Oscar Nominations & Mumbai Diary Continued
Hi Folks,
Just got unofficial news that Deepa Mehta’s WATER made the final nominations cut at the Oscars, however, Rang De Basanti missed out on it. The unofficial logic being that two ”Hindi” films cannot make it in one year. Of course there is no logic to that logic. Pity, because I thought that RDB was a more solid effort than Water, although the latter was more controversial and harder to make, so I guess it deserves the reward.
Will look out tomorrow morning when the official list is out, on whether any desi products made it in the short/doc category.
Now that I am back to the familiar surroundings of the US, some further observations and lessons learned from my Mumbai trip (which was a very positive experience overall)
a) Bollywood DOES INDEED have it’s business act together. In fact the machinery works so well that sometimes I think the industry depends too much on the methodology and the process as opposed to the content. Much like Syd Field teaching screenwriting. Yes it can have all the structure in place, but if there is no meat and sabzi then it’s outreach is limited. This came to light when meeting extensively with the behind the scenes people
b) The studio system is slowly creeping into Bollywood. Yashraj Films, ADLABS, White Feather, etc are beginning to function like quasi studios. Ditto for Mukta Arts. Money seems to be in abundant supply here, scripts don’t. Even the so called “diffferent or intelligent” filmmakers seem to be falling prey to “trying to be different,” as opposed to just writing a script. I think the crux of the problem is that they take themselves too seriously and also their “uthna and baithna” is amongst the film foilks (even if they are different they are still film folks, so their perspective is very filmy). Perhaps a “time out” occasionally might help them?
c) While the studio system is creeping in, I don’t believe the non studio aka 99.99% of the current set up will go away and that is a good thing. These companies are out there and cognizant of the peoples tastes and preferences and are the much needed supply side systems, which feed the products with such alacrity.
d) It is a world, which for the most part works on “what if visualization” aka if I am listening to your script or your ideas or your direction, if I can visualize it, we can go further, if I read it or hear it and cannot visualize it, it falls flat. Hence to grab their attention it has to visually appeal and that’s ok since cinema is a visual medium
e) Fascination with Hollwyood is good but Bollywood should not loose it’s identity. Read – It is not essential to have a BOUND script, it can be a SOFT COPY too. A very top notch ARTSY actor kept asking for a BOUND script and when I told him I would e-mail it to him in FINAL DRAFT or WORD he kept asking for it to be BOUND (again fascination with the form as opposed to the content). I guess in a world that is moving from one end of the spectrum to the other this is catch up and beyond
Sincerely,
Vivek”call it what you may Bollywood is a methodology that works year in and year out, all the time, everytime” Kumar
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
Hey Vivek ,
Just A query …Was Water not the official entry from the Canada ?? And what about Lage raho Munna Bhai , it was in some special category !
Thanks for the update on oscar nominations vivek..Just one question on:
“The unofficial logic being that two
“He kept asking for it to be BOUND” …
who is this ARTSY actor ???
BREAKING NEWS….Water in the final five.
Phoenixnu:
Hope Deepa Mehta is not in water and she has not read story of Archimedese shouting Eureka Eureka. It will be embrassing for all:)
Now everyone will jump on the bandwagon, yeah talkin’ about ‘H2O’ (which IMO was a bad movie, controversial or not). Now people will raise flag for it as the ‘unofficial entry’ from India.
IMO Pan’s labyrinth is the clear winner!
vivek,
i like the way u put things into prespective.
it makes one wonder (uthna/baithna) kitna imp hai to make a film in bollywood.
i mean – if one has a decent script or for tht matter – talent/etc – be it any form of cinema – but has to do with movies – what does it tke to get into the industry…??
i havent seen Pan’s llabyrinth yet but i can see the promos now making the rounds on all the cable channels (US main). maybe it will win. liked the earlier review on pfc.
it seems this artsy actor doesn’t have access to a computer, so he wanted the physical form.. so what happened with him vivek? did you basically brush him aside and look for someone else? i can’t see you going to some xerox place just to get it bound so you can give it to this guy.. :-?
Hi Folks,
Group response
Ritika: Yep it was from Canada, that is why I made the coment that their (Oscar) logic made no logic, since they lump all Hindi “linked” movies under one umbrella. They did that with Warrior in the past and now this.
Baarish: Ditto to above
Karthik: It was the secretary of a top notch Art actor who has been coming in films for a long time now and has also done considerable commercial stuff (hint, hint)
Striker: You got that right, I told him to take a walk rather than take one myself!!! Not about one upmanship but more because the Mumbai humidity was getting to me
:((:((
Nice read Vivek…
Vivek,
The Warrior was a victim of antiquated Academy rules, and its oversight was partially responsible for the changing of the submission rules for best foreign film.
As much as I hate the Academy and the movies it chooses for its yearly pep rally, Academy members are educated in film and able to differentiate between a film made in Canada and one made in India, even thought the languages are the same. As amazing as RDB is, look at the films it was swimming in the pool with. To select it for the final five wouldn’t make sense, and this isn’t due to any language or cultural bias but due to the strength of the competition.
I have had the Oscars on my mind all weekend, but for a different reason that deserves a post. What I can tell you is that at 5:30 PST this morning, I turned on the news looking for a traffic report and, because I live in LA, the news was preempted for the Oscar pre-pre-show (I mean announcements).
Pan’s Labrinyth is amazing, and whatever you may think of Water, I think it is a stronger contender than many of you do based on the demographics of the Academy voters.
But, when the Algerian film Days of Glory was read out, there was cheering from the audience. Need to hunt this movie down to see how a movie that I have never heard of got nominated and got a sedate audience of half-asleep press corp members excited. There may be an “upset” this year…
Also, can you imagine how Penelope Cruz must have felt reading out the names for the Best Foreign Film category and realizing that – Volver wasn’t there?
I so hope its not Naseer. Cant imagine him as such an idiot.
Ah, How stupid can people be….When Deepa Mehta wanted to shoot this film In India, They all reacted in such a bad manner …but because this film has made to the Oscars, whole bollywood is going Ga Ga about the film …Its just that Its a candian film with Indian actors !!
well said ritika …
and guess what ??? all the bollywood will take credit if and when (hopefully) Water wins an oscar.
yeah it is a canadian film with indian actors.
Ritika: Deepa Mehta wanted to shoot the film in Banaras and not all people reacted but some local outfits did that.
It was up to Deepa Mehta, if she still wanted to shoot in Banaras else like so many film makers she could have created Banaras in Bombay inside the studio.
She not only changed the shooting place but changed her lead actress also. Earlier Shabana and Nandita was supposed to the roles played later by Seema Biswas and Lisa Ray: Poor Shabana even shaved her head for the role:o