Movies

I love movies. I have loved them from very early age in the 90’s when the entire family would sit in front of the single Sony box on Saturday and Sunday evening and relish a Hindi classic. When I was watching Guide for the first time, an elder cousin for whom too it was a first viewing, exclaimed ‘Now I understand, this movie is so famous because of its excellent songs’. I disagree with the opinion but just shows how movies have created vivid memories. Both my parents were movie buffs. My father can always recall which movie he had seen in which cinema hall in his heydays, and he had seen most of the blockbusters. My mom was not so prolific but recalled movies she had seen with papa. Nikaah with its sharp rendition of “Dil ke armaan aansoon main beh gaye” by Salma Aga used to be her favourite.

Before joining college, seeing a movie in cinema hall was infrequent, but a must on celebrations like birthdays and marriage anniversary. I remember one birthday when I forced my parents to take me to Aaj ka Arjun (a cringe-inducing thought). Hum Aapke Hain Kaun was a big rage and I got to see it twice - second time to accompany my maternal grandparents because they needed company. They later complained to my mom that I did not let them see it peacefully and kept chirping about what would happen next. DDLJ and KKHH too were big rage and seen with enthusiasm and fanfare (today, I cringe at KKHH). I remember getting properly scared while watching the opening sequence of Jurassic Park in a ramshackle hall in Kanpur, while my parents had not yet joined me. And this was when I had already seen the movie - in the school audio-visual room.

My movie experience and horizon expanded manifold during my post graduation. Staying in a hostel with access to broadband and people who had come with loaded hard disks from their graduation time gave a treasure chest. And I played gleefully. I had a like-minded, initiating friend and it was an unsaid pact to watch a movie daily. Almost. The record was 4 movies in sequence. I had seen very few English movie till then - only in cinema halls during graduation. Usually, it was a problem of time and company. But both the problems got solved during post graduation and I had the most memorable time. At the end of the course, I diligently burnt CDs of some of the favourite movies - something which has become much simpler since then with inexpensive storage space - in laptops, mobiles and hard disks.

Over the years, I have kept up my affair with movies - both Hindi and English. While staying in Mumbai, I used to buy movie DVDs from outside local railway stations for Rs. 100. But watching movie on TV has been a frustrating experience. One gets movies of only certain vintage and type - usually from last 10-20 years, mostly raw action, mostly famous masala titles. It is very hard to get different genres and different eras. So I keep fishing around, borrowing hard disks. This was what allowed me to watch a lot of Hitchcock. I remember watching ‘Rear Window’ at a British Council movie-appreciation session. With Hindi movies, it is even more difficult to get classics on hard disks and one has to rely largely on Youtube (where also it can be difficult) or DD National on Sunday morning (recently watched Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Farooque Sheikh classic Bazaar there). I give most of the latest Hindi movies a miss (apart from a rare good movie) and watch the latest English movies at cinema halls.

Just like any movie buff, I have my favourites. I want to watch more of certain kind of movies such as English noir films, English classics of 50-70s, Hindi classics of 50-60s and parallel Hindi cinema of 70-80s. And I have not seen many films of this period, the key constraint being time and access. I also enjoy reading about movies - books or news articles. I religiously watch Oscars during its repeat telecast late into the night (stopped seeing the Bollywood Filmfare Awards long back). I fondly read movie reviews (by reviewers whose views I relate to, definitely not Times of India reviews). Rajeev Masand was a favourite before his show stopped coming at a sane time on the TV. Long back, there was a site whose articles I liked - filmimpressions.com. Now, I like reading articles in Mint - by Jai Arjun Singh and Uday Bhatia. I read Roger Ebert review for every English movie - before or after seeing the movie. Infact, I have compiled his list of ‘Great Movies’ as a kind of bucket list.   

Movie appreciation is difficult to define. Over the years I have loved movies for so many different reasons. Hindi - I love Anupama and Sujata for their script and acting, Awara for its treatment and scale, Teesri Manzil for the sheer energy of Shammi Kapoor dance, Guide for the strong story, direction and beautiful climax, Sangam for bold presentation, Woh Kaun Thi, Jewel Thief and Johnny Mera Naam for being the best Hindi thrillers, Mili for its unusual ending, Chupke Chupke and Golmaal for their delicious hilarity, Chashme Baddoor for its freshness and freedom, Mausam for such sharp story and acting, Prem Rog for its last 30 minutes, Jaane bhi Do Yaaron and Katha for the dark satire, Khamosh for being a taut thriller, Chandni and Lamhe for beautiful story and fresh presentation, Dil Chahta Hai for acting and style, and in recent years, Lootera, Kai Po Che, Detective Byomkesh Bakshey. Paan Singh Tomar, Masaan and Haider for breaking the mould.

The list is longer for English movies - I love Good Will Hunting for its deep script, Casablanca for its sharp dialogues, Chicago for its energy and fun, Lincoln for Daniel Day Lewis’s acting, Dead Poets Society for everything, Shawshank Redemption for the dialogues and the eureka climax, Apollo 13 for the uplift it gives, A Few Good Men for dialogues, The Prestige for its sharp script, No Country for Old Men for Xavier Bardem, Erin Brokovich for the script, Love Actually, Notting Hill and Pretty Woman for the hopeless romance and style, Max Max-Fury Road for the mind-blowing energy, OldBoy and Seven for shocking script, Schiendler’s List for the script and direction, Road to Perdition for the background score, The Silence of the Lambs and Alien for the captivating direction, Hitchcock movies for introducing and benchmarking the mystery genre. Some movies I watch for the actor or director such as Steven Spielberg, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Caine, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett.    

While it is not easy to summarise a movie in just a phrase, least of all some of the masterpieces that I have mentioned. But the problem emanates from my own weakness as a viewer. Reading literature on movies (and watching Oscars),  has made me realise my huge deficiency as a movie-watcher. For starters, I have no understanding of the craft of movie-making. As an absolute layman, like most viewers, I do not understand camera angles, the clear demarcation of roles of the storywriter and the scriptwriter and the dialogue-writer, how has script enhanced an average story, how one movie is better edited than another, or even how one movie is better directed than other, how is one acting performance a masterclass, what is powerful music? Yes, I know when I like a movie, but I am not be able to pin down the reasons down to its intricacies, at least to the extent possible. And that is a big drawback. I have also realised that many times I do not understand the subtle messages, the unsaid aspects, the interpretational aspects, the emotional currents of the movie. How and what the actors are emoting or conveying without actually saying. A long meaningful glance, or a long silence. When I read the review by the critics, I realise so many new points about the movie, which I had not observed or not realised. So many movies I have liked without being able to establish the reason. Leaving aside my own frame of mind at the time of watching the movie, which influences how one receives it, I am sure that the master directors, writers, dialogue-writers are able to influence the viewer in a powerful manner. And a lay viewer like me is not wiser about it.

Some part of this failure emanates from my own imperceptibility, and poor observation. A large part of the failure comes from being fed on Bollywood movies of a certain vintage during the formative years. Over the years, as my understanding has improved, I have realised, entirely subjectively, that Bollywood has offered very few movies which can be called as ‘good movie’. Of course, they can offer beautiful music and choreography, elaborate set pieces, but they are not good movies in the true sense. What is a ‘good movie’? The beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Most Indians enjoy Bollywood movies, in fact some of the movies which I would call ‘bad’ movies are loved. But that happens when one restricts the definition of a movie to just an entertainer. Most Indians would say that for them movies are primarily a means of relaxation, an escape from daily stress, a way to unwind. So a common refrain is leave-your-brains-aside when watching Bollywood movies. Who wants the stress of understanding nuances of movie making or understand subtle messages, or a movie where things are left unsaid and have to be deciphered?

Thus we end up with very linear movies - broadly in the two genres of romance and action. The repository of drama, science fiction, biographical, historical, noir, mystery, thrillers is largely bare. Most Indian movies over the years would fall under the broad story line of ‘First half - boy meets girl and woos girl through elaborate songs. Second half - ditto with some obstacle, like unapproving parents, which arises and is resolved in last 15 mins’. Or ‘First half - the protagonist has been wronged himself or witnesses someone else being wronged and decides to right it. Second half - ditto with an elaborate fight sequence in the climax’. There is no universal yardstick of what can be entertaining and there is nothing wrong with seeing movies for fun and without much thought, my only point is that we should not call it ‘good cinema’.

Again I am no expert, but for me the definition of a ‘good’ movie is a ‘good story told well’. There should be a story that the movie wants to tell. That for me is true entertainment, that is when I feel content. It is not necessary for me to relate to every aspect or character of the movie. An example can be the movie Dor - a simple yet solid story and presented with minimum characters and frills. Also, I am not saying that an action or song-and-dance cannot be a ‘good’ movie, it is mainly about having a story-line. Also, many good movies require the viewer to play a part. The movie requires the viewer to see where he fits into the plot, to invest emotionally into it, to introspect. Only when has the viewer done it, taken this important step, is the movie watching experience complete. And it is not easy. I am not saying that the experience is not fruitful without this subconscious evaluation, but a good movie and its makers deserve this investment by the viewer.

This is not to say that there are no ‘good’ Hindi movies. But they are very few and the number has been steadily declining since 1950s. In fact, as per me there is a noticeable decade-wise trend of quality of Hindi movies which reached its nadir in 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays proponents of Bollywood proclaim that the situation has improved and there is a lot of experimentation and different movies being made. But as per me this is only partially true. My cynical view is that the decades of 1980s and 1990s were so abysmal that now any slice-of-life movie, or movie which does not follow the templates given above, is considered good or ‘progressive’ cinema. So any growth from zero base is considered good, even though we are way behind anything approaching ‘good cinema’ when compared to a wider benchmark. It is more a case of self-congratulation and ignorance of not just the world cinema but better specimens of Indian cinema.  

There are two ways in which movies can be appreciated - in terms of its revenue collection and in terms of awards it collects. These can be mapped, by some stretch of imagination, into two class of viewers - masses and the critics. At least in India, the gap between these two is very wide and so antagonistic that overlaps are rare. And over the years, the view of critics has been so drowned that even the domestic awards are largely based on the commercial success of the film. Thus, appreciation of movie as an art form has seriously suffered in India. In Hollywood, while ‘good’ cinema may not do well commercially, it definitely gets noticed in the Oscars. Despite the times, where the voice of market (or majority) has grown stronger, Oscars have maintained strict standards and upheld the responsibility of acknowledging and promoting art. In fact, the Academy is at times criticised for lauding boring movies. This is not to say that Hollywood does not throw-up bad movies. They do (some of which do very well commercially), but then they have impressive percentage to good, even exceptional films. And Hollywood offers a eye-poppingly wide range - comedy, musical, historical, period films, drama, biographical, action, thriller, mystery, horror, rom-com, sci-fi, animation, action-comedy, westerners, war movies etc etc. And movies across this range are released every year.   

So what it means for an average Indian viewer. A person like me gets confused without any anchor - i don’t like what I see in Bollywood and I am not equipped to fully appreciate the better stuff elsewhere. Over the years, I have only realised that I don’t understand movies well. And it is frustrating. It is like Robin Williams says in Good Will Hunting “...Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life's work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling…”.