Death of the Idealist
— “Men don’t see things as they are, they see things as THEY are”
What is the purpose of Cinema? Is it merely just another form of recreation or a reflection of something much deeper ? Over the last hundred years or so, cinema has come to mean much more than just another form of entertainment, it has in fact evolved into more than just an art form, the directors medium has come to reflect who we are and where we are going, it is a canvas of our hopes and aspirations and a mirror to our own self.
The proliferation of capitalism esp. free market economy in the last few decades coupled with the simultaneous decline of the left has contributed to the death of critical and healthy debate in our society, as we are sucked down deep into this cortex of growing and almost blinding consumerism our idealistic radical hero is slowly disappearing into the horizon. Attacks on Intellectuals have increased manifold over the years with the explosion of the internet and the social media.
One may remark that there is nothing new in this as intellectuals have been persecuted throughout human history for their radical ideas and thoughts, but a peek into history will tell us that these attacks have been against the ideas themselves or in some cases against the intellectual or the idealist, but never against the idea of existence of radical thinking itself.
The goal of absolute capitalism as we see it today is to deny the very basic truth that there can be any idea other than theirs, universities have surrendered themselves to the onslaught of this free market brigade and the graduate student, once the very fountain of all transformation in the society is now busy tuning his skills and thinking to the cause of the industry. The very few intellectuals left today have either defected to the right or are nowhere to be seen, the remaining few are vehemently attacked by the general public themselves on public forums(Chomsky is offered a guard every time he speaks in some university campus) who think that this exercise of radical thinking itself is an exercise in wastage, we are being led to believe that we don’t need radical thinkers anymore and that the world is a better place without them, that a thousand voices on a public forum can replace an intellectual and a thousand Twitter profiles can match the voice of one single Salman Rushdie , V.S Naipaul or a Chomsky.
The citizen has turned into the consumer, citizens rights have become consumer rights, education is no longer a right that should be free, it’s a commodity that we must pay for, It is alright to waste water and food if you can afford to, it’s your right we are told, our grand parents were taught that it is important to remember the idea and not the man, but popular wisdom today says that it is O.K. to forget the idea but not the man.
Market economies tell us that people can never be wrong, their choices can never be wrong; listening to this one cannot but help think that this philosophy has been 
derived straight out of the shopkeepers rule book “The customer is the king”. This is in direct contrast to the accumulated wisdom of centuries which tells us that people are wrong time and again and it is the job of the bright few to show them the path of light, the very harbinger of the modern age “The Renaissance” whether it’s American, European or Indian owes it’s existence to the simultaneous birth of some very bright individuals. The pursuit of Truth has nothing to do with the will of people. History is replete with examples where a mass of people have shown themselves as easily capable of atrocities as the tyrant living next door.
So where does this cinema come into all of this, a very pertinent question to ask, the answer depends on whom you ask this question, the capitalist will tell you that it’s just meant for entertainment, but then you must ask yourselves whether it is an art form or not, if it is then isn’t it supposed to be more than just entertainment, isn’t it supposed to be food for thought as well like all other art forms, while it is true that cinema is subject to individual tastes and even to the underlying cultural sensitivities of the casual observer but the thought process involved in it’s appreciation is not. The way one may like or dislike Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”, but to truly like or dislike it one must present convincing arguments and understanding the philosophy in the book is the paramount requisite for this, similarly one may like or dislike a certain form of art but it is none the less important to understand it.
It is indeed depressing to see how critical cinema is no longer debated the way it was, in fact it is alright to not watch it at all, we are constantly reminded that people have the choice to watch whatever they wish to watch just as a consumer is entitled to buy whatever he or she wishes to (at a price of course), but then people also have the right to kill themselves if they wish to, I wouldn’t call it the murder of the intellect but it is definitely equivalent to wasting the precious little consciousness which we are able to devote to activities other than work. So when Roger Ebert says that “The Transformers” is a bad piece of cinema, he is assaulted by one and all. For all the advanced medium of communications that we may have there is no intention of understanding each others point of view, it’s either your way or my way.
Even educated people have resigned themselves to the idea that it is the director’s fault when a good movie fails to gather public support; “the publicity and marketing must have been poor” is often used to describe the failure at the box office, while it may be true that publicity and marketing is important in today’s world, we tend to forget that it’s a skill that is taught in business and not film schools, the making of a good cinema has nothing to do with any of the business skills that the capitalist society at large stipulates that we possess. In the light of all this it would only be logical to assume that the blame lies squarely on the audience and the audience alone for the state which we are in. The thinking that because we pay for a show, we are entitled to see what we believe is an act of convenience forced upon by the capitalist mindset. Surely audience can have their own choices but these choices shouldn’t drown the radical and the original.
The 60’s and 70’s were very tumultuous times throughout the world which saw the birth of many counter cultural movements, art forms and styles in cinema. Here in India the unfortunate incidents throughout the Naxalbari movement and it’s associated splinter movements wiped out an entire generation of very bright and intelligent students who were our link between the old and the new. The brutal state repression in the aftermath put off the entire student community in India from ever engaging in any kind of thinking and student politics since then has come to be dominated by individuals who are mediocre at best. This also damaged Bengali cinema beyond salvation, a state from which it is still yet to recover. An entire generation of potential film makers, screen play writers, musicians, directors and others wiped out in that political storm.
The advent of liberalization in the 90’s and the full blown market economy since then has almost desensitized that wound. Keeping this in mind we should note that is imperative that we preserve the extinct breed of the radical film maker who is languishing in the dark room of that forgotten government film institute for he/she will be the source of all advancements in cinema. It is the society’s responsibility to provide for and preserve this breed of cinema by providing the film maker with opportunity and resources ensuring in the process that critical cinema does not die out. This is as critical as ensuring the continued existence of subsidized university education on the lines of free primary education for a student bound by economic considerations cannot think freely and hence is incapable of creativity.
We often confuse the illusion of choice which the free market economy bestows upon as consumers as power. The real power lies in being able to discern the anesthetic facade which shields us from the reality and being able to think beyond it, the real power lies in watching the magic weaved by Ray, the simplicity of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s humor, understanding the dilemma of Gregory Peck’s character in “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, and the ability to distinguish between a photo and one frame of a cinema which captures a lifetime of feelings.
However on a more optimistic note, the same technology that has made globalization possible is also going to be our savior, with improvements in technology the cost of making movies is bound to come down. The birth of the internet and social media allows us to reach to a wider net of individuals and blunts the advantage that the privileged have over the not so privileged. My sincere hope is that the same science which enshrined us in the modern age of reason also ensures the freedom of the individual from this materialistic madness.
I end this here with a song by the master who inspired us all to look inside and beyond.
Working Class Hero
As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.
— John Lennon
Tags: capitalism, Che Guevara, intellectual, radical thinking, World Cinema
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
Awesome – I feel very proud to even comment on this article!!!
Very valid thoughts – assault on the radical thought has been a well orchestrated corporatized process that has been helped by governments and their people. Its impact is directly felt in arts and cinema which is an awesome tool to reflect the society – now it is all pop corn munchers wanting to have ‘their payback’ for their 200 Rs.
A very well-thought and written article. I was born too late to witness the radical thinking and its death (the Naxalbari movement), but I do understand what it must have been like when I witness the vanity our generation indulges in.
On a separate note, I would like to counter your arguments saying that it is the free market economy and a capitalist society that enabled technological advancements like the internet, with discussion boards and blogs. It is this society that allows people from different careers and interests to come together, learn and discuss an art form like cinema.
On an open democratic forum, it is inevitable that personal biases and grudges will be displayed. People do look at movies like a commodity. But they don’t matter. In any society, even in the presence of radical thinking, cinema will have a section of audience that thinks of it as a product. Nevertheless, there exists another section that believes in the radical thought process, that doesn’t give a damn what others think and goes on to believe, create and discuss cinema as they want. And that section grows, with the advent of internet-based discussion forums. It allows people who view cinema as a commodity (from different parts of this world), to slowly understand what it takes to create an art form. The change, though not radical, exists.
In spite of its flaws, the free market economy and the technological advancements bring in tools to invigorate and spread radical thinking.
Vineet, its a kind of cycle, people move towards an ideology for various reasons, then leave it disillusioned. The US had a liberal phase in the 60’s and 70’s, but rising crime rates, defeat in Vietnam, Watergate all contributed to a disillusionment, which resulted in a conservative backlash. After the failure of Carter’s left-liberal policies, Americans sought solace in Reaganomics and a more conservative domestic and foreign policy in the 80’s. “Greed is Good” became the mantra of the 80’s, as Reaganomics and Thatcherism ran in full flow. But was it bad? Can’t say so exactly, it was those two ideologies, that led to the revolt in Eastern Europe and Russia, against the communist regimes, which fell like a pack of cards later on. Also i don’t agree with the fact that the political voice has died out. It was the bloggers in US who bought home the truth behind the War in Iraq, sure there was no Chomsky leading the protests, but it was citizen power there, making use of the Net, the blogs to expose the lies of Bush and his merry men.
Thought provoking post Vineet.
I think a free market economy with all its flaws is still the best we have. Its flaws reflect the imperfections of the world we live in. I agree that education is paying a heavy price thanks to the suppression of creativity and the “Another brick in the wall” approach. This is where i feel cinema and other art forms could play a significant role. The power of good cinema to disturb a consumerist psyche is underrated. All innovation is driven by intrigue which is what art forms like cinema backed by intellectual and radical thinking could provide.
COMMUNISM hasn’t failed man.
MAN has failed communism.
Totally disagree…Communism was a philosophy that was always meant to fail. The only question was WHEN…!!
i totally agree with u.i have ben having similar feelings for smtime now.u said it all.iwant to tell alot but can’t think of words.i also hope to hope against the hopeth
Interesting article Vineet.But a few things on my mind- why is intellect only a symbol of communalism or left centric- why cant it be associated with the right or free economy?
If I’m not wrong what is more of a concern here as pointed out by you is that cinema as made by intellectuals is on the dwindling side- agreed its a cause of concern.But I hope this is a passing phase and we create avenues in some way that intelligent/intellectual cinema still survives.
Dont forget masters like Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Shyam Benegal are still making movies.Now the need is for people to follow their path and fill into their shoes.as you yourself have pointed out- technology can act as boon here too if used and approached in the right way.
@Jaiganesh ,Aman and Ranjeeet
Thanks for appreciating the idea behind this article.
@Saurabh
I haven’t seen the Naxalbari movement myself, whatever I say are only recollections of my father, he didn’t participate himself but used to be a firebrand radical.
The original voice, one that is intense, opinionated and has an angst which is organic and full of conviction, is the one which is getting suppressed in the corporate mumbo jumbo of profit and numbers. Cinema is a creative business, it’s a medium which is capable of poignant social or political commentary. And that social commentary doesn’t have to be conformist. But even with corporate houses jumping onto the foray, increasingly, most films sound same, look same, feel same. Every body has conformed. To differ is to be immature. Where is a breathtakingly fresh perspective? Where is a difference of opinion so intense that it makes you think? Even if I do not totally agree with Anurag Kashyap’s views, I still love watching his movies because they have a personality. They have an opinionated stand point, a ferocious intensity borne out of belief. I fear the day when film makers like Anurag Kashyap starts making films like the rest. An important thing that critics and movie goers often miss is, they are not judges for cinema, good cinema often judge their intellect.
@sethu ratnakar ashwini and saurabh
My intention was not to debate the system of government, although I am inclined towards the left, I still believe that democracy is the most natural system of governance, my problem is with the mindless capitalism that we have all around us, money has no brain of it’s own and a free market economy only spells one word for our society “doom”.
We need voices on both sides, the left and the right for proper development, unfortunately there is only Right all around us and the left is dead, that is my grouse against the system.
Come on Vineet. Do you call bailout package demanded by airline industry as capitalism? Govt intervention into what and whom the banks can charge as capitalism? Trying to ration medicare as capitalism? Free admission into IITs and IIMs just because you belong to a particular community as capitalism? Throwing away of Reliance Retail from many states as capitalism? Trying to screw up freedom of speech every now and then as capitalism? Taking almost a decade to build a bridge or flyover as capitalism? Capitalism never had a say in India and I dont think it ever will. Its socialism and not capitalism that stands for dictatorship of proleteriat. Supplying what the UNDESERVING majority wants is not the motto of capitalism. Capitalism stand for EARNING your desires and unabashedly enjoying it.
Coming to cinema. Well people like YRF and many others provide the public with what they want and to some extent I do believe that people in India dont deserve any better. I dont think YRF goes about stopping others from making the kind of movies they want to make. RGV has been making his kind of movies, irrespective of the fate at box office, for the last 2 decades. Even AK and others make what they want to make. What exactly is your grouse? Thay such movies dont do well at box office?? So you want to force your opinion on others? How can people hate DevD and lap up Rab Ne- Is that what you are complaining against? So, what do you want? DevD to do brilliantly at box office or Rab Ne to perform badly. But my dear friend, if and when that happens, I am pretty much sure that people with start pointing their guns towards films like DevD and start lobbying for films like Rab Ne.
Let the market decide what it wants and deserves. As long as there is a demand for any product, there will be a capitalist who will produce such a product. Yes, the supply of such products may not be abundant, but then so is the demand.
I dont want to get in any kind of debate. All I want to say is that everyone has the right to make his own choices and no one else has got the right to force his choice, be it of movies or anything else, on others. You watch or make your kind of movies and let others watch or make their kind of movies
I know your all questions are directed towards Vineet but sorry I couldn’t stop myself to make some comments on it.
I think here a lot of problem arises because we want to categorize an economy into some brackets such as capitalism or socialism. The capitalism and socialism is used here as metaphor for general philosophy of a governed economy not specific decisions. For example you can find lots of decisions in US also which would indicate towards Socialism but in principle the economy is capitalist.
Supplying what the UNDESERVING majority wants is not the motto of capitalism. Capitalism stand for EARNING your desires and unabashedly enjoying it – The idea here has been put very lightly. What do we mean by undeserving here? Let’s take the case of IIM and IIT reservations….a boy who is poor or been subjected to prejudices is been compared with the boy who has lived all his life in comfort. When we talk of underserving, should we not consider what background he come from…..what sort of prejudices he has to face in life……what sort of education he had……For a particular exam he had enough time (working due to financial problems) to prepare and also had means to do it. If we talk about IIM’s, which consider student’s background in giving admissions; we should ask whether an average poor student will have equal quality education or footing in extra-curricular. Here please don’t take education only in terms of percentages scored but the quality of teachers and infrastructure also. And despite this huge difference the poor boy is equivalent to rich guy then isn’t poor boy has put more efforts in life den a boy with means. Who is undeserving then? If a boy who has all the means get 99 percentile and a boy with no means get 95 percentile….in perspective they are equivalent….coz the poor boy never had means to get the quality education compared to guy with enough means.
If we only talk from the perspective of education then only people with means will get quality education (and products) in an capitalist economy and the poor will get lesser education….and this will reflect in their future career progression….though there will be exceptions but in principle the poor will remain poor and rich will remain rich. This is the main reason why some element of socialist always operate in an economy….it helps to create balance and provide opportunities. On same principle it is hard to distinguish between deserving and undeserving. We just can’t go about and say that a guy with 95 percentile is undeserving. And if he is undeserving due to circumstances then government and society should make some concessions to get them to equal footing.
I’ve just taken one example to justify my point but you can find same analogies in every field.
Coming to the cinema, “What exactly is your grouse? Thay such movies dont do well at box office?? So you want to force your opinion on others?” – I think the idea of vineet is not to force any opinion. I think his idea is this – “similarly one may like or dislike a certain form of art but it is none the less important to understand it.” You see I think anybody here going ‘for’ the article doesn’t want to force any opinion. But what we like to see is that people should understand and make informed choices. You see the purpose of regular education is also to prepare students to make informed decisions with some basic guidelines such as ‘violence is not a solution’. I think the purpose here is the same that somehow we should make people understand that what is cinema., what is the finer points of this beautiful art-form. The purpose here is to somehow find a mechanism which will enable people to make smart and informed choices. We should find some way by which at least general public gets a sense of quality. Right now all the education about cinema is through capitalist way. We tell people about the product (a movie) though advertising and promotions. People make choices based on stars, the product’s advertising, the perception of friends and some inner gut feeling. What should infact be the case that he should himself have some sense that what is good movie. If we leave it everything to capitalism then people will make movie which sell and people deserves, as you said. If this will be the case then where will the room for improvement, because public will be keep wanting same thing for quite some time and people will be keep churning out the same, as happening right now. The filmmaker who has vision or think differently won’t get any chance coz economics doesn’t permit it. You see we go into a vicious circle where we keep churning out same crap stuff and people still loving them (I’ve still not talked about the people’s preferences here). To make any system run smoothly there should be some governing principle which leaves room for improvement or take into consideration different opinions. Here plain economics doesn’t apply to it coz the situation is very much deteriorated and if we leave everything to it, then it will take ages to improve the quality of cinema (assuming that some day people’s taste will change and quality cinema will be supported by economics). To make some rapid changes we’ve to find someway which will infuse a sense of cinema in public and that can be done only through education (through seminars, festivals, support from stars etc) and awareness. Again I want to reiterate is that – the main thing is to enable public to make informed choices not to curb or dictate their choices.
Thanks Tapan, I couldn’t have put it any better, the purpose of total capitalism is to drowse us in opium, and let us believe that it is freedom.
I want people to think independently and think for themselves, and to do that we need intellectuals, anybody who is a student of history will tell you the same thing.
Let’s take an analogy here, for over two hundred years the industrialized west fed on the world’s natural resources, with absolutely no regards for the environment, it was a direct of the consumerist/capitalist mindset, where one car was sufficient, the companies told us that we should have two, instead of investing on public transport and urban planning, governments ended up spending on subsidizing transport companies, this happened while scientists and environments all around the world gave dire warnings of species disappearing and oceans heating up. No one bothered to listen to them, in many cases companies funded counter research projects whose only aim was to counter such ideas.
Everyone was drenched in the success of the consumer, and look where it has brought us today, there are more hurricanes, more disasters, polar ice disappearing and what not. The question we must ask ourselves is that “Is this the path we want our kids to take?”,the problem is more fundamental here,”Is the purpose of life just to amass products, consume them and die ?”, where is the thinking element which has distinguished us from the rest of the animal kingdom. The salvation lies in the answer.
Fu@#ing Awesome Vineet !!! Finally someone said.
The 21st Century no longer has any Intellectual film makers. The films of Bergman, Kubrick and perhaps Linklater are all that the present generation can quench their thirst in . Fight Club was the last attempt of shaking our race up and taking a stand.
Capitalism has failed but the human race does not have the balls to make a change. We’ll die but we will not fight to save ourselves. Is this what they call evolution ?
Very well written post.I really feel that the education system present in India is solely responsible for the lack of intellectuals in each and every field today. I mean its a system thats designed to churn out robots. Having gone through it, I can tell you that it what nothing short of torture. There is very little or no scope to explore ones creativity, to express ones individual opinion and so on.
This is directly reflected in each and every field including cinema. Why do you think most of the films coming out of India look and feel the same, yet end up making handsome profits for the producers. Doesn’t it surprise anyone that people are consuming the same garbage being thrown at them by the film makers for years. There a heard mentality among the people of India, where if a single persons actions end up being profitable for him, the next day you’ll see at least 50000 people blindly imitating the very same actions of his. The same happens in case of cinema. If a film based on an experimental theme or concept ends up bring successful, it’ll just be a matter or time before you have a dozen films on the same subject. Its as if people don’t have a brain of their own and that they’ve lost the ability to think.