Superb piece by Suparn, and a awesome discussion follows…

By: Suparn Verma |
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I haven’t written a blog in sometime because I haven’t felt like saying something.

But something has been gnawing inside me all this time.

I think it all erupted when someone wrote a piece on KANK and the comments that followed were going right down to discuss the filmmaker’s sexuality. Just because we have a mouth doesn’t mean we have to shit every time we open it. PFC was meant to be a forum to discuss our passion of cinema, as diverse as our tastes maybe.

This was supposed to be a place where a David Dhawan fan has as much place as a Ray bhakt.

When did we get so clannish?

All through the last several months, be it on comments or inside the PFC club a recurrent bitching session goes on about Yash Raj. Karan Johar, SRK, Aamir, Salman, Bhansali, or relatively new directors like Farah Khan, Sajid Khan or the funny man David Dhawan or any ‘popular commercial’ filmmaker or actor of their ilk.

Well my friends I have news for you and I say this in capital letters.

THE FILM INDUSTRY SURVIVES AND EXISTS ON THE NAMES ABOVE AND OTHERS LIKE THEM!

AND THE REASON a film like Black Friday, Johnny Gaddar, MSFU, Makdee, Maqbool, Quick Gun Murugun, aisa Bhi Hota Hai Part 2, Chhal, Mithiya, Hazaroon K A, or any niche cinema for that matter can be made is because the very names that are maligned everyday, by us the so called keepers of the conscience of intelligent cinema, keep making the films that they make. Their profits create a buffer in the market to absorb niche films which don’t work at the box office.

It is commercial cinema which creates enough profit for a theater/multiplex/distributor/exhibitor/ and finally the producer to survive.

A film industry is not just actors, directors and producers or a handful of technicians.
It is thousands of character actors, junior artistes, dancers, thousands of daily wage workers who are not just lightmen but carpenters, van guys, dressmen, make up men, spotboys, there are industries within industries which keep working on multiple films.

They work on the basic principle on which once upon a time individual producers functioned. Its called – rolling!

The producer would take money from the market on interest, the lender would cut the interest and then give the remaining money to be paid against release whatever the result. The negative would be held as lien. To ensure himself against losses if the film flops and reassure his distributors that they cannot lose he would also announce another film, the money would keep rolling, incase distributor lost on this film, the producer would make up on the next one.

The world over actors and filmmakers make commercial films alongside those few subjects that are close to them.

And this is true of cinema all over the world where a director like Steven Soderbergh makes a Solaris and also makes the Oceans franchise like wise for actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tobey Macguire Halley Berry etc.

So do our actors.

Imagine Chak De without Shah Rukh Khan or Lagaan without Aamir Khan. The films would have been monumental disasters no matter how good the films would have been.

Anyone who says David Dhawan cannot make a serious film needs his head checked, only thing is Mr Dhawan is trapped in his own success even if he wants to he cannot get out off it.

However many filmmakers counter that by producing films that they would not be able to direct, Yash Raj is doing it, White Feathers has three arthouse films lined up, UTV has started SpotBoy.

But they all do it because of the success of a Dhoom, Fanaa, Shootout, Rang De.

Walt Disney is a family studio, yet it has divisions like Touchstone and Buena Vista each making different genres of film with different target audiences.

Miramax the baap of award winning cinema is also owned by Disney!

Abroad or specifically Hollywood the media and the cinema going public tend to glorify and create myths around their filmmakers be it indie or commercial, a Michael Bay and PT Anderson can be on the same stage.

Out here we tend to celebrate them after they are dead.

Manmohan Desai was laughed at and his success was always given to him grudgingly in his lifetime but today he is called a cult director.

We have failed to look at the genius of the films Mehmood made as a producer or director.

We killed a Guru Dutt today we celebrate him.

Critics and audiences look back at Mukul Anand with a rose tinted fondness, but where was that look when he was alive?

R D Burman died unsure of his work in 1942 A love story, we celebrate him after he is dead!

Govinda is one of the awesomest actors we have and we nearly threw him out off the industry. Besides comedy if anyone doubts his histrionic abilities watch a film called Zulm Ki Hukumut, a Godfather remake, with a B grade title, but a great watch.

Time has shown us that the world over we love to celebrate the tragedy and downfall of icons and then glorify them after they are gone.

But fuck that!

Let us look at the scene today.

Today a majority of the members of PFC represent the underdogs of Hindi cinema, which is a great thing, never has there ever been such support for the niche filmmakers. But why do it by creating a Us Vs Them scenario?

Kunal Kohli wrote the Mid-day review of Black Friday giving it five stars. Remember he is a commercial filmmaker who has no qualms about saying he loved Black Friday.

Will anyone out here like to say they love the jokes in David Dhawan movies?

Will anyone here say that Main Hoon Na was a total masala entertainer?

Will anyone here say that Hey Babyy was a total fanboy comedy?

Will anyone here say they saw Dhamaal and laughed?

Will anyone here say they enjoyed Hum Tum?

Why don’t we come out and say that?

I feel people here these days are almost ashamed or embarrassed or feel guilty to admit that they enjoy commercial films.

I don’t care what Karan Johar’s sexuality is and it is no ones business.

We wanna discuss his films, lets do that, but what gives us the right to get personal?

If Pedro Almodovar makes a bad film should audiences say that he is gay so he made a bad film?

We can bitch about Sanjay Leela Bhansali all we want, on whether Saanwariya’s script is taken from White Nights or based on the Visconti film Le Notti Bianche, or that Black was a remake of Miracle Worker.

But Bhansali’s awesome vision is what will be represented to the world arena where they have been awed by Chinese spectacles, will now see a magnificent vision of an Indian.

We should be cheering him out here, but all we have been whispering about is about its origin.

Watch Le Notti Bianche and then see Sawaraiyaa, who cares if the stories are the same, I wanna first just ‘see’ the film, ‘hear’ the film besides the story.

A film is an experience.
I saw Satyricon and was awed by the visuals and the blocks but couldn’t make head or tails of the story, ditto for Juliet of the Spirits.

I met Shekhar Kapur a week later and interviewed him on Bandit Queen (my first ever interview) and we got talking. I told him I loved and enjoyed Fellini’s other works but Satyricon especially went over my head.

He smiled and murmured a movie is not just a story, you need to experience it, it is also n audio visual medium, look at what the director is trying to do.

Anand was a remake of Japanese film (Ikiru, correct me if I’m wrong), but knowing that does it make you like it any less?

Hrishikesh Mukherjee had his own take on it.

I wanna sum up by just saying that making a film for anyone no matter how successful they are is a tough job.

But to make a film that appeals to this entire nation made up of so many different states, cultures, languages and tastes and the NRI’s, is a whole different ball game.

Commercial cinema the world over is the bread winner of the family, it is the child that doesn’t go to school so that the younger one can.

In the end Indian cinema is known in the world to cinema lovers by the names of, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan and to serious lovers who have seen Satyajit Ray.

As I walked in the Khan e Khalili market in Cairo, after realizing I’m not an local they would scream ‘Indian…..I know Amitabh Bachchan….Shah Rukh Khan…..how may I take your money?’

Today PFC is a movement, not a bunch of guys with a fixed notion of what cinema should be like. So lets move and make space for lovers of all types of cinema. Let a Govinda fan put his arm around a Pankaj Kapur fan and hang out and have a cutting.

We already have enough divides and biases in the real world.

At least keep them out off the movies