Filmorama!!!

Yeah, true!! This is one of my recently found 'fillers' for my other wise excessively productive pass time. I was officially 'introduced' to the world of art cinema through one of the blogs that I came across. Even though I did watch a handful of art movies much before, thanks to Doordarshan, for telecasting the regional and art films every Sunday and to a few film festivals, I'm still a self-confessed art movie virgin, partly because I never really had the patience nor the pertinence to understand the richness and depth of these movies. Of course, I must add here that I never dared to underestimate or criticize these movies because I very well knew that their purpose and worth is grander than what my brain could gracefully perceive and accept.

So, apparently, my first step in to this world of 'sophistication' wasn't that easy. All I had was a strong motivation and a loosely bound taste, gained from some random movies that I watched earlier. Thats it!!! Unfortunately, this is not enough. My past experiences have particularly taught me that for sustaining any sort of interest in a newly acquired hobby, the motivation factor would not be of much help. I'm sure it would certainly give the much needed initial kick to get started on, but unfortunately, its very volatile and its effects, ephemeral. In long term, the only thing that would support our pursuits and nurture them, is the psychological vivacity they bring to us. The kick or rather, the high they give us is what it counts. For instance, I still remember how many of my friends, due to sheer motivation factor, end up with me at the gym or on the jogging track only to quit that soon enough to ever not remember about all that again.

And then, they start pouring out this endless list of reasons, ranging from bad timings to improper fitness levels to busy work schedules and a thousand more. But to me, all these mean just one thing. They are not suited for this. They just cannot come because it’s not their cup of tea.

Keeping in my mind, this limitation that every one of us can pursue only a subset of all the possible ‘cultivations’, I embark on this ‘trail period’ of mine to have a panoramic ‘peek’ of the world of art cinema, trying to nibble a few pieces of the so called elite to see if I can digest that.

Well, the next obvious question would be how do you go about? As I said, even though the way I got in to this was certainly, if not totally, influenced, I don't want the course of this journey to be impelled, at any rate. Treading this path is risky and at times, lengthy but certainly interesting and adventurous. I know the play ground is vast and pretty much tricky but I don’t mind a bruise or two to get a little seasoned. However, this adventure of mine must not be construed to being something like a blind man’s buff. I still need some assistance. But this would be pretty much limited to the ‘information gathering’ than anything else. I certainly don’t seek to replicate wisdom or actuate mental shadowing. I just want some inputs. That’s all. The rest, I’ll leave it for my mind to interpret (or not).

The first and the most important tool that I would require in this process is an understanding of the difference between the art and the commercial cinema. Well, the boundaries are a little blurred and at times, broken these days, thanks to the burgeoning popularity and the accompanying commercial success of the art cinema. For now, let’s put it this way. A commercial cinema is guilty of entertainment, primarily producing ‘popular genre’ films comprehensible for the masses, with the prime motive of profit making. On the other hand, an art movie is rather serious, non-commercial and an independently made film, usually for the elite and intellectual audience, with a rather obscure and thought provoking subject and taking.

Film scholar David Bordwell outlined the academic definition of "art film" in a 1979 article entitled The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice, which contrasts art films against the mainstream films of classical Hollywood cinema. Mainstream Hollywood-style films use a clear narrative form to organize the film into a series of "...causally related events taking place in space and time," with every scene driving towards a goal. The plot for mainstream movies is driven by a well-defined protagonist, fleshed out with clear characters, and strengthened with "...question-and-answer logic, problem-solving routines, (and) deadline plot structures." The film is then tied together with fast pacing, musical soundtracks to cue (or 'spoon-feed') the appropriate audience emotions, and tight, seamless editing. Mainstream films tend to use a small palette of familiar, generic images, plots, verbal expressions, and archetypal "stock" characters.

In contrast, Bordwell states that "...the art cinema motivates its narrative by two principles: realism and authorial expressivity" Art films deviate from the mainstream, "classical" norms of filmmaking in that they typically deal with more episodic narrative structures with a "...loosening of the chain of cause and effect". As well, art films often deal with an inner drama that takes place in a characters psyche, such as psychological issues dealing with individual identity, transgressive sexual or social issues, moral dilemmas, or personal crises.

The protagonists in art films are often facing doubt, anomie or alienation, and the art film often depicts their internal dialogue of thoughts, dreams, and fantasies. In some art films, the director uses a depiction of absurd or seemingly meaningless actions to express a philosophical viewpoint such as existentialism.

So far, so good!!! Now, for the second step, i.e. choosing the director. This has been pretty easy for me. I know there are lot many great directors out there and so, in order to make my life easier and less random, I searched for an authoritative rating of the best art movie directors. Guardian came to my rescue. They have not only listed the 40 best contemporary directors and their works, but also gave the ratings based on various directorial qualities like Substance, Craft, Originality, Intelligence, etc . Wikipedia as well, listed out some of the famous art directors on its ‘Art Films’ page. Since both these lists overlap to a great extent, it’s a comfort for me ‘coz now, I don’t have to follow two different lists.

To start with, I’ve picked up David Lynch’s ‘The Elephant Man’. I wanted to start with ‘Mulholland Dr’ but I could not get a copy of it. Also, I chose to watch Krzysztof Kieslowski’s colors trilogy, to explore how best he tired to emulate the grandness of the three virtues symbolized by the three colors of the French flag, namely Blue, White and Red. I shall talk more about these films in my later posts.

For now, its movie time!!!

Luv