Why does India not win in Cannes anymore?
I just wanted to point out the problems with the art cinema scene today.
While its true that Bollywood and its quality is growing, the intelligence behind those films is going down. Technical quality is not film intelligence. Film intelligence is about how people use the different ways of communicating to show their thoughts and emotions. In Bollywood, its getting repetitive - bazaar to show chaos, rain to show dampness, fire to show passion. The reason why this is not changing is because the aim of bollywood is not "being creative in expression", but "make more money". And there is nothing wrong with making money as long as the people who're making money don't crib that they're not getting awards. The fact that the Bollywood guys expect recognition in Cannes is ridiculous. They can expect to make more money, but not get an award (which is inline with their intention, anyway)
The real problem, which nobody seems to notice is the deterioration of the "art" movie scene. There are some huge problems there:
- Regional biases: While Ray is undoubtedly the best that India has produced, the same is not true with all Bengali film makers. Similarly both Shahji and Adoor might be great in some of their movies, but there is no certainty that only Malayalees have it in them to show the pain of mankind. India needs to move away from this kind of a bias. Recently Telugu, Marathi have picked up in the circuit, but visibility is still very less for non-Bengali/non-Malayalee movie makers. Let me give an example, Girish Kasaravalli a very renowned film maker, who's won the Swarna Kamal award as many times as the great Ray was not featured in NDTV Witness's view point on why Indian movies don't make it good at awards. He's probably very well known outside of India, but in India he's had to deal with the regional bias. Another example "Raincoat" from Rituparno Ghosh was seen by a lot of people and was given a lot of visibility that other film makers in India would have loved to have. But anybody who's read the Gift of Magi will tell that Raincoat probably missed the point of the story by a mile.
- Idealism: There is a huge idealistic bias of most of the art film makers in India. All of them have a socialist/communist background. I am not against communism, but am of the opinion that different idealisms should exist to show the different aspects of the same issue. Indian movies tend to be directed from the same angle. Its always against exploitation of poor, women, senior citizens... Or its about caste system or awakening or rationality. I am not saying that's wrong, but its getting too monotonous. Concentrate on other subjects as well for a better variety. For eg., after Ray no major art director has directed a gem of a children's movie.
- Attitude: This seriously irritates me. Art movies in India are always prescriptive. Why should movies be only prescriptive? Why not become narrative or descriptive? The problem is that directors seem to assume a higher moral altar and preach to the people down and ask them to "think". This over emphasis on "thinking" has made movies very demeaning on the audience and too some extent very brahminical(only intellectual) in view point. Personally, I am of the opinion that "thinking" on a subject does not give a person a right to have an opinion on the subject. Its actually undergoing the experience of the subject, that enables one to have a complete viewpoint on the subject. Stories are a beautiful way of illustrating an experience. I still remember the Bharath Ek Khoj directed by Shyam Benegal, where the story telling mechanism was used to illustrate very difficult concepts in philosophy; and this was done in a beautiful narrative manner. To me that was a classic piece of direction.
- Marketing: Lack of marketing affects the movies very badly. Instead of taking movies with songs and dances to Cannes, why not take some real cinema. For eg., Makdee would have been an excellent candidate for awards. We will keep sending Kabhie KKKKKKKKs and not movies intended otherwise. We should follow a simple strategy, send movies to unbiased film festivals outside of India and then send the winners of these contests to better festivals. Another thing that needs to happen is the release of DVDs of art movies, with marketing of course. A lot of people who want to watch, say Bimal Roy's Parineeta will have to wait till eternity, because the company that owns the rights will not release the movies for production. A lot of movies are stuck up with the national film archives and the commercial departments. This needs to be freed
I don't know what the solutions to the problem are, but IMHO these are some of the important problems.
While its true that Bollywood and its quality is growing, the intelligence behind those films is going down. Technical quality is not film intelligence. Film intelligence is about how people use the different ways of communicating to show their thoughts and emotions. In Bollywood, its getting repetitive - bazaar to show chaos, rain to show dampness, fire to show passion. The reason why this is not changing is because the aim of bollywood is not "being creative in expression", but "make more money". And there is nothing wrong with making money as long as the people who're making money don't crib that they're not getting awards. The fact that the Bollywood guys expect recognition in Cannes is ridiculous. They can expect to make more money, but not get an award (which is inline with their intention, anyway)
The real problem, which nobody seems to notice is the deterioration of the "art" movie scene. There are some huge problems there:
- Regional biases: While Ray is undoubtedly the best that India has produced, the same is not true with all Bengali film makers. Similarly both Shahji and Adoor might be great in some of their movies, but there is no certainty that only Malayalees have it in them to show the pain of mankind. India needs to move away from this kind of a bias. Recently Telugu, Marathi have picked up in the circuit, but visibility is still very less for non-Bengali/non-Malayalee movie makers. Let me give an example, Girish Kasaravalli a very renowned film maker, who's won the Swarna Kamal award as many times as the great Ray was not featured in NDTV Witness's view point on why Indian movies don't make it good at awards. He's probably very well known outside of India, but in India he's had to deal with the regional bias. Another example "Raincoat" from Rituparno Ghosh was seen by a lot of people and was given a lot of visibility that other film makers in India would have loved to have. But anybody who's read the Gift of Magi will tell that Raincoat probably missed the point of the story by a mile.
- Idealism: There is a huge idealistic bias of most of the art film makers in India. All of them have a socialist/communist background. I am not against communism, but am of the opinion that different idealisms should exist to show the different aspects of the same issue. Indian movies tend to be directed from the same angle. Its always against exploitation of poor, women, senior citizens... Or its about caste system or awakening or rationality. I am not saying that's wrong, but its getting too monotonous. Concentrate on other subjects as well for a better variety. For eg., after Ray no major art director has directed a gem of a children's movie.
- Attitude: This seriously irritates me. Art movies in India are always prescriptive. Why should movies be only prescriptive? Why not become narrative or descriptive? The problem is that directors seem to assume a higher moral altar and preach to the people down and ask them to "think". This over emphasis on "thinking" has made movies very demeaning on the audience and too some extent very brahminical(only intellectual) in view point. Personally, I am of the opinion that "thinking" on a subject does not give a person a right to have an opinion on the subject. Its actually undergoing the experience of the subject, that enables one to have a complete viewpoint on the subject. Stories are a beautiful way of illustrating an experience. I still remember the Bharath Ek Khoj directed by Shyam Benegal, where the story telling mechanism was used to illustrate very difficult concepts in philosophy; and this was done in a beautiful narrative manner. To me that was a classic piece of direction.
- Marketing: Lack of marketing affects the movies very badly. Instead of taking movies with songs and dances to Cannes, why not take some real cinema. For eg., Makdee would have been an excellent candidate for awards. We will keep sending Kabhie KKKKKKKKs and not movies intended otherwise. We should follow a simple strategy, send movies to unbiased film festivals outside of India and then send the winners of these contests to better festivals. Another thing that needs to happen is the release of DVDs of art movies, with marketing of course. A lot of people who want to watch, say Bimal Roy's Parineeta will have to wait till eternity, because the company that owns the rights will not release the movies for production. A lot of movies are stuck up with the national film archives and the commercial departments. This needs to be freed
I don't know what the solutions to the problem are, but IMHO these are some of the important problems.
posted by Vinay Murthy at 1:13 AM
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