In this article we are broadly trying to explore three extremes of work culture. This article will explore various formula: Mainstream, Parallel lines that exist within our culture and challenges faced by the crooked line.

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In this article we are broadly trying to explore three extremes of work culture. This article will explore various formulae : Mainstream, Parallel lines that exist within our culture and challenges faced by the crooked line. Persue Established cinematic conventions and remain within the invisible boundaries of creativity or define and create an avant-garde language and style in cinema, choice is difficult and most of the time, personal as well.

Any person who wants to be filmmaker in India, has usually two choices, either to ‘call money’ by joining what is now known as the Harward of medicroity in the east aka Bollywood or become ‘Mani Kaul’, who was actually invited by Harward Film School to join them as a faculty member to teach their students of cinema, what is unique and original about his cinema.

The choice is very difficult, considering the fact that money is very important thing in life and joining Bollywood, not only fills your pocket, but gives you instant fame and recognition in a already established conventions of cinema. To follow a path that is different and wants to present things differently and bring new perspective, is difficult. One is often mocked at, ignored and then there is this worst kind of connoisseur or the name dropper, who simply wants to show that he/she likes your work, because this provides him/her upward social mobility in a group of snobbish people (where logic and consistency is often ignored, for what is fashionable or classy), Thus what is spoken is never in any language, what is said…

‘All great thinkers think the same. Yet this ’same’ is so essential and so rich that no single thinker exhausts it’. Martin Heidegger in his lecture on Nietzsche in 1936.

The above statement by Heidegger seems to have been adopted literally by the cinematic world, each tries to attack other in the same fashion for decades now and explore similar subjects within the established compartments, created long ago. If one studies various class of filmmakers and critics one tends to draw various parallel lines. These parallel lines are very vary of the ‘crooked’ line. Segregation within the intellectual class, who fancies itself as secular and neutral.
Even within the creative group, getting any kind of support is difficult. One must understand that, if the aesthetics or formulae for mainstream cinema are there, so is there for the other side of it and this other side which fancies itself as creative and avant-garde had defined the ‘boundaries of creativity’ and anyone going beyond that is often ignored and ridiculed. For Ray, the cinema of Benegal and Sathyu was acceptable, but not Kaul or Shahani.  The problem is that the other side, who tries to define itself as ‘different’ (Parallel lines) had constructed the four walls of what is creative and what is not. A friend of mine once asked, if an creative individual truly believes in ‘Yeh duniya mujhe mil bhi jaaye to kya hai’, then why release [t]his work and ask the public to appreciate his/her message and feel rejected when it doesn’t. It may reflect a reaction to a moment in life, but not someone intentions, perhaps intentions are either misplaced or misunderstood.

Even the New wave is now 40 years old and is still addressed in the same fashion. This brings the question of originality, which takes a back seat, when faced with ideology, Something that is already defined, can be presented in various colorful ways, cinematic or language wise but it is like continuing the tradition invented by someone else. Then there is another reduction, men with agendas and ideologies tends to be sterile in questioning their own beliefs. Man must not check reason by tradition, but must check tradition by reason. A person who tries to re-check what is already defined by someone, and take into account the unquestioned assumptions and inconsistencies, that are there, can attimes, not always reach a different conclusion. Here let me point out that the ‘Crooked’ line often emphasizes the value of what is absent – the varjit, the forbidden – as perennially in argument (vivadi) with what is narratively present. The short moment of creation is posed at the point where human action simultaneously registers what exists and in the process, produces something unprecedented…

Added bonus and original goals – Trappings of generality and mystery of avant-garde : It takes all kind to make this potpourri. There are all kind of men who want to be a part of this filmworld, for example, there was this guy who wanted to make a film and could not find a suitable title for his film, he asked me “can you give me a muslim title for my film, which sounds classy, something like Maya Darpan”, so I can sell this film to various festivals circuits, his association of Urdu language with a particular religion, his failure to distinguish between Hindi and Urdu language (Maya Darpan are Hindi words and not Urdu) and its associated status as a language whose remarkable lexion has a upward classy feel, (primarily its association with ‘Adab’), somehow uncannyly reflects his viewpoint of this medium as well as himself. Then there was this budding actor who wanted to join Bollywood, rather than he be concerned with how he is going to polish his talent or study a character or learn various techniques of acting, he was more apprehensive about, ‘what kind of Oil will be better for his ass to survive the casting couch, olive oil or a cream?… but these examples clearly illustrate that what are your goals – most of persons working in Bollywood tends to focus on money and thus resulting in commodification of an art form, and in this process if they make something creative, that is like added bonus, but not their original goal.

Mainstream cinema has its own logic in defending its output, in the garb of the question, why should they (connoisseurs/critics) impose their understanding/expectations from a medium to someone (filmmakers). They argue that we should judge anyone with what his or her intentions or goals are, for instance,  according to common understanding/opinion, a young tall beautiful girl should try her hands at modelling and earn fame and money and if this girls refuses to use her [presumed] assets in this expected fashion and most of time, she may receive a comment like “Girl you don’t deserve this body”, but the question is that, whether she wants to be a model or not, should be taken into account and an conclusion can only be reached only after checking his/her intentions and goals. The persons who may have passed such comments are not wrong, they are doing what they see and think should be the case, but these assessments carry a fallacy of ignoring other person’s intentions. Similarly we should judge filmmakers intentions and should pass judgments/comments only after understanding what he or she is trying to do and not based on our expectations/perception of the medium. they further state that, often in the creative group, there is tendency to ridicule the ‘Basic’, as we know, how high you may be (creatively or otherwise), you cannot ignore the ‘Basic’. Agreed, but the problem is that Bollywood fails to re-evaluate what they consider ‘basic’. Inquiry is missing. It may sound like a cliche, but usually inquiry is done by someone, who is the affected party and wants to question the system/device/ideology/method and does not not accept the current state of affairs, otherwise most of the time, we accept whatever is there and succumb to subalternity, for instance, it is usually the so-called lower-caste person, who is pushed towards the margins of society, who will question Manu’s ideology, because it affects him/her and the quality of life he/she is expected to lead. What most Bollywood films do is that, always present a ‘convenient’ reality. Convenience is tricky word, because every filmmaker has its own definition of what is ‘real’ and ‘acceptable’ and what is not and they always try to mask this under the word ’subjective’, for instance, there are numerous Bollywood films which celebrate national integration and creates a false or comfortable world, where denial seems to be a dominant force, reality is far different and complex, which raises many questions rather than providing answers, but mainstream Bollywood always believe in providing answers and messages, even at the behest of ignoring the complexity of reality.

Mainstream Bollywood always look for a safe or what they think is a safer bet. Then there is another myth propagated by the script writers of Bollywood, who argue that there are only 8 or 10 original plots and the rest depend on how you construct these into different stories. Many directors in Bollywood still believe, that it the story and script or the actors which make the film. Cinema is still not treated as complete art in itself. Making a movie is considered an achievement itself – it is as if someone’s motto in life is ‘Saans Bharna hi Jeevan Jina hai’… Pseudo-intellectuals – Sponsored Books/Articles/PHDs. and genuine research : Perception is also built by people who are part of the art world and there own bias and mis-information also leads to another reduction, and that is of the medium being reduced to lowest common denominator. Most of the time one finds these filmmakers from Bollywood trying to present themselves and their brand of cinema as something which is beyond the superficial. There are filmmakers/actors who call themselves as ‘perfectionist’. The word perfection is often used when you believe that you have saturated an art form and thus it cannot be modified or improved. How boring an human life would be, if there was nothing to explore and one is only left with learning,continuing and functioning within the boundaries of creativity, defined by others. Getting an approval and funding for doing a PHD. on Mani Kaul or Kumar Shahani or their brand of cinema is very difficult, but if someone wants to do the same for a mainstream Bollywood director/actor, then he/she can avail indirect funding from the selected director/actor himself/herself.

These sponsored PHDs or papers are nothing but fanthonable write-off in praise of the filmmaker/actor, while carefully highlighting the weaknesses of his/her contemporaries in a way, which to a idiot may sound like praise and going to an extent of distorting history – hiding facts and twisting facts in such fashion that it places the other person in bad light. The disclaimers that are issued by these authors are merely, a tactic to hide their dishonesty from a knowledgeable reader. Recently, I came across a book which was about a film, which had been the biggest box-office success in recent years and the director is so afraid/insecure of loosing his cult status that he had not signed any film as a director after this maiden venture. The writer who fancies himself/herself as a critic, should have named this book ‘how to increase your english vocabulary’ rather than name of the film.
Whenever one sees filmmakers like Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani or Kamal Swaroop, one wonders that these gifted filmmakers could have made few commercial ventures to fill their pockets, and while doing so, could have made their brand of cinema, but they choose a path that was different and are contented with it. This is a personal choice and it requires lot of guts to persue this path of creativity. The difference between the mainstream commercial filmmakers and filmmakers like Mani Kaul, although they both take risks, is that the risks involved in persuing commercial venture is that, it may fail at the box-office, but he/she still has the cushion of money for its director, but for someone like Mani Kaul or Kumar Shahani, who work on a shoe-string budgets, the risk is greater, creatively and otherwise, there is much more at stake here, say then incase of a commercial filmmaker. Recently in a discussion on cinematography, where one of the participants was trying to compare Subrata Mitra and K.K.Mahajan’s works, filmmaker Kumar Shahani pointed out that Subrata Mitra still had a good budget to get his things done, his way, but in the conditions he and K.K.Mahajan worked, (on a very miniscule budget), it was extremely difficult, but the quality was never compromised. Everybody is ready to eat the fruits of anyone creative success, but what about the person who risks his/her life to create that. What most young filmmakers fear is that, if they want to persue something creative, nobody supports/appreciates them and then there is this fear of being branded a ‘loser’ in the world of rat race.
Now, Indian cinema’s urgent necessity is another new wave, perhaps another creative revolution, which defines our times and our understanding of various issues and present a reflection of our current sensibilities and also reflects the churning of knowledge over the years. What was considered ‘Truth’ ten or twenty years ago had changed with time and the same needs to be reflected.

Time has come to remove the divide, so that ‘Money’ and ‘Mani’ can meet and create something unprecedented.

Image: Edward Munch’s Scream

Tags: Bollywood, Indian Cinema, Issue no-8 2010, Mani Kaul

Posted By Satyam | Friday, January 22nd, 2010 | Filed under Cover Story