts’s Kaagaz ke Phool and Pyaasa),and it poses a new challenge before an auteur to make it refreshing and contemporary and i hope DEVD of AK gives us another version of the DevDas.
P.S : Do read full work of Sarat to get different shades of women !! its amazing !!
so wait is over
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/audiolisting/13812/index.html
check here
You can listen to the songs here- http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/audiolisting/13812/index.html
Have read Debdas in the original. Wasn’t wowed by it. Agree with u on Saratbabu’s other work, though. In Bangla, we call him the Kathashilpi. His characters are really well-etched. But don’t you think the overall melodrama is unmistakable?
Still, he has lot to offer. A lot more than Debdas. Much of his body of work has been made into Bangla films, mostly starring matinee idol Uttam Kumar. But most of it was very rudimentary.
i just saw that, and was about to post the link. u beat me to it.
just heard ‘Emosional Atyachaar’. fucking awesome. heard both versions, but the Rock version is bloody awesome.
The guy’s given it a 4.5 out 5. AK, take a bow!
Should’ve said “AK and Amit Trivedi, take a bow!”
Very true of the Rock version, I am 36 now but felt like 21 and wild !!!
GK
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Where I live in US, there are no stores from where I get a Dev D CD (or any other Indian music CDs for that matter) - I will have to place an order online and wait for several days to get the CD in mail - and that is too darn difficult for me to do - as I can’t wait any longer to hear the songs!
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I hope the music will be released on iTunes in few days.
This ALBUM should be introduced to the international market. it deserves a place in top chart US UK n everywhere known unknown.
Amit Trivedi ne m** c*** d*
freaking awesome…even the rock version is great” yeah bitch!!”…and i am just on this song for now on repeat…havent heard anything else
‘The film changed, music changed the film, Amit trivedi changed the film.’- That’s a great inspiring way to complement !
All the best.
~fe~
Why do you think there must be a conscious movement?Why should it not be organic?Whats in it for the audience and for the filmakers?
Also, do you think the Naseer and Om Puri era in Hindi films was a movement? If yes,how was it brought about?Consciously or organically?
p.s. have you read Ayn Rand’s the romantic manifesto?
yesterday we saw dev.d’s poster, (yeah, i’m like really backwards, don’t watch tv AT ALL) and i told mum that it’s abhay deol behind the lips. we’d seen oye lucky! recently, and i knew i’d love that movie since the time i knew what it was about and who was at the helm.
mum and sis told it’d be exciting, but i sounded a word of caution. it’ s the same dude who made no smoking, don’t expect something that u could understand. paro is a socialite who uses her wits and charms to get what she wants. *cue raised eyebrow from me!*
so yea, i’m looking forward to it, i’ll prolly go to the theatres, just to support your kinda movies
well hats off to Anurag, Abhay n d entire team for dis modern version of devdas
Also Dev D is the answer to all those industry morons who were mourning when Bhansali’s Devdas didn’t make it to oscars…also Bhansali wud now understand that devdas is not about expensive sets,costumes,big budgets n a lead actor who can’t even act…its about love, passion, failure n pain…
and, that last story about the new camera technique from Danny Boyle was interesting… AK, good to know that you are buddies with Danny Boyle.. Trainspotting is one of my fav movies..
also AK.. dont get bothered by these armchair critics.. i liked your comment about how people have lost their curiousity.. very true..