Three Days in a Film Class
(reconstructed from bits on my mind and pages of a scratchpad from a film appreciation workshop I recently attended)
It has been 3 days since the workshop got over and I got stuck yet again in the mundane inanities of credit card debit card salary reimbursements short of funds broke and the works. But I rewind to Friday and see this cloudy morning when I am lost somewhere asking for IISC, where the Film Appreciation workshop was happening. To my great less-sleep-getting-late morning luck, I didn’t get any help from anyone, and was pretty much lost in mind as in ways. Things kept getting worse- I was running on the streets like some family-drama trouble-stricken protagonist asking random people, “ye IISC kahaan hain, koi to bataao…ai bhaai …ye IISC kahaan hai ….”
The IISC campus was another Crystal Maze, like those IIT forests (I call them forests because colleges or the ones I have been to ain’t anything like that).the first thought that comes to my head when I enter such vast expanses of vegetation is “wow, so many places to smoke!” Anyways, since the day was my ‘getting fucked up’ day, my class entry was no different….
There are 2 doors to an estranged hall relegated to some corner in this monstrous science planet. I gotta pick one. Trusting my sleeping luck, I pick the wrong one, and the moment I enter a sufficiently filled class with the usual clutter of an intimidating professor, me sneaking in from the corner pretending to be non-chalant, I hear the words that took me back to my fucked-up college days, my days of disillusion and later disgust, disappointment and subsequent rebellion, with the whole concept of classroom teaching. Wow! Felt so good being shouted at, yet again! I was happy deep down, faking that “ya, I am am embarrassed, feel good about yourself looking down at me” emotion.
I forgot the fact that this was some kind of a trip down so many lost emotions- films, education, conformism, and the general fucked up feeling in my stomach I have perpetually felt sitting in classrooms or lecture halls or any other place that gives me a sense of being a part of the dumb crowd listening all influenced, hypnotized and bright-eyed to this semi-god of a professor. In between I could hear words like frame composition, sharp focus, and I would go oh! They are actually talking about films! so cool! Haven’t I always wanted that?! And I switch between listening to the wonderful stuff being talked about there to thinking how professors suck while they go on and on about this and that and everything else and how I hate doing this.
The feeling and the psycho-dilemma didn’t last long thankfully, and I was on starting my film faculties now inside a film-infested head.
I was beginning to think now that film classes aint bad, but they work for me only when they are not a class class. Like it can be a discussion, a workshop, but if I do it all day, I would go mad. Or worse, if I were to be evaluated on my film responses, I would throw up. It’s a hard thing to explain. I could write a book on it someday.
The film appreciation (that’s what it generally is called for some unexplained reasons) workshop actually turned out pretty productive. We kept watching films and ripping them apart, technically speaking. Sometimes it used to be some task, as you would sleep on the first viewing of the film and god save you when you do the shot dissection of the whole thing! Our mediator, Prof Arun Gupta, a senior faculty from National Institute of Design, turned out to be pretty cool, contrary to his clichéd demeanor (mostly attributed to me getting shouted at in the morning bit!).
More and more film gyan followed, I was inundated with theories on Film Language- world view of a director, social context of a film, thematic perception vis-à-vis screen realization, film aesthetics, cross-referencing, surrealism, neo-realism and the works. And if you think I am going to explain them all here, sorry, go attend a film workshop yourself! Trust me its fun (especially if you have some nice faces to ogle at)
Some of the films we saw were Jojo’s Café( an ultracool French Short on which Prof Gupta has written an elaborate analysis), La Pisseuse-Desparate(another ultracool French Short about a PYT who wants to …well, pee), Wedding(a Russian student short).
In our FTII session, we saw Riddle of Auto Shankar(this led me into an unending discourse of referential cinema which later mushroomed into a looping debate on its validity!). But this film is a must watch. Certainly my pick of the lot that consisted of Vadhakramam(a good Malayalam short based on the relationship between a wanting-to-be-free guy and his blind sister), Girni(a well acclaimed Marathi short which put me to sleep both the times I saw it).
We also did a session on Charlie Chaplin, which was kind of an eye opener for me, considering how comfortably I have ignored this cinematic genius. And another on Italian Neo-Realism where I finally saw Bicycle Thieves (after proudly keeping the DVD at home for 2 years). Here I got to discuss concepts like Social Context and Cinema and how the film language changes in such themes(for e.g. an eye level camera used to underline Identification, low angle used to elevate the sense of sympathy towards the underdog, or the bumbling underdog as Prof Gupta calls it)
We had another memorable session on Celluloid Projection and the advent of Television in India. This included the study of how projection changes as the exhibition formats changes vis-à-vis frame size, audience involvement, soundscape, intimacy of the theme, video art, installations, the Indian New Wave and more.
We also did a section on non-fiction towards the concluding phase, where I loved the way the birth of documentary film making in India was deconstructed. I will always remember watching a brilliant documentary on the vanishing single screen theaters called “One Show Less”. I will specifically remember this one because of how after it was over, I quietly got up and walked out. And my entire experience could really be summed up in those 3 words – One Show Less(last film shown was Mumbai Hamaara Shahar(Anand Patwardhan). I was killing the last memorable moments of a 3 day affair with films and leaving everything in the middle, to make a film!
The workshop has left me with nice memories. I am more equipped now with film terminologies. Try me! (Overheard and written down in my scratchpad during the workshop-Sorry and Thank you, Arun Sir)
“this repeat sound of the trumpet constantly punctures the assumed machismo of the protagonist”
“the comical frames that you see in ancient films is due to the difference between the shooting and projecting speed(18 fps and 24 fps)”
“good mysteries are the ones that give away the ending in the beginning, and build upon the remaining exposition”
“an NG shot or a No Good shot is the one used after the credits are over, kind of an epilogue that establishes the self-referential after thought of the maker, more of a distancing device, a subtle flourish-in-the-end”
“film aesthetics vary according to the scale of a film, celluloid will be generally high art or big commerce”
“the director makes use of many unconventional(un-cinematic) devices to bridge the gap between fiction and self-reflection/self-indulgent cinema”
Peace!
Tags: English - Other, Italian, Medium
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
Thanks for sharing this experience with us.
My first formal film gyan also happened in a Film Appreciation weekend at Alliance Francaise. Thats where i learned the film terms for the first time in my life. I kept the print outs of that course for 2 years. I think i must have lost them while shifting houses so many times since then. I didnt read more than 1 page of it
I searched for La Pisseuse-Desparate & Jojo’s Cafe online but could not find it on youtube. If someone can get it & paste the link it would be great.
GIRNI is a very good short. It won the best short at IFFLA last year.
How can you not know where IISc is?
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Film – The Good Thief by Neil Jordan(5/10)
Music – www.pandora.com
Book – Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq
Hi Tushar,
Really well written events of the three day film appreciation workshop. I should know.. I was there
Deepak
Tushar, thanks for sharing the experience with us. Can’t wait to watch your short!
tushar, all such details from memory :o seriously dude, what the hell do you eat? nice post
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Mainak, Film gyaan jaise bhi aaye, its kinda good. But I am not sure if I will be able to take another of those sessions.
La Pisseuse & Jojo are not there on youtube. These are mostly popular with fil students. If you know anyone in NID, you can ask them, or I ll ask Prof Arun who was the coordinator of the course.
I didn’t like Girni much, it was too slow and yawn friendly for me. As a student film, it went very well as per approaching the textual elements, but for some reason it didnt do much to me.
On IISC, well what do I say. The last time when I went there I was badly stoned, so kinda knew its around palace ground, but it was blank in my head after that.
Deepak, Thanks dude
Manjeet Bhai, 1 din aur do!
Striker, as far as memory is concerned you can beat us all on that, kitne lambe monolgues deta hai! as for me, I have this habit of taking down notes, and much of the credit for this article goes to KK, who asked me to stop checking the chicks out and take down notes!