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iView Author:
Ritu Singh
(Jaipur, India)

EMAIL:
ritusinghrathore [at] hotmail.com

Cinema - Food for Thought

I love cinema. Cant say I grew up watching movies and loving them but eventually as I grew older, cinema liberated the voyeur in me. For me it is living someone else’s life from a distance. The feeling of ‘this could happen to me’!, it’s the travel, the spaces, the clothes, the people, the lives and how they all come together.

I am an avid movie watcher but I do so in the confines of my own space. Technology gives us fantastic surround
sound and very large screens within the comfort of our homes and saves me the discomfort of mediocrity.

The joy of watching films with like-minded people in a comfortable environment is unparalleled. Not to forget, the post
viewing reviews….apart from tremendously increasing my adjective vocabulary, it helps me understand my friends better. Cinema-for me, is ‘food for thought’ and very understandably, one man’s meat is another’s poison.
So this is how I look at it- in India, everyone eats dal, chawal, subzi,roti….this is the staple diet. Maybe a little extra spice one time, sour the next but basically it remains the same.

Similarly, everyone watches the regular, run of the mill bollywood cinema- some songs, raunchy dances, action and of course over the top dramatization. It goes down well. And why not, we all like our dal, chawal, subzi, roti. So don’t go on trashing the
KJs and YRFs- that is staple diet for so many people. And then there are those who like to try the same stable diet but with a twist. May be stir fried vegetables and a mix of two dals, staple yet ‘hatke’ but definitely not for everyone so you get a filtered audience. And in this way you keep climbing the food ladder and eventually will only have select few for a very very special and different meal because there are only so many people with enhanced taste buds and mind-set to digest that kind of cinema.

In this manner, it becomes easier for me to understand people. By knowing the movies they have really enjoyed or maybe not enjoyed, I know where they stand on the food ladder. Then of course, there is acquired taste. The first time I saw Clockwork Orange, it flew right over my head. Subsequently, a few years down the line, I had the opportunity to see it again and it blew my mind. To think that someone can actually visualize a story like that- same story, ordinary story but to see it in that light-that’s acquired taste and its definitely not for everyone!

Enough said about the viewers, time to dissect the makers. It goes without saying that whoever has ever made a film has done so with complete conviction and faith in the project. No matter how good or bad, the intent is obviously to put across a vision to entertain people, and what is cinema if not entertainment? What sets them apart is the vision! To be able to visualize Clockwork Orange, actually see it in his head and put it on celluloid, that’s what makes one chef world famous and the other reduced to
a rasoiya?

I love cinema. it gives me a better understanding of life.

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