The Technical vs Conceptual (FTII) Debate
In my last post to talk about my first film Hulla which is releasing next month (though now pushed to September 19th, as per the latest update), I aired my view on why people from outside the industry should come and tell their stories as trained film personnel (like those from FTII) are not the ones likely to do so. It seems to have rubbed some people the wrong way. That doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that my point is being misunderstood. So, here’s trying to clarify, with the hope of starting a debate because even I am trying to understand certain things.
This is my contention. There is no doubt that FTII produces the best film technicians in the country – camera, sound, editing. There are other people who have made a mark without this formal training, but the majority has been from FTII over the years - cinematographers, sound designers and editors…but directors? In the 1980s, several FTII-trained directors gave momentum to what is called the parallel film movement in India (even though it really began in the 1970s). For me, the 1980s were to Indian cinema what the 1960s were to popular music in the West, and I find it bizarre when people say the 1980s saw the worst Hindi films. Films like Ardh Satya, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Mirch Masala, Albert Pinto KGKAH, Main Zinda Hoon, Kalyug, Pestonjee, Holi, Katha, Sparsh, many more, and even television series like Tamas and Wagle Ki Duniya nurtured my imagination and made me want to tell stories of my own. What an incredibly creative environment it must have been to foster this kind of storytelling on a consistent basis. Was it the environment or was it the common thread of NFDC, the government, who allowed projects to bear fruit without overwhelming commercial consideration? The second certainly seems true for more than a few cases, but it could not have been the only reason. Many of these directors were from FTII and the future must have seemed promising.
But what happened? In the last decade and a half, how many such films have emerged that will similarly survive the test of time? And how many such films have been helmed by FTII directors (regardless of their graduating discipline) that still remains in our public memory? Let’s stay with Hindi films. Raju Hirani, Sriram Raghvan, Rajat Kapoor…who else? And even these are late-1980s graduates, no one after that? Sudhir Mishra and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, contrary to popular assumption, are not FTII graduates; they just did different kinds of time there. Vishal Bharadwaj (Maqbool and Omkara), Ram Gopal Varma (Satya and Company), Dibakar Banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla), Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday), Ashutosh Gowariker (Lagaan and Swades), Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya) Madhur Bhandarkar (Chandni Bar), Nagesh Kukkunoor (Iqbal), even Aamir Khan (TZP) and Anurag Basu (Metro)…no formally trained filmmakers here, but they have made the most important films of the last 15 years. OK, forget landmark films, which FTII direction graduate’s film from the last 18 years do you remember if you think hard? There must be a few, surely. (Some of them make films in regional languages that sadly don’t get the publicity they deserve perhaps, but how many can we remember here?)
And if the argument is that these trained filmmakers cannot cope with the “shamelessly exploitative mainstream system” and they make films for a world audience, all right then, which films made a mark internationally that was helmed by a post-1990 FTII graduate? How many can you think of?
It confounds at least my imagination why the premier film institute in our country cannot produce filmmakers who at least have independent voices to offer. What exactly is the government subsidizing their film training for? To create technicians to service the commercial film industry? Is this a key reason why our cinema has touched pathetic lows in the last decade and a half - because they’re merely servicing the “visions” of a largely unimaginative commercial set-up?
Sanjivan Lal made the point in the last post that “not everybody who graduates from IIM or IIT or AFMC or AIIMS goes on to excel in life”, so why blame FTII? Point taken, but then my submission also is that if on a list of prominent doctors in our country from the last 15 years there was nobody from AFMC or AIIMS, or nobody from IIM on a list of top managers in the same period, or no scientists from IIT, then wouldn’t questions would be asked about the efficacy of these institutes?
Once again, no one is questioning the significance of FTII-trained technicians, they are par excellence (and that to a great extent justifies FTII’s existence). But technicians ultimately service the director’s vision, and any film can only be as good as that. So, unlike the 1980s, what has actually been going on in the last few years that prevent institute-trained people from adding new voices to Indian Cinema?
In fact, people ask a lot of these questions privately, there have been lots of murmurs since quite some time (perhaps it is a great subject for a documentary film actually). But since it is deemed controversial and politically incorrect to ask them publicly, nobody in any media has actually tried to answer some of these questions. In an interactive forum like this, surely we can do this, in the right spirit of inquiry, rather than to pass judgment on anybody’s professional worth - that is absolutely not my intent in bringing this up.
I should clarify a few more things about my background in case some people bring it up later and ascribe agendas to me. My father was the Director of FTII between 1986 and 1991 and I had the privilege of living in the campus for 2 years (then I started working and left town). Unfortunately, I did not have much interest in cinema then, and I stayed away completely from the institute. So, my views are completely independent of his experience there (which was not a very happy one). My exposure to cinema began in small trickles in the 1990s when as an advertising professional I had to interact with filmmakers with my ad scripts (Kundan Shah’s first ad film was my script – for Fevikwik). I interacted with a lot of institute people during my ad years (including Raju Hirani, who always was one of the nicest people you could meet). Later, as very strange twists of fate led me to become a filmmaker myself, I worked and interacted with a lot of institute people (especially from a particular batch). There have been mixed feelings – some horrid experiences, some wonderful ones. Some people I can’t stand today, some I am very happy to know (like Param and Vivek who worked on Hulla)…pretty much like any other field, I guess.
There are brilliant FTIIians I have met, like Pankaj Rishi Kumar, who is making some remarkable documentary films, a mind to reckon with. Or Sudeep Chatterjee, imaginative cinematographer, Umesh Kulkarni a director finding a unique voice of his own, many more I know and respect, and indeed so many I do not even know. I do not have anything against FTIIians, nor am I saying that they have inferior talent. In fact, I am asking the question that why despite all this talent, and despite the exposure they get to cinema (which is second to none) and opportunities they get to form a sensibility and a mindset (very few in the human race get this in a formal way), there are hardly any original voices coming out from there. Not since the last 15-18 years. What has gone wrong?
Could it be that the ability to tell stories has taken a backseat amidst an overwhelming preoccupation with craft? This has been one theme that has kept coming at me like a common thread in my interactions with people from the institute in the last few years. Maybe I met the wrong people, as Sanjivan suggested, maybe, but does not the general output itself suggest that there is a problem? In fact, amongst the people I have met in the last few years, most of them were quite simply not interested in stories. The majority of student diploma films I have seen over the last few years suggest that too.
It does seem that the overriding emphasis on craft on some level dilutes the ability in a lot of them to understand concepts and stories themselves. Their God is in the details fundamentally, and nowhere else, but from the outside there is little divinity to behold. That is navel-gazing emphasis on technique or atmosphere, and God knows there is too much of that in our cinema at the cost of simple, clear-eyed storytelling (which is what most of classic Indian cinema is about). It is understandable if commercial directors, either from film family backgrounds, or those forced by producers to do “world class” cinema, falter on this count, but why trained filmmakers who have been exposed so comprehensively to the power of the best original cinema around the world? Advertising filmmakers who graduate to feature filmmaking find this a natural trap to fall into (though Navdeep Singh very creditably didn’t with Manorama Six Feet Under), which is again very understandable because by instinct, reality is hardly ever sought in advertising (that’s another story). But these trained filmmakers are weaned on realistic cinema right through their stint, why are they so reluctant to tell stories without being heavy-handed and documentary-like? Why is atmosphere and mood more meaningful to them than characters and plot? Why do most FTII diploma films have the same common thread of this heaviness?
Could another problem be the obstinacy (and delusion) in a lot of them to write their own scripts, despite not fundamentally being writers? Again, I go on my personal experience of reading quite a few unproduced scripts (and a few produced too) where as plain prose stories they would fall flat on their face, such is the obvious lack of conceptual strength in the material.
There seems a strange lack of desire to go beyond craft, to explore thought processes or to conceptually push the envelope. It seems as if they don’t want to communicate, but showboat. It’s almost as if they’re consciously worried about their films causing entertainment, as if that would diminish their worth.
It feels fundamentally wrong to generalize thus, but once again, does the overall evidence around us not suggest this as a common thread?
It is perhaps also possible that more than a few of them, after imbibing the highest possible standards of World Cinema are simply paralyzed by the fear of having to emulate it thereafter. When story-telling has gone out of the equation, craft is all that remains. If true, what a pity that is, since stories are actually the greatest leveler in any cultural space. And it has been so since man created language. These filmmakers could actually use straightforward storytelling as a way to reduce, if not completely remove, the pressure. Every single story has the potential to be original, if told from an independent point-of-view. Where are these points-of-views?
This kind of mindset also seems to have a lot of contempt for creating “art” from borrowed life. These people feel their own lives or life around them is not worthy of being their inspiration for their work. No, instead other cinema feeds their imagination, either from different countries or from different times…and then gets labeled as “homage”. There isn’t even a cross-pollination of art forms in most cases, just cinema. This fundamentally derivative approach can at best produce genre filmmaking, not much else. The more technically proficient filmmakers can produce slick films that get some attention when released, but whether they have the soul to stand the test of time is another matter altogether.
One refrain one often hears from trained film students, or trained practicing filmmakers, is how so-and-so looks “like a TV serial”. Or how there are too many close-ups and mid-shots, not enough long shots. To me, this is as idiotic a comment as someone saying there are too many nouns on a page or too many commas. Any writer who thinks so much about grammar consciously is likely to be very average. These are things you do instinctively - it is the overall impact that counts, not the parts taken separately. As far as the TV serial comment goes (a very common one amidst these people), guys, you should be so lucky. Kieslowski’s Decalogue was a TV series, or did that slip your mind? And it is a well-known fact in the Western world, some of the finest dramatic writing has happened on TV shows and serials (because TV is seen as a writers’ medium there, however unbelievable it may seem to us here on the evidence of our TV industry, but that too is another story). And if this “like a TV serial” analogy is used to describe flat lighting and unimaginative framing, it is stupid, because more than 50% feature films all around the world have even lower standards – why is TV getting a bad name because of someone’s ignorance?
The trained film student’s snobbery about television is also amusing because in today’s time any film, ANY film, finds 95% of its total viewership in its lifetime on television. Once a film is released and goes off the screens (which is at best never more than a few weeks these days), television is where it gets its audiences from, year after year. It may not be the ideal thing to happen, but it is reality, and it is myopic to ignore this.
Another possible reason for things coming to this pass could also be – attitude problems. The term “genius complex” existed 2 decades ago to describe the attitude of FTII students, and on the evidence of what I’ve personally experienced, things haven’t really gotten better. A cinematographer I worked with for a while on a documentary at some point decided he should ideally be the director and pretty much began to operate on his own brief and own pace, once even over-ruling and admonishing me in front of the whole unit. Why? Ostensibly, because he was from FTII and I wasn’t. An Editor-turned-Chief-AD decided that he was above the law when it came to punctuality and began to set his own work culture that fully accommodated his shenanigans. Just two small examples among many, but I believe a lot of this arrogance does not come from within themselves, but from the false sense of security they get in belonging to what they believe to be an elite class of filmmakers. With a lot of these kinds of people sadly, at the end of the day, it is not even that the quality of their work justifies a fraction of their arrogance. And that really is the bigger problem – could there be a co-relation between these too? Does this brand of arrogance prohibit any kind of contemplation - something that is a pre-requisite for any kind of creative work which has soul?
Obviously, this kind of behaviour is not across the board, but enough people in this industry know exactly what I’m talking about. I should add that I’ve also had very good experiences where trained technicians have added immensely to the creative process, not just the execution. Invariably this has happened in cases where they had some reason to respect other people’s point-of-view, in this case, mine. So, it is not that I am making a case for not working with trained personnel, quite the contrary. There has to be some kind of mutual respect, that’s all. Otherwise, there is no point. And I get the feeling that a lot of these trained technicians are unable to respect people without the same training.
For me, the point of asking these questions has a lot to do with my becoming a filmmaker. As I have mentioned previously, I have no training, no film background. I sure as hell did not get these opportunities because of my father (if anything, that may have gone against me a few times), otherwise it would not have taken me 7 years to make my first film. Sunil Doshi trusted me with Hulla because of my credentials as someone who would finish a project (like Local, perhaps) and give it all he had, not because he saw me as a promising filmmaker. And fundamentally, the project came together because the cast and crew of the film were excited about the script and the basic story being told. They all worked for peanuts money on this “zero cv-value” project because they felt strongly about the material.
And this ultimately is the point of this post. I strongly believe, on the evidence of my own experience (since I’m no spring chicken, that has some value now, I guess) and from what the environment has become in our industry today – good, original material is everything. Everything. If you have those kinds of stories to tell, that is all the confidence you need. Surround yourself with people who believe in your material, trained or untrained, and execute it with nothing more than plain vanilla common sense. If I could do it, many, many others can, I’m sure of it.
And if some of those are trained personnel (from FTII or elsewhere), who combine their undeniably superior technical understanding with an original or independent take on any material, well, I’ll be absolutely delighted to eat my words.
Thanks for your time, and look forward to your comments. If there are factual or logical gaps in the assessment above, I genuinely look forward to their rectification below.
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You’ve started a very very interesting debate. And an excellent engrossing post Jaideep!!!
NIce write up.
Nice post, well written, cant really point out whether it is true or not me being an outsider but i am surprised that the technicians view themselves as being good.
Having watched Bollywood films all my life I have always beleived that the technicians of have no idea what they are doing. All images, shot compositions look alike, are highly saturated with color and seem to be over lit. Take the new “Sarkar Raj” for example where an opposite is attempted with low key, in some cases single source lighting and yet it all looks so amatuerish. But here you are saying that the technicians pride themselves on thier “craft”. How odd? Thanks for the insight and it would be highly appreciated if you could let me know why Bollywood movies fail to create the very atmosphere these technicians seem to regard so highly. Is it because of lack of resources (time/film stock quality) or is FTII as an institiute unable to provide the high level of technical training required to create “atmosphere”.
This is what I was talking about ,a real article…….nice write-up ,comments on it later.
Sir,I know you from your Gentleman days though I haven’t read many of those articles. Read Local after getting familiar with blogs a year or so back & read the argument between you & Jai Arjun Singh. Surely, the book deserved better exposure.
I think the FTII grads are going through the same phase as the Indian English writers are. They feel that traditional story-telling techniques are very lowly for their educated sensibility. They would rather emulate Korean or Iranian masters than tell a simple story in the traditional way.
this is probably the most detailed and thought provoking article i have come across pfc in some time.
well from the ftii graduates i have met they always give me a sort of pseudo intellectual vibe.
maybe we need a better film institute that combines the aestheticall as well as the commercial aspects of film making better.
but then again sagar ballary made bheja fry last year whose soul aim was to entertain people, though he is not from ftii but since srftii is the brother institute i guess the students are more or less the same in both places.
Jaideep, in your opening line, are you suggesting that contemporary filmmakers visit FTII and “guest lecture” (or the FTII equivalaent) the students there? If so, I think that would be an idea worth looking into. IITs/IIMs have guest lecturers in the form of leading researchers who visit the campuses and hold workshops over the course of a month or two, so why not have a RGV/Subhas Ghai visit Pune, pick the brightest of the directors student and hold a 2-3 week workshop? I guess it has to work both ways. Ghai et.al as well as the directors of FTII would need to see the benefit of doing so.
superb post …
let the discussions begin
I am not in the film industry so not sure how it works, but a an outsider, I think that FTII directors must be having a tough time to “enter” into this “industry”, where advertisement and tamaasha are the name of the game. It must be difficult and frustrating to cope up with this environment.
Ahh..what Jaideep probably wants to say and does not is that FTII guys, “Get off your high horses!”..but really the question is “is there enough real talent..original thinkers??”..and this is a classic question we ask all leading institutes of the country..are we producing ants or spiders??!!
i found this quote on the net:-
“I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.”
Now Jaideep can make an analogy of this with FTII-
“I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at FTII.They don’t teach you how to respect and connect with audience.They don’t teach you how to complete a project on time. They don’t teach you how to create lovable or hateful characters. They don’t teach you how to control their own and stars’ tantrums. They don’t teach you how to feel what’s going on in character’s mind, instead of concentrating over angles to shoot him.They don’t teach you to behave nicely to a faulting crew member. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.”
“It’s almost as if they’re consciously worried about their films causing entertainment, as if that would diminish their worth.”
Bingo … I think a lot of people think this way, even in the audience - morose, depressing stuff is “realistic” and anything humorous has to be “leave your brains at home” stuff.
Hi!
I stand by you and adding to your list of untrained directors are SHEKHAR KAPUR, MANI RATHNAM, … I think the very idea of training to become a director is wrong, its like training to be a writer. One get understand the technicalties but where will you get the BIG IDEA, THE SENSE OF VISUALTISATION, SCRIPT SENSE, AND MOST COMMON - COMMON SENSE.
CHEERS!!!!!!!
Superb article Jaideep, your observations cover all sides of this debate.
Aren’t there any FTII grads or alumni reading that can weigh in on their experience so we have a more balanced debate? One problem with a debate of this nature is that a milion people channel their wishful thinking and say that one does not need formal training to be good, and they will point out the exceptions. This dismissive attitude is tiresome because no one says, you don’t need to go to a business school or IIM to be good/great. Even in the case of IIMs it is probably true. They produce good managers, and not necessarily visionary leaders because of the intangible nature of what is being asked.
I think the question to be asked is not why FTII has not produced greatness in recent years, but why even mediocrity (all terms being relative and normalized for bollywood) is hard to come by. Is it due to some high-mindedness about making “meaningful” cinema, that they think is antithetical to entertainment, or is there a disdain on the part of the industry? This is the flipside.
Maybe FTII grads with their exposure to a lot of good cinema, their idealistic and naive view of the kind of films they want to make, and of course their desire to tell an “original” story that is complete anathema to bollywood, never stood a chance. Because the courage of convictions and stickwithitness can not be taught.
I also suspect that those that go to FTII, have the support of their families in making a film career, and when the going gets tough, they settle for technical roles that feed them, sort of as payback to their family’s suppport, whereas those that fought their family/ran away from home etc., to make a career in film have already demonstrated courage, and have more pride to lose if they go back home, so they stick with it no matter what.
This is a very, very good post and quite relevant. It’s about time people spoke about this!
A slight introduction - I am an Engineering graduate from Pune, born and brought up in Bombay otherwise, and I’m currently getting into Journalism. I am also an FTII aspirant - I’ve applied for the Audiography course and have cleared the exam… waiting for the interview.
I think the problem Jaideep has highlighted here with FTII is a problem with ALL the premier institutes in this country vis. the IITs, IIM etc. I know people in these institutes as well as FTII.. and have myself at one point or the other aspired to get into each of these!
Its as if they have a common training program. I have seen people get into and graduate from these institutes completely changed. Gone is the idealism, the desire to make a difference, the desire to do great work.
Everything is about attaining a level.
Different parameters define these levels. For an IITian/IIMian… it is the chance to work with a reputed foreign company such as PriceWaterHouseCoopers or Deustche Bank or EdelWeiss. Its as simple as that - the fatter the pay package, the more reputed the company, the better it is. Graduating IIT with a B. Tech in Computer Science and landing a job in Infosys/Wipro/Satyam is a criminal offense. Microsoft or Google…. thats it… otherwise all hail the foreign investment banking and finance sectors.
Ditto with FTII. If you’re from FTII, where you’ve been exposed to Kurosawa,Fellini,Ray,Godard,Truffaut,Italian NeoRealism, German Impressionism etc etc…. it is CRIMINAL to even think about film-making as a way of telling a story. They are taught to think of it as Art, and more than art. Several FTII students (and indeed, film students generally) do not seem to understand where cinema ends and reality begins. Would you if you were watching a minimum of 8-10 films a week?
Therefore they make artistic, self-indulgent mountains out of molehills. Most FTII student films churned out in the last few years are sophomoric at best, and pretentious pieces of trash at worst. The acting course has reached a new low - people try and develop a style before they learn how to even face a camera and take the light properly. They can’t even get their toning right. Is this really the institute that produced Om Puri, Shabana Azmi et al?
What these premier institutes are going through is just a cycle. It always happens - an institution attains status, attracts lot more people, its value goes higher, a lot more to live upto blah blah blah. The end result - the students of such institutions have no choice but to follow the status quo. Just as almost no IIT graduate chooses to become a research scientist, similarly hardly any FTII grad is going to compromise his/her intellectualism which they have developed for 3+ years.
And as dabba pointed out rightly, people who come to FTII come with a lot more at stake. Especially Direction students, as the technicians find it much easier to get work. Therefore they stay in that cocoon for 3 years, losing touch with the pulse of the industry, the audiences and life. And since they’ve already put so much on the line for something… they’re ready to do whatever it takes to safeguard that way of thinking, that philosophy.
Like I said.. I think its a cycle. I think it needs to play itself out, until somebody comes along and breaks it. And I think its happening already with people like Ummesh Kulkarni, Sudeep Chatterjee etc. passing out of the institution.
salutes to you, mr. varma!!! a topic worth debating on….and some very intelligent comments too….we need more guys like u on pfc….
I don’t know much about the technicalities of film-making or FTII ,but is the competition to get into FTII as fierce as IIT/IIM ?
because your output is only as good as the input ,and if the best don’t go through you can’t expect champions to come out of these institutes.
A bit unfair to FTIIians. Not because it’s not correct, but because it’s a problem with generation in general. Not many IITians and IIMites are innovative and have their own, individual perspective either. They can still make themselves count as bigwigs only because their field is also growing beyond what was offered to their seniors.
Personally I feel there are two kinds of students in any course of study. First is the one who knows what he wants to do in the end and then goes in to armour himself with the latest knowledge to supplement his perspective.
The other is one who gets in because he has liked some of the end products/people. They see new things and develop their perspective on the campus which is invariably based on their colleages.
The second category of students seem to make up most of the current generation, and so that is problem that seems to be inflicting them (not so hard to imagine given the amount of options they have to choose from). Which is also the FTIIians problem i guess.
Talking about attitude, it’s natural to have a tiny bit of arrogance after their prolonged effort. But it’s necessary that they realise that perspective is what is finally important and the one with a better/different perspective cannot be tied down on just the qualifications (or the lack thereof).
I have a (may be unrelated) query. Is it that watching a lot of films helps? Does someone who has read a lot of books would become a better writer? Is it not that knowing too much strains and overloads your brain so much that you are not able to create something of your own? Is it also not true of FTII people or for that matter all formally trained people including those in IITs and IIMs? Does it not make them so engrossed in minor details that they can not look at the big picture?
Great post Jaideep! I think it’s also because of idealism of FTIIans, the pressure to live upto the standards they have envisioned, the pressure to live upto others expectations of them, the unwillingness to compromise on things and be practical even to make their first film, etc.
Jaideep, excellent post!
I was at the FTII earlier this year and let me tell you, I couldn’t have agreed more! I wonder what happened to the batches after 88-89. After a point, you begin questioning the theories thrown at u. I fail to understand, how can some of the most learned people also be some of the most shut to accept new ideas? When I heard some of these professors despising every director in India, I asked them the very question that Jaideep here has raised. I was told, “We lack conviction. We dont have faith in ourselves. We are not learned enough”. Trust me, I was told this by a professor at FTII. I am not sure how I should read that because I cant seem to agree (at all) with what it means on first read.
Prasanna, I cant even begin telling yyou how much some of the faculties at the FTII hate, detest and despise RGV. They feel he is ridiculous. He knows nothing of cinema. He is no story teller at all. I’ve met professors who dont like you giving even a reference to his work.
I completely love the place, i adore its lineage and history, cant thank them enough for Kundan Shah, Rajat Kapoor, Raju Hirani, Mani Kaul, Sriram Raghvan, Saeed Mirza… But really, they need to take a reality check. They are really, really going wrong somewhere. Ex students would perhaps be better placed to answer what’s wrong there.
I was also told that there seems to be a problem with the board that decides on who gets the admission. Many people have been rejected bcoz they havent made a short film, or acted in something or shot something themselves. It is like the vicious job for experience and experience for a job cycle. Some students claim that since the last few years, only students from the larger cities are getting a chance while others swear there is no consistency in what they are looking for in a student. It’s like being rejected a US VISA - u never know why u didnt get it.
Needless to say, half of the problem can be solved if the right candidates get those seats. Of course, there are only those 12 seats, of which 4 are reserved.. Sigh!
excellent article! great read.
Actually, Arati’s comment hits the nail on the head more than anything else even in the post itself. This utter contempt for indegenous cinema and its practioners, which eventually may be leading to a strange kind of self hatred, this may actually give more cues than anything else.
It may even explain why not a single FTII person chose to respond to this here (but they still had lively discussions about it on their own Yahoo reading list). Perhaps we are not worthy recipients of their energies. Maybe that explains why no worthwhile films have been coming our way from them too.
Anyway, thanks to those who took the time to read and commented.
err thani??
dabbas calling
Dear Jaideep,
Very nice post. Thought provoking and long, very long.
This one is from FTII, that is me, not this post. Which basically means that these are my opinions and mine alone etc. etc. Apologies in advance to all the people referred for any misinterpretations, also for factual mistakes if any.
To reflect on your mail is a gargantuan task, if I go point by point. Many of the things I agree with so I will lapse into my own raga. Hope we strike a chord together.
Let me begin by saying that FTII is not an external entity. All of us who have a “passion for cinema” and that is important, are part of it. Let any one deny it. I have observed this fraternity closely for fifteen years and have found no reason to the contrary. Like any institution of higher learning it produces amongst others, people more advanced in skills (what you call craft), more advanced in thoughts and more advanced in artistry.
All reach the first level some the second and very few the third. These are the sorted out, well developed, rounded off yet mavericks with unique voice and an address system easy on the ear. The institute does not produce them. Though the institute helps for sure.
They are everywhere.
As far as the institute is concerned its charter explains the sarkari expectation very clearly. To quote its vision statement,
‘To impart technical education and training in the sphere of films and television’
ref http://www.ftiindia.com/newftii/citizen’s_charter.html#ann1
That, it is a training institute as far as the government is concerned is obvious from the fact that it still awards post-graduate diploma to its students and not a degree. For all it’s posturing, this opening sentence has kind of summarized the expectations of the state sponsor to me, since I first read it in my student days.
FTII is a governmental institution and its direction is determined by the state. The state has very limited interest in promoting quality in arts, at least it seems to me.
That is if you are arguing for art.
For the commerce end of cinema FTII alumni are addressing admirably.
The art end you are laughing away.
Lets get on the same page about art and technique before we progress. These so called technicians are exceptional because they are artists. The artists as are generally understood in film parlance, namely the actors and the artiste, the big name at the end of the credits, the directors are so mediocre because they are mostly technicians. That is the state of affairs in general. Not just in films. Pure original thought, new invention, breaking borders, jaw dropping, unique, rooted, fresh are terms hard to relate to most endeavors post independence. I am left wondering myself, what more will it take to move us. Nothing touches us any more. How are we going to bring around a revolution? I am mostly alarmed at the apathy of the youth.
My wife just told me of this colleague of hers. She is six months pregnant, travels from Kanjurmarg to Kharghar on local. Doesn’t get a seat before Nerul. Why? Because young college girls look at her, look at the tummy, then look out of the window. This is the font of the feminine. If there is apathy here, god save the rest of us. Boys I can relate to, girls we are all looking at you. With what are you as a film-maker going to address this lot.
I guess if bribes to party in power on national television are passé to the people then we are close to the nadir.
Anyway it makes me squirm every time they say at awards ceremony how the all the artists were a charm and how the techies pitched in too. Such a mistaken understanding of the terms.
Now the expectation that a state institute with an indifferent attitude will produce the voice of the India without being its mouthpiece is a pipe dream.
Like any mix of people, FTII produces its exceptional directors along with also rans. Trust me there are many of both. They have to operate in a field that is run by the producer/distributor.
A little understood fact is that a film speaks the producer’s language. It is a misconception that the film is the director’s medium. In this scenario’s the question is why are we as a country not producing the right producer’s.
The writing on the wall is clear. When the debate of what is the role of the state in public enterprise is settled on commercial terms, then everything travels to the market. And in the market what sells is “Race”, no matter how passionate we get about cinema. So when social subjects used to sell we had those kind of films supported by private producers, when the state sponsored film making, those kind of film got made, now the state(NFDC) hedges one third of the film. So it is going to be one third NFDCesque and the rest marketable. Or we have the couple of crore vehicle which yours if you can bring it in within budget and time and if you have a sellable face. Who needs the story. To address the market we have the Vidhu Vinod Chopra and David Dhawans and now the Raghvans but I will be darned if any of the FTII kind can come up with the masterpiece or the marketpiece by the Abbas Mustan duo. Let me offer an answer, most of us feel could solve many of your concerns. The answer is distribution. Something that the state can do and should do. More than the production the independent voiced director does not find an avenue for exhibition in our country. The state can hardly break the producer/distributor hegemony. But it can provide a stage for voices that sing a different tune. Voices you want to hear. Then let the public decide. Right now a director faced with a complete denial by the market if his voice does not fit an agenda. This is the state’s true role. To encourage, support and publish plural, multilingual extraordinary attempts. That is building soft power. That is building state equity.
The best thing about FTII is the proximity to Film Archives. You take away the campus, you take away the staff, you take away the teachers, just leave the gear and the archive vaults, and the seniors. This is the mix that does the real teaching. The result is transformative. For you taste what cinema could be. And that is why there is a strong bonding between the FTII alumni. We are all stranded in a bewildering world with only the hope of one understanding the other. Sometimes the FTIIan appears unapproachable therefore. It is not so.
Well back to the transformation. It can be a story, it can be visual treat, it can be an aural delight, it can touch you, provoke you, stroke you but more than that it changes you. It is magical and there in lies the whole charm, for not many things in life allow you to touch or stroke or provoke anyone into anything.
And time and time again you have to see it being murdered in film and TV.
Now that I mention TV, I do not understand what is the fuss about its evaluation. Surely it is the pits. Working in that medium is a soul sapping experience as is watching it. It can be great but they are not going to spoil us now. Are they. Kieslowski did not cut the grade till he was thirty eight in an environment where his director friends, all well established by then rooting for him. And have we seen any channel pick anything close to Decalogue here or elsewhere since then. “Art form borrowed from your own life”, sounds like Martian to me. Who wants a slice of reality when I want to sleep with dreams of jewellery ‘she’ wears to bed. Meaning TV is about aspirations not inspiration or reality or anything vaguely remindful of it. Reality is Big Boss or sensational and ad embalmed news. That too rehashes from phoren TV. Originality in TV is Balaji.
This snobbery about the TV is well founded if you think. The entire range of media especially TV feeds on film. It’s not just the film screenings which fill airtime of channel after channel, it is the interview, the inaugurations, the life style, the gossip, the backstage et al which take up the rest. That too with the insipid, limp, sorry films that are the bulk of their fascination.
So to your point about the “simple story”.
To quote David Byrne of Talking Heads speaking of his compositions, “The words are there to make them listen to the music”.
There is this whole myth about the story as being the thing. Some kind of magic solution to our ills. The notion that we have the ‘technicians’, ‘artists’ and resources, get a solid script and hey presto. I take that with an overdose of salt. For one, story is not necessarily the conveyor of whatever that a film is trying to convey.
It is an audio-visual medium with its own codes. The ones who have understood have been crying themselves hoarse over it.
For one, my favourite films don’t have a story that will stand the scrutiny of the script whetters of any of the film banners.
A poor brahmin family in a village. A boy, a girl, a father, a mother and a grand old aunt. Episodes around rebuke and deprivation of the kids. The father leaves the scene for a long spell in search of better prospects. The aunt dies. The girl dies.
Father returns to take the balance of the family with him.
But brother can you take your eyes of this film after Ray adds his “atmosphere” to it.
I will come back to atmosphere later.
You mentioned Kieslowski. Short film about love, Double life of Veronica, any Fellini, Tarkovsky’s Sacrifice, Mirror, actually most of them, Bunuel, un Chien Andalou if you take it to the extreme are films with slim stories. Fitzcarraldo I forgot. Total mastery. Story of a man wanting to build an opera in colonial South America. So much for motivation. His solution- Get the money by transporting rubber, a prized commodity in that time, by ship down an estuary. So far so good. But first he has to cross a hill with the ship. Trust this film to Yash Chopra or Farhan Akhtar.
Know what I mean when we say atmosphere.
Another example when the mention of Yashji and Ahktar saheb has come up. This up for scrutiny but according to industry gossip Javed saheb was more than a tad disappointed with the final reproduction of the scene as he with Salim saheb had written for Deewar. You know the one under the bridge. What do you have? I have Ma. Well if you are wondering why quote a scene which is practically a celebration of the Hindi commercial, then the written scene suggested the bridge as a metaphore, the half shadows from which Amitabh appears a a metaphore etc. etc. What you see is a literal translation not a cinematic flight. No atmosphere.
Yet the scene works. Power of the writing. So this is a double sided argument. Bottomline stories and storytellers don’t grow in institutes. We need people with a voice and something to say. People who understand the sum total and are wanting to understand some more. Extremely short supply.
For this atmosphere is that elusive mis en scene. The absolute sum total. The total which includes the interesting/not interesting story.
So when The FTIIan sees it being misunderstood or murdered he takes it just a wee bit better than the average Joe. Then he lets fly.
So accept my apologies for the bad behaviour of the cameraman. He/she might just have been too overcome/undiplomatic/juvenile. Hard to digest he was unkind. The AD, FTII or otherwise is a sorry case. Boss don’t know what to do with them myself. Know any with their head screwed right and knowing their job, you know the works, do tell me. By the way FTIII does not make a good AD. There is no formal/informal training. Yet some are great. Caveat Emptor.
Lets leave this train of thoughts with this little lament that your references to individuals on your team was ungainly in an otherwise cogent piece. Purely because they were your team. You did not spot them right early on or something happened, it’s all your private education. Can’t label an institution on that basis. You know if I opened up with the bad behaviour of practicing directors, FTII or otherwise, it will fill up this server and next.
This moderated critique of FTII that they are good at technique but stink in their attitude, some are great most are lost is like saying Muslims are bigots but some of my best friends are Muslim.
When I read it, I said to myself that this may sound combative, but let me reassure you it is coming with an overdose of love. Really there is a shortage of leaders who can show the way. The path has to be created and anyone can be that path breaker. Write some fine stories, pick the right guys and make some great movies. We will all be there to help you in the process and cheer you when you speak with that clear, sorted out, rounded off, maverick, unique voice.
A word about the genius complex. Some one corrected me a while back. That there is nothing like a superiority complex. There is only one complex and that we all know too well. It is just that life is different if you have seen through the bullshit. It just leaves the people on the other side wondering what the heck are these jokers smiling about. A bit like the cows from Gary Larson’s, The Far Side.
Welcome to the film fraternity. Tons of success to your new film.
Best,
Tanmay Agarwal
GraFTII
PS: Your mail did incite a debate on the wisdomtree group(E group of FTII alumni). What happened there is another story, but simultaneously another debate was going on about using GraFTII as a suffix after our names in the fashion of A.C.E. or W.I.C.A. etc. It could not come to a unanimous conclusion. Many of us were scared of being looked at as exclusivist worst elitist.
FTII is a national treasure like IIMs and IITs. It is a pool of resources for all. Use it.
FTII needs all the support it can get to safeguard our collective artistic pursuits. It needs policy appraisal on a regular basis and quality input from the highest quarters. Help it.
For like the Smoking Blues, ‘It is what you make of it’.
tanmay…superb. after a long long time read such a nice n insightful comment. i think its not fair to generalize evrything but then with ftii tag, u do expect few things. for me, its as simple as, they may tell u how to tell a story in million ways but what story u choose to tell, that depends on urself, ur life n ur world. no institute can teach u that.
Hi Tanmay, truly appreciate your thought-out response and the time you took to get it down (worthy of being a piece on its own, very well-expressed and written too). This is the kind of discussion I’d kind of hoped for when I wrote the piece. Agree with a lot of things you said, and not with some, let me try and get in some thoughts.
Putting down thoughts in the order of points in your post.
- You say - “Like any institution of higher learning it produces amongst others, people more advanced in skills (what you call craft), more advanced in thoughts and more advanced in artistry.”
Well, this is increasingly becoming a bit iffy to confirm actually. There seems to be a lot of non-FTII talent around that is as good, and in terms of vision, better. That’s the whole point of listing all those premier directors in the last 18 years. More advanced? Hmm.
- “The state has very limited interest in promoting quality in arts, at least it seems to me.”
Not on the evidence of the many institutes the state has funded. If you’re saying they cared earlier and don’t now, well, then a sample size of 18 years is enough to disregard that as a mere phase. Remember NFDC? Agree that they need to get out of the one third mode funding mode, but maybe they will understand that soon. .
- Your comment about public apathy (especially amongst the youth) reminds me of Javed Akhtar’s comment that “there is no content in Indian society anymore” (ostensibly unlike the 1970s and before when there was idealism).
Couldn’t disagree more. There are all kinds of people, and that diversity is what makes it interesting. It is a cop-out to justify unimaginative writing (or the inability to write) to give this as an excuse.
- “Now the expectation that a state institute with an indifferent attitude will produce the voice of the India without being its mouthpiece is a pipe dream.”
Then where is the talent that I listed coming from? Sudhir Mishra, Vishal Bharadwaj, Ashutosh Gowariker, Farhan Akhtar, Ram Gopal Varma, Anurag Kashyap – they are not from this state institute, but are they not coming from the same India?
- Totally agree about the producer calling the shots and that India needs better producers more than anything else. Also agree that distribution could solve many of the problems. But not all. Unfortunately, if the films shown in public are as esoteric and slow-paced as most of the FTII diploma films, no one will come to see it regardless of where you show it, and even if you make admission free.
- You misunderstand my point on TV. I wasn’t talking about Indian television programming now. But of the pre-satellite years – Tamas, Buniyaad, Bharat Ek Khoj, Wagle Ki Duniya, Ek Kahani…many more, remember these? This celebrated content, not led by market considerations. In the West, as I have mentioned, many TV shows reflect the strength of material – M*A*S*H, The Wonder Years, Yes Minister, Picket Fences, Six Feet Under, State of Play, NYPD Blue…(all stuff shown on Indian television channels actually) the list is really endless.
Yes, it is pathetic – the state of Indian TV today, but why should television programming of all time get a bad name just because of this idiotic phase we’re passing through now in India?
- You misunderstand my point about “story” by taking the word too literally. It is material, strength of content. The films you list – not one of them is flimsy in content, not one of them. They have something to say, and the “craft” services the content and the overall vision. The craft and the atmospherics and the details are not the film. They are the servants, not the master. A flimsy story is not about being simple – Hulla took me 7 years to bring out because it seems so simple (and therefore flimsy) on paper.
- Attitude is an individual thing, no doubt. However, my argument was based on so much observation (and not just mine) over the years that it could jeopardize this server too if I tried to list them, that the whole FTII solidarity thing gives a false sense of security and a sense that only their brethren can understand what they’re saying and not the other “uneducated” fools. This is reinforced again and again (including the comments part of these kinds of PFC pieces, by the way), I’m afraid.
- Why do you need leaders to show the way? The problem is that people don’t try hard enough to be true to themselves. To express their own experiences, tell their own stories (and own doesn’t mean “own”, not strictly personal literally; just ours, something we know from around us), instead of looking Westwards and Eastwards for sensibility matches, and aligning their own spirit to someone else’s.
- Yes, FTII is a national treasure, and no doubt it should be preserved. But that doesn’t mean questions should not be asked (as many are asking) about why it is not producing the talent that is defining the vision in our so-called “new cinema” (as was the case before the 1990s showed up). The reason why no one asks such questions of IIM and IIT alumni is because they are very visibly producing the most high profile talent.
All said, the idea is to simply focus on telling new stories, that’s all. We can all tell them – that’s all I’m saying. Thanks again for your response. Rgds Jaideep
Hi Jaideep,
Sorry, just to tied up with work to turn to this debate earlier. Your wounds seem to run deep. Respect your opinion and concern. Any suggestions towards alleviating the direction course since you seem adamant about its low productivity?
In my opinion the esoteric diploma films that you are talking of are the life blood of discovery and invention. The role of film schools like other institutes of higher learning is to inculcate experimentation and not produce students who create fully formed pieces in the established manner of form or content or concern.
Regs.
Tanmay