Tigers and Monkeys
iView Author: RAM V (Banglore, India)
Email: With Held
Tigers and Monkeys :
I celebrated a tired Holi evening by reliving Satyajt Ray’s ‘Jalsa Ghar’, as I watched Ray Sahib unveil the human soul naked and beautiful, through the sounds of Indian classical music. The sound of classical music was never utilized before to such dramatic effect. I was reminded of a recent interview in rediff with Adoor Gopalakrishnan, a living master. He said “Sound is as important as the visual in films. I am very particular about the sound factor. In fact, I always have a separate screenplay written just for sound. …. Like some scenes in “Mukhamukham.”
After placating my hunger with such sumptuous feast of imagery and aural delight, I realized that people like Adoor may be richest artists that we have, they are amongst the poorest film makers, and still he wrote a separate screenplay for sound. An avatar once said ‘Do you work without any expectation’, we as an audience are trying our best to make it true.
The successful filmmakers argue, there is no demand for their kind of work. Average audience cannot take it. They then build a stone well, jump inside it, drag us along, and then proclaim ‘This is the world, 3m in dia. Live here and enjoy’
How much did Jalsa Ghar (1964) or Mukhamukham (1984) collect at the box office? Nothing, Zilch. Which films are they actually losing out to?
For analyzing that let us travel forth in time to the recent past 2003 when ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’ hit the big screen, ‘Jism’ walked away with all the money. Later on in 2004 ‘Murder’ did kill many good movies. Is it a movies fault that another movie fails? No it is not. What would you do if someone sold you a toned-down bad copy of a Monet impressionist piece for Rs./$100000 telling that it is his own work of art? Even a copied Monet is preferable over an original low-life artists work. We, thereby, ensure that the world has no more Monet’s.
Shameless vultures they are who blatantly encroached into bits-pieces and sometimes even the whole creative unit from Hollywood or any foreign/regional source and put their name in the credits. Moreover, such film makers come forward and claim ‘It’s a different film that we are making’, ‘I got a different role, never like the one you have seen before’, and I hear them telling the audience and the public all over India ‘You all are dumb idiots, we know that’. Some of them even protest against CD piracy. It’s like the dacoit telling the petty thief not to steal.
One of the funniest moments in my life was when I went to see ‘Sangharsh’ (cheap remake of ‘Silence of the Lambs’), when it played in a theatre during my Engineering days. We laughed our heart out to see Akshay Kumar, sorry, Dr. Akshay Kumar, hamming the life out of Hannibal Lecter. I still remember a television interview, wherein Tanuja Chandra proudly expressed her uncontrollable emotions when she saw Dr. Akshay, as he was promenading inside a cage like a ‘Lion’. God saved Sir Anthony Hopkins, he was never taught Hindi, and neither is he interested in watching Bollywood movies.
Bollywood alone is not the culprit, down south, non-consented remakes, scene stealing, thought picking, idea theft, and even cheap tricksters like shot lifters, dialogue dacoit do exist. Hope the ailing Robin Williams (Get well soon!!) hasn’t seen ‘Avvai Shanmughi’ / ‘Chachi 420’. To the best of Amal Neerad’s luck John Singleton and Mark Wahlberg don’t watch Malayalam anymore, to find out that ‘Big B’ is a scene by scene parasite on ‘Four Brothers’. More recently, poor Zhang Yimou will have to learn Telugu to find out that the mega-hit ‘Arundhati’ stole the Peony Palace Drum Dance’ sequence from ‘House of the Flying Daggers’ shot on shot, frame on frame.
Mind you, dear friends, these are not exceptions, but just examples of the deep pit of horseshit that these great filmmakers have been feeding us for all these years. We ate stomach full, burped out, and slept. However, the stench of burglary still fills the air wherever I go, whichever cinema hall I visit, whichever trade analyst I meet.
Someone argued that our audiences don’t know the foreign languages that you are talking of; they have a right to see these movies in their own mother tongue, with their favorite stars. Point taken, there are several ways to do it, dub the film. Why don’t you do an inspired remake of ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘Independence Day’ or ‘Lord of the Rings’? Why does one choose a sleazy drama or crime thriller to copy from, which would be achievable in a controllable budget?
Another way is to buy the rights. If you don’t have the money, just recognize the inspiration, if your work is truly an inspired one, the creative mind of the original’s maker might come forward to appreciate.
Some others say, the remakes are better than the original, its true, who would watch a boring psychological thriller told upside down, when it’s pepped up with a love-story, a bunch of beautiful songs and a hamming villain? Agreed, Like and dislike is your choice but good and bad is a question that needs analysis. If copying is bad, then copying badly is even worse.
There have been frame by frame remakes, inspired movies with consent, exhibiting the decency of acknowledging the source. ‘Sholay’ by Ramesh Sippy was inspired from ‘Shichinin No Samurai’ by Kurosawa, When RGV made ‘Sarkar’, he put on a tribute to ‘The Godfather’ just before the title credits. When Kamal Hassan remade ‘Drohkaal’, he gave title credit to Nihalani in ‘Kuruthipunal’. But these are just rare exceptions. He / His producers, though, somehow forgot for ‘Thenali’ which was ripped off from ‘What about Bob’ and few others.
Adoor, Ray, Benegal, Chandran, Nagabharana, Kasravalli detested mainstream as it was and bore the cost. One feels they deserved better though. A new generation of film makers cropped up later, who realized that cinema needs to be effective along with being efficient. The best screenplay, lighting patterns, innovative editing, and rebellious shots alone don’t make good cinema. Good cinema is interesting cinema, with the mentioned traits augmenting the effect.
A bunch of good and interesting filmmakers were always around Sai Paranjpe, Balu Mahendra, Balachander , Puttana Kanagal, Padmarajan, K Viswanath, Bharathan, Nihalani, Ketan Mehta, Tapan Sinha and many more have made exciting original cinema.
Whenever we buy tickets to see these unauthorized inspirations, unacknowledged remakes, non-consented copies please be reminded, that we are abetting the crime. A crime which not only questions the fiscal right of the person on his intellectual property ( like piracy) but also in an even drastic impact , bereaves the creative rights of the person who made the original and replaces it with that of a cunning copy cat.
Let’s prove them wrong, in this age where ‘the world is flat’, with the License Raj been long ended and the average Indian is getting exposed to all the goodness of the world. With technology and information fast spreading to every nook and corner of the nation, empowering the poor to exercise his right to think intelligently, let us move from the darkness of this Leviathan’s well towards the light of common sense.
Let us decide what we want to see and who needs to be accountable for that. The Indian Film Industry has to grow and bloom new flowers, not plastic impersonations, which without any imparted life, however many they bloom will never fill the air with the fragrance of creative salvation. Let us water, nurture and at the same time prune away the infected parts of our industry to let it bloom as it likes.
Let’s give originality and individuality a chance, future generations would thank us for that.
Tags: Adoor Gopalakrishnan, akshay kumar, Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi, Jalsa Ghar, jism, Murder, Sangharsh, Satyajt Ray
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 am grateful that the technology has given us so much power… The power to choose.
But the sad thing is the hordes aren’t wise enough even to choose… People go for cheap entertainment, the relaxed one which don’t make them sit or think or hold a mirror to themselves and make them question their moralities or high-held old beliefs. :mad:
You’ve to bear the pain of thinking if you are to appreciate the poetic qualities of Ray or Mishra. Obviously, we don’t find many ready to pay for it.:roll:
I find it sad that we still endure the kid of copies that are shoved towards us in the form of commercial cinema…
Add to it the names of Marinal Sen and Aparna Sen,two very good filmmakers whose films have stood the test of time.Aparna Sen is still active but does very few films.
@salik
Both are equally accountable, the filmmaker and audience. Its a circular effect. And we should not underestimate the thinking capability of the poor.
@indraneel
I have had enough of this nonsense. Its high time to put a stop to this
@Anindya
Agree. The list is still longer. I just jotted down some names that came to my name while writing.