Donate
(5 votes, average: 3.8 out of 5)
Loading ...
So much Beauty in the World
“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” - American Beauty
Each day I go to UCLA campus to attend class I stop by at my place of worship. Even if it’s for a minute I enter my place of peace and give silent thanks. My place of worship is the UCLA Arts library where each visit is not unlike a visit to Aladdin’s cave. The trick is not to be greedy and try to go nuts in a systematic order. Right now I’m going through books on Henri-Cartier Bresson and Raghu Rai. Haven’t even touched the film making section.
We have so little time given to us and I really can’t understand the philosophy which makes people neglect to appreciate the good while spending all their time and energy criticizing the bad. Criticism is an absolute essential but it has a very curious effect on the person who wields it. It gives him a sense a power, a purpose if you will, a reason to feel alive by the mere action of finding fault with something.
I’m prone to this phenomenon as well. Every time I’m plagued with self doubt I try to watch the shittiest films I have seen which reassures me that even on my worst day I won’t make something as terrible as that. At least that’s what I hope. This habit of mine goes back to my childhood when my family newly arrived in Delhi from Nigeria to settle for good. I barely spoke a word of Hindi then. I look at home movies from back then and find it amazing that I even used to speak English with a Nigerian patois.
Obviously the situation had to be remedied so I started watching Hindi films with a vengeance and I think from the years 1987 to 1992 I watched pretty much every hindi film released during that time on VHS. And I loved it. Even now every time “Ganga Jamuna Saraswati” ever plays on cable I get a warm fuzzy feeling though its quite painful to watch it now. That habit ended as soon as Cable TV hit India and I was hooked by Star Movies instead. Of course it was much cooler to quote De Niro in the “The Deer Hunter” with “This is this !” rather than those Hiba films I loved to watch. They were very very cool with much darker and innovative storylines than the mainstream stuff.
Film critics are a very strange breed, equally reviled and cherished by the very people they seek to review. Some times they can decide the fate of a film but most of the times the box-office receipts have no relation to the reviews. A challenge leveled at them often is to put either put up or shut up ie make a film yourselves and show us how it’s done or get lost.
That’s exactly what the critics of the Cahiers du Cinema did and the French New Wave was born.
Sadly a similar response in India where some critics also took up the challenge has met with some dismal results which has led to a situation that many filmmakers don’t really respect the views of a professional critic coz they think they are full of shit and are in some cases. The self appointed critic is a different matter altogether. Some do it for the sheer love of it while others have serious issues to be dealt with. I shall seek to demonstrate with two anecdotes, the first of which is apocryphal.
When Prince Charles was sent to boarding school he apparently had a very rough time coz he was bullied by his seniors. Now that’s pretty much the norm in all boardings but he seemed to be specifically targeted. The headmaster on the promise of immunity asked one of the ring leaders why they would try and demean their future king instead of treating him in a friendly manner. The reply was that when Charles he would be king he would be the boy who beat the shit out of him in childhood. So no matter how much Charles would achieve he would always be greater.
The other incident happened a few years ago in Delhi at a then popular nightspot called Fireball. A very famous actor who’s still popular to this day was there partying with his friends. Despite his deserved bad boy reputation he was actually well behaved that particular night when a gang of guys gheraoed him, slapped him and ran away. It was a huge scandal at the time with all kinds of shit flying at from all quarters. I happened to know one of the guys coz he was my friend’s cousin. He told me and I quote “Woh saala apne aap ko bahut bada hero samajhta hain. Dekh kaise usko uski aukad dikha di.” I have censored out the maa-behans of course. :-)
Draw your own conclusions from the above.
By all standards David Lean is one of the greatest directors ever in the history of cinema. I love some of his films and some I think are just boring and vapid. Pauline Kael in her review of “Ryan’s Daughter” tore him a new asshole which resulted in not making a film for 14 years.
A bad David Lean film is still head and shoulders above most of the trash that gets released these days. Kael was one of the most respected critics ever and was a champion of filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah who were dismissed as freaks. She seemed to dislike studio pictures on principle and promoted indie films as much as she could. An absolute legend and a personal hero but still I can’t help but wonder what other films could Lean have made in those 14 years.
What’s the most amusing thing about this constant battle between filmmakers and film critics is that the actual hacks laugh all the way to the bank. They don’t care what the critics say coz for them a film is just a product. Look at directors like Uwe Boll and Kanti Shah who continue to make stinker after stinker without the slightest sign of slowing down. One director in Bollywood has made a dozen flops in a row yet has no dearth of films.
If you know that something is gonna stink and suck is there really a need for someone who is not being paid to do it to watch it in the first place. Surely one would be better served in pursuing something else which is more satisfying and rewarding. Isn’t ignoring a bad film totally a much more powerful gesture of disapproval than writing a review will ever be.
Look at the great films and filmmakers in the world that make great and original cinema which speak to us in a way we never thought possible. Isn’t that better than watching some film which you knew would be a turkey in the first place and feeling vindicated after being proven right. It’s a false sense of superiority which is pointless coz there will never be a shortage of crap in this world. Celebrate and accept the good coz the bad is all pervasive.
Criticism is a very powerful tool which has the power to both inspire and break. Spiderman said it the best “With great power comes great responsibility”.
I stand before those books celebrating geniuses and their works and go to class inspired every single day. I also didn’t watch “Sunday”.
12 Responses to “So much Beauty in the World”
Leave a Reply
Our Comments Policy : The following kinds of comments are troll capped, blocked and/or commenter's identity reported publicly: Verbal abuse, personal attacks, hate statements, spam, trolls, advertising. Please assist us in keeping the comments clean. Use the contact form to let us know if you find unwarranted comments on PFC. Thank you.
- Contract : An interview with GGV
- Joker! & Shortage of actors in India..
- Towards a more credible Indian Cinema
- How I discovered Woodey Allen
- Contract: A Must Watch…
- Joker! & Shortage of actors in In
- Contract: A Must Watch&#x
- Towards a more credible Indian C
- How I discovered Woodey
- Copy times X = Res
Recent Posts:
Hottest Today:
Well if it only was so black and white then we wouldn’t have so many difference of opinions would we. Many films are just universally rejected as trash, that is ok, but there are those categories of films which evoke equally contrasting opinions varying from downright deplorable to pure brilliance. I am sure there are far too many instances to even quote some of them. So the good critics are those who are able to tell this difference and to a large degree accurately.
“If you know that something is gonna stink and suck is there really a need for someone who is not being paid to do it to watch it in the first place. Surely one would be better served in pursuing something else which is more satisfying and rewarding. Isn
Interesting read…
@Sheikhchilli
I think the ’strange emotion’ you have mentioned is nothing but the way movies in India have been ’sold’ for over the years. The industry has been viewed mostly as an ‘entertainment’ industry rather than ‘art’ industry. A long history of such attitude/sales can make it into an axiom.
As far as critics go, I divide them into 2 categories. Those who review films and those who write about films.
As a rule, I never read reviews, I like to watch a film without any pre concieved notions and any expectations. What I do rely on is consensus and ratings. This was very difficult to do 2-3 years back when I started watching films earnestly. But now I just check the ratings at RottenTomatoes, Metacritic and IMDB. They are not foolproof, mind you, eg. MI3 has a rating of 70+ at RT. But it makes things easiear. Now here’s the deal, these sites basically aggregate reviews and give you an average rating of sorts. How do to get this rating in the absence of reviewers?:) This is the only function for reviewers in the ecosystem, imho.
Coming to the second kind, I read them only after watching a film. Because I never seem to get a film completely. Sometimes, its something small that I miss, or sometimes its the whole bloody meaning. It’s difficult to always agree with these critics, like when my stance is that ‘Blow Up’ is most overrated crap ever made, while ‘Dil Se’ is the least understood film. But I read them because they help me understand. I gain perspectives, and sometimes I find myself disliking a film I had previously liked or vice versa. Could be because I misunderstood, or could be because I failed to see some bias. Could be because something I see in real life gives me a new perspective.
The only Hindi film I’ve watched in 2008 was TZP and I was crying my eyes out sitting in Naz8 next to the distributor of the film who’s a big bro figure to me.
I suffer from a learning disabilty called Dyscalculia and went through the same stuff as Ishaan in the film though my problem was and is limited to mathematical reasoning.
You can imagine how cathartic the film was for someone like me. That is the true power and purpose of cinema. If I ever get to meet Aamir I will personally thank him for giving people like me a voice.
The critics can say whatever they want but to me the film is perfect. Critics can nitpick it till the cows come home and it won’t make an iota of difference.
^mithun
Touch
@mithun g
nice read…
Opening titles from Juno
http://www.shadowplaystudio.com/juno/
People, we are slaves of our own intellect…I agree movies need to be crticised and appreciated but dont you think nowadays we are doing it a bit too much…I feel nauseated nowadays when I go and read reviews on rotten tomatoes almost impulsively….its become an epidemic…..most of the movies in my ‘favourite’ lists have been accidental ‘watchs’….an example being ,the movie ‘Big Fish’…we are forgetting to really appreciate the art of moviemaking….our perception of movies is increasingly becoming more academic…and its not just movies…games,music etc. …. And being the ‘nerds’ that we are , we ‘devour’ every bit of,frankly,useless information…..
Anton Ego:
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends.”
From Pixar and Brad Bird’s Ratatouille
Nuff Said :)
Bravo. Brad Bird Forever :d
Ratatouille
This movie is a case in point … everywhere I read it had 5 stars, 98% ratings.The promos were excellent and critics were falling over each other to give it 6 out of 5.But frankly when I saw the movie on DVD it was not brilliant…it was good…but not something that deserved so much adulation.
(Warning:the following analogy might just go over the heads of many people..but then what is wikipedia for)The same thing happened with a video game ‘BIOSHOCK’ the previous year…It was supposed to be the first game that would combine great art with great gameplay…when it came out the OH-MY-GOD_WHAT-A-GAME reactions from the critics forced me to buy it….and frankly the game was rubbish…the graphics were excellent but the gameplay was the easiest and most repetetive I had seen for a long time.
My point is…watch the movie first and then if you dont like it read the reviews..but if you do like it,dont let the critics tell you otherwise…savour it..discuss it with friends…have your own views.
A Ceremony of Ignorance
by Ronald Bergan
In Variety, there appeared an article entitled Nix to the Crix (a typical Varietese headline) by someone called Peter Bart. In it, Bart made the tired, old anti-intellectual complaint that critics are too elitist and out of touch with popular taste. His philistine credentials are revealed by maintaining that critics