Movie Magic
There has been a progressive increase in the media's interest towards a particular movie, with each passing big budget release that happens out here in our country. Movies have tie-ups with soft drinks, television programs and IPL teams, which in turn help(?) in promoting the movie further so that hapless souls can venture out to watch them in theatres and wonder what bad Karma they'd incurred to be subject to the nonsensical crap that they eventually are destined to endure, for three hours or so.
This whole hoopla leads me to think how simple it was not so long ago, when there was tremendous hype about the release of particular movies only in select circles or in movie magazines such as 'Filmfare', 'Cineblitz' or 'Screen' which I would invariably end up reading from cover to cover while waiting for my turn to have a haircut at the barbershop that I have been visiting ever since I learnt from my class teacher in school that a haircut was the only way I wouldn't end up having to sit with the stupid girls in class, a school of thought that prevailed in a 10 year old version of me, but something that has been thankfully remedied since. Now a grown-up, enlightened version of me prefers the company of women, but that has already been posted about in my livejournal.
These magazines would result in me knowing which movie Salman Khan would be acting in next, or about a certain rising star named 'Divya Bharathi', who died on my 10th birthday in 1993, much to the disappointment of many people who really thought she was cutemax, and about how a certain Tamil music director named A.R. Rahman was creating waves in Bollywood with the release of 'Rangeela'.
However, it was never the case that one had too much information at one's hands about a particular movie, and the cinemas retained a certain sense of exclusivity, a particular charm or a mystic allure to their being that somehow could be experienced only through visiting a movie theatre. The alternative was to rent a VCP (not a VCR) from the video circulating library along with a few tapes and then sit and watch them at home together.
It is time for an interesting (?) digression in the insipid narrative here to highlight the fact that though our household was open to books, magazines and printed material of pretty much any kind in much the same way as the Playboy mansion is to promiscuous women, the same openness was not extended towards the movies, and we'd end up watching movies mostly whenever the almighty DoorDarshan deigned to telecast them, invariably with breaks in between for the evening news and other such interruptions. This was one of the reasons why bringing home a VCP to watch movies, which happened about three times in my entire childhood was such a big deal, and we watched movies such as 'Mr.India', 'Dances with Wolves', 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'The Sound of Music' during those ventures, which to my delight, have added to my collection of treasured childhood memories.
Going to the theatres and watching movies was a big deal, and it was a ritual that required extensive planning and a substantial amount of time invested in choosing what snacks to buy and which day to watch the movie on, which city bus route to take to get to the theatre and so on. The first couple of movies I saw with a good friend of mine from school were the result of these extensively planned outings, and I remember the movies we watched were James Cameron's 'True Lies', dubbed in Hindi and Mani Ratnam's 'Bombay', in Tamil, which was incidentally when I, as a precocious 12 year old boy just out of class seven fell in love with Manisha Koirala and realized subconsciously that a feeling of vulnerability combined, paradoxically, with a fierce streak of independence in women is indeed a highly attractive trait.
As we hapless consumers, post liberalization of our economy in 1992 gladly bore the brunt of the onslaught of satellite and cable television programs all through the 90's, it was becoming more and more evident with each passing year that it would be hardly a matter of time before the interlinking of all forms of media would take place, much the same way as physicists such as Planck were intent on propounding a Unified Field Theory for all the various types of forces whose existence was known to man.
This unification meant that the movies would not remain exclusive to those that were actual die hard fans of celluloid, but would turn out to be open access for anyone with a television. The effort one had to put in, or the entry barrier that one had to cross in order to gain access to the magical world of movies had suddenly been reduced to nothingness, as convenience and sloth brought in a new wave of on demand movies, and movie channels of all sorts showing movies so many times that it would have been practically impossible to miss out on watching a movie like, say, Titanic, even if one were to try very hard to miss it on TV.
This next level of dilution of a movie lover's standing was atleast something that he/she could put up with, because it also resulted in providing one with greater access and exposure to hitherto unknown or unheard of cinema, including the different forms of parallel cinema and indie movies that most people that want to break the mould or want to be cool so fervently swear by, in present times.
However, as one turns on the television today to watch some random program, and all one can see are promos of movies such as 'U me aur hum' (whose title could be a dedication to the shorthand using generation that I wish to distance myself from) and 'Tashan' (how I hate that word!), which are screened pretty much on the same lines as advertisements, with the producers having purchased time slots on channels, and one wonders why it is that these movies have to hardsell themselves so much if they are good movies that people would be falling over each other to watch. How did movies such as 'Sholay', 'Jurrasic Park', 'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge' and others gain so much popularity without having to resort to a media blitzkrieg?
I am taking an educated guess here to make an assumption that the contractual agreement that most actors would sign as part of their being cast in a particular film would require their services much more beyond the requisite time they spend on the set shooting for a given movie. Once the movie has been shot, and has undergone post production, they would still have to appear for media interviews, shoot promos which are, one tends to notice, mutually exclusive to the content or plot related to the movie, and that would also contain copious references either directly or through the placement of logos to media houses, fashion houses, restaurants, banks or other commercial establishments that are piggybacking on the movie's gravy train to further their own causes.
Gone are those days, when most people made movies solely for entertainment, or as a mode of self expression or to portray a certain message that one strongly believed in. I would like to fervently believe that it is only a certian section of movie makers that have sold out, and that most of those who haven't will remain true to their cause.
However, it is quite unlikely that the magic of movies would vanish just because of a new avatar that they have assumed. Any air-headed romantic person would still believe without a shade of doubt that the best movie moments are those that one experiences in real life, rather than in the theatres.
This whole hoopla leads me to think how simple it was not so long ago, when there was tremendous hype about the release of particular movies only in select circles or in movie magazines such as 'Filmfare', 'Cineblitz' or 'Screen' which I would invariably end up reading from cover to cover while waiting for my turn to have a haircut at the barbershop that I have been visiting ever since I learnt from my class teacher in school that a haircut was the only way I wouldn't end up having to sit with the stupid girls in class, a school of thought that prevailed in a 10 year old version of me, but something that has been thankfully remedied since. Now a grown-up, enlightened version of me prefers the company of women, but that has already been posted about in my livejournal.
These magazines would result in me knowing which movie Salman Khan would be acting in next, or about a certain rising star named 'Divya Bharathi', who died on my 10th birthday in 1993, much to the disappointment of many people who really thought she was cutemax, and about how a certain Tamil music director named A.R. Rahman was creating waves in Bollywood with the release of 'Rangeela'.
However, it was never the case that one had too much information at one's hands about a particular movie, and the cinemas retained a certain sense of exclusivity, a particular charm or a mystic allure to their being that somehow could be experienced only through visiting a movie theatre. The alternative was to rent a VCP (not a VCR) from the video circulating library along with a few tapes and then sit and watch them at home together.
It is time for an interesting (?) digression in the insipid narrative here to highlight the fact that though our household was open to books, magazines and printed material of pretty much any kind in much the same way as the Playboy mansion is to promiscuous women, the same openness was not extended towards the movies, and we'd end up watching movies mostly whenever the almighty DoorDarshan deigned to telecast them, invariably with breaks in between for the evening news and other such interruptions. This was one of the reasons why bringing home a VCP to watch movies, which happened about three times in my entire childhood was such a big deal, and we watched movies such as 'Mr.India', 'Dances with Wolves', 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'The Sound of Music' during those ventures, which to my delight, have added to my collection of treasured childhood memories.
Going to the theatres and watching movies was a big deal, and it was a ritual that required extensive planning and a substantial amount of time invested in choosing what snacks to buy and which day to watch the movie on, which city bus route to take to get to the theatre and so on. The first couple of movies I saw with a good friend of mine from school were the result of these extensively planned outings, and I remember the movies we watched were James Cameron's 'True Lies', dubbed in Hindi and Mani Ratnam's 'Bombay', in Tamil, which was incidentally when I, as a precocious 12 year old boy just out of class seven fell in love with Manisha Koirala and realized subconsciously that a feeling of vulnerability combined, paradoxically, with a fierce streak of independence in women is indeed a highly attractive trait.
As we hapless consumers, post liberalization of our economy in 1992 gladly bore the brunt of the onslaught of satellite and cable television programs all through the 90's, it was becoming more and more evident with each passing year that it would be hardly a matter of time before the interlinking of all forms of media would take place, much the same way as physicists such as Planck were intent on propounding a Unified Field Theory for all the various types of forces whose existence was known to man.
This unification meant that the movies would not remain exclusive to those that were actual die hard fans of celluloid, but would turn out to be open access for anyone with a television. The effort one had to put in, or the entry barrier that one had to cross in order to gain access to the magical world of movies had suddenly been reduced to nothingness, as convenience and sloth brought in a new wave of on demand movies, and movie channels of all sorts showing movies so many times that it would have been practically impossible to miss out on watching a movie like, say, Titanic, even if one were to try very hard to miss it on TV.
This next level of dilution of a movie lover's standing was atleast something that he/she could put up with, because it also resulted in providing one with greater access and exposure to hitherto unknown or unheard of cinema, including the different forms of parallel cinema and indie movies that most people that want to break the mould or want to be cool so fervently swear by, in present times.
However, as one turns on the television today to watch some random program, and all one can see are promos of movies such as 'U me aur hum' (whose title could be a dedication to the shorthand using generation that I wish to distance myself from) and 'Tashan' (how I hate that word!), which are screened pretty much on the same lines as advertisements, with the producers having purchased time slots on channels, and one wonders why it is that these movies have to hardsell themselves so much if they are good movies that people would be falling over each other to watch. How did movies such as 'Sholay', 'Jurrasic Park', 'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge' and others gain so much popularity without having to resort to a media blitzkrieg?
I am taking an educated guess here to make an assumption that the contractual agreement that most actors would sign as part of their being cast in a particular film would require their services much more beyond the requisite time they spend on the set shooting for a given movie. Once the movie has been shot, and has undergone post production, they would still have to appear for media interviews, shoot promos which are, one tends to notice, mutually exclusive to the content or plot related to the movie, and that would also contain copious references either directly or through the placement of logos to media houses, fashion houses, restaurants, banks or other commercial establishments that are piggybacking on the movie's gravy train to further their own causes.
Gone are those days, when most people made movies solely for entertainment, or as a mode of self expression or to portray a certain message that one strongly believed in. I would like to fervently believe that it is only a certian section of movie makers that have sold out, and that most of those who haven't will remain true to their cause.
However, it is quite unlikely that the magic of movies would vanish just because of a new avatar that they have assumed. Any air-headed romantic person would still believe without a shade of doubt that the best movie moments are those that one experiences in real life, rather than in the theatres.
posted by Hari Shenoy @ 9:33 PM
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