satyam

satyam | 5 | September 14, 2008 at 1:07 pm | 29 views | NaachGaana Bol| Share

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There Are 5 Responses So Far. »

1. 

   satyam 14 September 2008
   01:38:53 pm

   

   Satyam says:
   September 15th, 2008 at 1:58 am

   Sometime back I wrote a piece on Sarkar Raj and the following extract seems somewhat relevant to your subject today:

   “Just before the interval an explosion occurs in which Shankar Nagre’s wife is killed. This is a wonderfully choreographed scene. Shankar Nagre is simply thrown back by the impact and lies down in stupefied fashion. In the meantime Chandar helps him up but once again he can only stare into space. He realizes the enormity of what has happened but remains motionless, in total shock. Meanwhile Subhash Nagre comes racing out on one of the upper storeys of the house and when he guesses what has transpired has horror writ large on his face. This scene establishes a symmetry between Subhash Nagre’s ’scream’ (though he does not actually make any sound) and Shankar Nagre’s frozen posture. A kind of diagonal could be cut across the screen at this point going from the older Nagre on the balcony to the younger one below. As the two cut statuesque poses of different sorts there is mayhem all around. The fire and the frantic movement. Eventually Subhash Nagre has a heart attack and the scene freezes completely. Varma takes the audience into the interval.”

   A scene of trauma of this kind is always unimaginable in a very ‘physical’ sense let alone the psychological. It is equally hard to ‘represent’ such a moment. getting the ambience right is still the easier part but for the actor to truly convey that sense of shock and numbness to a viewer is always a tall order. Abhishek came up with a masterful performance in that moment. He establishes a sense of ’stupor’ for the audience. He seems to be out of the scene even as he’s in it. He is not ‘reacting’ in the most elementary sense of the word but barely processing the ’shock’. RGV’s camera complements this ‘haze’ that Abhishek sees around himself and feels at the same time. I remember watching this sequence and having it confirmed to myself yet again just how fine Abhishek really could be. Unfortunately for him India completely lacks the critical culture on both the part of the media and the audience to really appreciate the subtle in cinema. When people therefore praised Abhishek in Sarkar Raj they did so for some fairly obvious reasons. But the art of the authentic actor is discovered in unexpected moments. Paresh Rawal once said in an interview that to appreciate Amitabh Bachchan as an actor just see what he’s doing in a scene when he’s not talking. I agree completely and Rawal’s point is well taken. What he meant of course was that you were ‘obviously’ incredible everywhere but in such moments an entirely other order of acting was opened up. My own example of such is one I have quoted here before:

   “I am reminded of a moment in Kabhi Kabhie that I consider to be the canonical one in terms of ‘nostalgia’ in Hindi cinema. The very summa of such representation in Bombay film. This occurs when you are re-introduced to Rishi Kapoor on the construction site by Shashi Kapoor as his (and Rakhee’s son). The father and son then start chatting and as they do their gregarious bits you are staring into space. At that point the entire meaning of the film, of the relationship your character has lost but nonetheless cherishes, is condensed into that brief scene. One can see everything passing through your eyes..”

   The profound silence of the actor. All of Sarkar Raj involved an essay in such silence on the part of Abhishek.

   ‘Terrorism’s’ greatest violence involves ’silence’. Tragedy of course strikes the lives of all those affected by such an incident. To bring about death in this way is to close off all debate. There can be no greater violence. Those who ‘kill’ in this fashion do not ask whether you believe in their ’cause’ or not, whether you have an opinion on it or not. Those who ‘murder’ in this fashion reduce all humans to just so many ‘bodies’. Any of certain number will do. As long as ‘it’s’ a living breathing body that can be ‘decimated’.

   The silence of good actors brings about on screen what could not otherwise be seen. The ’silence’ inflicted by such acts of violence seals off many lives to their own different possibilities for ever. The world becomes poorer. Because we are left with traces of more ‘unlived’ lives. But we should remind always reminds ourselves that along with individual ‘terrorists’ we also have the specter of state terrorism everywhere in the world. Everywhere the defenseless are killed, everywhere maimed, everywhere lost to ‘real time’.

   I have said so much on silence and losing. A rather sad poem by Elizabeth Bishop seems appropriate:

   The Art of Losing

   The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
   so many things seem filled with the intent
   to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

   Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
   of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
   The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

   Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
   places, and names, and where it was you meant
   to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

   I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
   next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
   The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

   I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
   some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
   I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

   –Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
   I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
   the art of losing’s not too hard to master
   though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

   The ‘disaster’… how does one experience it? How does one ‘write’ it? ‘Represent’ it?
2. 

   satyam 14 September 2008
   01:40:04 pm

   

   Satyam says:
   September 15th, 2008 at 2:00 am

   And isn’t Nihalani’s Dev a master ‘essay’ on everything you have been talking about here and I have been responding to?
3. 

   Qalandar 14 September 2008
   03:06:49 pm

   

   Qalandar says:
   September 15th, 2008 at 3:27 am
   Your brief post moved me immensely. We live in a world gone mad — except this sort of murderous madness makes sense to so many….and with depressing regularity (just in the last few months we have had serial blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and now Delhi)…
4. 

   vikschshkr 14 September 2008
   03:37:13 pm

   

   And I just finished watching Wednesday…Feeling conflicting emotions between the RDB kind of activism and not succumbing to such thoughts…My heart goes out to those who lost their loved ones…
5. 

   rks 14 September 2008
   04:40:10 pm

   

   vikschshkr:
   A Wednesday – Outlook review

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