Life, Approximately
One of the things that is odd about the way people in our part of the world look at films is the attention they pay to hygiene factors – production values, general level of slickness, etc. It is odd because it is often at the cost of the content – the story, the characters and the general standard of story-telling.
For example, not much else can explain the rather idiotic response to the recent Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye, the first one from across the border to be released in India. It is an outstanding clear-headed film, with both thematic weight and storytelling momentum, and tremendous relevance. And yet, many of the reviews, despite praising the film, pointed out its “poor production values” and “uneven performances”, to the extent where you often hear people looking for those moments to justify not giving it the kudos it deserves, conveniently overlooking the fact that most big budget Bollywood films have enough of this unevenness.
It is a malaise that is deep-rooted in our film-viewing consciousness – stars, dance floors and guns make people overlook all these hygiene factors, but the moment the content is less clichéd and intellectually provocative, the attention shifts to that and its apparent inadequacies.
This tendency may well play a big part in the low standards of cinema in our country. For too long now, the accent has been on glitz and glam, and top-class production values, too often to the detriment of content.
Internationally, a new breed of filmmakers took to digital filmmaking fundamentally for cost reasons, and they have been consistently shifting the goalposts of “acceptable” cinema year after year. So, a film like Once gets made on two Handycams for a piddleshit budget (Rs 27 lakhs when converted to rupees), or The Road To Guantanamo on two PD 170s – a camera that in India people shy away from for even standard TV shows because of its “flat digital quality”. Lars Von Trier is considered one of the greatest filmmakers alive today for his Dogma films of the 1990s, all shot on cheap digital cameras with natural light and zero frills.
It is ridiculous that in India we have not taken to digital filmmaking in a big way. It is an obvious way to scale down productions and even out the playing field. But wherever you go, you’ll hear the same refrain of how it looks “bad” and “flat” and how 35 mm film is the only way to make “good-looking” films.
But why do films need to be good-looking?
If the objective of a story-teller is fundamentally to examine life and depict it in its realness, and if we also accept that the most commercial purpose filmmaking can have is to tell stories (both pretty easy to nod too), then should not the look and feel of films (other than the obvious genre films) be faithful to life as much as possible? This is not to undermine the role of aesthetics or the imaginative unfolding of drama, but merely to question the big picture most of our films seem to be servicing.
Don’t most Indian homes have flat lighting, thanks to the omnipresence of tube-lights? Don’t most people around us wear imperfect clothing on a daily basis? Aren’t the props around us, office or home or college or school or public places, often unaesthetic and insignificant in the overall scheme of our daily life? Do these factors make us and our lives shabby? If not, then why are our films judged on different parameters from life itself?
Don’t the most significant moments in our lives happen in non-photogenic surroundings? Haven’t many of them occurred in poor lighting and perhaps even dreadful sound? But does their emotional or intellectual impact diminish because of that?
This is not a case to make fiction look like documentary. Or an argument to weaken the importance of attention to detail. God may indeed be in the details, as they say, but only if the big picture is clear. If the attention to detail takes the focus away from the big picture (a major problem with our cinema, and indeed storytelling in all media), then it is the devil who has had his way, in a manner of speaking.
The big picture? We remember films because of their soul. Not the detail that went to manufacture that soul. The big picture is always found through emotion and thought, not through the hawkish spotlight on the parts that make the whole. Somehow, we knew this instinctively 30-40 years ago, as even our mainstream popular cinema of that time will testify. All the films we remember – whether recent or classics, especially the latter, prove this. Today, despite all the talk about the “wonderful, new, courageous cinema” and “innovative multiplex filmmaking”, the souls of most of our films are borrowed, and their “Indianisation” of detail is supposed to compensate for it. And sadly, for a lot of people, it actually does.
It is not about blemishes at all. Imperfections are inherent in filmmaking. In any long piece of work, there will be flaws; it is the nature of the beast. The great film is not one without flaws but one where they just don’t matter.
The biggest breakthrough that can happen on a content level today in our country, is the advent of digital filmmaking. When the more original cutting-edge stories are shot on low risk budgets and blown up for the big screen. When, despite the second-rate picture quality (compared to 35 mm film), people come to watch independence of thought and familiarity of emotion.
It is a mindset change that needs to happen. Filmmakers need to stop thinking that digital is a compromise medium. Producers need to figure out ways of making it significantly profitable, as they have internationally. Post-production houses need to recognize the revolution this could usher in and the benefits they can get from that.
At the end of the day, the focus needs to go back to the material, to new ideas and new stories. OUR stories. Maybe then our society will actually start interacting with itself again – through the most important storytelling medium of the last 100 years.
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
Isnt sense of aesthetics,a part of story telling?
@Jaideep
Perfect write-up especially on this one below.
“The big picture? We remember films because of their soul. Not the detail that went to manufacture that soul. The big picture is always found through emotion and thought, not through the hawkish spotlight on the parts that make the whole.”
just remembered a charlie rose show with Innaritu, cuaron, and guillermo where they talked abt various movie making techniques and i guess innaritu’s is the one which perfectly fits ur description.
‘If the attention to detail takes the focus away from the big picture (a major problem with our cinema, and indeed storytelling in all media)’??!!
‘top-class production values’??!!!
are you talking about mainstream hindi movies Jaideep?? if so i hope u are talking about the ‘detailing’ or kareena’s costume or some stuff like that. because apart from 1-2 movies every year nothing absolutely nothing which comes from ‘bollywood’ gives the necessary attention to detail…
gawdy colors splashed on screen become substitutes for ‘detail’ and ‘beauty’ in this town…
‘big’ hollow sets which hardly fills up the tv screen let alone the big parda…
btw a lil bird told me ur Indian Ocean movie has found its distributor… no??
True Dpac..detailing in the real sense will always add on to story telling..would not digress from it.
WOW!!!!!!!!!! What a thought Mr. Varma…… emphasis should be on storytelling…… good u informed everyone, buddy i think this is something even a child knows but do you think coming with a good story is a child’s play. No it is not its a tough process actually very very tough, i dont want to harm anyone but its a fact even the people atleast i consider to be well equiped with this art are failing to create a 2-2.5 hr story, list is long but i would like to mention,
1. Subhash Ghai: This man gave us if not classics but nice stories to see, till he went out of stock with Taal, Yaadein etc etc.
2. Yash Raj: gave us Trishul,ittifaq, Deewar, even Lamhe was good, Darr and DDLJ now all you see is Tashan, Aajaa Nachle…..crap, except of one chak de or kabul express.
3. Jaideep Sahani: This man wrote Company, Jungle, Khosla ka Ghosla and chak de and his last work(i guess) was Aaja Nachle. cant Beleive.
4. Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Anyone remember Parinda or for that matter Khamosh now all we get is Eklavya.
5. RGV: Shiva…. what a movie to begin till he made Sarkar Raj….. boss where is the story.
6. Kundan shah: What happened to you sir, i guess you are he one who made JBDY and then KHKN.
7. Ashutosh Gowarikar: perfect example to prove that great idea strikes only once in life.
8. RajKumar Santoshi: Remember he made Ghatak and Ghayal and Damini he too seems to be out of story ideas.
9. Madhur Bhandarkar: Agreed his farmula of film making is realism but in reality there should be some content no just characters in a story.
10. And last but not the least who disappointed the most is Anurag Kashayap/ RajKumar, Mr Kashyap you was the one who has written Satya and Kaun and frankly they were damn good but may be not personal to you, Black Friday was based on book so leave that but why No Smoking so early, i wonder if you’ve seen the flick yourself before releasing it, what have you thought peaople are going to love it, forget loving and hateing people were not able to comprehend the direction Mr. Director and the you was crative head of Amir, in my true true opinion Amir should be part of Star Best Sellers and not a Feature Film palyed in theatre, it was good no doubt but was too streched.
Story is no doubt soul of a movie par jinhe naaz hai writing pe wo kanha hai………..
Gunjan ..there are a lot of good stories which turned to be bad wwhen done into a film..there is difference between a story,script writing and story telling.Lets not confuse them all into one.
jaideep…heard the good news few days ago. so when r u sharing it with all?
Hi guys, thanks for your responses, looking forward to more. The point of this piece, Gunjan, is not that storytelling is the most important thing but that production values are totally not. Details are not as important as we make them out to be (and yes, even those that contribute to the story-telling). I’m trying to understand why we have a mindset of detail over big picture, why making a film on digital, even when you have a choice to make it on film, is anathema for so many people here.
And, DPac and Phoenixnu, yes, there is something cooking, but till the MoU is signed, I’d rather not make a song and dance about it. I’ll write about it the moment that happens, promise.
loved once and road to guantanamo. wow! had no clue that RTG is also shot on pd. if m not wrong, khuda ke liye worked out really well here. they relesaed counted number of prints and made money. but dont agree with u about uneven perfrmnces. thought the lead actress n her dad was just terrible. dont care much about great looks but doesnt acting makes all the differnce!
and yes, most of us here still think that its not movie, if its not movie camera! we desprtly need one breakthrough film and m sure more people will be game for it then.
Jaideep,
I’m not sure I agree with you that Bollywood really cares about ‘production values’. Sure, you’ll have producers that will insist on 35mm and DI and ‘laal-peela’ walls in the background but…
Agree that digital hasn’t been explored enough. Besides the films that you mentioned, Winterbottom’s ‘In this World’ is a great example of a film shot on DV (PD 150, I think) Yet it doesn’t compromise on genuine production values and looks absolutely stunning.
By genuine production values I mean things that are appropriate to the story you’re telling; If guns and explosions are essential to your story, please make them believable or spectacular or whatever you’re aiming for. If it’s set in a slum, make me believe that it’s a real slum that we’re in.
I believe that besides a great story, a film also needs great craft in other departments. If it’s only a story I’m looking for I’d rather curl up with a good book (or the synopsis on the back of the DVD).
PNC, i believe is getting into digital filmmaking, ‘big time’. so I heard…. But then is the Indian market ready for it yet… They are so used to seeing everything bright from tv serials to DI films that a bit of here and there they might think that its the projector problem:) a friend recently made a film [shot on 35mm] and most of the camera on stand had a candid camera feel with camera moving very slightly..giving the hand held feel.. the audience in the theater wondered why was the camera shaking:)
thats the quality of audiences we make our films for..
but yes they are getting educated, albeit, very slowly.
we have a long way to go before digital cinema becomes a reality… but yes its happening….
Ram Madhavi succeeded in releasing it in theatres..
Abroad people are more eager to experiment.. not here.. here even a cinematographer makes a face when you talk about digital film making.. [it can never replace 35mm is the first reaction]
dude, we know that. Thankyou.
We need Steven Soderbergs/Lucas/Rodreguez who have the power, the desire and the freedom to work around the medium… where the medium does not govern storytelling.. but the storytelling governs the medium!!
It seems obvious that good production values should be born out of the story and are not just decoration. How do we reconcile that with the masses of paying viewers who only want a momentary escape and one or two deep thoughts?
Why should we keep trying to do well at both? That serendipitous moment when we are deeply moved and feel like we are having an actual experience by being audience to a film — that is rare. Production values that draw attention to themselves don’t get us there, whether it is because they exceed or let down the story.
For me, video lends an urgency, flatness and grittiness. It lends a sense of immediate “realness” that film often does not. Let it be used when the story needs that. The problem with “style” is that it is often copied without the meaning attached to it, and so it wears out its welcome and stops being meaningful.
on that note i give here link of my first short film..
it has been made with the budget of Rs 35/- (thirty five only)..
lighting is bad.. u decide about d production values..
i tried to b sarcastic on smokers
http://www.youtube.com/v/2hfNylj4fXU
Thanks for keeping this going. By and large, if the general audience (and often even the cinema-literate audience) notices camera movements and the like, it means the material hasn’t really held them. Because whilst watching a story and being a part of it in an intimate way (like the best of cinema should make you do), your mind really should not worry about those things, just like it doesn’t in real life. That’s my point. And it doesn’t matter what standard of audience you have at the end of the day. My experience is that a less cinema literate audience feels more and thinks less, which is not a bad thing at all. At the end of the day, we’re NOT talking about mass appeal.
Of course, style should emanate from the content, which does not happen often enough in India. And Navdeep, no argument with your definition of genuine production values, I meant gloss or slickness being a more important parameter for many people in Bollywood than content. And no question about craft being important, no argument against that. Just that that same craft can be applied in more innovative ways, in more experimental mediums (or is it media) like digital too. But in India, it is not. People look down on it for “quality” reasons, even when it suits the material (as Evelyn says).
Well, Navdeep, I’d just like to know what you’d read if you felt like a contemporary Indian story. :-) Because our fiction scene is even worse than our films.
Yes, Phoenixnu, we desperately need that one breakthrough film on digital. My contention is that Indian cinema will never be the same after that. Why? Because producers will want to make digital movies, and out of 20 films, maybe 2 or 3 will be genuinely cutting edge that could not have been made on 35 mm budgets.
Golghosh, saw your film, nice. My point is exactly that even if these are the production values of a feature film it is possible to keep someone hooked if the material is strong enough. No, don’t say that is obvious, because no one has yet pulled it off in India, at least not in Mumbai (except Let’s Talk, to some extent). Right?
I think the desire to match the level of style with the quality of content is obvious, but figuring out the way to do so is incredibly hard to achieve.
I agree that if I had to choose between a moving story and a pretty movie, the story would win.
However, one of the aspects that lured me into post-millenial Hindi cinema is that the productions are so eye-scorchingly gorgeous. I started out with high-key, candy-colored movies on DVD/VHS and then at the cinemas. Seeing these in a theater is like a trip unto itself. My first Hindi movies in a theater were Black, Bunty Aur Babli and Paheli. You can see what I mean by “candy-colored.”
Then I started discovering darker filmmakers like Anurag, Rajat Kapoor, Sudhir Mishra, Aparna Sen, and others. Their plots and lighting aren’t just more low-key than the more populist fare. They are still beautiful to behold. Susan Sontag has written about the “spectacle” of war – in that portraying it, the photographer tends to make suffering and tragedy look beautiful by choosing what he frames with his lens. Ideally, even low-budget great stories should move us this same way.
What do you think of Jab We Met, which had sort of a thin plot and a light message, but seemed to charm nearly everyone through its cinematography, music, acting, choreography, wardrobe, locations, etc.?
I’m only calling the JWM plot thin for the sake of inquiry — to me perhaps the only thing more difficult than getting all of the production elements just right is doing the actual screen writing.
Golghosh, I like your editing style. The first third, leading up to the cancer-installation, was more interestingly plotted and cut together. Were you inspired by anyone’s work in particular?
@Jaideep – Totally concede that producers will try and insist on superficial glossiness regardless of content or context. I do believe though that Directors are equally guilty of that.
And touche on the state of fiction writing.
@Evelyn – I think Bollywood does a particular type of spectacle quite well and there’s a need and demand for it, the problem comes when film makers feel forced/obliged to conform to that particular aesthetic.
Jaideep I disagree with your statement that noticing or remembering a particular camera movement or shot takes away from the viewing experience.
I was 9 years old when I first saw the Godfather and the final shot of the film where Michael is framed through a doorway while his captains pay obesiance to him before the door is shut on Kate has stayed with me since then even if I didn’t fully comprehend the virtuosity of the film for another decade. Craft is subconscious and even if the viewer can’t articulate his emotions it goes a long way in adding to the experience of watching the film.
What is objectionable is gratutious showboating of technique without any content as in the case of Guy Ritchie’s “Revolver”.
Another example Mitch…”Parinda” in many ways brought in a lot of new and innovative film making techniques to the table but it never took away from the story and that was classy all the way..the different hues in different scenes, the dark and broody hue of the film as Anil Kapoor wisens up as he probes the underworld..very new yet it all added up to the story telling..in a way was a landmark for Indian films.
Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen is a great low-budget movie that was shot on 16mm film. While it was a decent camera, they often had to use natural light and would roll their cameraman down the street in a shopping cart. You could watch it only for the shocking story. Or, you can revel in the amazing desaturated colors that move from orange to blue, matching the main character’s rapid descent coke snorting, prostitution and self-cutting.
Here’s a trailer:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vaVpgkAV-sw&fmt=18
It seems entirely possible to do something like this with high-end video in Indian movies.
@Evelyn
the cancer installation bar was due to lack of resources..
i couldnt find a paper which will carry a no smoking write up. then on d smoking break while editing i just browsed my hard disk and found the flash file of cancer installation bar.. i used it.. one more example (may be) of the theme of this post