Oscar of BOLLYWOOD
iView Author: Proneet Dutta (Nagaland, India)
Email: withheld
“FIND BOLLYWOOD ’s OSCAR”
The 81st annual Oscar award ceremony was brilliant , extravagant yet not flashy . There was music that was an unique cross between two different cultures & languages. what made the ceremony even more special is not only the music or the plethora of Hollywood bigwig stars , but is the choice of movies nominated & won .Nobody can argue that the right films were not nominated as each nominations giving the other real tough compettion . It is quite rightly considered to be the the most respected & anticipated award in World cinema . But this begs an important questions why does the hindi film Industry lack an award ceremony that can come close to the stature of the Oscars .
THE PROBLEM
Well there are some pretty easy answers to them .While the popular awards in India cater to cinema that is a certified hit & the big actors are the only ones who get due recognition in such awards as this will help them getting the stars to come for such functions & perform on stage . Smaller & sometimes more deserving films or performances miss out thanks to the star-struck awards . if you look at the Oscars , the trend has always been that an unique film that shows a distinct narrative style to it has been nominated . The budget doesn’t matter as long as the film is compelling . So we see a big budget & the biggest money spinner of the year & well deserved Dark knight missing out on best film nomination to a largely documentary kind of a movie in Frost/Nixon . In sharp contrast a look at Bollywood’s oldest award filmfare award which has constantly ignored the small & genuine performer & gone for some popular but less deserving movie . a big example is Ghajini which is essentially an old fashioned kind of a southie remake action movie making it to the best film nominations & a well deserving Aamir ( the movie ) not even mentioned in the nominations . this has happened before as well with the brilliant Khosla ka ghosla no even nominated with some funny nonsensical films being a part of the nominations just because they were big hits .
What has added to the woes is like the constant increase in award functions like housing complex in India . Every year we see a new one coming up adding weird buffoonery to tackle the competition from others . A recent popular Award show even got great TRPs thanks to Reality Show style argument between a respected filmmaker & an irritating anchor. So much so that these awards have become a symbol of star camps where the stars can flex their muscles . So Shahrukh is Filmfare’s blue eyed boy with all his friend coming there & the Big B has IIFA as his own award function . Even the respected National Awards has been mired in controversies as people close to the running governments are being preferred as awardees rather than someone deserving. It does not alarm one at all since it is a government run award & anything that is centralized system has to be corrupt as well . So, what is the solution to find an award function that can be worthy of being called as Bollywood Oscars or can be respected as much as the Oscars .
MY SOLUTION – .
Well a solution is indeed there But one needs to put in a lot of effort to put the idea through successfully . Well first & foremost somebody creditable needs to put together all the bigwigs of Hindi film industry & make them a part of the huge idea . The idea is a democratic voting system of a huge number of jury . By the jury , I don’t mean the normal audience as they are always swayed away by glamour or media hype in making their decisions . The first jury should be of 5 or 6 of the most respected critics that the hindi film industry has . They can be ‘trade wallahs’ or genuine film critics or lovers of Independent cinema. The more the variation , the more chances of a better result . Ask the selected critics to choose minimum 10 maximum 15 nominations for each category right from Best film to best supporting Actor / Actress from the various films sent by the industry . Get the same process for technical awards as well while trimming the nominations here to 10 maximum & 7 minimum . then these sub – nominees will be sent to different parts of the country .
Remember India is a vast filmmaking country with film industries active in regions like Manipur, Assam , Kerala , Punjab Haryana & many other states . 3 or more representative should be chosen from each film industry . They should be shown the movies for each & every category . the names of the judges should not be out until the awards are announced . Based on the expert & unbiased judgment of these film people . the nominations ( i.e. the top 5 votes) & the awards should be given .To make it more transparent the decision of every judge should be brought on a website which can be seen & consumed by everybody after the awards are announced . This will help avoid controversies . . To have an all- India feel to it a category of Regional Language film as well as best documentary should also be added that will be judged by hindi industry people here . Also stupid categories like Best Actor in a comic or villainous role should be avoided . Also more professional live singers along with actors should perform in the award function to give equal importance to all aspect of filmmaking
So this is my idea to have an award function which will give equal competition to the giant Oscars that the west is rightfully so proud of & can earn the respect of everybody . You might also have your own views on what is the right recipe for an honest & transparent Award function that India can be proud of . I m hopeful that this little article will start an argument where their will be more views forward & might help bring about a change that is so necessary .
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
Proneet I agree with you and your thoughts and I think that passionforcinema is the right place from where these ideas can be pitched forward.
Not one more award show
Film critics and trade wallas as juries?? Satyanash! We should have thousands of members like the Academy who will vote for their respective category. Then shortlisting on the basis of majority votes and final voting to declare the winners. This is the procedure Oscar follows. Here nobody can influence because you simply can not get in touch with all the voters. All you can try to do is make sure your maximum number of academy members see your film. Thats it. This is a great system. It will never happen in India and even if it does, people will find a way of corrupting it.
Indian stars already got oscar so I guess this is put this discussion to an end.