Tradition and The Individual Talent
To understand how Pankh emerged, it is essential to know where I come from.
On the sets of 'Pankh'
A Bong brat with a Post Graduate degree in English Literature and Diploma in Cinema from FTII, Pune. Career started at Kolkata and moved all over India—– a very successful stint in advertising, TV(both Hindi and Bengali), as writer producer, director of fiction and non fiction programming, set up first private news channel in Bangla, daily chat show host in Bangla for 3 years, iconoclast, social commentator, journalist, writer of fiction, prose, poetry, screenplays and dialogues. Presently settled in Mumbai and have completed my first Hindi feature film Pankh – the Flight.
The academic background of a combination of literature and cinema brings with it a certain bathethic vanity which one invariably tends to overlook in salad days of youth. One is instilled with a foolish notion of superiority, harbouring rabid dogmatic notions such as these — “Popular Cinema always needs popular idioms or cliché’s to make itself palpable to people. Why was there the bloody need to explain everything? In difficult times you need complex structures to create a truly satisfying work of art. Does communication become difficult when you use metaphors and metonyms rather than similes? Why are the common people such blithering idiots? “ Fortunately, with age one can see through the idiocy of such posturing that almost tantamount to a sort of aesthetic rabble rousing. For any work of art to survive there has to be an emotional connect. Otherwise it descends to barren scholasticism. The sixties had tolerated Goddard’s childish pranks and polemics as avant-grade. Jean Luc Goddard is among the unfortunate few who live to see their death – in cinema. He has been rendered archaic, irrelevant today. Like Eisenstein, like Pudofkin – great grammarians without souls. I thank my lucky stars that I did not commit such hara-kiri by making Pankh earlier in life. Or else I would have treaded the same path as well.
For whatever is its worth, Pankh douses such bigotry. It is one from the heart and aspires to connect to an audience emotionally first and then cerebrally. It may be a flawed work but is ruthlessly honest. I firmly believe in what Jean Cocteau said, ”it is through those loopholes, those very flaws that art enters”.
It was important to clarify my perspective before I started talking about the film. To rid myself of any aesthetic vanity, to unburden myself of the tradition that weighed so heavily on my shoulders and then speak the language of my heart. This was my chapter zero after the prelude in the first installment. Henceforth, no more digressions! Let the flight begin!
Tags: Bengali, maradona, maradona rebello, pankh, sudipto, sudipto chattopadhyay
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
As someone who shares an academic background in literary and film studies, I agree on what you aptly term as “barren scholasticism.”
In my own way, I encountered it in the world of academia– and I must say that it utterly destroyed (for quite awhile) my creativity, my joy, my inspiration …. But, looking back, I am perhaps grateful that it happened because now I have a much richer perspective on life. I have learnt some lessons from my very painful years of soulless theorizing, and I realize that very strongly these days. I look forward to Pankh and thank you for that post!
sir, its good that you are discussing ur film with us…
plz do so after it has released. i dunno how many at PFC feel that the movie which has been discussed so much looses its sheen…
it happened with Dev.D (though i still liked the movie, but the awe was more for Gulaal to give an example)…i know u r erupting with frenzy right now at having realized ur dream but what would be the point if we see it from ur eye (no one can help but get inclined towards ur PoV after that much talk)…if you go in to watch Mulholland Dr. knowing even very little abt the movie (just the fact that it has a long dream sequence), it kills the first impression!!
P.S. anybody who read that, plz reply to it…i want to know how many are on board with me on this!!
I don’t have fainstest idea what I have seen, on watching Mulholland Dr. first time. Second time, already known plot kilss the peak moment and it looks like scholaristic pursuit to understand it rather than experience it.
I am in complete consonance with you that overt deconstruction by the maker spoils the fun of viewing any film. I am not even attempting that. I am merely trying to chronicle my intellectual and emotional journey while making this film.I don’t seek empathy. This is a sort of a public diary of my mental states over the last few years.You are free to stand in judgement as a reader. Please feel free to voice your opinions.
Hey that’s a very good poster… like the look n feel of it.
Sudipto- thanks for the prelude.eagerly waiting for the flight to take off
.While I know that we are discussing Pankh here I cant help hiding my curiosity here- whats the status of the projects you were working on- Na Hum Tumhe Jaane and Shobana’s 79?
Seriously…been introduced to such terms and figures, yet to connect willingly is another aspect…am still finding my way…thanks for this post, Sudipto…a prelude such makes me curious @ Pankh….
i totally agree with ahmad. i think it also takes away the pov of viewer from him, and leads to a not so honest response or whatever u may call it,it creates a little bias and thus reduces the experience of movie viewing.
Is Pankh a gyani, “no-smoking” kind of intellectual film?
Not at all . . . not at all . . .please don’t murder the film by even thinking this way.
waiting to watch Pankh.. when is it releasing?
Sudipto-da,
Please elucidate how putting an ‘intellectual’ label
on a film tantamounts to ‘murdering’ it. Are you questioning the
collective intellect of the Indian audience in appreciating intellect or are you just being critical of Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking?
Are you plain worried about the B.O. prospects of your maiden venture by attaching Any of the aforesaid labels? Kono stigma chai-na?
Please don’t misinterpret my intentions. I have great regard and respect for Anurag Kashyap. I only meant that I do not wish to alienate an audience by sounding obscurantist. I have not made a mindless film. But it is certainly not an excercize in intellectual vanity. The difference between pseudo and genuine needs to be understood.
I too believe that the film has to first connect emotionally to create an impact.
Hey the media has gone all over town over this film.. am waiting to watch it..
Such clear thinking is rare in Bollywood. A new voice has emerged. Waiting to see the bold film.
Dada,
You place your logic with such a choice of words, that it becomes difficult to contradict. Very forceful manner of putting across your points of view. You have very extreme view but yet seem loical to the reader. Hopw you have done the same with your film. Eagerly waiting, Where is the trailer?Want to see the trailer asap.
Hi Dada,
I am among the privileged few who got to saw the film during my visit to India.I loved it .It is very radical and emotionally disturbing experience.Never seen such a bold film from India before this. One word of advice to the readers here. Please leave your prejudices behind when you go too see Pankh.
as for you Dada, you surely have a way with words. Keep blogging for the sake of people who believe in you.
One has to strike a balance between intellect and emotion to create the right punch that can involve an audience.Hope Pankh manages to do that. It really sounds very intriguing. Keep us informed on a regular basis. Like your style of writing. Very articulate.
This is a very frank and honest blog. Though at times things flew over my head. The language is too fundoo. Can you write in a more simpler manner to help us understand better. I have read about the movie. The story sounds damn interesting. Who is that young boy in the picture?
Well…well…well…a bengali intellectual who believes in emtional connect. That’s like panta bhate tatka begun pora.
Sudipto,
Tomar kaj dekhar apekhay railam-jani tumi khub bhalo kichu korbe all the best-inu
It is an excellent experience reading you Sudipto. I read your posts a little keenly as I share the dual love for literature and cinema hence I relate to the context within which your write.
The academic pursuit of cinema leaves one more often than not with more jargon than practical application. I have a keen interest in understanding film criticism, its application and practice. Even having read a whole lot of ‘renowned’ ‘critics’ has not satisfied my need to define criticism for film and the bracket within which it should operate. Given the fact that literature is the only reference point I understand the parameters of literary criticism or at least its manner development seems like a good template to begin with to define film criticism, at least for Indian films. Would you agree to that? What are your thoughts on it?
Eager to share more and read you more.
Best of luck for Pankh. Looking forward to it.
Regards
Fatema