July 15, 2009
Banno has a lovely article on the relationship between a filmmaker and his subject here:
getting up close | Upperstall Blogs
My favourite line from the article, just to get you off your lazy ass and click on that link:
When he chooses to film a bar singer, he also chooses to film his own fascination for her.
I wonder how many filmmakers realize this, even when they don’t put themselves in the frame with their subject.
February 2, 2009
The opening credits of Luck by Chance appear over a montage of shots that depict the frayed boundaries of what is sometimes referred to as the Dream Factory. Old security guards, projectionists, dilapidated buildings serving as make-up rooms for the extras…
The funny thing is, it strikes you neither as a preview to a Madhur Bhandarkaresque expose, nor as a glimpse of the rose-tinted world that is often affectionately referenced in many other movies set in the film industry. It just feels real. It is as though Zoya Akhtar is saying, “I don’t need to satirize or lampoon this world in any form. I just need to keep my camera trained on this world.” There is genuine affection in that unblinking gaze.
I say this, of course, with absolutely no idea of what the film industry is really like. (When has that stopped me anyway?) But as a world created in a movie and inhabited by its characters for the running length, it rings true.
Take the scene where a bunch of young hopefuls are graduating from an acting class, with Mac Mohan presiding over the proceedings. When he gets up to speak, one of the students ask him to speak his line from Sholay, and the man obliges: “Sarkar, poore pachaas hazaar.”
The beauty of it is, that scene plays tangentially like the ending for a Mac Mohan biopic. I haven’t seen enough of the actor to judge his talent, or what he would’ve been like in a more substantial role. Maybe it is his tragedy that his career has boiled down to that line. If you didn’t keep track of actors’ names, you’d probably just refer to him as the guy who played Samba. But think about this for a moment: nine of ten actors in that graduating class should be so fortunate as to have at least this much to be remembered by.
The central conceit of the movie is that an actor gets the lead role in a big production through a series of chips falling in place at exactly the right time. Some of this is his own doing, his flattery of a yesteryear actress at a party serving him well at the right occasion. However, when he sees his competition sitting across him in the studio and waiting for his audition, he is not above a little carefully done gamesmanship. And when the actress’ daughter (who is his co-star as well) comes on to him, he decides to play this new card he’s been dealt. And this despite having a girlfriend — another struggling actress who unwittingly played a part in his rise — waiting in the wings. And so it goes.
The plot doesn’t entirely escape the shackles of the struggle-rise-corruption-realization cycle that one automatically expects from this premise. The good news is, it manages to do it with a fair degree of realism. Consider the scene where Vikram (the protagonist) gets a call from the big producer’s office asking him to turn up for an audition. The scene is set up so that you imagine he’s finally made it, until you see him entering a dingy hall filled with other actors who have been called to the same audition. The next three minutes are a master class in depicting gut-churning anxiety without too much outward expression, while Sapnon se bhare naina plays in the background.
What kept striking me throughout the movie was how precise it was. There are moments of obvious satire, but the thing is, the movie doesn’t just know it’s satire, it knows it’s obvious. So it plays down the reaction shots to the point where the actors just suggest what they think and let you fill in the gaps. I like it when a movie trusts our intelligence and doesn’t feel the need to spell it out.
The performances are absolutely spot on. Farhan Akhtar creates a character who we have seen before in the movies, but never quite played this way before. He seems to be making a career out of perfect understatement, and the industry is so much the better for it. Konkona Sensharma plays the jilted girlfriend — there’s an undercurrent of irony in the fact that her character, a small time actress, keeps complaining about being typecast in “sister” roles, while Konkona herself seems to be caught in a different, but similar kind of rut in some ways.
Come to think of it, for a movie about struggling actors trying to make it in an industry filled with star families and beauty queens, the only major characters without pedigree are Dimple Kapadia and Isha Sharvani, who play the yesteryear diva and her daughter respectively. Dimple does what Dimple does — this character isn’t a stretch for her, but you can’t imagine too many other people in that role. “A crocodile in a chiffon sari,” one character calls her at one point. Isha Sharvani, on the other hand, is an absolute revelation. After the critical and commercial disaster that was Kisna and a few years in the wilderness of Good Boy Bad Boy and the like, this is her chance to make it big, and she grabs it with both hands. Rarely do actresses get to have this much fun in a role.
Rishi Kapoor seems to be having the time of his life now that he no longer has to play the romantic lead. As the big producer trying to get his movie completed, he is a joy to behold. Likewise, Juhi has slipped quite nicely into the supporting actress slot and become someone who automatically makes you smile when she appears on screen. Arjun Mathur plays Vikram’s old friend Abhimanyu, now trying to make a career in theatre, who verbalizes the occasional discomfiting truth. Ordinarily, he would be written simply as the conscience keeper with no additional function, but the script has the sense to treat him as an actual person and give him his own axe to grind.
My favourite supporting performance though, is that of Sheeba Chadha (thanks, Banno!) who plays a small-time producer Chaudhary’s (Alyy Khan) wife and Juhi’s sister. There is a moment where she sees her husband with a woman he is having an affair with and has just dumped, and knows what she is seeing but probably can’t even admit it to herself, much less confront her husband about it. Her conversation with her husband strikes such a perfect pitch, it feels like a punch in the gut.
Hrithik has an extended cameo as a superstar Zafar Khan, the star who walks out of the big production to star in a Karan Johar movie, thereby gifting Vikram the break. Interestingly enough, it is Karan Johar himself who points out the folly of this move. His reaction to that is a study in carefully practiced inscrutability. After the movie, my wife and I were discussing what it would be like if he had done Farhan’s role. Personally, I think he now has the acting chops to do it, but his screen presence is too overwhelming. If you could take Hrithik the actor from today and Hrithik the star from around six years ago, you’d have your man.
Aside: Interestingly enough, rediff.com reports that Hrithik originally turned down Farhan’s role when it was offered to him. I think it was a few years ago.
Other well-known film personalities make guest appearances, either as themselves or in a small supporting roles. Their appearances are mostly used well and not just piled into one overlong song sequence (do I hear sighs of relief?). Anurag Kashyap has a nice turn as the hassled scriptwriter. Saurabh Shukla steals the show as the acting teacher Nand Kishore. SRK appears as himself and dispenses sage advice at a critical moment. Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Hirani, Manish Malhotra, Abhishek Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Ranbir Kapoor, John Abraham, Kareena Kapoor and Akshaye Khanna all get a little face time. Of the lot, Akshaye seems to have the most fun — God, does that man radiate smugness!
But my favourite is still Mac Mohan.
ps: While you’re at it, go read this absolutely fantastic piece by Banno on her reactions to the movie.
January 17, 2009
Not from me, although I have much to be thankful for. This one is about acceptance speeches.
My friend Rajendran posted a comment to my Kate Winslet post asking whether the reference to Emma Thompson was due to her acceptance speech at the Globes years ago, for Sense and Sensibility (Thompson won for Best Adapted Screenplay). And I realized that not many people might know about this little gem. So here it is, in full:
Thank you very much. Good Heavens. Um, I can’t thank you enough, Hollywood Foreign Press, for honoring me in this capacity. I don’t wish to burden you with my debts, which are heavy and numerous but, um, I think that everybody involved in the making of this film knows that we owe all our pride and all our joy to the genius of Jane Austen. And it occurred to me to wonder how she would react to an evening like this… [Puts down statue on stage, reads paper] And this is what I came up with.
Four a.m., having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintences. There was Lindsay Doran of Mirage, wherever that might be, who’s largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly appeared to understand me better than I understand myself. Mr. James Shamis, a most copiously erudite person and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has learned to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Kenton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a great deal of money. [Breaks character, smiles] TRUE!! [back in character] Miss Lisa Hanson of Columbia, a lovely girl and Mr. Garrett Wiggin, a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing, that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activity until 11 p.m. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due, therefore, not to the dance, but to waiting in a long line for a horseless carriage of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport.
P.S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Thompson, who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious Creature!
Thank you.
This is the sort of speech that makes for a wonderful trivia question, and warms the cockles of my quizzing heart. She followed this up with an Oscar win as well, although that speech was marginally less wonderful:
I don’t really know how to thank the Academy for this. And if I try we’ll be here till Christmas. So I better get on…
Before I came, I went to visit Jane Austen’s grave in Winchester Cathedral to pay my respects, you know, and tell her about the grosses. I don’t know how she would react to an evening like this, but I do hope — I do hope she knows how big she is in Uruguay.
Profound thanks to Columbia Pictures and the lovely forms of Lisa Henson, Gary Wiggan, and Mark Canter for hiring a first-time writer; to James Shamus for his rare intelligence; to Sidney Pollack for asking all the right questions, like ‘Why couldn’t these women go out and get a job?’ Why, indeed. To the cast and crew, for being impeccable. To my friend and my teacher, Lindsay Doran, for being the single most frustrating reason why I can’t claim all the credit for myself. And finally, I would like with your permission to dedicate this Oscar to our director, Ang Lee. Ang, wherever you are, this is for you. Thank you.
Source: Wikiquote
Bonus feature
Since I am in a generous mood (also since I don’t have to do much else other than cut-pasting these items here), here are Youtube links to Hugh Grant’s acceptance speech for his second Golden Globe win (Best Actor in a TV Series – Drama, for House):
September 18, 2008
This is, absolutely, without doubt, the best performance of The Beatles’ Hey Jude I have ever heard. ’nuff said.
Hat tip: To Nithya, who posted the link on her facebook page and alerted me to this gem.
September 8, 2008
I found this little gem when I was searching for some other link in my bookmarks. It got filed under a work-related folder by accident. I think.
If ever you feel like reading a nasty review of a bad movie would make your day a bit better, go search for Roger Ebert’s zero star reviews. It’s not just that he tears the movie apart — he does it with such style that you feel like watching the movie just to see what he wrote about. Here’s one that I particularly like.
Dirty Love :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
My favourite line in the review:
She (Jenny McCarthy) is cheated on by her boyfriend, Richard (Victor Webster), aka Dick, who looks like the model on the cover of a drugstore romance novel about a girl who doesn’t know that guys who look like that spend all of their time looking like that.
As analogies go, that one is positively Wodehousian.
August 27, 2008
Elsewhere in the blogosphere, there’s a lovely discussion going on. Beth started things off with her analysis of a scene in Chak De India where the team gets together to beat up a bunch of eve teasers. Her point was that the violence diminished the message:
Here’s what’s bugging me. Apart from this scene, Chak De! India is for me a feminist film, unapologetically, boldly, with heart and humor. But women taking on the worst behavior of men and/or male-established/dominated society is not what feminism about. You don’t get to attack people because they mistreat you. Of course these jackasses deserved to be punished. Their behavior was harmful and hurtful and unacceptable. I was totally with Balbir when she yelled at them, and I absolutely do not think females must be quiet and just bear whatever sh*t is dished out at them. But vigilante violence isn’t really the answer here – in my mind, it’s not even an answer (which is one reason I don’t always love the 1970s Angry Young Man acrhetype). In a story that highlights personal and professional success by playing by the rules and behaving ethically and with concern for others, it doesn’t fit. I’m so disappointed that not only does the movie have the girls engage in this behavior, it also has this outburst of short tempers and violence serve as the bonding moment, the experience that enables the very existence of the team continue. What’s the message here? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? We will rise when we beat down others? The people who mistreated us behave like this, so we should too? Violence demonstrates our potential for greatness?
While her point is certainly valid, Amrita responds with an interesting take on the issue, from the perspective of someone who has grown up in India and faced a lot of eve-teasing:
This is why that scene in Chak De struck such a chord in every single Indian woman I know. There is not one of us that has not experienced a moment like that one. A moment when we would have done anything just to rip some motherfucker’s throat out but had to satisfy ourselves with a few choice insults or maybe a dignified silence depending upon the circumstances, our personalities and our upbringing. If there’s something that Indian women across caste, class and regional lines can relate to, it’s being harassed. Therefore it was a cathartic moment to watch those guys get beaten up – our long suppressed wishes were being fulfilled on screen in one glorious scene. And unlike other Bollywood movies, where women only get to beat up evil doers in the most “eeks! don’t break my itsy bitsy fingernail” uber-ditsy feminine manner possible by using lampshades and sandals, and that too only with the help of either a cunning, faithful dog or a massive crowd, these women were using hockey sticks, those oh-so-macho tools of every gangster’s trade and they didn’t care if they broke a few tables along with their fingernails.
Judging by the response to that post, titled 16 Angry Women, there seems to be a wellspring of support for her thesis.
As part of the movie, the scene is a bit problematic. I suspect Amin put it in because he had to go from a point where the team was united against Kabir to a point where the team was united under Kabir, so he used the fight as a way to make that transition. It’s a commonly used ploy — create a situation where they are all on the same side. But I don’t see the logic here — why would the team suddenly feel like Kabir is “worthy” of being their coach, given why they rejected him in the first place (his “traitorous” past, so to speak)? From that perspective, I still feel it wasn’t as effective as it needed to be.
But seen in isolation, it is quite interesting what the scene represents and what reactions it brings out. We react well to violence in the movies when it arrives as the solution to a lot of pent-up frustration. When a much put-upon hero finally breaks loose and bashes up the first bad guy unwise enough to cross his path, we feel satisfied. Judging by Amrita’s post and the reactions to it, this seems like a similar situation. Except that the individual experiences of women in the audience, not the script itself, sets it up.
August 12, 2008
A link to begin with. An actor-producer who has become consistently more interesting as the years pass, in the words of a critic with a more idiosyncratic voice than most others in the business:
The Creative Art of Compromise | Blogical Conclusion
One interesting point that Baradwaj Rangan makes about Aamir Khan concerns how he has milked the multiplex revolution for all it’s worth. He doesn’t really elaborate, but the basic idea seems to be that multiplex audiences are willing to fork out money for a different kind of experience than single screen audiences.
Now, I am not entirely sure about this: the box office receipts for movies like Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na are high enough that they seem to indicate a wider acceptance than just the PVR crowd. My guess is, what Aamir has milked is not so much the multiplex cow but the Bollywood-focused-TV-channel cow. His ability to come out of the woodwork and publicize his movies extensively and well has been a huge factor in the box office fate of his productions.
However, let us consider for a moment, the point Rangan makes about multiplexes promoting the growth of slightly more offbeat cinema. I’m not talking about completely arty stuff here. Just good commercial cinema that wouldn’t even have gotten made, had there not been a way to reach its audience. Namely, multiplexes. The movies I talk about are far more likely to be screened in multiplexes than in single screen theatres.
Now, why is that? I figure the reasons for this are:
So far so good. However, what interests me more is how this situation might evolve. If you read reviews by people like Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli, you see them often lamenting the fact that multiplexes don’t support independent cinema in the US. This may be an exaggeration, but the point seems to be that the ‘plexes (especially in the smaller towns) mostly just play stuff that are safe bets. Is that where we are headed as well?
This is what I think will happen over the next decade or so:
‘Plexes come up because people can afford the ticket prices. This is currently most true of the larger cities but is becoming increasingly true in the smaller ones as well. When this happens, there will be more avenues for playing slightly offbeat stuff in these places. Supply will influence demand, and that sort of cinema will become more popular. As a result of the feedback loop I spoke of earlier, this cinema will also become more inclusive, in a sense. It is not that the staple food will suddenly disappear from the landscape. It will just become a little bit easier for offbeat stuff to get funding. We will still produce the same amount of crap overall, but the manure is more likely to be spread around.
However, as this happens, our definition of the word “offbeat” will change. The line between commercial and “art” films won’t disappear — it will just get redrawn. When you think about it, this has always been the case. Every time some movie on the “other” side of the line succeeds at the BO, the line moves a tiny bit towards it. (For those familiar with artificial neural networks, this might be reminiscent of the perceptron learning rule. For the rest, this might just seem like common sense.)
Ten years down the line, it is likely that someone will lament the fact that the ‘plexes don’t support independent cinema in India. It is equally likely that I will be the one doing the lamenting. Until then, keep watching the good stuff wherever you may find it!
June 23, 2008
George Carlin is dead. He has ceased to be. He has expired and gone on to meet his maker. He has shuffled off his mortal coil. He…
As a Python fan, this is probably the best tribute I can pay to a comic I love.
I first heard George Carlin on an airplane. I was on a flight from Heathrow to Chennai and one of the in-flight radio stations was playing his rant on airplanes. I think the elderly Brit gentleman across the aisle from me was a little put out by my uproarious laughter, but I’m sure anyone who has heard that speech, especially on an airplane, will sympathize with me.
I wonder wat it was that worked so well for me, other than the fact that the material itself was funny. My conclusion is, it’s because he’s old, looks curmudgeonly and has got a raspy voice that simply drips with annoyance. I think the old part is crucial — many comics are unafraid to kill sacred cows in their act, but I think his age adds an edge to the irreverence.
I am sure he was quite successful and funny even when he was young. But I saw a couple of videos of his earlier work, and I got the distinct impression that I would’ve laughed harder at the same material if his beard was whiter. Maybe I’m just wierd that way. Apart from all the other ways in which I’m wierd, that is.
George, wherever you are (kicking back and taking harp lessons up there maybe), so long and thanks for all the laughs.
I wondered which George Carlin video to link to here, and finally decided on the airplane one for sentimental reasons. Have fun!
And for those of you who didn’t quite get what I was talking about in the beginning of this post, here’s the relevant Monty Python sketch.
May 6, 2008
I came across this recently and it totally made my day. A site called listverse specializes in compiling lists on various topics. Some of them are quite interesting, like the one on famous retouched photograps, but the one I found most relevant to this blog is a compilation of early film clips. Starts off with a sequence of photographs of a man named Michael Eugene Chevreul and ends with The Jazz Singer. An absolute must-check-out for people interested in the history of cinema.
April 29, 2008
This story of a deaf-mute who became an international cricketer was one of the most heartwarming movies of 2005. It did not resort to much gimmickry (except maybe the chakravyuh thing which didn’t work so well for me) and placed its faith in the inherent appeal of the story it told. Add to it a few wonderful performances (Shreyas Talpade in a breakout performance as Iqbal, Shweta Prasad as his sister Khadija and Naseer in fine form as his alcoholic coach Mohit) and you have a winner in every sense.
While there is much to recommend the movie, the scene that stood out for me came right at the end, when Iqbal has finally realized his dream of playing for his country. As he walks out of the dressing room and into the ground and the background score reaches its crescendo, you feel as triumphant as he does.
But what really got to me was this little moment when the camera focuses on his sister Khadija beaming like a small sun and wiping away tears of happiness. It is the sort of cliched scene that doesn’t seem like much when you think about it. I mean, the movie is pretty much over at this point and all the heavy lifting has been done already. But every time the movie gets shown on TV, I see that scene and it moves me.
I think it is because of how Khadija’s character is portrayed. Kid sisters in the movies are usually very stereotyped. If I go through the list of archetypes, I’m sure you can list three movies for each one: sachcharine, vivacious, virtuous, borderline promiscuous (but reformed after a close call), rape victim…
Khadija comes across as a real person. Protective of her brother, determined to do all she can to help him succeed and frankly suspicious of his coach’s ability to stay off the booze. And when Iqbal finally makes it, that little moment when she is on screen makes you realize how much it is her success as well.
