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A story, some questions and a lot of Home Work for 2008!

Once upon a time in the Washington DC Area…
I was in Thai Corner Bethesda having a quick lunch, before catching a film at the Landmark Theatre and in my hand was “The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide”.
I was yet to make a foray into films, even my shorts or documentaries were a long ways off but that did not deter me from sprinting before I learnt to crawl!
My waiter kept throwing curious glances at me. He was Thai and I sighed.
What is it about Asian Men; can’t they leave a woman alone?
He comes upto me
“Are you in the movies?”
“I wish!”
“I am reading something really interesting too”
Abay khaana la [insert thought bubble] / GET THE FOOD man.
Some waiters have no sense of etiquette,this was too forward of him.No tip.
“Really. How nice”
It is not everyday I get to act the ice-maiden.
“Qu’est-ce que le cinema, a lovely English translation”
“WHAT? What is Cinema? Andre Bazin? I have been trying to get hold of it for…..”
Waiter goes inside, gets me the book. With vegetarian Pad Thai and raw Papaya Salad.
“Here take it, I am done reading”
“What is your name?” It is ME asking NOT him.
“Fluke”
Needless to say I spent another two hours there, missed my film, while we chatted and since he was the owner’s nephew no one disturbed our conversation.I left him a long list of must-watch Indian films as Tip.
Fluke is his ‘waiterly’ name. His actual name is Jessada.

Stuff right out of the movies eh?
My life is peppered with such serendipitous sub-plots that I am constantly acting as a lead in my own Epic Cinema.
We all are, some of us just might fail to hear “Action!”

The cinema is the love, the meeting, the love of ourselves and of life, the love of ourselves on earth, it’s a very evangelical matter, and it’s not by chance that the white screen is like a canvas.
–Jean-Luc Godard

In 2008, Cinema as we know it should be murdered.
Do not forget to put on your boxing gloves if you are too squeamish for blood and gore.

Nothing new is going to emerge from the ancient magical realms if we do not bury this depraved beast that has overstayed its welcome. By sending it back, by sacrificing it to the Muses we will be blessed anew. Firstly we will be freed of its stranglehold, holding us ransom at the Box Office, at the mercy of the Masses, selling us off to Mammon at the least pretext. Then there is this voracious hunger in the beast which demands, nay, craves absolute supplication of our intuition, our purity of purpose, our deepest voices on its daily menu.

This inhuman act will goad us to probe further into the true nature of Cinema in the solitary cell of our lives. Given that our existence itself is a film of the highest order with no fixed genre, with no set script for either the actors or the audience, with no budget in sight, no TIMELINE, no SPATIAL restrictions it is laughable to assume that we thought we could better Creation!
Why does the world exist?
Pure Play. Leela.
Reveling in the joy of being a creator God decides to Celebrate.
Whatever else God did right or not, and assuming God exists,
there could be, should be no greater reason than this to create anything.
This purity of purpose which essentially lies in the Joy of creating.
And let no man complain on his death bed that Fate played a bad card and denied him motherhood.

Just as a child is conceived, one creates because one must, it is an inexplicable urge, an orgasmic high that finds itself manifested in song, dance, painting, poetry and even in cooking and conversation. Brief or exhaustive, after the necessary love-making, once the seed is sown, it is all about the gestation period when the idea takes shape. It gnaws inside you, eats at you, tugs and pulls you, you fall sick, you can almost die giving birth, you will even suffer from post partum depression but will that stop you from having another baby?

And if you are having the child to secure a better future, to carry your name for you, to fulfill your unfulfilled ambitions then of course this relationship is tainted from the start.
No amount of careful rearing will instill honesty in your flawed offspring.
Prior to conception, is the intention.

What is our intention when we say we want to make a film?

We use sound because we can,
We use colour because we can,
We use a plot because we can,
3 cameras, Jimmy Jibs, DI, SFX, because we can.
Not because we WANT to.
What do we want?
Nobody knows.

We talk of finance because we must,
We talk of distribution because we must,
We talk of marketing because we must.
Not because we WANT to.
What do we want?
Nobody knows.

After a hectic day of shoot,
We sweep debris off into rivers,
We leave rubbish in pristine forests,
We burn fuel to recce locations,
We burn fuel again to shoot there,
We consume because we CAN,
Why should we care?
Nobody does.

Before a hectic day of shoot,
We primp up the stars,
We pad up their bras,
We airbrush their bodies,
We blowdry their hairs,
We worship because we are TOLD,
Why don’t you?
Everybody does.

We are told other lies.
How can there be any story without Conflict?
Where is the CONFLICT?
Who will want to watch anything without CONFLICT?
Human Life is Drama; we like to empathize with characters in CONFLICT.
Such miserable lives we lead, to be guided by conflict from birth to death!

And more lies.
You should NETWORK.
NETWORK will help you to find the ‘right’ people.
When you have the correct NETWORK everything will work out.
I could not do anything in my life since I did not have any NETWORK.
Such pathetic souls we are, that without it we won’t even dare to dream or imagine.

To fool ourselves that a 3 hour fictional episode can Entertain us or Educate us,
Or even Elevate us!!
The only valid enough reason would be if we want to EXPERIENCE cinema.
What is not within cannot be without.
We will see what we want in any object of art or commerce.
All else is irrelevant.

What Art does or any Artistic endeavour provides is release.
For the Artist.And if the artiste has been True, then to the purveyor too.
A mother does not fulfill anybody by giving birth except herself.
She does not seek permission to give birth nor acceptance for her child after.
You could play with the baby, enjoy the company, get transported to another world but your interaction will always be temporary on the periphery.

An artiste has many reasons for his artistry. He could be philosophizing, questioning the dilemmas of daily life, or recreating a parallel life for vicarious living, avenging wrongs, taking revenge aforehand, atoning for sins. She could be setting a standard, moral or aesthetic for future generations, she could be documenting, guarding the inevitable deaths of languages and cultures with strange ferocity. There are myriad reasons for a film maker to make films and for a true artist NONE of these include pleasing the audience - That amorphous amoeba like, octopus limbed, shark finned public which demands absolute obedience to its fickle taste.

So how should we make movies,given the right intention?

Does an artiste work in isolation?
What about collaboration, the contributions from all the other departments of art and science that a film is said to need and more?
Is it a piecemeal production that the Director weaves together like a patchwork quilt?
Where the soul is missing but all the body parts have been sculpted to perfection?
Is it a military exercise, planned with precision and executed as a war time operation?
Is it a magical world, where serendipitous meetings lead to memorable collaborations?
Is it a managerial mission, where human resources are milked to its maximum?

Why do we need to validate our creations?
Why do we fear to call ourselves film makers if we do not belong to an ‘Industry’?
Why do we have an intense desire to box ourselves beyond redemption?

Art is the sacred hallowed ground where one creates for the sheer pleasure of immersing oneself in the process of creating. The rest is prostitution.The only possible outcome that an artiste demands from his work of art is that it show her a glimpse of the Truth.

What is the Cinema Aesthetic for India in 2008?
Song and Dance, Melodrama, Good versus Evil, Celebrating Life these have been the catch phrases and parameters that we have so far worked with and they work well.
A movement, a genre and a revolution in its own right the Hindi Film Industry [Hi-Fi]
has been an inspiration to many across the globe.
How far then do we want to wean away from it in our zest for verite and how close to it do we want to stick in our quest for Indian-ness?

What of Regional Cinema?
A pale country cousin or a robust village belle?

Home Work!
Study! Think! Explore!!
[Watch: www.linktv.org: Television Without Borders]

Some of the movements in the past, where is ours?
1. Budapest school or documentarism, 1972 to 1984 in Hungarian art and experimental films.
2. The Czechoslovak New Wave is a term used for the early films of 1960s. The polished quality and openness of the films led to this genre.
3. On March 22, 1995 at Le cinéma vers son deuxième siècle conference in Paris, Lars von Trier was called upon to speak about the future of film and he announced the Dogme 95 movement.
4. Making radical experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative the French Nouvelle Vague movement had its roots with the journal Cahiers du Cinéma; many filmmakers began their careers as critics and cinema deconstructionists. Late 50s onwards.
5. German Expressionism developed during the 1920s, when it was difficult to create movies that could compare with Hollywood. The filmmakers of the German UFA studio developed their own style by using symbolism and mise en scène to add mood and deeper meaning to a movie.
6. Cine de la Base in Argentina, the Brazilian Cinema Novo, the Cuban revolutionary cinema etc who formed the Grupo Cine Liberación were part of the Tercer Cine movement, Third World Cinema, which was explicitly opposed to “First World” cinema, and also against auteur film but engaged more in the social and political movements.
7. The factors leading to the rise of the New Wave in Iran were, in part, due to the intellectual and political movements of the time. After the coup in 1953, a socially committed literature took shape in the 1950s and reached a peak in the 1960s.
8. The Japanese movement arose as more of a movement devoted to questioning, analyzing, critiquing social conventions. They explored a number of ideas not seen in traditional Japanese cinema.
9. Italian Neorealism was developed by a circle of film critics that revolved around the magazine Cinema, the critics attacked the telefono bianco films that dominated the industry at the time. The idea was to create a greater sense of realism through the use of real people rather than all seasoned actors.

Dogme’s Vow Of Chastity, where is ours?
1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic).
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)
10. The director must not be credited.