| What defines a
country’s cinema? Let’s take India
for example… is India defined by the best
it has produced, judged on terms of recognition
bestowed by the west – take a Monsoon
Wedding (winner at the Venice Film Festival)
or a Lagaan and Mother India
(Oscar nominees for best foreign film) or is it
to be defined by the median that bisects the melee
that is Bollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood and Kollywood?
Is it about how good we can be? Or is it about
how much more we can tow the line of mediocrity
to pander to an audience who is sluggishly waking
up to good cinema?
First of all, what is good cinema? Film, to a
lesser degree, is a lot like abstract expressionism:
easy to dismiss and difficult to comprehend in
it’s entirety. A good film, therefore, is
entirely subjective. In brief, here is what I
think are the ingredients of an accomplished film:
An eventful story well told through strong central
and (importantly) secondary performances, innovative
camerawork, unnoticeable sound, and editing of
all repetition all coming together to create an
experience that an audience appreciates. What
clearly don’t matter are budgets and stars.
Given this framework, we need to dissect the corpus
of celluloid produced in India (a little under
1000 films annually) to understand why we have
such poor cinema. Here are the top reasons:
Very little originality –
Directors like Abbas-Mustan and Vikram Bhatt are
old hands at this. So much so, their indigenized
creations are almost at par (at least technically)
with their inspirations. Then there are makers
like Sanjay Leela  Bhansali
whose arrogance blinds him to a point where he
rips off obscure (for an unsuspecting audience)
classics and expect them to go on to win Oscars.
And then there is the Sanjay Gupta category –
those go all out to a point where plagiarism seems
too derisory a word. Sanjay Gupta, after Kaante
(Resevoir Dogs, set in LA, not even in
Mumbai), Musafir (U-Turn without any
surprises), and now Zinda (every wig,
every lighting setup, everything is an exact replica
of Old Boy) has now announced that he’s
going to be doing a collection of 10 shorts titled
Dus Kahania modeled after The Decalogue.
I wonder how Kieslowski would feel about this.
Does he see this as a tribute to his inspirational
cross-cultural ideas or Indian morality hitting
the Mariana Trench? Personally, I have very little
respect for filmmakers (who call themselves one)
who do a Sanjay Gupta. I refuse to watch their
movies (having already seen the originals) because
I cannot contribute to people’s pockets
who make films only for cash. It is an easy trap
to fall into, for sure, given that everyone from
financers, producers, filmmakers, exhibitionists,
and audiences will swallow just about anything
as long as it’s ‘sellable’.
I am going to define this word for you in the
Bollywood context shortly.
Identity crisis – This
is a huge problem Bollywood is struggling with.
The stories that are being told on celluloid are
either aping their counterparts in Hollywood or
regressive as they are re-inventing the wheel
with their style and technique. Indian cinema
has reached a point where it doesn’t know
where it’s heading. People keep saying we’re
20 years behind Hollywood in cinema. Are we really?
And if we are, are audiences going to accept that,
given the simultaneous release of high on SFX
Hollywood films released in India, not to mention
DVD accessibility? What’s the way forward?
Certainly not films like Krrish. One
can understand the success of the first super
hero film with okayish special effects, but how
many more jump-suited heroes can we see leaping
across buildings one minute and prancing around
trees with the heroine the next? Surely it cannot
become a trend! What about Golmaal, Masti,
Hungama, Phir Hera Pheri, and
No Entry? Surely there is a limit to
these crass comedies. And if there isn’t
– please – this fare belongs to non-primetime
television. And then of course there is the Karan
Johar/Yash Chopra genre, Kabhi Alvida Naa
Kehna was nowhere close to Kal Ho Na
Ho,  proving
that even the great KJ is not infallible and as
for the Chopra camp, well Fanaa says it all as
it is a most regressive film. As of this 2006
so far, only 3 films deserve some credit. Rang
De Basanti for its rock solid style and treatment,
Omakara as a mega budget art film with
no compromise on the script, performances, and
even the camerawork, and finally Lage Raho
Munnabhai for it’s striving for perfection
and relevance and achieving it. These are the
only films all of this year that indicate a path
forward for our cinema. And if you’ve seen
them, you know how different they are from each
other. The only common factor is strong original
ideas backed by solid direction.
Star Power – There is
an adage – Stars make or break a film. As
of today, this has never been truer. This alone
could be the only raison d’etre for the
lack of any experimentation or sustained quality
in cinema. Having experienced it first-hand, allow
me to explain the methodology of ‘making
a film.’ New Indian directors and writers,
whose favorite films are more likely to be a Fellini
rather than Manmohan Desai, are constantly looking
to break barriers and change (or at least multidimensionalize)
the identity of Indian cinema. Once a script is
done, what do they do? Say the below-the-line
cost is upward of Rs. 3 crore (a meager $650,000),
the first natural step would be to approach producers.
What they hear is this: Given the cost of production,
the film will not recover its money (they haven’t
even read the script yet.) Your best bet would
be to get a star onboard. Okay, how? Oh, that’s
up to you of course, producers can’t get
the makers the stars. Get a star and we’ll
do it.
Note the last line carefully. Get a star and
we’ll do it. Nobody has even glanced at
the script (in fact, it’s pointless to even
carry one to meeting with a producer.) They’re
making a commitment based on nothing except the
basic amount of ticket sales, overseas and satellite
rights rate that the star’s popularity can
muster. They’re just assuming that if something
moves on screen with the bloke’s pancaked
head in the frame, it’ll “recover
costs” at the very least.
So the young director’s sojourn to get
a star begins. How does he get a meeting with
a star? There are no agents (only sleazy secretaries),
no formal approach, nothing. He needs to depend
on his networking skills to somehow get a number,
call, call, call again till he finally gets through,
somehow (an impossible process) get a 15 minute
meeting and cram a full screenplay, his track
record, answer all questions regarding the script,
producers in those precious moments. If the actor
is convinced, he’ll nod. It’s a cakewalk
from then on. The director will have a line of
producers at his doorstep. And herein lies the
problem. We all know that the cumulative IQ of
Indian stars is a shade below the average eight
grader’s, and in the circumstances the star
has made a commitment based on his ‘judgment’.
So much for quality control. Is it any surprise
that in Bollywood, films get made based on people
skills and past relationships, rather than lesser
important ingredients such as good scripts?
Nepotism is another niggling problem. Either
you AD and network for half your life or you need
a Godfather in the industry to reach a point where
someone is willing to back you as a filmmaker.
There is no system in place to recognize fresh,
original talent. It’s a wonder that any
independent films get made at all in India.
Lack of options – Given
the case, what’re the options filmmakers
have? To make any kind of cinema that reaches
out to an audience (and all cinema must), there
has to be at least some basic financial backing.
With the dissolution of NFDC, most filmmakers
will now never get a chance for that crucial first
film. This is the system that enabled makers like
Kundan Shah and Vidhu Vinod Chopra to make their
mark with films like
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and Khamosh
and now the only real government agency that helped
aid such films and discovered makers has shut
down because it was a loss making venture. Pathetic.
Instead of re-inventing itself by, say, enabling
low budget films converted-from-DV and enforcing
it in multiplexes (what are all the tax-sops for?),
they just throw their hands up in the air and
give-up! So what do you do? No sensible production
house or financer is going to back you till you
have a star. How do you get a star? As of today,
there are barely 5 lead actors who you can sign
on and make a film with a decent budget and a
wide release. 5. That’s it. How many quality
directors out there? At least 2000 for a conservative
estimate? They have no option. The mathematics
cannot work like the way it does in Hollywood
because in America, even a film with all new faces
has a budget equaling our top grossers.
And what about the ones who do manage to sign
these 5 big guns on? What do they do? They try
their very, very best to try and stick to tried
and tested subjects that they know will work.
All films must have a love angle, the must have
songs, and so on and so forth. They’re diffident
of experiments, because the fickleness of the
industry doesn’t allow leeway for failure.
And so, there is an abject lack of subjects; all
films are beginning to merge and look like one
continuous never-ending reel.
And it’s not just stars and subjects. Every
maker would like Himesh Reshammiya, Farah Khan,
Anil Mehta, everyone shoots at the same locations…
it’s all about a lack of options and a fear
of experimentation. A film needs to be sellable
(to the star, then the producer, and then the
audience) and what will sell best? Something that’s
been sold in the past. This is where ‘pop’
cinema comes from isn’t it?
Distribution pains – It’s
a miracle films make money theatrically. Certainly
we have come a long way from days when distributors
were expected to finance the songs of
a film, before they were shot. It was an amazingly
stupid way to work and distributors now have a
cushier life with little monetary risk. But with
the currently scenario, one just wonders if it’s
not just better to get into the ‘business’
of piracy. Almost every non-discerning film-goer
would rather just wait a day or two till an illegal
copy of the film is available on the streets in
either VCD or DVD formats. To hell with the fact
that it is a camera-print and that people might
keep walking past the camera, that the sound quality
is abysmal, and that the picture pans left to
right depending on the action on screen. They
really don’t care. They just want to know
what happens next. Why is this happening? Prohibitive
cinema ticket prices? Laziness? Perhaps it’s
just bad cinema and these guys just need a break
with a remote to skip the boring parts? So how
do we fix this? We need wider distribution. This
is happening with the 30-cr plus films with over
1000 prints releasing on the opening day. Otherwise
they travel from A centers to B to C centers.
There is significant activity on to install digital
cinema projectors in B and C centers so that films
can be released simultaneously in more theaters.
However, implementation is taking ages for reasons
best known to them. We need more affordable cinema-going
experiences. A night out for a family of 4 to
watch a new release is well over Rs. 1000. 35%
of this figure is entertainment tax. It’s
senseless. Even people who want to watch films
regularly cannot. Films are mass entertainment
and the value-chain involved is too pre-occupied
to not lose money. A regulation fixed here and
some common-sense applied there will drive hordes
of people back to the theaters and films can be
watched the way they were intended to be.
 Lack
of appreciation of good films –
The audience is completely to blame here; they
don’t know a good film when they see one.
It’s no secret that in our film-crazy country,
film-literacy is very low. Parallels to Hollywood
are inevitable, but we need to take a leaf out
of Europe. Obsessing with Bollywood and turning
a blind eye to alternate Indian and world cinema
is a bad sign. Kerela has taken major strides
in the last few years with even rural villages
being exposed to film camps and seminars that
regularly show Bergman and Bertolucci; but why
isn’t this concept permeating to the rest
of the country especially the metros? The handful
of film clubs are too elitist insisting that the
cover charge include a glass of wine or at least
beer. Exhibition honchos are of course only concerned
about maintaining the 40% capacity-rate that they
need to fill for every show. Needless to say chances
of them allocating off-beat films a screening
a day will severely affect their bottom-line.
But I have a solution. What’s the one kind
of film that all audiences will watch regardless
of where they’re coming from? R rated ones.
I propose that this is where theaters should begin:
screen classics with nudity. The Canterbury
Tales, Last Tango in Paris, and Y Tu
Mama Tambien, will all find an audience.
Then steadily, wean them away and simply show
them good films. Women will come too, coaxed by
their husbands and boyfriends: this is not porn,
this is cinema. But of course, there is one major
flaw in this plan: our good ol’ government
and its whims of
Censorship – With our
dear health minister Ramadoss’ capricious
ban on showing smoking on screen, censorship in
India is taking regressive steps. While there
is more kissing, risqué content is getting
sidelined. However, I strongly feel this is something
that really can be fixed overnight if the right
people take over. Here is the only aspect we need
to ape the west and put a stringent rating system
in place with appropriate warning tags for all
films. It’s really that simple as far as
the law goes. Enforcing it is where the difficulty
lies and the responsibility is the audience’s
too.
So who is to blame? Filmmakers and producers
for not trying too hard, distributors and exhibitors
for only looking after their interests, the government
for their arcane regulations, the audiences for
not giving more-deserving films a fair chance
and creating stars out of actors; in short, everyone
really.
- with thanks from textonthebeach.com,
a multi-topic blog that looks at India in the
21st century from the deck chair.
|
