Second Part:- IA assumes a journalistic role, that of an objective bystander, and places a few questions in the midst of leading film critics, academicians and bloggers to locate the role of film criticism in India.

1. Do you believe the idea of film criticism or a critique derives its exclusivity from the platform it appears on? In other words, is a piece of criticism published in a mainstream newspaper more an act of film criticism than say, a personal journal entry? Also, is it through the act of being made public that film criticism becomes film criticism? How important, thus, is the sphere of influence for a film critic?
2. The penetration of the internet lends a normal blogger the opportunity to be consequential. With the luxury of the opinion becoming so democratic, how do we identify who is a film critic and who is not? Also, do we need to make that demarcation? Doesn’t the blog, or the internet, permit a higher opportunity of interaction?
3. Even as critics in the West lament the oncoming death of film criticism, and anticipate the end of an era that celebrated its film critics – a much romanticized version – do you see it as being ironic that a nation like India is yet to witness its very conception? Do you see these differences in the levels of achievement when it comes to film criticism – is a factor that may revitalise the art of criticism – even in the Western nations?
4. Most writers on film in India apply prisms other than cinema to judge a film – they approach it from the perspective of a sociologist, a trade analyst, a historian, a feminist or a psychoanalyst disregarding the history, tradition and critical discourse of the medium itself ? Comment.
5. Would you try to explain the large critical void in India? Why haven’t we had many famous film critics to look upto – like America, France or UK, despite having a sizeable movie-going audience, and a large industry to serve the same?
6. What do you believe is the reason of the conspicuous absence of mentions of any great filmmakers from the sub-continent in the Western pantheon of film criticism, apart from the oft-touted Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak
7. What is your stance on auteurism?

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Baradwaj Rangan Film Critic ….

1) No, medium has nothing to do with it. The ideas, and the delivery of those ideas, is what matters – a unique way of looking a films and a unique writing voice. If you look at the reviews of Love Sex Aur Dhokha, for instance, you’ll find one paragraph for each story of the film, and one gushy opening paragraph and one worshipful closing paragraph. You can write this without watching the movie. What’s important is the conveyance of how that particular writer “worked” his way through the film, like a fussy dog gnawing on a rubber bone, and if that talent/inclination is there, there’s no reason a blogger cannot be as good a film critic as someone from a mainstream publication.

Regarding “sphere of influence,” whether you tell a few friends what you thought about a film, or whether you tell a few thousand people (thanks to a web site or a newspaper), it’s all “making public” in some sense. It’s all “criticism” in some sense. But yes, what we generally accept as “film criticism” is what we see for ourselves – in print or on a blog.

2) There is no need to bestow anyone with the title of “film critic” – as if being labelled that would automatically makes this person’s words the very Gospel. What’s important, as I said above, is the writer shares his or her viewing experience in as unconcealed a manner as possible, even if that means he/she is going to be laughed at. The good readers will know where you’re coming from, and they will respect the fact that you are elaborating your opinion, even if that opinion is drastically at odds with theirs.

Yes, the blog allows greater interaction, and at least in my case, I’ve had several rewarding arguments with readers. A lot of the time, when you are writing with a deadline looming, you don’t always say things the exact way you’d like to. So I look at the Comments section as a way to (a) look at the film from the readers’ POV, and also (b) refine my own thoughts about the film, which I may not have explained to the best of my satisfaction in the deadline-driven review. And a lot of readers who visit my blog possess three of the most important things needed for a healthy interaction: they’re passionate, they’re opinionated, and they’re democratic (with respect to other views). The Internet is a boon with respect to finding in-sync people.

3) Yes, we have a terrible tradition of film criticism. But let’s not blame the critics right away. Where are the editors who want to foster a film-reviewing culture, even if it means fewer eyeballs than from the celeb-photo page? Even magazines that devote so much space to fashion and culture restrict reviews to a half-page. Things, I feel, can only get better. And thanks to the Internet, finding the space to express one’s views or finding similarly attuned readers is no longer a problem.

Also, we never had a “film studies” culture like the West, and we never really took films seriously for a long, long time. All that has had a part to play in how lamentable our criticism is. I personally see the Internet as the saviour of film criticism.

4) One’s equation with a piece of art is very personal and it reflects one preoccupations. Even in the West, you’d find various writers have various slants, various autobiographical prisms through which they look at films. I feel that this is actually helpful because it helps build a “wall of perspective” around the film, with a feminist window and a socialist window and a psychoanalytic window and so on. Thus, we’re able to see parts of the film that we missed, because we don’t see the world that particular way. And what is cinema if not a reflection of the way the world functions?

5) I believe my response to #3 covers a lot of this – the lack of a “film studies” culture, and the lack of serious respect to films (from an editorial point of view). Also, it’s only now that we’re beginning to have, here, some sort of critical mass in terms of people identifying the critics they like, again thanks to the Internet. Earlier, reviews were just so people could decide whether to see or not see a film, which, frankly, is the most useless aspect to look for in a review. Now, we have people engaging with reviews, and that’s really a good sign.

6) Sometimes, someone from there fixates on a filmmaker from here and makes him or her known to the West. Ray was helped by Cannes, and by Pauline Kael’s relentless championing of his films. (And those days, she was on her way to becoming a titan in the field). But after a while, the universality of the film also plays a part. Ray’s style of filmmaking was very “Western,” like Kurosawa’s for instance. You didn’t need “Eastern” eyes to see them. When most Western critics see our song-and-dance movies, they regard them as a flighty lark, even if they are genuine “musicals.”

The other problem is that there is no art-house culture here, wherein specialised arms of studios make it a point to fund films that allow unique filmmaking styles to flourish. At the end of the day, most stuff here is privately financed (though companies like UTV are changing this as we speak), and therefore everything becomes audience-oriented. That’s not how world-famous auteurs are born.

7) If you take the theory of the auteur in its literal authorial sense, then that’s unfair, because the film director is not the only one who crafts a film (unlike a writer who’s the only one who writes or the painter who’s the only one who paints). A huge crew is needed for the logistical details, but even in terms of shaping the sensibility of the film, you never know how the editor, say, contributes to the final sense of what ends up on screen.

But I do believe that certain directors with strong individual sensibilities end up showcasing (even subconsciously) those sensibilities on screen. Like Anurag Kashyap. Regardless of the quality of the final film, there’s an unmistakable VOICE up there, and that’s quite “authorial.” A strong director — i.e. someone who doesn’t care as much about making films for an audience as expressing something inside him/her — is very much an auteur in that sense, because the writer and the editor and the cinematographer (and so on) will reflect what the director wants and it will be a singular vision (like the painter’s, like the novelist’s).

Baradwaj Rangan is a National Award-winning film critic, currently employed at The New Indian Express.

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Prtim D Gupta…

1) No, film criticism, as film criticism should be, is not a personal journal entry. Definitely not. But a personal journal entry, if studied and unaffected, can become film criticism. The space where it appears, public or personal, can never turn a piece of cinema analysis into film criticism. Also, I am a huge believer of the fact that film criticism has very little to do with agreeing with a greater percentage of the film-viewing audience about liking or not liking a particular movie. I am not even getting into box office collections. Trade analysis and film criticism never mixed well, never will. From Transformers to Film criticism to me is being the reader’s man at the movies. How does it work? How does it influence a movie-watcher? Well, there are two ways really. Over many a Friday, you discover whether your taste for films matches with a particular critic. This process can be trying, but it’s worth trying. And there will be times when you won’t agree with the man/woman and it is then that the second method comes in. If the critic can logically explain why he has liked or not liked a movie, you are on the same page, even if you don’t agree with his taste. And that is the right influence of a film critic. He should never tell you randomly what movie to watch or not to watch but give you every reason explaining his personal choice. By doing that his choice becomes public.

2) In terms of interactivity, nothing comes close to a blog or a website. Also, I feel, that because of the dilution of the virtual medium, a reader can be more vocal. He feels more at par with the blogger or critic. There is no masthead between him and the analyst.
Do we need to identify who’s a film critic and who’s not? My mother didn’t like The Japanese Wife and hunted down some review on the web to show that she was not the only one. When it comes to films, viewers look for support. You cannot enjoy a film on your own and be content. You constantly need other viewers to confirm that you are right. That you are not alone. In such a scenario, an innocuous blogger may just be your best friend.
I remember a guy created a hate group dedicated to me because he didn’t agree with me about 3 Idiots. He didn’t put up my review but simply announced that I was wrong because the film was doing well at the box office. So everybody has a different perception about film criticism. And in the star-crazy country we live in, it’s all the more varied. Yes, the definition of a film critic has become vague, the lines are getting blurred and so it’s better to just be the man at the movies.

3) I don’t think film criticism would be dead that soon in the West. You can review a film under 140 characters and challenge the power of veteran film critics, but you are just creating noise, not analysing a film. Maybe the value of a critic will be diminished but it will not vanish overnight. In India rather, film criticism can start feeling the heat because, as you rightly said, it hasn’t quite found its rightful space and thus can be displaced easily. Also the quality of film criticism in our country has been so indifferent and often personal that its base has become very weak over the years and I would be really surprised if it can weather the might of the viewer.

4) That’s sad but true. In fact, I am observing a growing paranoia for citing another film during a film analysis. I mean, you have to talk about Jab We Met if you are reviewing Love Aaj Kal. Not just because it is made by the same director but also because both are rom coms and JWM has become a benchmark in the genre. Just like a JWM discourse is incomplete with mentioning Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Cinema can exist on its own. In fact, Indian cinema can exist on its own. Why does a film analysis (always) need to feed off parameters which were not (always) considered when the film itself was made? Dostana is not about gay activism, it’s a comedy and a screwball one at that. A critic doesn’t need to sound smart, he needs to be logical

5) Because, and I feel sad saying this, a lot of critics have had vested interests and once the readers have sniffed that out in their write-ups, they have given up on that writer. Let’s not even get into critics who have turned filmmakers. The other day, I came across a critic, or so he calls himself, who was the “editorial supervisor” on a film and then he himself gave a glowing review to the film!  No Indian critic has been able to consistently guide a movie-watching generation unlike the West where a Pauline Kael and a Roger Ebert have stayed true to their readers for decades. Also, it also helps that they have been associated with a particular brand for years. Like Kael with New Yorker or Ebert with Chicago Sun Times.

6) I guess they haven’t discovered the other filmmakers yet. A Scorsese got Ray known in the West. That Ray of light shone on Ghatak. I think earlier the West was content with stereotyping a country with one particular filmmaker. That’s been changing and hopefully other important filmmakers from here would find their rightful respect soon.

7) It’s great if it can be pulled off. Otherwise it falls flat. Also, even though it sounds like an oxymoron, auteurism is teamwork. If a particular vision has to translate on screen, it needs to be channelised through people who have absorbed that thought. So, while you know Ray and are aware of his body of work, you would find him constantly collaborating with a particular cinematographer, a particular art director, a particular editor. It’s true that these technicians might not have their own voice in Ray’s films, but they have helped interpret his vision.

Pratim D. Gupta, Film Critic, The Telegraph

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Khalid Mohammad….

1) Notionally, of course an individual whose writings are published — be it in a magazine, newspaper and of late on a website — or elocuted on radio or television — is a film reviewer. The reviews have to be frequent, backed by a perceptible experience and must have  a cumulative effect of cinema awareness. The writing cannot be done sporadically. If there is a body of reviews that is of some seriousness and takes a stand by packing in a value-based ideology, then the writer can be termed as a film critic.

Film ‘reviewers’ are those who touch the surfacial face of a film. A critic is one whose passion for cinema, its societal effects and a sound historical knowledge of the medium, is more than apparent, and unquestionable. For instance, I seriously think those who are clueless about the golden age of  Bombay cinema – the 1950s – have no business ‘reviewing’ films. Moreover, an ongoing knowledge about world cinema is imperative. A sound knowledge of the Hindustani language, and its contemporaneiety, is another must. A critic must expect surprises. That’s what he or she lives for. Breaking rules – technical as well as in the written material – can make for  pleasant or unpleasant viewing. Before entering a screening, a critic hopes and prays that there will something special, that will take the breath away. This ‘something’ connects with the heart as well as the mind. Above all, a film must be absorbing, the best ones are those that the critic feels that there should have been more if, that the film shouldn’t have ended.  Private writing – or unpublished writing – is essential. No one should be discouraged from articulating responses, juvenile or mature, to a film on paper. Many of these could turn out to be in the nature of diaries..but who knows? Somewhere out there, there may a master critic, whose thoughts, opinions, and responses may be far superior to the professional, experienced critic.

Trouble is that these secret critics will never be known, which is true of any field. A Sunday painter, who does not exhibit, a marvellous dancer who doesn’t perform before the public, or a singer who doesn’t croon before an audience or in a recording studio, will be aristes in absentia.

My issue is that today a bulk of the film criticism is amateurish, tilted towards preserving the status quo. Writing on films  blares forth the blinkered view that a film should be entertaining and nothing more. Entertainment is precious, certainly, but if there is an accompanying sub-text and a relevant statement, that is even more valuable. Every time, I read that a film is ‘paisa vasool’ or some such juvenile statement, my flesh crawls. Or if a reviewer salivates on an actor’s six packs, how desperate it that?

If a writer doesn’t have a pure passion for cinema, if the writer doesn’t see it as a medium that can rise way above its basic elements, and if the writer supports the credo that cinema should cater essentially to the lowest common denominator, then that is not even reviewing, forget criticism. Which is why I have stopped reading most reviews except those of  Deepa Gahlot who has valid points to make, whether you agree or disagree with her. As for the sphere of influence, the best policy for a critic to adopt is not to think about it or to assign his writings an importance. The day a critic, reviewer, or charlatan, fancies himself to the extent of believing that reviews can make or break a film, then it’s the end. Film criticism is an invitation to thought, debate and discussion. It is not a bullet, not even a rubber bullet. Lastly on this too broad-based a question, a film critic should love his metier and cinema, not necessarily in that order. Forget everything else. He or she should write her honest, emotional responses. If that goes against what the larger public believes that’s okay. If  every cinemagoer  and reviewer were to think alike, what a sterile world it would be. Down with herd mentality please.

2) Internet is god’s gift to the  community of critics, which can still write regardless. I found an alternative life by writing for www.passionforcinema.com. The site gave me a voice at a point when it was sought to be muffled.

Attempts to silence are always on. A film critics must write on despite market pressures and what the advertising department or the owner of the media group believes. In the Times of India, I survived comments, like those of  the managing director asserting that his wife and chauffeur loved the film which I had panned. I replied that then it might be more logical to get the wife or the chauffeur to review what they had loved. Silence.

Forget cinema aesthetics. Often debased and vulgar cinema has proved to be popular. Must the critic then say Sarkailo khatiya was great entertainment, and not vulgar?

Demarcation? I think the reader is very savvy. It can be perceived that if five-star ratings are raining over the most mediocre and third-rate films, then there is some hanky panky going on behind the scenes. Or the reviewer has no taste or even worse, is merely striving to hold on to a job. The internet does offer a tremendous potential for interaction. Catch 22222. How genuine are the comments to the reviews? A film’s PR machinery can ghost write the how-dare-he-say-this comment by the dozen. They are paid to do that. And like it or not, there is a vicious ‘lunatic’ fringe, which loves to demolish reviews with one liners, many of them obscene.  Mc-bc etc proliferate. Indeed, it’s  become a cyber-sport to ‘criticise’ (or more aptly ‘screw’) the critic with a  screw-you toss-off  line. These poisonous comments do not care to give reasons, these are in the nature of snakes hissing, and to use a mixed metaphor, making asses of themselves. Another ‘interaction’ in my case, at least, has been that you made ‘lousy’ films. So what gives you the effing right to critique other films. None state why my films  were ‘lousy’ or accept the fact that each one of  the three I  directed recovered their  meagre investment. And made a profit. Fiza is still attacked although it had the producers chortling all the way to the bank. Arguments are great. Life and art hinge on debate and a democracy of views, but not through abusive remarks, demonstrating a lack of sheer upbringing. On internet anyone can get away with sicko language, and cinema illiteracy. Coward-like, the abusers use nicknames. They don’t have the guts to say who they are, and what gives them the authority to behave like Dawood Ibrahim’s henchmen. Be it on Twitter or Facebook, these goons get away with remarks and language that shows they belong to another world.

3) A  humdinger question this. Where is this death of film criticism? America’s Pauline Kael, the high priestess of film criticism, may be no more. The gauntlet has been picked up a wide variety of critics, especially in the independent papers, magazines and websites. Many of today’s critics in the west author books, are paid well, and can afford to avoid pressures from the media owners.

In India, reviewers have assumed an identity as a group in terms of sheer quantity. There are so many of them, all over the mediascape, that they cannot be ignored. Once there was a film industry self-consolation that any film which is panned by the Times of India becomes a hit. Not true, but now there is a jejune effort by the paper to say that every film it praises, becomes a hit. Problemo. It praises every film, and adds readers’ opinions to justify the nuclear rainfall of stars. Problemo again: most of the multi-starred potboilers crash resoundingly.

4) Excuse me. Worthwhile criticism, in any area – books, politics, music, are – incorporates history and tradition (by the way, these two elements are synonymous) by its very nature. An additional prism establishes the critic’s raison d’etre. If he or she projects a view of  liberalism, support of women independence and psychological acuity, there is a synthesis of understanding life and cinema simultaneously.  After all, cinema has to give us insights into our lives, instead of distorting the way we behave and think. If Hollywood’s super-hero fantasies, like say Spiderman, leave us asking for more, it’s because there is an identification with the human element. Mega-billion projects which rely only on hardware and not on the heart, are valueless. Think of E T, think of the Harry Potter series, or Hong Kong’s Crouching Tiger…, they appealed to us because we care for their characters and their battle for the right against the very wrong.

5) There is no ‘critical void’. I would cite the names of  the late Bikram Singh (Times of India), S J Banaji (Filmfare) and Iqbal Masud (Indian Express) who were stars in their own right. They have left a legacy of work, which demonstrates that they were formidable critics. Go check the achives.

To answer the other aspect of the question — alright so India’s population doesn’t depend on the written word, there is a continuing high literate of illiteracy. Still, the unbendable critics  have served their readership without fear or favour.

By the way, the critics are not here to “serve” the industry. They are not waiters at a dinner party or valets at a multi-star hotel. They are here to watch films – spending hours and hours in the dark of the auditorium – and then write what they truly felt. If that is a void, so is this symposium.

6) No one has ever equalled their masterworks. Simple as that. A Russel Crowe or a Mel Gibson may say that they want to feature in a typical Bollywood film. That’s patronising, jokey. Bollywood, like it or not, is still something to giggle at. If a Devdas is screened at the Cannes festival or My Name is Khan at Berlin, they are regarded as commercial exotica from a developing nation. Period.

Besides Ray and Ghatak, you do forget the international salutes accorded to Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

7) It exists. I’d go by the auteur theory advanced by Andrew Sarris, a good film by a bad director isn’t as valuable as a bad film by a great director.  Relativity of experience is of the essence here. So if I had a choice between David Dhawan and Anees Bazmee on one side – in the peak of  their form – and Shyam Benegal and Adoor Gopalakrishnan — caught on their bad hair day — guess which director’s work I would choose?

To end, the questions addressed by the symposium display a sincerity of purpose, but sorry to say, without an awareness of the history-tradition about why criticism is a necessary evil..it’ll be there. Somewhere out there….there will always be a clued-in critic who will serve the purpose of a thousand angels.

Khalid Mohamed is an Indian journalist, editor, film critic, screenwriter and film director. He formerly worked for the Hindustan Times and was the lead editor for Filmfare magazine. He is the son of Hindi film actress Zubeida Begum, on whose life he wrote the screenplay of Shyam Benegal’s 2001 film, Zubeidaa.

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Srikanth Srinivasn…

1) To answer this question, I would first like to explain what I think should be the role of film criticism. Like filmmaking, film criticism is an intensely political act that, like any film of any ideology worth its salt, should ultimately champion humanism and human rights. It is the role of the critic to enlighten his/her readers about what message a film ultimately conveys and chastise or champion the film accordingly. That is why a film critic must also be a cultural/social/political critic. Of course, he/she must also be aware of the properties of the film medium, for form is inseparable from content. However, any piece of criticism that dwells only on the (depoliticized) technical qualities of the object of critique is terribly out of sync with the real world and amounts to nothing more than “art for art’s sake”, at best, and fascism, at worst.
Hence, I would like to believe that a piece of film criticism can be of considerable relevance only if it is as accessible to the audience as the object of its critique. Consequently, I’d have to say that a personal film diary – for the writer’s eyes only – wouldn’t ever amount to film criticism.

2) The blogsphere, like most of scientific boons, is a two-edged sword and, in the final analysis, should be welcome. ‘Film Critic’ is a purely occupational designation and one shouldn’t really worry about labelling writers as ‘critics’ and ‘non-critics’. What matters is the quality of the content being written and whether it really improves the way one looks at films and its relationship to the world one lives in.

3)Far from lamenting the death of film criticism, I believe it is only now that film criticism faces the most daunting and important task. With the near complete corporatization of film art, contemporary culture is progressively being driven by fear. Any dissenting thought, which deviates from the prescribed limits, is deemed insane and punished. In such a situation as this, it is imperative that film criticism, like alternate films, assures audience that they are not alone and that we may not be going exactly in the right way.

India has always been a country of infinite disparities. What feudal, patriarchal and religious systems had done to its people till some time ago, globalization has been doing since. In such a state, both progressive cultural expression and meaningful criticism are continuously deemed invalid by certain organizations and fundamentalist groups. So I would think that it is not ironical but natural that a country like India lacks solid critical culture. Look no further than the difference between American parallel criticism and American mainstream criticism to know what I mean.

4) Of course, disregarding the nature of the film medium and what it does to its subject (’story’) is crude and simplistic and may even lead to a reading that is contradictory to the ultimate message of the film. However, I am really not against a writer taking a stand with respect to a film and judging it according to the tenets of that particular ideology AS LONG AS, as I mentioned before, its ultimate aim is to arrive at a better way of living based on humanist principles. After all, no one can be completely objective about a film and one’s opinions is always coloured by his/her conscious and unconscious ideological influences. Hence, I don’t see a point why any writer should give up his/her identity while writing on a film. To quote Armond White:

“The problem for all of us is developing a less egocentric response to cinema. The transference of identity that people of color have always had to make at the movies is just the kind of theoretical, hypothetical leap of faith, pledge of fellow feeling that Hollywood filmmakers now refuse to return.”

5) The last clause answers it all. Our whole cinema is industrialized, with clearly defined boundaries for the acceptable and the unacceptable. Servile adherence to these norms is publicized endlessly in mainstream media, which is controlled by the very same people who define these boundaries, and any subversion is duly punished with no attention.

6) There might me multiple reasons to it – absence of an active culture of film criticism, non-availability and annihilation of prints due to negligence, those bizarre notions about the lack of a sizable market. I guess there is some vicious circle at work here. Who knows, the issue may ultimately boil down to the existing reputation of Indian cinema.

7) An ever-evolving one. As of now, I think of it as a very useful tool – a means and not the end -  that helps one to arrive at the heart and meaning of a film extra-textually. But it is only appropriate that we recognize its major flaws and limitations instead of being ostrich about it. After all, it largely ignores the contribution of the other participants of a film, the constraints imposed by the logistics of filmmaking and the influence of existing culture on the director that might shape his/her choices unconsciously. Trust the art, not the artist!

Srikanth Srinivasn is a film critic and blogs on, http://theseventhart.info.

Tags: Film Criticism Symposium

Posted By IndianAuteurTm | Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 | Filed under Cover Story, News