Oscars and Our Cinema
iView Author: Ram V (Bangalore,India)
Email: Shrey.dna[At] gmail.com
‘ Oscars and Our Cinema‘
“I come from a country and civilisation that gave the world the word that precedes silence and is followed by more silence. That word is ‘Om’. So I dedicate this award to my country,” Thus spoke Resul Pookutty, of whom only ardent followers of cinema had heard, before the Oscar night at Kodak Theatre.
Resul’s speech was invigorating because of the fact that he spelt out what most of us Indians shy away from, which is recognizing our roots, and being proud of our culture. For false pretense of socio-economic, politico-religious reason we put on a facade of the secular epitome of modern India, thereby tending to forget or even ridicule the exceptional civilization where we belong.
The honesty and innocence in Resul’s speech has won many a heart. It instantly instigated a two-pronged thought, on why do Resuls and Rahmans of India, value Oscars more than their Indian counterparts (like Filmfare, State and National Awards) and why dont we have more Resuls/Rahmans, who are able to produce the top-notch work with state of the art technology skills,but firmly footed in the cultural and traditional values of India.
Let us ponder on the first question, Oscar’s, as we know, are the sublime bliss of any movie-maker. It is the dream merchant’s dream. It is so because of the emphasis on quality and rigourous attempt ( inspite of all political lobbying) to spot out brilliance. I would attribute this religious attempt at skimming glory, to Hollywood locally and the American culture globally than microscoping my laud’s all over the AMPAA (the Academy).
Let us forget about the history of the Oscar’s, which in itself is an exciting treatise on how to continuosly re-invent and improve, for a brief moment, to focus on this year’s event. This is an year when Mickey Rourke (My choice for Best Actor winner) was nominated for ‘Wrestler’, Richard Jenkins (hitherto an unknown entity to most mainstream audience, but gave a scintillating heart-touching performance) for ‘Visitor’. Both extremely superlative performances, but over-shadowed by an exemplary ‘Harvery Milk’, Sean Penn. A fully satisfying moment for any cineaste is this one. If you win a competition, it should be the oscars. The beauty of this win is that neither Mickey nor Jenkins have little reason to be dissatisfied, as ‘Harvey Milk’ was equally stunning as their performances. That is why Oscar is so exciting and exalting to any artiste.
Some argue that ‘Slumdog’ got its recognition because of the bollywood style dance sequence in the end. Which is entirely nonsensical and not worth a discussion. Even the sound track, has excellent pieces like ‘Liquid Dance’, ‘Gangsta Blues’, ‘Latikas theme’ and ‘Paper Planes’, which contributed to the movie’s cause at crucial junctures. But ‘Slumdog’ is a exceptional work of cinema, with exquisite screenplay, innovative directiorial techniques and some excellent technical achievements put together. Thematically we may or may not agree with the content but cinematically it is a brilliant work of art. That is the whole point. Recognition for ‘Slumdog’ is not recognition for Bollywood, it is the recognition of the adapatability of movie makers from Hollywood ( I would prefer to use Hollywood even if it was a british film maker and a european production house, as the movie-making style of ‘Slumdog’ is entirely credited to Hollywood Studio movies).
But, why has India not been able to represent itself better than Bhanu Athaiya, Rahman and Resul. Do we have less talent. The answer is No. India Produces 600 odd films in an year. Nearly 100-150 is produced by Bollywood and the rest 450 odd by the other film producing regions/states like Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. But, these 450 odd movies are not sifted, churned or mined to dig out the jewels of Indian Cinema. The movie going audience and the authorities are hell bent on promoting meaningless nonsense called Bollywood Films. Barring a handful of talented filmmakers, the industry called ‘Bollywood’ is full of rotten apples, whose only intention is to make easy money.
The profound stupidity executed tirelessly, film after film, in the form on novel innovations called ‘Item Number’. ‘Time Pass’ capers , proudly exclaiming ‘Leave your brains at home’, the Bollywood is an artistic disaster and this huge bunch of rotten apples are rotting the other regional industries as well. Nowadays, the serene Malyalam film industry and Bengal Movie scene is bubbling with activity, and filling the screens with absolute horrific, nonsensical material borrowed from their bigger brother. Kannada is just coming out of a bad patch of experimenting remake from all possible sources. Telugu and Tamil always were mixed in their output , they still continue to give a blend of rare good movies, while the large portion continues to be filled with idiocy.
So Indian industry have ended up producing nearly 550-600 good-for-nothing movies, making morons and stagnant retards out of our movie loving audience. Thousand’s Crore worth Rupees are being spent on this pawn broker business called movie making. Its ‘Kya Milta Hai’ all the way, as my Marketing Professor, Mr.Kulkarni, used to say. Not even a single work of ‘Fiction’ was adapted into a major commercial vehicle in the last ten years in Bollywood, whereas, Shyamaprasad from Kerala adapted the Bengali novel ‘Hirak Deepti’ by Sunil Gangopadhyay into a brilliant malayalam movie,’Ore Kadal’and to my dismay ‘Ekalavya’ was sent across to Oscar’s as India’s entry that year.
A R Rahman is a acclaimed genius, and he won, there’s nothing to be suprised about it. People like Speilberg, Kurosawa, Rahman were born to rule the field of art they work in and any institution should be proud to honor them. But its a ‘golden feather on the cap’ for AMPAA, Hollywood and in a larger sense , the USA, that Resul Pookutty won for Sound and he gave the acceptance speech.
USA might have the worst war policy and world domination agenda, but without mixing up two different issues, these are some good aspects that we, as a nation, should recognize. It was these qualities that ancient India once boasted of and what our historical, mythological literature is filled with. It is the unending pursuit of excellence and recognition of the same in a particular field of knowledge.
The only two Kazhaksthan productions in the last few years, ‘Mongol’ and ‘Nomad’ were both widely acclaimed, and highly watchable movies of great quality. ‘Mongol’ in particular was an exciting affair. If Kazhaksthan,due respects to their talent, could create such excellent movies, why cant we, the world’s largest movie producing nation, just produce one good movie of ‘Mongol’s’ quality.
It is a myth that west only recognizes movies that are done under western influence or by western filmmakers. Purely chinese ‘Red Shorgum’, a communist tale, by Zhang Yimou was recognized worldwide. Purely farsi in soul and body, ‘Gaav’ by Dariush Mehrjui and later on works of Majidi , Makhmalbaf, Kiarostami were acknowledged in spite (rather because of) of their exceedingly local flavor
I want to see the day, before I die, when the world looks upon India to provide the best in class of literary, artistic, spiritual, economic and social platform. I want to see the day, before I die, when a Malayalam film is running in full houses in a B-Class cinema house in UP. I want to see the day, when a Gujarathi Novel is adapted into a successful Telugu film. I want to see the day, When a Mizo director is able to direct a local language movie with leading Bollywood stars and a distributing network is able to market the content to the nation and the world.
Its time to wake up. India as a nation is waking up to new political upheavals. Let us bring artistic renaissance in India. Let us bring back the culture and civilization that Resul so lovingly reminded us of. Let us unite in promoting good art and culture, specifically, good cinema. We have atleast 1 billion original stories to say from the past, present and of the future. Let us drive out these easy-bucking film makers on to the streets, searching for stories flavored in the smell of the rain drenched dust of our beautiful motherland and make them earn every single paise of the ticket cost.
If this is too much to ask for, why are we a boasting of being a united great nation?
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
EXCELLENT,EXCELLENT,EXCELLENT !!!
GK
Absolutely beautiful article. One article which brings truth on to the face without pointing fingers on others….
Now that’s passion for cinema! Great write-up, Ram V. We have such a HUGE number of stories in all corners of our country and yet we have to put up with the same item number crap all the time. People put up 30-40 crores for absurdities shot all over the world but shy away from putting 1-2 crores on the line for marketing small but beautiful films.
“Bollywood” is eating into everything. Last month, I went to a music shop in one of the towns I grew up 12 years ago. At that time, the shop had all kinds of cassettes – rock, pop, Indipop…Now apart from the regional songs, it’s all film film film.
It’s the same as in the Olympics. A billion people and all we have to show are a handful of medals won by people who get them inspite of all the politics they have to fight against. Likewise, hundreds of films get made, but just a few that we can genuinely be proud of.
I’m sure things are changing, though, for the better.
hey guru…nice article.I feel kannada industry is really improving.There are some talented young directors who want to make original films…I dream of kannada film getting oscar nomination and winning the award.
Great article Ram, i had expressed the same in my earlier article on Oscars. If we want to make great movies, we need to get back to our roots, our literature, our culture.
India is a land waiting for a 1000 tales to be told, and all we can do is come up with crappy love stories or copies of some B Grade foreign movies. Are we so short of themes, that we have to borrow from DVD’s of other movies, without even a thank you? This scenario will persist as long as Bollywood mainstream movies are dominated by a handful of families and star kids. As long as we keep pushing star kids onto the audiences, who r there just because of their lineage, not their talent.
Regarding novels being adapted into movies, this used to happen regularly in the 50’s and 60’s. You had movies like Saraswatichandra, Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam, Devdas, Teesri Kasam which were adapted from novels. Even many Telugu movies of the 50’s and 60’s, were adaptations of novels from other languages. Many of Sarat Chandra’s novels have been adapted into Telugu. Of course now the quality of output in Telugu cinema, has been uniformly crappy, barring a few good ones here and there.
I don’t think it’s limited only to Indian filmmakers, putting that valued Oscar statuette on a pedestal, much, much higher up than a local – i.e. own country’s – award. Most of the world does that. It’s simply the prestige of it. Ultimately, if we truly see the world as a global community, we should be proud and happy for all things that succeed, however and wherever that may be. And feel sad for any and all failed endeavors…
All said, I think Bollywood is going in the right direction…coz it’s going in every possible direction.
Best film at Oscars?
Let the coundown begin.
The post is a food for thought for everybody…
Hate that term bollywood itself as if there is no cinema from other parts of India. As Kenny as put it, it is eating everything. The nexus between the Producers, Stars and the Distributors is nothing less than a Mafia. Till this is broken we would be served the crap which we so eagerly lap up…
One major deterrent is lack of funds. Even if a good regional cinema is send for the oscars, the producers do not have the funds to publicise it in US. Nowadays even the committee selecting the movies too consider it as an important factor to select a movie to be send. One way out is that either the govt or the film industry provides this required fund. Not only for sending it to the Oscar, but generally taking it to all possible festivals. They can maybe add a smal tax percentage to the ticket price to contribute to this fund. Even a rupee or two from each ticket will mean lot of money.
Really touching and great post. Seriously, you touch upon some important core issue that plagues not just our system but the idea of filmmaking. Even when our directors get money we cannot reinvent cinematic form. And its possible becasue most Golden Age Hollywood director did that from Hawk, Ford, Permingner everyone. Beside its even Producers need to take ” artistic” risk. Else its not possible.
The French subside the Hollywood film that releases in France hence allowing the funding of so many movies acroos the world and within France.
I guess we need to start with information at grassroot level. Not just about cinema, but the idea to think…that dont’t keep asking what the narrrative could do for you, ask what the form could provide in turn. Perhaps, a harmoney of both could yield something else till then, amdist all problem we will continue perishing in Bollywood shit with their star kids and neopotism.
Nicely written
I wanted to say about ” taxing” Hollywood films that release in France to fund their film. Beside I completley agree Ore Kadal was one of fine movie I saw in recentyears.
Kudos, kudos and kudos,,,,,,,
excellently written….i have the same feelings about indian films too….if only the guys with big money could get inspired by say a Lucas and try putting their money into good stories….or at least avoid cliches and bring something new….
Also heavy politics in the industry should end soon…..there are so many of them in the industry just because they were lucky enough to be born to stars; nothing against them but they’re just not good enough….u dont see this star system in Hollywood…you are as good as you really are over there…always welcoming new and independent talent…..big festivals like Sundance and Slamdance, both showcasing some fine movies and fresh, fine directors.
Bollywood is already aping Hollywood in many ways…..most of them wrong….why not ape them in the right things like a nobody scriptwriter gets good money if his script is good…no ‘you are new, so take what we give you’ mindset….
What a wonderful article. As long as you’re angry enough to call out and kick the lazy, moronic, stupid and facile, there is energy for a renaissance out there, because you can be part of an audience for those who create something different, original and new.
And yes, this article is why I visit this site every day, because it embodies what this place is called —- PASSION for CINEMA.
Keep the fire burning my friend!
Excellet article Ram! Keep writing more..
Ratnakar Sadasyula said:
“This scenario will persist as long as Bollywood mainstream movies are dominated by a handful of families and star kids”
+++++
I agree with this completely. ‘Bollywood’ has become a mafia, a racket for nepotism. It’s a biradari system with all the innate insularity and backwardness that this generates. Conservatism, lack of originality. It completely stunts and mangles the ability to innovate, to get fresh ideas into the system. It is incestuous, in-bred, and results in the genetically malformed offspring that is ‘Bollywood Biradari Moron Item Number Time Pass’ Cinema.
There are exceptions to this rule. Abhay Deol has shown how someone can use his connections to work the system and make genuinely original, brilliant cinema. But Abhay is like the rebel within the system. He has intelligence and ambition and originality and soul, and uses the system to make movies that are remarkable by the usual ‘Bollywood Biradari’ standard but which should be the norm for Indian cinema. But he is only one out of many. We can only hope that he is a sign of the future, that he is the torch bearer, the rebel within, the inside man who can help create the space for original work.
great eye-opening post. time we got up n be counted.
@KC on 8
I’m with you man!!!
Oh my, what an article. Bang on!
We sound bugles of the imminent war on thoughtless films but nothing seems to move. Coz month after month, we see the same nonsense. Ram, your wish should come true..for the sake of all of us!
Your thoughts on the present quality of regional cinema were spot on.The southern film industry has become, by and large a remake factory were a film made in one language get remade into the other three.(malayalam maintains original)
Absolutely excellent article which should be published inall the major dailies of INDIA so that majority can read it. I would also urge anybody working in Journalism to pass this article to thier respective news agencies to publish in the Entertainment section.
Nice article!
But you guys are forgetting something. Excellent films are rare, that is one of the reasons they are in such a demand. Having said that, I feel the average quality of the films bollywood churn out should be higher, not the crap like kuchh kuchh hota hai or kabhi khusi kabhi gam. Given the rising cost of tickets and everything else, filmmakers should focus on telling a good story in a straight forward manner (style/form be damned, we the general audience is so unused to that kind of things that we may not understand the subtle differences) and then expect us to pay for the ticket. Otherwise a collection of item girls in skimpy clothes will be the only superhit playing in DVD created by pirated hall-print.
“The movie going audience and the authorities are hell bent on promoting meaningless nonsense”
I just do not agree with the points in the article. He has missed who the indian audience is. Majority of the indian audience are Poor. Who spend a majority of their earnings to go to movies ( i have first hand experience working with such folks ). And I have argued with them about watching a “classic” movie versus a rajnikanth or vijay movie. And they have a simple and straightforward reason why they like what they like – which is so true –
when you are facing the exact same problems that “serious/art” movies depict on a day to day basis, the only reason you get into a movie theatre is to escape from these realities. And nobody wants to see the same again. They want a fantasy – something which seems impossible for the common man to achieve.
That is exactly why there are
- songs with huge sets
- songs picturized abroad
- half naked girls dancing
- super hero fighting 100s of the bad guys
- happy endings
- stupid/loud comedy tracks
One needs to understand that most modes of entertainment is extremely expensive or not available for the majority of India ( theme parks, plays, music concerts, restaurants, travel ). Movies are the only affordable ( still in villages ) and easily accessible entertainment. Now add TV.
When I was growing up, I never watched Indian movies – only Hollywood and some european – and wondered why Indian movies were never made similarly. The answer is simple: THERE IS NO DEMAND FROM THE MAJORITY OF THE AUDIENCE.
It is the same supply/demand logic everywhere including Hollywood. I have read many books on “how to sell your screenplay”, “selling your story to the studio” etc in Hollywood. And they preach the same thing – hollywood has only a few genre that they accept from most writers – and they all are similar categories that you find in India – romantic comedy, chick flick, action, some drama.
BTW, the so called “oscar” movies are not as successful as we think. There are many articles on the web where you can read about how studios in hollywood use the “awards” time to push their straight-to-dvd movies so that they cn make some money in the theatres. Like “Crash”, “Chicago”, even SDM.
Let Indian get out of poverty. You will see a improvement in the type of movies. BTW, search utube for some interviews with indian movie directors ( i sam one with kamal haasan ). They argue about the need for every indian movie to have songs – and every producer ( many of whom are very knowledgeable about movies than many readers here – they understand what the audience wants ) says the same thing – they give what sells.
Great article, no doubt but the opening lines are the ones that deserve to be underlined and read again and again:-
For false pretense of socio-economic, politico-religious reason we put on a facade of the secular epitome of modern India, thereby tending to forget or even ridicule the exceptional civilization where we belong.
Yes somebody has the guts to stand up and say truth in this politically correct world.
Thanks guys. Great to be in the midst of so many movie lovers.
Desai, Cherish, Debarun, Labor_day_sale, OM,Satyendra …thanks for the wholehearted appreciation.
Ratnakar,
I agree, adaptation were more common earlier. They might have stopped because it is easier if you have a readymade screenplay from Hollywood/another regional movie :-)
Kabir,
Yes man, Ore Kadal was the best I have seen in years. Let’s tax Bollywood superhits and their big studios to make better movies first, then we can think of taxing foreign movies :-)
Kenny,
Exactly point on.
Nina,
Agreed.
Shivajee,
Yes. We forget 450 movies and concentrate on 150 or rather 50 big studio movies
Jibin/Jay,
Great thoughts…but still the young India is deep asleep.
Sid,
Excellent films are rare because they don’t make them. The whole idea is to promote them and get them made.
KC/Judgegag,
Lets keep our fingers-crossed :-)
Padhu,
You are underestimating the intellegence of our fellow citizens. I agree with you on Chicago, Crash and SDM. They we brilliant movies all said
Shrirang,
We should stand up like Resul and bask at the world like the sun.
Bala,
Even malayalam makes copies, Dosth ( Dileeps movie was a remake of a tamil movie), then Big B, Nirnayam, Indraprastham, Yoddha all were copies.
Freinds2allin,
We have had enough of this nonsense movies…I would love that this article reaches as many as possible…
Indraneel,
We would make the wishes come true.
Lovely article, Ram V. Touches on so many things I think of. The Academy Awards these days do recognize quality, and they’ve become increasingly global too.
India so clearly has everything necessary to produce more movies of a different quality — for one thing, with something like Ore Kadal, which I also loved, it already does — including, I believe, an audience that would respond to the kind of upgrade you wish for.
It’s not binary, movie quality – it’s not art-house or Chandni Chowk to China – I want India to have a stronger and more intelligent presence in that huge middle territory, where you have things of quality that most people can relate to.
I am so aware that right now India is the “it” culture of the world where great new fiction is concerned — what will it take for Hndi cinema to forge a muscular working relationship with all that wealth of writing talent? I look forward to that day and hope it comes soon!!
@Virginia,
Thanks. You are right. Most of all fiction written in vernacular Indian language and English lie untouched for the last few decades. One has to really walk around the dingy lanes of our city suburbs and villages to look for new stories and tell them interestingly rather than sit in a comfortable room ro steal bits and pieces from movies all around the world.
Ram V you are right. There are one billion stories in India all you have to do is walk down any street or alley way and talk to people, there are novelists and writers who transform this into great narrative art, but for some reason Indian cinema is mangled and inhibited. What a tragedy.