Roarks Not Welcome!
iView Author:
Rupak Ghosh (New Delhi, India)
Email :
rupak.ghosh [at] gmail.com
Roarks Not Welcome!
Late night show ends. A trickle of audience streams out of a posh theater in Delhi. One of them complains ‘Iss film mein toh din hi nahi hua, yaar!’ The companion nods and laughs aloud.
I get a phone call asking if I have seen the two recent blockbusters to have hit the marquee. And then the obvious query follows: Which one did I like, because people are raving about one and rubbishing the other. My answer that I liked them both seems to flummox everyone.
It has been exactly a week since I watched OSO and ‘Saawariya’. And, till date, I have found myself getting involved in discussions about the two films. And it is during these tête-à-têtes that I realize that inadvertently I, too, have been thinking about them even though in the past week I have watched around six more films.
First and foremost, I really do not understand why are OSO and ‘Saawariya’, to borrow a term from Set Theory, such a mutually exclusive set? Why does one have to like one and one only? I think each film has its own merits and I like it for that precise reason. Neither is flawless cinema, but then again, name one that is.
Ironically enough, it’s a line from OSO that, I think, best describes what many dejected viewers of ‘Saawariya’ are feeling when they leave the theater. ‘Everything is all right at the end. If it is not all right, then it is not the end.’ When the film begins, Ranbir falls in love with Sakina to find that Sakina is in love with Imaan, Imaan loves Sakina, while Gulab is in love with Ranbir. When the film ends, Ranbir is still in love with Sakina, Sakina is in love with Imaan, Imaan loves Sakina and Gulab is still in love with Ranbir. In other words, the story has not progressed from where it began. In the parlance of the cine literate, there is no ‘character arc’.
To many of us, this is bothersome. We want our ‘paisa vasool’ bit. We like to be a part of the journey alongside our hero and heroine, even though it means one travels from one ‘janam’ to the next. And here, toh, ‘Nothing happens only, not even daylight!’
To me, for a film like ‘Saawariya’, this is most apt. Because to me (I reiterate this ‘to me’ bit) ‘Saawariya’ is not only set in a dreamscape, it is actually a dream – of the director. You see, the ‘dreamer’ in this adaptation of Dostoevsky’s ‘White Nights’ is not really Ranbir, but SLB himself. He has just projected his dream (I can only hazard a guess what that dream is, maybe there are clues in those visual references to the ’showman’?) in Ranbir’s form. And, you see, dreams and sunlight don’t go hand in hand. Anyone who takes a look at the color palette used in ‘Saawariya’ will know at once how dreamy it is – blue is serene, blue is ethereal, blue is dreamlike. So, SLB could not have chosen any other color to depict his dream on celluloid.
What I cannot fathom is why are people getting so worked up about the lavishness of this film – ‘Opulence for opulence’s sake’ is what it is being called, I think. I find it strange that people are going to watch an SLB film thinking that they will not encounter the term ‘grandiose’. Are we forgetting this is the same person who has given us such meretriciously ornamented pieces of work like ‘Devdas’, ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’, ‘Khamoshi’ and, even, to some extent, ‘Black’? This is the only way the man visualizes. He thinks ‘grand’ and that’s what he delivers. The reaction of the audience makes me think of all those clients (I am in the business of communication myself) I encounter who want something ‘big’, but ultimately settle for the ordinary and the mundane. How life imitates itself!
But I digress. When I put forward this ‘dream’ bit, what I hear is: a) Grandeur can be a setting; it cannot be a film by itself; b) We pay for the ticket not to watch the director’s dream for almost three hours.
That’s when I think I shouldn’t have used the term ‘dream’ at all, but ‘vision’. And it reaffirms my belief that a director in Bombay needs to be a doctor first – ‘Feel the audience’s pulse and then, only then, prescribe’ should be his Hypocritic (to coin a term) oath. This also answers why in India, we go to watch ‘movies’ and hardly ever use the term ‘cinema’. At a very basic level, the term ‘movies’ is used to refer the medium as a mode of commerce, while ‘cinema’ or ‘film’ is used when we consider it as an art form. In our rejection of the grandiosity of ‘Saawariya’, I see the reflection of society, per se. Think about it, how many of us have encountered the term ‘think big’ in our daily lives? I have heard it ad nauseaum. But when we see someone actually doing that, what do we do? We reject him outright!
One of the interesting comments I read on ‘Saawariya’ spoke about expressionism. I think it hit the nail on its head. Certain frames of ‘Saawariya’ reminded me of Van Gogh’s paintings like ‘The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Aries at Night’ and ‘The Starry Night’. But it seems expressionism has no place on celluloid when it comes to Hindi cinema. However, that does not imply there is no place for dreams there. We are eager to accept a junior artist professing his apparently implausible love for his ‘dreamy girl’ in front of her billboard, but we cannot accept a dream of the scale that SLB has brought in front of us. Most probably because, ‘If it’s a dream of the director, it should be kept with him. Why bring the audience in?’
Curious. Isn’t a director an artist? Isn’t he supposed to share with his audience? Isn’t that what the relation between the two is all about? Apparently, not. At least not here, in Bombay, in the current scenario.
We have developed this habit of drawing boundaries, even when it comes to our dreams. The billboard dream is a dream of millions – for generations we have idolized and fantasized about cine stars. So, if in your film someone dreams about a film star and it takes him two incarnations to fulfill that, it’s acceptable. But if you are portraying your own dream as a film, it is not acceptable at all! Because we, as an audience, don’t relate to the latter scenario.
And that is a very important factor. You see, what we like to see on screen has two facets, which are apparently contradictory to each other. We like to dream, but we play it safe. We like our films to be grandiose, but we dismiss those who challenge boundaries. We like a ‘Moulin Rouge’, but we reject our own ‘Saawariya’.
Curiously enough, the same audience has also rejected ‘No Smoking’, which, as a film, is diametrically opposite to what ‘Saawariya’ stands for. When I ask others what they think is the similarity between the two films, what I usually get is ‘Excess, indecipherable excess’. What I have in mind and am hoping against hope will be echoed by them is a single word: ‘vision’.
Both directors had their individual visions when they ventured out to make the respective films. But they forgot that when we enter the cinema theater we draw boundaries where even a ‘dreamy girl’ has to be brought back as a bubble gum blowing bimbette. We, the film-going junta have very fixed notions about what we want to watch on screen, what we like being portrayed. We like conclusions; we like drama; we want a perfect ending.
In other words, in the world’s biggest democracy, cinema is also in the hands of the masses. The auteur of Indian cinema is the public who watches it. As a director, you are accountable to the masses and not to your own sense of aesthetic, your own vision, your own dream. What a pity!
In India, when people get up from their seat midway through a screening they want to feel that they left the film, and not the other way round. We have a problem when people look at things in a way different than us. It’s true, we treat cinema as a mirror. It doesn’t reflect society however, it reflects us – our own likes and dislikes. We want to see our own selves on 70mm; and not the director’s viewpoint. To us, movies are an obsession, no self trips allowed. If there is one person who can go on a trip when he goes to the cinema hall, it is us, the junta, as rendered by the director.
The director is just a tool. He is a representation of the collective known as cinema-going public.
He is not an individual, a la Howard Roark.
‘The horror… the horror…’
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
I have recently finished reading The Fountainhead and thus, I would like to convey that this the best article I have read about the relation of junta and the cinema. For some reason we people are so much used to praising mediocrity that we have stopped wishing for anything better.
i just finished watching saawariya. and i think its art direction, ‘expressionism’, cinematography, ranbir kapoor, zohra sehgal, rani mukherjee and choreography is the best among the films that I have been watching lately from mainstream films in India. Yes the script required more work, it does get messy in its last act. yet I think it sanjay leela bhansali’s honest and ,till date, closest to what he attempted to potray film.
I dont think its as bad as everyones saying.
for me, personally, its his best work and surprisingly original too.
And I fail to understand why films which attempt something better than the usual are not encouraged. Attempt can be labelled as good or bad but the motive should always be encouraged which for some reason, i have never see ever happening to any such film.
Rand’s Fountainhead seems to be a reference point for most people who blog on this site. They seem to think it’s the most important piece of literature ever produced – well it’s not. It is a bestseller but then so was Grisham’s Firm and countless other useless books.
Also in the west The Fountainhead is the most adored book of the average 16 year old girl(and some guys). The thing is as they grow older they get over it and laugh at it but the people here dont and continue to believe in it’s half-baked Philosophy. Sad but true.
How do we know PFC is free from PR agents of some “filmy” production houses(just a curious question
): Sorry hai ji meri taraf say Rupak da, I was angry at the makers of “CASH” because they had wasted so much money (though it didn’t belong to me) similarly with Mr Bansali …plzz dream but don’t show us ‘badly executed’ Surrealism kind of stuff or else “kuch to log kahenge”:
Amita seems to imply that we should even ape the west in the kinds of literature we choose to like. That’s an excellent example of second-hand opinion manifesting itself.
Although I liked the writing style of this review, it’s terribly unconvincing because it doesn’t defend its main thesis: that vision qua vision can be a work of art.
A dream (or a vision) is not an artistic license. In fact, if you wish to draw comparisons with the individualism a la Roark in The Fountainhead, then you must not drop the literary style that the book is written in, i.e., romantic realism, which places equal emphasis on romanticism as well as realism.
SLB, in Saawariya, in my opinion, went overboard in the projection of his romantic vision at the detriment of selectivity and realism. Vision–dream–qua vision is never a work of art; by that measure, you would have to grant the status of art to any dream promiscuously spilled onto an artistic medium–however grotesque or prodigious.
Art requires ruthless selection, exclusivity, and editing.
@Ergo: The piece was written after a long conversation with a friend of mine. Just like the conversation, which did not begin with any pre set agenda, the writeup also is just a flow of thoughts without a hypothesis, per se. I accept the fact that a ‘dream is not an artistic license’. All of us do dream, but at the same time we do not either have the ability or the resources to portray or project them. If there was one single point in my article, it was that I fail to understand certain allegations made against SLB’s film – the grandiosity, for example. It was his individual vision and that’s the way he has portrayed his art on to celluloid time and again. Whether he has succeeded or failed is as individualistic a matter, as his choice of staging his dream/vision the way he wanted it.
As far as ’selectivity’ is concerned, I think a majority of the audience is doing that by shunning the film. But I liked the film, I liked OSO as well, for that matter.
Whether the terms ‘art’ and ‘ruthless’ go hand in hand, I don’t know. ‘Ruthless art’ seems like an oxymoronic term. And ‘Ars Gratia Artis’ seems to be nothing more than words written on an arch above a roaring lion!
Sometimes nonsense is just that nonsense. The writer’s justification of saawariya reminds me of the quote.
“The play was a success but the audience was a failure.”
I must have missed the memo on Rand as the most influential writer of our generation in India.
Seriously, can someone please explain to me why people masturbate to her?
Dabba, because that was the first taste of some kind of philosophy for most of the young teens.
I remember in ‘99 right after my Xth SSC exams, I picked up Fountain Head and my mom walked into the room and told me if I wanted to have decent teen yrs ahead, I should not read Rand, not then anyways. This coming from a English Literature professor who because of my illiteracy in Telugu took it upon herself to read aloud the complete works of Endamuri Veerandernath to try to give me company even though I would fight that he had copied most of the works from English Authors.
I read all the 4 books that summer and I went it a world of my own from then own for a while. But it helped me, in someways. Did I grow out of it, yes… I probably know better now, but just like all philosophy, it a a though process. A thought process that can co-exist. There are better philosophies out there which make more sense but why does Rand’s phil be degraded?
I am not familiar with a lot of names being thrown on other posts here and I don’t care so much but its ok i guess to like some work just like its ok to like something?
I loved the dosa’s on carts during my grad days and my parents would get jitters at the mere thought of me and m friends eating there and I too know better, but the day i step in India, I know I will do it. Don’t I know its bad for my health, yes, I do… I still want to do it, yes! Its a choice and I will make it. Why is it so important?
And, again, I don’t masturbate to her but even today on days when I am low, I read a few pages of her and I bounce back. Are there better ideologies out there, hell YES! But it works for me man… so why should it be so difficult?
Boring….. I agree dabba, lets kill howard roark ban any posts giving reference to Ayn Rand’s work…… enough of this pseudo intellectual BS……
Can you entertain in a smart way…..
Saw Ek Chalis ki Last Local…. low budget very gripping loved it…. every movie is someones dream but please I am done with SLB’s wet dreams
yeah… and catcher in the rye is a classic too!
you have to masturbate what else can you do with intellectual pornography?
I have to confess about my personal and biased dislike for Raaand. I have mentioned in another post that I don’t like to read much, and definitely didn’t read growing up. But there was this girl.
There’s always a girl. I was 17 and alls I wanted to do was bump uglies with her. She would not shut the black hole she called a mouth and went on and on about life and philosophy and what not. She was a few years older than me. So, on top of being treated like a savant I had to contend with her agist condescension about how when I get older I will truly see.
At some point I realized, it was not going anywhere beyond dry humping. And she kept talking about Raaand and smoking and the power of cigarettes and strong minded individuals and khuda jaane aur kya.
I took it upon myself to understand what is this she speaks of. I was ready to tell her the story of how my life changed after reading it. I started reading and that motherfucker just did not end! It took me 3 months to read it, so bored was I with all the words and her grand thoughts about how people are and should live and blah and blue. The campers at Auschwitz probably had it easier than me.
Having endured that, I was no longer attracted to her. It was the opposite of the Stockholm Syndrome. I call it Vilaspur Syndrome. But I had a missionary zeal and a sense of purpose now. I did the only decent thing possible. I had to tear her down. I went to work on her Rand, breaking down every bit of pop philosophy that she had been spewing. Arguing the logic of her thoughts and philosophies. But I didn’t stop there. I had to psycho-ANALyze her, her parents, what experiences she had and the kind of person she was for her to be so enchanted with Rand.
And I did it all with a smile. Only once before in the history of mankind was the word schadenfreude more appropriate.
Ladki ka naam?
good boys don’t kiss and tell.
Nalini.
Dabba:
You tell becoz You did’nt kiss? I ‘understand’…
I is not a good boy.
Dabba: Thanks for the story and educating us on Vilaspur syndrome (really funny one that). Let me guess, did this happen in 1991-92 as well?
Now it all ties up, economy opening up, death knell of hair metal, Nirvana, SRK and above all the real schadenfreude moment. Anyway, agree with you on Rand, objectivism drivel. There’s just too much of group-think in student hostels which ensures the tradition of reading Rand and a host of other mediocre authors
Didn’t Rand write the play ‘The Night of January 16th’ as well? I like that one…
@ subrat
It happened a few years later. I think it was 1994. I was well past my gloom years thanks to channeling all my melancholic rage through gangsta rap.
My problem has never been with Rand. It’s her smug followers in India who think they have seen the way and insist that if you disagree “you just don’t get it.”
Nothing infuriates me more than insecurity masked in smug arrogance and condescension.
Since I have slaughtered one holy cow, I may as well throw my hat in the ring for the title of The Butcher of Vilaspur.
Why do urban collegiate Indians irrespective of their age, cling on to Classic Rock (especially the troika of Zeppelin, Floyd and Doors) as THE bestest music that one must listen to if you want to claim any sophistication, taste or cooleth?
I will die a happy man if I never hear three songs ever again – Stairway to heaven, Hotel California and Mustafa Mustafa.
Question for Authors and Moderators –
May I submit a short story through IView? It is about 1000 words though. It’s not directly cinema related but came about from a screenplay I am working on.
Dabba,
You have asked very nice question which will help many
Pls dont mind just trying to write few things related with your question/s.
As an author of your creative work, you have to know in advance that you are posting your creative work on an open forum. and this act has its benefits and shortcomings.
First benefits- You will get multiple and heterogenous views about your work and it may help you in analysing your own work and if there is need of improvement anywhere and you also feel that people are pointing out right thing, you can correct those shortcomings.
Shortcoming- If someone steals idea or content of your story then you will have to fight on your own against this plagiarism. PFC’s record will help you in setting your claim that it was published on so and so date and its originally your work. But your fight will be yours only.
With that caution, fact remains that there are many many net based magazines and people are publishing their creative works there.
dabba- u didn’t include summer of ‘69…
@ RK –
Thanks for the reply. I think the benefits far outweigh the shortcomings. I am not worried about plagiarism because I doubt anyone would want to use my ideas and if at all they do, it will be sweet validation. People like to steal from famous people, not unknowns like me.
Intellectual Piracy Laws in India are quite lax but they do exist. I don’t know how it applies to electronic and internet based content though. The beauty of web based content is that I can file a claim in the US where IP Laws are more stringent.
PFC’s date-time record will give me something to build a case should it ever happen.
My question was also intended as a direction for PFC and whether short stories fit within its cosmos. It is cinema that we are passionate about after all, but I remember Sreehari and others talking about adding an extra layer to it which, would reflect us trying to contribute in some way, instead of ranting all the time.
Yeesh, what a long and unwieldy sentence! Thanks for taking the time to respond. And great job moderating. Non-intrusive and tactful.
the joke with summer of ‘69 is when you find out how old bryan adams is and do the hisaab.
Dabba – RK has succinctly put across the pros and cons. As regards to your question on direction of PFC, well, the direction is set by all of us as a community – authors, iview contributors, commentators, ranters and the occasional multiple personality disorder afflicted friends. So, send in your short story through Iview, make a bit of tenuous link at the start to cinema (optional) and I am sure we all will be better off with your contribution as we have been with the other post of yours.
Regarding slaughtering holy cows, I am with you. Floyd, Led Zep, Stones, CCR, Eagles – good music mostly (great for their time possibly), lyrics which sometime had a context to the milieu they belonged to, but that’s about it. Can we move on..