i have always been amused by film makers (especially the 'parallel' ones) announcing in costly events, with a smile on their face- "i am planning to make typical bollywood masala movie". for residents of timbuktu- masala means "commercial"- which means what i do not know....
last time someone made an announcement like that.... hero hiralal happened. ... then happened 'phir bhi dil hai hind...' then 'serious' commercial cinema came with the name of mangal pandey.. whose mangal happened i am knoT sure... there have been such attempts at 'commercial cinema' off and on. thanks to these attempts we kept getting some real cheesy movies... off an on. i am yet to see an announcement of this kind getting resulted in a successful movie....
true, 90% of masala flicks in bollywood are unpalatable. 90% of bollywood smells strongly of the disease called mediocrity. but then is'nt that the case everywhere? i mean, how many of these art films are really the memorable ones? i still cannot figure out why albert pinto used to get so angry (ok- there was the 70s oppression thingy and all that- but make a full blown movie about it???), or why was maya memsaab made? i believe the director was obsessed with his wife's genetilia and wanted to share the same with the rest of the world. and in the days without mms etc movie would have been the only option. not that i mind... anyways, that's not what i want to talk about....
the fact is good movie directors- art and commercial both, just direct the movies they want to. it is just their self expression. so a david dhawan even in real life reflects the persona of his movies. and so does a kjo. and the sharp sarcasm of farah khan oozes into the wit which is there in her movies. these guys just cannot think otherwise. tell david saab to make a tight 'bourne'-isk thriller and see the abs mess he comes up with. or tell subhash ghai to make a movie relevant to the millennium.... i mean you better not tell him. he already is trying and torturing us in every possible way. imagine a guy with a surname of yuvraaj... its ok as a rarity in real life. but imagine a director thinking as such for his main protagonists. and with horror everyone will remember black and white. that was when he wanted to make an art movie....
having said all this the problem which happens to many really good directors is that they fall into the trap of the formula. in some cases it succeeds for some time but in most cases it fails. you can take the cases of so many directors who showed so much promise and then went caput. yash chopra started a career on really honest movies. Dharmaputra was a really strong movie for a first timer. then he discovered the magic of love. he started making absolute brilliant movies to start with. then he got sucked in. love triangle, quadrangle, pentagon.... then one day he wanted to make the ultimate formula movie with all the masala-he made parampara... he he! and films which followed- chandni etc were really very ordinary. he did have the moment of inspiration in lamhe. but instead of making a movie from his heart he again tried to put the formula thing inside the movie and it became a mish-mash. the last time he took the director's chair he made a really forgettable "dil to .... " which was a torture sans the almost edible female leads and shiamak davar's choreography.
when aditya chopra started making ddlj, obviously he was unaware that he was in presence of greatness inside his own self. when ddlj became the movie to have defined rommance in our times, i am sure he would have been overwhelmed at what he had ended up achieving. success and success of this kind right at the beginning has its own trappings. aditya chopra started believing in his own self image. that is very clear by the fact that he ventured only twice in the next whole decade to make a movie and both the times he has been trying hard to make that ultimate romantic movie instead of just making a movie he wants to. you cannot create greatness. you just do what you want to. sometimes you get great results. when you are in the process of creating greatness you usually fall flat on your face. how do you define greatness? how can you the hidden wishes in the hearts of millions of viewers? how can you reach the innermost regions of a million hearts every time?
even if you look at the career of his illustrious father, yash chopra managed greatness only a few times in his four decades of film making. the positive side to his career was that his non-great movies were very watchable as he was seldom living or working in any make-believe aura. once he wanted to make that ultimate love quadrangle. he roped in the best actors, the best technicians etc. and then he delivered silsila- better known as silly-sila..
or the other greats if we look at.. raj kapoor in mera naam joker, guru dutt in kagaz ke phool (much as i love the movie, i cannot help even today admitting the ultra heavy streak of self pity which ran through it and which was more responsible for its failure and not because it was ahead of time or any such crap- truth is quality of content only receded post 50s)....
the question here then remains as to why did the really good director in AC did not realise this fact even after delivering a whimper in mohabbatein? the problem is shahrukh khan. and AB. the fact is, the box office success of this movie was delivered by these two gents and some great music. and in spite of the abominable presence of overaged school "kids". or perhaps he did get the message... i cannot say obviously...
the promos of RNBDJ had this attaempt at greatness thing all over it right from the start. "extra-ordinary love story in every ordinary couple" bla bla bla......all the attempts at novelty- having the new heroine and all.... new look of sharukh...
and then there was the brilliant idea. ordinary guy- extra-ordinary love story. guaranteed mass heart-touches. and that was the idea that killed the movie. the movie just did not move ahead of this great idea.
was ddlj success because of the idea of the nri-good-locales-indian values thing? i guess not... there was much more to it than the idea. think of the contrasting fathers, the punjabi munda-gabru suitor, the over-smart sister, the cliched but lovely mother. then there were those dialogues- "bade bade shahron mein chhoti ....", the "senorita" thing, the chemistry of amrish puri and shahrukh... then those scenes.. the mustard field embrace, the final climax, the scene between the mother and daughter where she asks them to run away.... think of the songs...
the truth is, ddlj or any movie which achieves greatness has much much more to it than just the first idea.
this is where RNBDJ fails miserably. the movie moves around 3 characters and exactly 3 characters. for 3 hours we have 3 characters to look at. and at the end of it what do we come to know about them? nothing much really. yes surinder is a geek and very "ordinary" (the wife keeps telling every second scene), the alter-ego raj very smart bubbly etc... dunno how the former manages to put on such a good show in his avtar as the latter. we have the girl who has lost everything and is hell bent on leading a very bad life. she is obviously shattered. but how does a very bubbly girl suddenly start giving up everything she ever stood for from her childhood? then there is the eternal freind. with a heart of gold. also a barber- which is really handy! plastic characters in a plastic set up. would it have taken more than 25 minutes to know these characters? or forget them? the director was not paying attention to these silly details obviously. he was too busy in his creating the greatness....
the songs? you take one of the more ordinary music director duos for a film like this? your magnum opus? what were you thinking? yes they gave some good numbers in chak de. but there is a sea of difference between an out and out romantic music and other genre songs. not many are able to breach it. but i would like to give the benefit of doubt to the director. the duo came up with a copy for a title song and we don't even remember the rest. and all the while they were doing this what was the director doing?
so we have plastic characters- 3 in total, one semblance of a song- that too a copy. what else? scenes.... from the time the lady comes in till the end does anyone remember what happened? some vaguely memorable ones were there to be fair. the golgabba scene will make you laugh if you try hard. the sumo scene gives some scope to shahrukh to work something up, the entry of vinay pathak raises hopes ( only to dash them)... but then what? and those catch lines? Taani-partner- the sound of this term makes me want to go to the loo. compare this with the way shahrukh utter senorita in ddlj? the tragedy is that then mr. chopra was not trying to get any legendary catch-line. this time he was. and what was that about that parting shot of those movie names? for a moment was having a feeling that i had come into the wrong theatre to watch some old rajshree production movie. and that song!!!! when was the last time we saw a multi-starrer song charting the history of hindi cinema? and in all this was there even an iota of ingenuity or creativity? well one scene i cannot forget. the heroine asks RAB who is the person who is her RAB or jisme usse rab dikhna chahiye. and then we see SHarukh! and then she realises everything in life. wow! so subtle and so innovative!!!
finally the dialogues! uff!remember the efforts of raj being funny. or the punch lines of vinay pathak's charracter? you do remember? god bless you!
to put the nails in the coffins, we have sets designed by drama-school freshers. one feels sad for the 3 actors who have tried very hard to lend credibility to the movie and the hollow charracters. and there are moments which almost deliver a promise of magic. but every time the director burns own fingers. remember the cliamx which inspite of the bad sets etc delivers warmth. only to be brought down by the dialogue - "rabji mujhse naraaz to nahin ho jayengey ke mein tum se unsey bhi zyaada mohabbat karta hun?" OH MY GOD! i remembered a song (song not dialogue!)from sohni mehwal made 25 years back!
the fact of the matter is that the director was really not bothered. he was to caught in with his "ultimate big idea". the fact of the matter is, he should have tried to make a movie. because when you are making a movie and NOT a magnum opus (term which all the paid trumpeteers kept trumpeting to describe the movie) you focus on the movie. not on the idea, or the heroine ( remember James by RGV?) or the hero (Barsaat anyone?) or the action scenes (did not watch mission ista...)bla bla bla.... and you put the right people for the job and you can spot where you are going wrong.
some times people learn. RK learnt from mera naam joker which almost finished him, yash chopra learnt from silsila and focussed on things other than lead actors, rakesh roshan started focusing on quality when his koyla left him black faced. and RGV never learnt. nor did dev anand.
will RNBDJ prove to be adi's mera naam joker? i hope it does. i am praying hard that does. for a relatively serious film enthusiast, watching an out and out commercial venture (ddlj) more than a dozen times is equivalent to magic. and when you have tasted magic once, you keep craving for more..... so adi- saab, stop trying to make magnum opuses and just make a movie. the magnums and the opuses will keep happening on their own sir!
jai hind!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
back again
it has always been difficult for me to develop a habit especially the ones which need me to make any semblance of any effort. i remember a scene in a movie where a character tells the hero that if he had tried harder he could have become a genius. and saying so he opens his bottle of desi whiskey and drinks away to full glory. these days i can identify so well with that scene....
was watching anthony bourdain touring post katrina new orleans...in a chat with a comedian and a bar man he asks how much time it took for him to start joking about the hurricane. he said it took him 2 weeks.... in 2 months he was doing shows only on the hurricane. burdain talked about the time when no one was cracking jokes on 9-11. then finally someone said it after months. no one laughed. but every one was relieved.
will we be able to laugh about 26-11 ever? i guess not. we as a nation take ourselves too seriously. americans kept laughing on 911 and kept on ensuring that no one dared to look at their country for the next 6 years. they kept on laughing about katrina and doing everything to recover their lives which had been so bizzarely taken away from them in that hurricane. people left jobs and started volunteering to rebuild the city. laughing all the while about it all. the twin towers are getting rebuilt to show the world that america will not be pinned down. 9-11 jokes are quite common these days.
we indians will always go silent for a minute every time after mentioning 26-11 and do nothing. we will blame our government for 2 weeks, light candles for 2 days and ostracise anyone who even think about laughing at that day. but thats all that we will do. all of us including me.
frankly i am not sure right or wrong. i feel blocked evry time i try to see any funny side of 26-11. i just cannot. i also do not know what to do. how to contribute. i cannot leave my job just like that.so what do i do? how does one contribute? sitting in another city? and how does one lighten it up and focus on the job at hand?
god knows....or does america....
was watching anthony bourdain touring post katrina new orleans...in a chat with a comedian and a bar man he asks how much time it took for him to start joking about the hurricane. he said it took him 2 weeks.... in 2 months he was doing shows only on the hurricane. burdain talked about the time when no one was cracking jokes on 9-11. then finally someone said it after months. no one laughed. but every one was relieved.
will we be able to laugh about 26-11 ever? i guess not. we as a nation take ourselves too seriously. americans kept laughing on 911 and kept on ensuring that no one dared to look at their country for the next 6 years. they kept on laughing about katrina and doing everything to recover their lives which had been so bizzarely taken away from them in that hurricane. people left jobs and started volunteering to rebuild the city. laughing all the while about it all. the twin towers are getting rebuilt to show the world that america will not be pinned down. 9-11 jokes are quite common these days.
we indians will always go silent for a minute every time after mentioning 26-11 and do nothing. we will blame our government for 2 weeks, light candles for 2 days and ostracise anyone who even think about laughing at that day. but thats all that we will do. all of us including me.
frankly i am not sure right or wrong. i feel blocked evry time i try to see any funny side of 26-11. i just cannot. i also do not know what to do. how to contribute. i cannot leave my job just like that.so what do i do? how does one contribute? sitting in another city? and how does one lighten it up and focus on the job at hand?
god knows....or does america....
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
State vs Terror
Rejoice and be happy. We live in the largest democracy of the whole goddamned world. We are the unique race to have it all- money (post liberalisation), spirituality and freedom.
Some time back in a village in West Bengal the whole state machinery converged to ensure whatever took place in the early mornings remained lost to the rest of the population. Some 2-3 days later some of my smart friends taunted me on my being a Bengali and Bengal being so hopelessly jobless to prevent the victorious march of modernization and industrialization and overall human development. National media carried out debates on whether what was going on in terms of protest in Nandigram was right or not. Learned intellectuals and communist theoriticians fought over the need for development and the cost of it.
Thank God so much- not a single child from Nandigram was able to see or understand all this. Perhaps thats why all this time she still lives with some hope of a better tomorrow. Quite a few... in fact many perhaps, of her friends were slaughtered like lambs in a slaughter house. So were so many of her aunts and uncles. She would have escaped barely. Perhaps she got lucky. She was too sick to be taken out that day. They were to be used as human shields to prevent police from coming into the village. People thought police will not harm a child. But they did not know that police were not even coming.
I was also talking rationally after the Gujarat riots. I was arguing in favour of the Hindu forces. I was arguing as to how muslims never blend into the mainstream of any society, etc. Thank God I was not a journalist. Thank God i was not doing undercover on the riots. I was not in a position to risk my sanity. I had a musllim friend who had the cheek to go to the state during these times. He actually actually had to undergo treatment. He went on Haj later. That helped him a bit. He used to be a "semi" believer, if you understand what I mean.
When I was a kid, I had a friend in school. Harmeet Singh Khalsa. He was actually quite small for a sardar. I had for the first time heard " Mujhe Rang De Basanti" from him. He had played the tabla while singing. I am still hopelessly in love with that song. It makes me cry. I do not know where Harmeet is today. I had moved out of the school early.
We were in Class IV when one day our school teacher came out and told us that someone had shot Indira Gandhi. We were almost happy. They closed the school early that day and we had more play time. I am not so sure about Harmeet. I never got a chance to talk to him about it. He did not come to school for almost a month. Then he came one day with the teacher walking him down to his seat. He used to sit besides me. I saw a black sash inside his shirt. I was sure he was a Khalisthani. Or his father was. I told my mother. She did not say much. She only said that it was nothing of that sort.
Much later I came to know from others that his house had been attacked by angry Congress workers. The family lived in perpetual fear for a long time. Harmeet used to wear the sash to say that he WAS AGGRIEVED at the death of the great leader. He was luckier than his cousin though. Back in Delhi the whole family of his aunt had been massacred in the bizarre show of grief for Mrs. Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi had aptly drawn the analogy of the tree. Thankfully TN was far away from Delhi when his time came.
We continue to live and thrive in the largest democracy in the world. Only don't get caught on the wrong side of the democrats. Do not be a farmer in Nandigram, or a muslim in Gujarat or a Sikh after death of Indira Gandhi.
Just ensure that much and you will always have all the freedom that you want.
Protest on non-selection of Dravid. Do not try protesting against CPM in West Bengal. Criticize SHahrukh as much as you want. Be careful before criticizing Karunanidhi, or Rahul Gandhi....Speak whatever you want as long as you are politically correct. Take part in the Delhi marathon. But be very careful if you are demonstrating for justice at India Gate.
Yes we have all the freedom we need. Just need to look away when the governments have to get down to do the dirty jobs. All will be fine then. When government does its dirty job then no one- no one can protect you from it. The media, the police, international support.... no one.
Who questions the government?
WE THE PEOPLE..........
Some time back in a village in West Bengal the whole state machinery converged to ensure whatever took place in the early mornings remained lost to the rest of the population. Some 2-3 days later some of my smart friends taunted me on my being a Bengali and Bengal being so hopelessly jobless to prevent the victorious march of modernization and industrialization and overall human development. National media carried out debates on whether what was going on in terms of protest in Nandigram was right or not. Learned intellectuals and communist theoriticians fought over the need for development and the cost of it.
Thank God so much- not a single child from Nandigram was able to see or understand all this. Perhaps thats why all this time she still lives with some hope of a better tomorrow. Quite a few... in fact many perhaps, of her friends were slaughtered like lambs in a slaughter house. So were so many of her aunts and uncles. She would have escaped barely. Perhaps she got lucky. She was too sick to be taken out that day. They were to be used as human shields to prevent police from coming into the village. People thought police will not harm a child. But they did not know that police were not even coming.
I was also talking rationally after the Gujarat riots. I was arguing in favour of the Hindu forces. I was arguing as to how muslims never blend into the mainstream of any society, etc. Thank God I was not a journalist. Thank God i was not doing undercover on the riots. I was not in a position to risk my sanity. I had a musllim friend who had the cheek to go to the state during these times. He actually actually had to undergo treatment. He went on Haj later. That helped him a bit. He used to be a "semi" believer, if you understand what I mean.
When I was a kid, I had a friend in school. Harmeet Singh Khalsa. He was actually quite small for a sardar. I had for the first time heard " Mujhe Rang De Basanti" from him. He had played the tabla while singing. I am still hopelessly in love with that song. It makes me cry. I do not know where Harmeet is today. I had moved out of the school early.
We were in Class IV when one day our school teacher came out and told us that someone had shot Indira Gandhi. We were almost happy. They closed the school early that day and we had more play time. I am not so sure about Harmeet. I never got a chance to talk to him about it. He did not come to school for almost a month. Then he came one day with the teacher walking him down to his seat. He used to sit besides me. I saw a black sash inside his shirt. I was sure he was a Khalisthani. Or his father was. I told my mother. She did not say much. She only said that it was nothing of that sort.
Much later I came to know from others that his house had been attacked by angry Congress workers. The family lived in perpetual fear for a long time. Harmeet used to wear the sash to say that he WAS AGGRIEVED at the death of the great leader. He was luckier than his cousin though. Back in Delhi the whole family of his aunt had been massacred in the bizarre show of grief for Mrs. Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi had aptly drawn the analogy of the tree. Thankfully TN was far away from Delhi when his time came.
We continue to live and thrive in the largest democracy in the world. Only don't get caught on the wrong side of the democrats. Do not be a farmer in Nandigram, or a muslim in Gujarat or a Sikh after death of Indira Gandhi.
Just ensure that much and you will always have all the freedom that you want.
Protest on non-selection of Dravid. Do not try protesting against CPM in West Bengal. Criticize SHahrukh as much as you want. Be careful before criticizing Karunanidhi, or Rahul Gandhi....Speak whatever you want as long as you are politically correct. Take part in the Delhi marathon. But be very careful if you are demonstrating for justice at India Gate.
Yes we have all the freedom we need. Just need to look away when the governments have to get down to do the dirty jobs. All will be fine then. When government does its dirty job then no one- no one can protect you from it. The media, the police, international support.... no one.
Who questions the government?
WE THE PEOPLE..........
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
just so blabber
last time i had thought about putting something about the director who does not fail to wow me after so many years of film watching. just so entry- this one... completed one more year in this world...
what next?
what next?
Sunday, March 18, 2007
kael on peckinpah
A Glorious High
BY PAULINE KAEL
  Sam Peckinpah |
When I asked Pauline Kael if she'd like to contribute around 750 words on Sam Peckinpah, she responded by telling me that she didn't feel she could write something that substantial. She explained that she was 80 years old and suffering from Parkinson's disease, so we settled on short answers to a few questions. The following is the result.
-- Charlie Sotelo
Charlie Sotelo: How has your view of Sam and his films changed in the past 15 years?
Pauline Kael: I feel the same almost inordinate love of his films, but the turmoil has gone out of the atmosphere surrounding them. When he was making movies it felt, for some of us, as if we were watching an ongoing street accident. We felt helpless; he was determined to be doomed. Toward the end, on a Saturday morning before the screening of a restored Wild Bunch, he drank straight booze for breakfast and, grinning like an imp, snapped the heart device that was on the surface of his chest.
From moments like that, you might expect him to have been a swaggering showoff, but he had a reverse swagger. He backed into battles. It was his quiet that attracted attention; he was the model of the hard-luck passive/aggressive. I once saw Sam on television, and his cracked, whispering voice was barely audible. You had to lean forward to the TV set to try to hear what he was saying -- which was minimal.
He had often a corps of people surrounding him -- his supporting cast, actors who got upset about the things that upset him, and about his illnesses, which were legendary. He wasn't ever just one of the people at a gathering. When he was in a group, the conversation was about the struggle that engaged him. I don't think we talked much about other people's movies. I don't think he was especially interested, but then very few directors are.
He was usually in such an ironic, despairing state that he made it very hard to make fun of him. Still, I wish there had been a camera to record the scene when he was working on Liberace's TV program and showed up for work in blue jeans, and Liberace insisted that he wear a business suit. He got fired for his refusal. I envision Liberace in his rage shaking his sequins and his wattles and Peckinpah, perfectly groomed for his role as the rebel, the outlaw. He loved dressing in frontier drag.
What's missing now in the general view of Peckinpah is the exhaustion brought on by his squabbling. He exhausted even his own supporters. But, lord, he was clever and he was demonically intuitive, and he had such self-dramatizing brio. He liked the hopelessness of it all; the role he played was the loser. And though the competition is keen, he's perhaps the greatest martyr/ham in Hollywood history.
There's a tendency among some young film enthusiasts to view him as an icon of artistic integrity. I don't think they want to understand the role he played in baiting the executives. He needed their hatred to stir up his own. He didn't want to settle fights or to compromise or even, maybe, to win. He wanted to draw a line and humiliate the executives. He simply wasn't a reasonable person. He made it impossible for the executives to keep their dignity.
Here are excerpts from a letter he wrote me dated December 14, 1976. It was about the making of Cross of Iron, but it might have been about almost any of his productions:
"It is now at the uncomfortable hour of 9 a.m. and I am driving across the Serpentine on my way to Elstree Studios. This is a collection of aging bungalows and mildewed cutting rooms that contains 500,000 feet of Cross of Iron film.
"Elstree Studios is known as the garden spot of London suburbia, and contains one john (handheld), and a cold water tap, ice, rain and snow and a three year old edition of Punch.
"At the present time I am suffering from fallen arches, fifteen different varieties of skin rash, styes, boils, walking pneumonia, ulcers and acute depression, plus tremendous, unbelievable assortments of haemmorrhoids (in full metrocolor) that has so far baffled London. I am almost ready to leave for Mexico to take my private chile cure. But I must not forget instant receding gums, falling arches, sagging face, loss of hair and terminal sinusitis. Generally I am in the shape that attends most people beginning their third month as a teetotaller.
"If God had not meant man to drink he would not have invented the grape or the process known as distillation. Actually I feel very well, (that is a lie). I enjoy living a life of sobriety and piety and do not look forward to the 17th of this month when my liver will give me the okay to begin again my needed ways of self-destruction. But I have found that being sober constantly is somewhat of a let down, as I have been waking up without a hangover (the one I have been nursing so carefully for 20 odd years). I feel like I have lost an old friend, but he is just one of many that I have lost on this film.
"I do not like Germany nor German producers. In particular Wolfgang Hartwig, whom we call in terms of gentle endearment "Asshole'. (Sentimental fools that we are). He is, good old A-H, a mini-Nazi with delusions of being David Selznick, Sam Spiegel, and Herman Goering wrapped up into 5 ft of pure stupidity, and how he ever managed to con people into this picture I do not know. I also don't know how we ever finished it, but it looks like it will shortly be released somewhere --
 Pauline Kael |
"I don't know what kind of picture we have made but it was a decent and reasonably sober attempt to examine relationships of the common soldier no matter what his insignia. I don't know if I have succeeded. In any case, we have learned a great deal again about how not to make films.
"I am looking forward to getting my ass out of Europe and back into the good old USA, and particularly to New Mexico and CONVOY. I think it's a great subject and a great song, and I liked the people that I worked with at EMI. They were the one bit of sanity in an absolute madhouse. I feel particularly upset about this madhouse because I put in nearly half of my salary to pay for the technicians and staff to come over from the U.S. I see no sign of ever getting the money back for that, but I know that without their help the picture would have never been made at all.
"I will again be involved in suits, trials, etc., with Rapid Film representatives, so that should enliven my declining years --
"PS: It's the 17th and beast is loose again."
Earlier that year, on another project, he had given the name Chicken Little to his (American) producer. He had sent me copies of some of their correspondence. It included this exchange:
"Chicken Little: I have no idea why you singled me out as an adversary --
"Peckinpah: My problem is, I do not suffer fools graciously and detest petty thievery and incompetence. Other than that, I found you charming, and on occasion, mildly entertaining."
It's as if each time he went to work he was determined never to work in the industry again. He wound up in business with producers whose reputations had sunk even lower than his own.
CS: Generally, people view Sam in pretty superficial terms as either a bad boy or a violent director. What other things do you wish they knew about Sam?
PK: He was trim and handsome, and, like many directors, he started as an actor. I thought his roots were as much in the Huntingtonn Park Civic Theatre, where he did his early work, as in the old west. He was, though, the son and grandson and brother of judges, and he had a judge's acuteness. He was scarily quick to judge people. He was over-alert, over-observant, which fed his paranoia. Did he judge himself? I don't know, and I don't think the people who loved his work judged him either. They were too worried about him.
It seems to me that for those who write about his work the martyrdom has sometimes served as blinders. I was there when Peckinpah told the producer that he was walking out on the editing of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. As I see it, the film has no motor impulse, no drive. It's a woozy, druggy piece of work. But it is now widely regarded as a mutilated masterpiece. I saw it assembled before Sam left the editing; he may have left it partly because it was too shapeless for him to attempt to pull it together. It's very likely that on this film, as on several others, his imagination was distracted by his financial embroilments. Usually elegies come at the end of a career; Peckinpah's elegies were followed by confusion -- sometimes within the same film.
CS: What was Sam's most potent strength as a director?
PK: That mystery known as a film sense. His was rich and voluptuous. It fused his movies. A true film sense is rare, and he knew he had it; he depended on it the way a scoundrel depends on his charm. It didn't let him down very often, but it did, I think, in his lighter moods, such as passages in The Ballad of Cable Hogue, because he likes the characters too much -- he basks in his affection. They haven't earned all this affection, and the results are muted and sentimental.
His Ride the High Country, on the other hand, feels pure. It doesn't have the anger and contempt that muddle his later work yet give it its unholy power. I don't think he ever treated a woman as sensitively again as he did Mariette Hartley in Ride the High Country -- she was the young bride who was expected to service other men in the groom's family. Her terror when she discovers what's expected of her is a terror that Peckinpah responds to with great delicacy. As viewers we feel as if we're under her skin. I doubt if any feminist filmmaker has matched this scene. But the only other woman character in his movies who really stands out is the slut played by Susan George in Straw Dogs. He had changed by then in his personal behavior too. With me, for instance, he had always been courteous and convivial and he still was when we were alone. But later, when there were other people around, and he was making a show of his drunkenness, he would lunge at me lewdly. He readily played the bad boy. The idea was to embarrass me for having brains and tits.
Right before the audience's eyes, he grew into Sam Peckinpah. His love-hate for moviemaking is right up there on the screen in the later pictures; it swamps the stories. Yet it can also bring something ecstatic to his Western elegies.
I remember his talking to me, when he was planning The Wild Bunch, saying that he was going to make a picture so ferocious that it would rub people's noses in the ugliness of violence. They would never want to see anything violent again. But when the picture came out and there were insensitive people who cheered the bloodshed, he seemed delighted, he acted vindicated.
The phenomenon of moviegoers responding crudely is not surprising. Some people loved what they regarded as warm family values in The Godfather movies -- they wanted to be part of that life, though Coppola's work was far more clearcut in its horror of killing than The Wild Bunch was. If the director is ambivalent, as Kubrick was in the "Singin' in the Rain" sequence of A Clockwork Orange, the bullies out there will be gratified. The question is: is Kubrick secretly in cahoots with them? And the question comes up with Peckinpah, because he romanticizes his bunch of killers. Peckinpah made a deeply cynical movie, yet, confusingly, it's a great one. I'm not sure what The Wild Bunch says to us, except that filmmaking can be a glorious high.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
suman where are you?
Those were the rusty days in the college. Those were the days of knowing the world and the days of dreaming of a world one did not know much of. Those were the days of a naive teenager like me trying to make some sense of the fast changing times around him.
I was strolling down the huge splash of greenery which forms the nucleus of the engineering department of the University. We used to stroll around, lie down on the soft grass and do nothing, fool around on the grass, make imaginary priceless rings from the grass strands, and eventually fall asleep on the green bed.
Someone started singing - chedeychho to onek kichhu purono ovyesh; ashukh bishukh korar parey jilipi sandesh...(You've given up a lot old habits more or less/Candies and cakes after bouts of sickness...). The lyrics seemed strange and almost funny. For a ear trained in classic love songs in Bengali these were nothing like one had heard before. Instinctively I was about to pass a comment of damning mockery when I heard the next lines which blew me away and which started defining my core from that very moment- Chhedechho to onek kichhui purono bol chaal; Purono ghar purono dor kudono jonjal; Haal chedona; Haal chhedona bondhu, borong kantho chhado jorey; Dekha hobey tomay amay, onyo gaaner bhorey...(You've given up a lot customs worn out by age;Worn out or salvaged homes burnt out garbage... Don't lose heart.Don't lose heart, my friend, instead-- Loosen your voice, loud and strong,We will meet, you and I, At the dawn of another song!)
Thats how S
uman came in. He came in in a blaze. he single-handedly shook up the cultural core of our generation in about a few months. Romantic lovers uttering sweet nothings were blown aside to make way for the rebel, prodigal son who had come back to claim his place in his motherland. He was angry, he was crazy and he made sense. Love found a new direct demanding channel through his Tomakey Chai (I want you), frustration found the deep mockery in Amader Janyo(For Us Only), protest slithered out of the spirit of the the teenage Richshaw puller in Petkati Chandyal (name of a kite), solitude and blues found its friend in Mon Kharap Kora bikel Manei Megh Koreychhey (The evening of emptiness means there is a cloud which has crept in..). Where in one hand he drew out his sword to poke fun at the hypocrisy of our middle-class existence, on the other hand he almost absent-mindedly dived into your subconscious. In a nut shell, to put it in his words- Tomakey bhababoi (I will make you think..). It was after long time that we Bengalis started thinking through our songs.
Voices were all around the place almost about to burts out of the shackles. Sumon gave that blow with his sword (or pen?) and released the creativity of a famished generation which till then suffered silently from cultural emptiness for almost 2 decades after they killed our previous generation in the name of Naxal eradication. Almost within a year there were hundreds of young dreamers strumming away their guitars and talking to us in our language, in our tunes. Nachiketa, Anjan Dutta, Shilajit, Lopamudra Mitra and so many others. Mohiner Ghoraguli- a rebel band of the 70s led by the genial Gautam Chattopadhyay made a resounding come back with their young friends. The Band music or our version of Rock and experimental music swept through the campuses. Bands like Chandrabindoo, Cactus, Paras Pathar etc suddenly found their voice and listeners.
And while all this was happening Sumon was quietly slipping into the background of the acceptability of middle aged
By the late nineties when the experimental music was at its peak in
Today the new age music movement has made way for folk music and further for extremely mediocre musicians bastardizing the folk treasures that we are having in the name of fusion. That is with the exceptions of the old war horses of Bhoomi and Dohar. Genuine originality and creativity has again subsided and no one in the recent times seem to be able make an impact. The veterans of the early nineties are still dragging along and adding respectability to the music scene.
In these times one cannot help fantasize about the gush of wind which came to us a decade and a half back and made men out of us boys in the colleges. And also gave an identity to Bengali modern music which the culture of the state desperately demanded.
One cannot help crying out to Suman and demand that he meets us in the dawn of another song (onyo gaaner bhorey…).
Some lovely translations of his songs are there in the following link:http://pages.cthome.net/india2/page62.html
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