Some years back Anurag Kashyap made a movie called No Smoking. The movie was obviously a flop. But intriguingly it was also a critical disaster in the Indian Critics fraternity. Critics took turns to lampoon and ridicule the movie and marginally fell short of calling Anurag names. The biggest contention of the critics was that it did not make any sense and was unnecessarily pseudo-intellectual in nature. A critic very effectively called it too “self indulgent”. I say effective as this term effectively captured the grouse of all critics on this movie. I liked this piece of criticism. As it was a departure from the work of the bunch of pseudo-intellectuals like Raja Sen who are the real posture-boys (not poster) of the critic fraternity. This criticism was objective for a change.
So the corner-stone of the issue which film critics had with this film was it was “ self indulgent”. This set me thinking…. Why was “self indulgent” wrong in the first place?
A few centuries back painting was about frescoes of Christian mythology and still life imitating reality. Then someone decided that a painting which takes a certain amount of time cannot capture a moment. It captures motion. Thus came to life the concept of Impressionism. When Cezanne painted his impressionist canvases the world recoiled in horror. Most of all the critics. However a few hundred years down the line he is considered a legend and a hell of an artist. Never mind the fact that his contemporaries considered him an useless painter for greater part of his life. The case of Vangogh was even more stark…..
So why was it that people of the times thought of the work of these greats as useless where history hailed them? What were these greats doing which caused so much disconnect between their present and the future? What does an artist do? What is art in the first place?
All these thoughts kept roaming around in my mind for a few days and stayed with me for quite a few years. So much so that now after Anurag is considered the poster-boy (not posture) of Indian parallel cinema (for want of a better term) I sit and write on this issue.
The basic underlying reality of life is that art is nothing if it is not self-indulgent. It simply has to be self indulgent. As it is nothing but an expression of self. Any thing else is either a commercial project or a documentary project. Like a picture in an advertisement meant to make us buy something, or a live telecast of a cricket match or some war photos.
A project becomes artistic only when the thoughts of the creator in its most distilled form comes on to the creation (distilled of commercial or documentary interests). If documenting the position and beautiful looks of a collection of fruits in a fruit basket is the only objective then it cannot be art. However the same collection coming out in colours/shapes/ presentation which distinctly captures the artist’s thoughts and imagination gets transformed into a work of art. An artist who is thinking at what price his painting will sell and going on and painting his canvas with that thought is as good as an illustrator in an advertising agency. Nothing more nothing less.
Anything which captures the innermost state of an individual cannot be anything but self-indulgent. Anyone who has tried doing that has seen that unless you are completely absorbed in yourself you cannot express your inner self. And the act of doing that is art. Nothing more …. Nothing less…..
The greatness or value of a work of art obviously depends on the skill and talent of the artist. So we do not have a Cezanne or a Ravi Shanker every day. But in whatever value it may be, true art is self indulgent work of an artist.
This brings us to the issue of cinema. What is cinema? For me cinema is broadly 2 things. Either it is documentary, or it is commercial as a product- a product with the pure objective of entertaining and making money in return. Made with the same in mind and to the same end. Is there art in cinema? Well that is the difficult one. At least on the surface….
Technically cinema is a mode of communication to the senses just like music, fine-arts, gastronomy etc. So technically art is very much a possibility in cinema like any other form of communication. As communication is nothing but expression of ones thoughts.
However the influence of commerce or documentation in this form is maximum among all other media as it is the simplest and most complete mode of communication. So it is obvious that very few directors have taken this medium to communicate their innermost worlds, thoughts, pieces of imagination in an incorruptible manner through this medium. So yes, art in cinema is rare. And it is becoming even rarer as the commercial cinema is gaining more and more acceptance as the best source of entertainment around. So much so, that the critics of today's times forget the concept of Art in Cinema…. And films like No Smoking get panned. I am not saying that it is some piece of brilliant cinema- which it is not- but it is being panned for being “self indulgent”. In other words it is being panned for being artistic. Now isn’t it simply bizarre?
During the early stages of development, with the presence of such criticism how would we have developed the whole concept of cinema? Because society draws its inspiration from art. So a Beethoven piece inspires many a sound, a piece of impressionist painting inspires many a picture, the emotions in a piece of literature inspires many a best-seller…
A simple example for cinema:
When Truffaut in his first movie was creating the predicament of the young Antoine the legendary misunderstood youth he faced a problem. After the final hoorah of Antoine and the final capture what would he do with the character? How would he end it? The answer came in form of a simple yet profound technic. It came to be known as the “freeze”. In the final scene Antoine turns back and starts running and the shot freezes. The disillusioned expression of Antoine and the helpness and desperation of his posture in that capture made the fate of all Antoines in the world so clear and so heart-wrenching to the viewer that it became one of the most memorable closures of cinema. Freeze was not there as a concept then. Truffaut introduced it. It had initial mixed responses from an audience and critics who did care for art in cinema. A few thousand miles away it inspired someone called Satyajit Ray who used the freeze technic in his master-piece – Charulata. The final scene where the estranged wife is coming back to the husband the two hands freeze before they touch each other… signifying the fact that they will never really join… that it will always be an agreement of convenience. Two great pieces of art… one inspiring the other.
Many years later a film was released. A typical pathetic b-grade Hollywood movie on extra-marital relations. A movie called The Indecent Proposal. It was a colossal waste of two brilliant actors and a competent actress. However the final scene of this movie is an exact replica of Charulata’s final scene. Portraying the exact situation. And the audience completely understanding the same….
So any form of communication cannot progress if there is no art in it. As art is independent of social boundaries. Precisely because it is self-indulgent and not society dependent. And this self indulgence brings about the brilliance which guides the flow of these media through the ages. That’s why fine-arts today is far more different from the world of frescos. The music of the world is no longer about symphonies. The cinema of today is very different from the ones John Huston was making….
At the cost of repeating I again state- No Smoking is nothing in the scale of great art cinema. But every attempt at cinematic art has to be indulged and judged in those lenses. Not in the lenses which judge petty commercial cinema… and it has every right to be self indulgent. As art is nothing if not self indulgent….and art is extremely necessary for progress.
Long live Art Cinema. And let all stupid actresses and actors who make statements (like “there is no art or commercial cinema… only good or bad…”) die in hell. We don’t need them. We need the artists to propel the medium of cinema forward…..
