Kill the cinephile in you… Let us start all over again
There’s a moment in Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona” when the tension between the lead actors (Bibi Andersson the nurse and Liv Ullman the actress) reaches its zenith, leading to a rupture of the film. The film-reel then catches fire. We see it dissolving on the screen. A total blackout follows, the film-bits come together and the film starts all over again.
A defining sequence in the film, it throws open innumerable interpretations. One significant explanation for the moment could be the power that Cinema carries with itself to seduce us based on the drama it throws up on screen. Cinema truly is the most seductive form of art to have ever been created and Bergman all through the film keeps us in close contact with that sensuality.
But then at this telling moment, he decides to hold the drama back and remind us that what’s happening on screen is not actually real. Beyond cinema’s seductive power lies the truth that it’s also an insulator for actual human emotions.
I think our conversations in cinema deserve a gentle reminder of this very important fact. It’s easy being a cinephile. Effortless would be the apt epithet for the transformation we all are unknowingly subjected to at some point in our lives.
But beyond a certain point, a cinephile like I see it, starts becoming a ‘marketer’. He questions art based on logic, forgetting very well that art is meant to reflect life and that life bases itself on the power of perception first and explanation later. Art is meant to be ‘felt’.
A marketer also theorizes and thus delimits art. Most often, he falls back on already established artistic judgments and holds it upright like ‘holy grail’ to reason. This time he puts aside the fact that art like life ought to be open to possibilities galore.
I don’t think art actually minds putting off considerations like patriotism, cultural sanctity or commerce in the pursuit of its arrogance.
The world is divided into two maybe – The artists and the marketers. Both inhabit their own personal universes and it’s only in the best interest of both to see to it that these universes don’t collide.
When we are first drawn to cinema we are drawn to its power to reflect our lives, our dreams, our secret fantasies, our fetishes. As we become ‘cinema literates’ however, the human connection starts to become a mere ‘subconscious function’. We might discover better ways to photograph our thoughts, but that inherent closeness with our own thoughts start diluting. We forget that a director, like every artist ought to constantly abide by one simple law… “Of being passionately interested in human beings”
As we become more and more creative, we start to dispel truth.
I think the greatest of film-directors… when I say the greatest I mean a Bergman, a Fellini, a Ray, a Kurosawa, and a Bunuel were merely driven by their desire to understand human nature. They studied it; they questioned it and sometimes were bewildered by it only to present their bafflements before us to know if we shared the same. Nothing else mattered to them. To them, there was nothing more romantic.
The second class of great directors, a Truffaut, a Scorsese or an Almodovar, were essentially cinephiles who later in their quest to discover the source of that allure that cinema exudes also discovered that ultimate truth that their idols always knew of.
I think all directors, both established and aspiring (I believe an ‘aspiring film director’ is as much a director as one working actively) eventually at some point in their careers ought to ask themselves a question.
It’s the same question that shows up in Bergman’s “Through a Glass Darkly” where Max Von Sodow’s character questions a haplessly out-of-focus Gunnar Bjorstrand , “Let me ask you one thing? Have you in all these years written even one word of truth?”
I guess its such questions that make cinema a sad medium to be a part of. Its questions of this kind that lead some people to suggest that an artist probably works best in anonymity. But it’s only such questions that can direct you to exploring the true possibilities of cinema.
Let us be passionately interested in human beings and not be consumed by the gigantism that this medium carries with itself.
If you don’t find anything strange about the everyday image of a small kid who flagellates himself for money, but spend time debating endlessly about the obscured contents of the suitcase in “Pulp Fiction”, you as an artist are not doing yourself any good.
Beyond a certain point…. You have to kill that cinephile in you… And start all over again.
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
a very relatable title & a very relevant post in times of ‘i-know-so-i-know-best’..baggage of history is not needed to ‘feel’ cinema as I FEEL it is intended to..we need not become ‘consumers’ of cinema in order to ‘understand’ cinema..I hv been sucked into this kinda “phase”, if I may say so, since last year or so..gettn DVDs,watchn them & consciously tryin to draw conclusions or being desperate to judge them & then gettn an urge to pass on/express those judgements so that I can reconfirm to myself that ‘i-know-so-i-know-best’..thankfully,since few weeks back I started realising that most of the times Im nt able to ‘enjoy’ the DVDs Im buying coz one,most of the DVDs I hv been gettn r either critically acclaimed or well-reviewed by ‘cinephiles’..so my basis of buying a DVD wud become – critically acclaimed or well-reviewed by cinephiles..two,while Im watchin these films Im consciously tryin hard to draw meaning(s) out of every frame..hence,kill the cinephile..lets start all over again..good luck!
P.S: I hope I got the point that u r tryin to convey Sreehari?
superb thought, Sreeehari…. I guess no rocket science got it wrong…. bole toh… he’s right with his take but what Sreehari is tryin to tell here… We cinephiles become so indifferent to moments/situations/charatcters thrown at us by real life situations… but if we c a similar moment in a film (with CUs, BGM etc.) we are touched… We r just overwhelmed by the medium, that we dont appreciate the reality reflected by it…. Thts the difference between artist and a cinephile….
I hope u get it .. i’m a bit bad at articulating my thoughts
hmmm..i thought i added some relatable & relevant points :(
k one of the most brilliant posts ive read in al ong time
Excellent post! The ability to capture human emotion requires the ability to be touched by it, to empathize, sympathize… The people who can do that are much more interesting than those who love deconstructing those who can do it.
NRS, Gaurang,Vivek, Shripriya,
Thank you all for visiting. But I think Shripriya probably came closest to what I was trying to say (I say ‘closest’ because I guess this was more like a ’state of mind’ than concrete presentation of a theory)
I would substitute the words ‘empathize’ and ’sympathize’ in Shripriya’s comment to ‘acceptance’..
I think great directors at the end of the day, even when riddled by their own shortcomings and those of the world around them, accept them whole-heartedly. Its this great quality to just accept humanity in all its shades and flavors..
What I dont get is the attitude of some cinephiles who ask things like, “I am still wondering where must have Mani Ratnam kept the camera while shooting that particular sequence in Iruvar”…. I am not necessarily demarcating the good and bad of cinematic interactions into the ‘personal’ and ‘technical’ respectively… No No I dont think its that simple… But its like, I believe that THE STORY for great directors, beyond a certain point becomes a matter of choice… They cease to be ‘artistic opportunists’.. The story part becomes almost like a small ritual, a very very small ritual.. Their films, even while being fictional accounts start to be extensions of their own point-of-views and judgments of the world.. And I think to bring cinema to that level of ‘human acceptance’ is a very romantic achievement..
“I don’t think art actually minds putting off considerations like patriotism, cultural sanctity or commerce in the pursuit of its arrogance.”….pure gold ji pure gold….wow!
great post
hey. thanks for a the post. very close to me personally.
the medium becoming larger than what it might have carried is a phenomenon at large now. television, cinema and even theatre and art.
the love of the form(as exemplified by the tarantinos) is not not a vice as long as it is understood for what it is- a personal indulgence.
content is prime. content is it. and content is what you see first before how you show it.
godard was a fine act of balance between obsession with form and content and getting them to work for each other.
Pragya,
Content… again… the topography that, that word covers leads us to a very vague territory… Its like saying “Cinema is entertainment and enlightenment” (which I think is the shittiest definition of cinema that I have come across).. like i said, this post isnt meant to demarcate the good and bad of cinema based on content and form…very convenient again..
I guess this post if I had to title it differently I would put it as “How long woud you wait to make your next movie?”… I think that is a very important parameter.. To have a definition of cinema and a POV about life.. Not an ideal POV.. but just to have one.. so that even the slightest of impulse tat u receive can be turned into something worthwhile.. To not be an “artistic opportunist”..
@sree
no i dont think i disagree with u on anything.
yes content and form are overused words and used to bandy cliches most often but they are workable enough variables (which by their definition shd be vague) to say something pointed and perhaps poignant.
i was only saying that the love of ‘cinema’(again a vague phrase but used here in the context of ure piece) as pure indulgence is great as long as it is not confused with its essence as a medium of expressing what we must. the process of making a film should not be seen as separate from the process of studying its subject.
im not sure we are disagreeing on anything except articulation. in which case my post maybe completely redundant except as a big nod of approval.
Whatever happened in Mumbai was terrible.. But I dont really think cinematically it deserves any attention.. because more often than not like its also the case with a badly made war-movie u tend to churn out tales of this altitude into stories of success and failure..while the fact remains that there cannot be any success that can result out of such catastrophes..
Which is why I thought that “Mumbai Meri Jaan” was a very good attempt.. Because the “bomb blasts” part of the movie was merely incidental u see..It was indefinitely a record of how we felt after the blasts.. About the general attitude that prevailed.. The human element that knows no such singular catastrophe but spans across all our basic emotions of wrath, prejudice, fear etc. There were parts of the movie that I thought were sketchy and to a large extent was salvaged by some wonderful acting.. But at its core, it was a “human story”..
// im not sure we are disagreeing on anything except articulation//
Though I dont want to start this year feeling totally sure about anything… But, yeah I guess its only articulation that’s failing us here..
Sree, using cinema as a tool doesnt necessarily mean using it badly though unfortunately we are more susceptible to expecting that. my point wasnt that stop lighting candles and make a heroes type film on nsg commandoes or a veer zaara to say peace. my point was use that time to introspect and create a new language for communication. a post by suparn got an insane number of people together one evening. imagine what the channelisation of that energy can do. i am not for reactionary cinema either but the incidental use of an incident to question our psyche is very viable like mumbai meri jaan has proved (despite the flaws). narrow minded activism can never yield great returns but that is not to say that an incident like 26/11 cannot be a valid enough point to start talking about a lot of other things, about the idea of india on the whole. ..
again i dont think i disagree with u in principle.
it is only articulation that is failing us everywhere sree. remember that tower of babel?
cheers to the new year, ure way, mine or someone else’s until there is an ours :D
Arguably, one of the top ten posts i read on PFC in two years.
Hey Sree,
The way i see it ‘Killing the cinephile’ means having a clean piece of canvas every time you think about creating a new pice of art be it cinema or any other medium for that matter.
When you talk about Kurusawa or Ray or Bergman it is essential that we understand the transition they went through with every film.
My guess is that they definitely had a clean canvas to work with and it was utilised to paint to perfection.
great post! Keep writing!
more knowing…less feeling…its killing….keep coming here when i feel im losing that grasp….