Arriving at Originality
Ratiocination
While watching Kaminey, I arrived at a flawed definition of originality.
Any work that can inspire an imitation is original.
Two corollaries follow:
1. Any work that doesn’t inspire imitation isn’t original
2. It is possible for an imitated work to inspire another imitation, in which case, it becomes original
Yes, I am in a mathematical state of mind today. Not the Prasoon Joshi kind which leads to lyrics like “yaaron ki equation hai, love multiplication hai, jisne dil ko jeeta hai, woh alpha hai, theta hai.” That would be a mathematical state of disarray. This is different.
I don’t know about you but I am particularly pleased with the above hypotheses. Why? First, it places the definition of originality not on the author but on the beholder. It’s not the intrinsic value (which is always debatable) but its impact (which can always be seen or measured) that determines originality. Second, it neatly sums my thoughts around this topic with, as is the wont of the tribe, examples.
Don’t run away yet. Let me explain.
Principal hypothesis: Any work that can inspire an imitation is original.
Example: A million and one. I will just leave you with Godfather and Deewar at this time. But I could have included Amar Akbar Anthony and (heavens!) Raja Babu in there as well.
Corollary 1: Any work that doesn’t inspire imitation isn’t original
Example: Let’s stick to any of the assembly line ‘male comedies’ that have been churned out in the last couple of years all of which owe their provenance to Hera Pheri
Corollary 2: It is possible for an imitated work to inspire another imitation, in which case, it becomes original
Example: This is interesting. Let me cite some examples. Sholay wasn’t an original. There were elements of Seven Samurai and a host of ‘westerns’ in it. But the whole package – script, cast, dialogues, background score – made it worthy of many imitations. So, it became an original. You can put Parinda there as well which took the Deewar template but inspired its own set of imitations.
So, where am I heading to? To cut a long equation short, I was disappointed with Vishal Bharadwaj’s Kaminey. I don’t hold originality (as defined above) as the only hallmark of a great film but in Vishal Bharadwaj’s case it is an important point of consideration. Among the 4 films of his that I have watched, 3 of them were literary adaptations, namely, Maqbool, Omkara and The Blue Umbrella. In all 3 of them, Vishal followed Corollary 2 where he took off from an original piece of work and marked it with his vision that made it uniquely his and that would, undoubtedly, spawn imitations in future. In short, he was building a brand of Vishal Bharadwaj cinema.
For such a filmmaker, Kaminey was a comedown. Would anyone imitate a Kaminey? Why? You’d rather go with the original in Tarantino or Ritchie. That to me is a letdown. And, I am not convinced about this argument that this was his take on a much loved ‘genre’ for an Indian audience that’s now ready. I’d rather show a Maqbool to someone who isn’t aware of Indian cinema to appreciate the originality and the indigenization of a Shakespearean adaptation than show him Kaminey and have him go – “but, this is Tarantino.” Or worse, I would not like to be someone who discovers Tarantino or Ritchie later in life and wonders – “wasn’t Kaminey like these films?”
Sure, Vishal Bharadwaj could have done to the genre what he did to the Bard in Maqbool and Omkara. There’s no doubting his abilities. To have elevated, what is considered to be among the weakest Shakespearean tragedies, into a masterful political tale of ambitions and deceit set in the heartland of India requires certain genius. Or, to dress up a somber storyline in the garb of a children’s film while subversively aiming for adult audience marks an extremely original artist.
But, for an admirer, the disappointing part in Kaminey is he didn’t do any of it. I won’t make it a litany of complaints but I can’t help pointing a few out. The script turned predictable after a while, the vernacular used without subtitles which is indeed a refreshing change in Hindi cinema has been done in Ritchie’s Snatch where you hardly understood what Brad Pitt and family were speaking, the acting by the ensemble cast was patchy and the token ‘Apna Haath Jagannath’ won’t make a summer. Contrast them with the Abbaji’s death scene within the “machchardaani” in Maqbool or Langda Tyagi (Iago) watching the coronation of Omi (Othello) as Bahubali with the havan going on. Shakespeare would have sat up and noticed. Peter Brook would have doffed his hat.
You might call it bad form reviewing a filmmaker’s work based on comparison with his past work. Then, I am not a reviewer of Hindi films. I am, possibly, a reviewer of Vishal Bharadwaj’s oeuvre. In that capacity, I guess my grouse is legitimate. May be, my expectations were sky high going in to Kaminey. But one of the few original voices in Hindi cinema deserves the burden of high expectations. I won’t grudge Vishal Bharadwaj his commercial success. He has earned it and I hope the film turns out to be a money-spinner.
That done and dusted, he may go back to winning over his disappointed admirers and inspiring imitations. I would prefer Vishal working on creating ‘Bharadwaj-esque’ as an adjective than trying to earn a ‘Tarantino-esque’ epithet.
I will be waiting.
Tags: Kaminey, Originality, Shakespeare
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Bravo
…finally a critique of Kaminey on PFC and that too a good one…btw Subrat your thesis needs some adjustments, the number of copies must be substantial(possibly N >2), and the copies must be made by someone other than the original creator.
Excellent review Guruji. And loved that take on originality.
who stole my picture… uncle aaap! I’ll be the one sitting in the hallway wearing a dunce cap
I heart vada pav
I would rather like it if you took your fully-loaded camlin compass to agyaat than to kaminey
lol lol lol lol
AGYAAT needs some lovin’ for sure.
Haven’t seen Kaminey yet, but agree with you on what you said. But I guess, we can live with an occasional indulgence, be it Kaminey or No Smoking
No we can’t. Haven’t you read other posts and comments recently? :P
For me Blue Umbrella was his high point. Don’t know if any other film would create the same mood again.
Ah !! Blue umberella was awesome. For me Maqbool and BU tops the list. Pankaj kapoor was awesome in both
Yes siree, true.anyday. I don’t know how come it doesn’t come across as a little too obvious observation that Shahid Kapoor sucks! I mean come on!
Ah !! Kaminey was overhyped. And The way AK has raved about both Kaminey and LAK , I was expecting a lot but was served with peanuts !!
No Shahid kapoor is no super star yet!!
sorry boss, i disagree!!
“Any work that can inspire an imitation is original”…what is the premise you base it on??
“It is possible for an imitated work to inspire another imitation, in which case, it becomes original”….i’ve heard better nonsense!!
who cares if anyone wants to make another omkara or a kaminey?? and why would you want to see another one?? and why this comparison with Tarantino?? Sergio Leone copied Yojimbo scene by scene without crediting Kurosawa,does that make his movie any good or him a lesser filmmaker??
Another corrollary needs to be added to this thesis…
N) Any film which the viewer is not aware of, that the original exists, is strikingly original or adheres to be unoriginal acording to 2) till the viewer sees the original
N+1) Even if the viewer sees the original, and the viewer feels changing a bit here and there accounts for consideration of 1) then again its considered original
These two corrollary are applicable to Raja Babu, Hera Pheri and most of the Hindi comedies made in the last decade…
The whole of bollywood is plagued with plagiarists of one kind or the other…who cares
How did your article get published? PFC seems to be currently undergoing a serious case of KAMINEY-flu where people are queuing up to sneeze out phlegms of high praise every hour or so.
VB has himself previously admitted his acute shortcoming when it comes to writing/ even-taking up original scripts. He says he’s more comfortable with Adaptations. But then-two commendable Shakespeare adaptations aren’t bad for someone who started out as a music director, kyon?
I liked your take and do appreciate the origanility of your thoughts, or maybe your thoughts are inspired but someone else’s. I liked the article, mazza aaya padhne mein.
hmmmmmmmmmm… Interesting… Yet to see the movie, but the point seems valid. Will check out the movie to see if he surpasses Tarantino-esque to actually agree/disagree with the article
don’t really agree with your original/imitation definition…its still not math. its more like free-willy logic. you can’t define originality based on whether some one else wants to copy it.
But I do think your analysis of Kaminey was pretty much the way I felt while watching the movie. First day first show…high on expectations, but alas, Vishal Bharadwaj could’ve given us a different treatment of Guy Ritchie or Tarantino. Never got the high I was looking for. The ending being the worst part of the film. Hope VB goes back to his earlier methods…
“but, this is Tarantino”
what part of Kaminey is Tarantino?
Donno much about QT but seriously would someone actually decipher it to me as Subrat has, as to why he was disappointed with Kaminey.
And is Kaminey like RGV said “Sarkar would not have been made if THE…. was not written/made”
So likewise people are dead-sure that Kaminey would not have been made if QT and GR did not exist?
I thought it was a more a super Yaadon Ki Baarat Redux for me.
And QT himself being a cine-buff filmmaker making films on the films he has grown up on and an original at that to spawn more inspirations. hmmmmmm….
Duniya mein…..ah.uh.uh..uh…logon ko…dhoka kabhi ho jaata hai…
VB is no less a film-buff and am sure Kaminey would have existed even if QT did not. BUT………….
Maybe even Satya’s ‘tere ko fridge lake dun kya…..’ joke by Chandar was QT.
Maybe Pankaj Kapur’s talk about the view of sunset and the rainbow being as fruitless as employing a chutiya assistant….in UB (ok that has a direct QT ref.
)
Maybe ‘tere mathe pe chutiya likha hua hai’ is also QT when I think of it now.
Maybe anything which has more content than required in a scene which does not flow from the earlier scene or has no relevance to the next scene but still interesting is QT.
So maybe even the ‘Pyaar Kiye Jaa’ Mehmood/Om Prakash scene was QT.
agree with u totally…QT himself has openly taken inspiration from many sources…Kill Bill was heavily inspired by Japanese slasher movies…In fact it looks like a child’s play if u watch some of the Japanese samurai movies…Deathproof, as we all know, was a tribute 2 70s B movies…
didnt expect such a bizzarely personal/Ajeeb-o-gareeb/tangential/infantile response from you machcha. From your (and i confess mine too) mentor for sure i expect, but et tu brutus ????
Am glad subrat wrote this post. Not because Kaminey reminded me of QT/GR (and even if it did, am not holding that up against the Bardwaj).
Something was amiss for me – very good yeah. Film of the decade ??? No sir. I humbly disagree.
Maqbool anyday. Even omkara. Contentiously the film of the decade but this ?
Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
yet 2 see it…planning for this weekend in Mumbai…but I find this definition inherently flawed…
“Any work that doesn’t inspire imitation isn’t original”
There are many fairly original so called “arthouse” films that nobody watches and never even get a proper release…owing to their financial non performance they won’t inspire any imitation…but will it be fair to say they are unoriginal?
As far as Tarantino & Ritchie are concerned…I think it is getting a bit too much…Comparison is fair if it is a direct lift like Kaante…In this case let’s just say they fall in somewhat similar genre…why do we have to use them as benchmarks all the time?…(as a counter point..have they made films like Maqbul or BU or Omkara?)
VB: Mehmood/Om Prakash was QT
:) Anyway, it’s not about a scene which brings QT/Ritchie to mind, it’s the whole
To others who don’t agree on my take, I agree with you. I start this post with the admission that it is flawed. But why let flaws get into the way of making a good argument and hearing from others.
Ranjeet – you write, “How did your article get published?”
I don’t know. I just wrote something and lo and behold here I find it. Somewhat similar to the way your comment showed up. Mysterious stuff
Why are we all harping on about Kaminey being QT/GR inspired? How bout 99 and Sankat City? Extend your imagination a bit and we can bracket Johnny Gadaar, Mithya, Company and Satya in the same category. Stretch the imagination further (God forbid) and even Contract, RGV ki Aag (Deathproof), Phir Hera Pheri, etc. can be considered b@$tard children.
Premise, direction, casting and performances make for good original movies irrespective of how the seeds were sown which lead to the idea.
VB has once again ‘adapted’ something he likes. Just that this time its not a literary work. This time its a movie ‘genre’ – if at all there is a ‘genre’ specific to QT/GR movies.
maybe its me, but i didn’t find tarantino inthere much. :S
Dunno about QT or Guy Ritchie, but to me, Kaminey was a spin-off on Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron in todays times. Two central protagonists, a mad ensemble star-cast, almost every player being a kameena having an ulterior motive, chance encounters weaving one story into another and finally, all the characters coming together in a full 70 mm unfathomable climax sequence..It was comedy there, action/thrill here. I just couldn’t ignore the JBDY similarities. Btw, totally disagree with the piece above, I absolutely got the high I was hoping and looking for. VB rocks!!