The Layman’s POV
I guess this post is going to be a slightly intriguing one for me to think, write, read and digest.
All so because, I had a little conversation with someone(I wouldn’t reveal the name) connected to Films and Theatre and I am registering this here. Some aspects are not acceptable to me as a cinema viewer, however I am going ahead and posting them as they are coming from someone who has acted in dramas and acted in some films and has “real” experience of what happens behind the scenes in drama and film world of Kollywood – The thamizh film world.
There were three aspects that this gentleman revealed.
1. From time immemorial in south india, films in south india have to connect to the audience. They should not be made for an eclectic set of people. The best talents(and of course , money) would come forward to participate in the film making process only when it is meant for public consumption, for there is an innate craving amongst the artists to be recognized appreciated and applauded by the public more than few grey haired men/ women sitting on wooden chairs. This is why the best products of cinematic art have to wear the gown of “entertainment” to realize their life cycle all the way from scripting board rooms to arclight images. Though there was a movement in the 70s and 80s by few Thamizh and telugu film makers (Name of Rudrayya, Jayakanthan, S.Balachander came up during the talk) to make movies independent of market, that lost steam and now in thamizh and telugu there is only one stream and that is mainstream. The benefit is that cinema remains “Peoples’ art” and thus ideologies, messages can be effectively communicated through films. Case in point was a news piece in eveninger “Maalai Malar” (Evening Flower”) that told how a guy married a deaf and mute girl after watching “Mozhi”.
I have my reservations against this aspect as creative freedom gets limited by market thought and innovations become “risks” and hence novelty merely becomes an attempt at crowd pleasing – a condition I would call “Death of art” . However that is my POV (Point of View).
2. The second is an aspect that I have no qualms with. That of fool proofing your work with a different POV. Interestingly I had read AK’s post on how he edited and screened his new film for Vishal. My friend strangely over a cup of coffee narrated an incident to me two incidents that happened during the filming of a thamizh movie “Darling Darling Darling” directed by K.Bhagyaraj, rated as one of the best screen writers in India by Maniratnam.
It seems that Bhagyaraj has this habit of checking his shot and angles with lightmen and light assistants (assistants to cameramen who check the lux and other cinematograph settings in shooting). Once after taking a long and what he thought was a good technical shot, he asked one of the LAs how good it was. To this, the LA had nonchalantly said from a distance that it was an out of focus as the camera was atleast 1 foot away from the planned spot ( those days there were no monitors or other electronic assistance). This was later found to be true and since then Bhagyaraj developed this habit of checking with the unit, the result of the shoot. In another incident, the climax scene was reshot after one of the light men found the ending shot to be lacking “punch”. Offcourse the movie was a smash hit and after that Bhagyaraj went on to marry the heroine of the movie Poornima Jeyaram.
In total, total I agree to some extent that cinema is a special medium that owes its existence to people who see it unlike other art forms that are largely personal in their fructification. you cannot run a movie in a private hall and see it again and again appreciating it. you need people to see it and you cannot make a cinema all by yourself try all you might. And if the cinema appeals to people from the lowest strata, if they understand what you have conveyed, then you have done that – CONVEYING – really well. And that is when cinema is complete.
Tags: Cinematography, Direction, Tamil
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
well i totally agree, i find it hard to digest when someone says my movie does not pander to the masses it is only for the classes…..or i think my movie will attract only a niche audience blah blah blah…..hell no that aint working for me……a david dhawan is as good as a bhansali by virute of their films as long as they reach a large audience….
Well , I noticed, that, K. Bhagyaraj newer repeat his heroines in his next films, but in the case of Poornima Jayaram, she is the only one who get repeated first she was in Darling, Darling, Darling and then in Munthanai Mudichu, where she played his first wife for a short role. In real life, she became his second wife after Mundhanai Mudichu release, since his first wife Praveena died of an ailment. Poornima is a Mumbai born and brought up Brahmin girl.