STORY ANALYSIS – QARIB QARIB SINGLLE

Impression

The basic concept of the film is quite good. A not-so-young single lady trying to find a match on the Internet. Finding a partner through the online medium is the reality of our times and the fact that it addresses a generation that is a bit over-the-age makes it interesting. Also, it’s novel as it’s driven from the perspective of a woman.

After introducing the protagonist’s problem quickly, the film’s progression falters as there isn’t much tension that builds up and keeps us engaged with the struggles of the characters. It banks on the ‘funniness’ factor, with an attempt to show two opposite characters going on a unique journey together. However, the characters’ idiosyncrasies and the funny situations don’t work, as the story development or discovering new aspects of characters isn’t properly dealt with.

I am convinced that if this film was 20 minutes shorter, it still would have felt long.

(I will write my comments, and even specify the areas, which technically in a coverage are not mentioned).

COMMENTS

Storyline / Concept / Conflict

The idea of Jaya and Yogi going on a journey together looks good as one can showcase various settings and the fact that they will get to know each other better. For this to work, the goals not only have to be clear to the audience but importantly, the stakes have to be set. Accomplishing this over the entire story needs to come across through dealing with obstacles ensuring that there is a strong dramatic conflict.

What does it mean for Jaya to find a partner? What happens if she fails to find one? What is stopping Jaya from overcoming her problem? The latter, in this specific story, drives the central conflict, which is internal – she needs to overcome her inner issues or change to be more open. Unfortunately, the conflict is not pronounced. The stakes are amiss. These critical questions on what it will mean for Jaya don’t clearly come across.

Jaya is supposed to be stuck with the past, with her husband who has passed away, but this is only a lip service done in the beginning and when Yogi brings it about. In the end, it resolves too conveniently. You don’t see Jaya struggling with it. She is also shown to have certain characteristics, which she is likely to overcome in the end, but these don’t have an impact. Like not sharing water bottle, which eventually happens in the end. What are these limitations doing for the story or even for her character?

Yes, there is one element that is highlighted – Yogi’s carefree demeanor versus a guarded Jaya, and by the nature of going on a trip with him, she is challenged. This does result in a change, but this payoff isn’t a big one. Jaya is an independent lady. She lives on her own. She does decide to go with him. Showing her surprised over Yogi's different-from-her's attitude can work for a bit or two but not all the way.

The wise-crack Yogi is also supposed to change in the end when on hearing the word ‘boyfriend’ he takes action. Again, his struggle or hang-ups are not set up and explored appropriately. As such the payoff is weak.

Structure

The critical question – what is the story about – is not answered to fruition. One doesn’t feel engaged with the problems or tensions of the characters in the middle. As such, the end seems hurried and resolution tame.

The story needed deep work, if not in the beginning itself, then during the 2nd Act. The problem is made clear at the start – Jaya has been single for a while and after a push from her friend (archetype – angel) she attempts to find a partner. But how much it matters to her, what are the stakes, what happens if she gives up the chase? These are the questions not coming out strongly. Even if it’s in her subconscious, they ought to come across, be it in an indirect or subtle manner.

The 2nd Act starts when she goes on the trip with Yogi but mainly, the focus throughout is on playing out fun situations, scene after scene. The emotional heft brought about what she feels or displayed by why is she doing this trip, is missing. Be it taking a flight, a train or a cab, the scenes do not deliver insight into character’s growth or highlight conflict explicitly.

The middle act needs to raise the tempo. Jaya’s desire to have a companion should be emphasized. There are situations that show her losing the company of Yogi in the midst of the travel, which was a good opportunity to reveal her inner conflicts. She wants company. She goes with a man who is a polar opposite. She is, perhaps, miffed with his personality and regrets being with him. But when she loses him, even for a few hours, a nice twist, that was chance to throw insights into her.

There could have been subplots to explore her issues deeply. Instead of a supportive brother, some problem with him may have helped to put some momentum in the middle, which could have resolved in the final act, rounding off her better.

What is being resolved in the end and how does it affect Jaya in the middle or beginning is lacking amidst the leg-pulling or cute-fights that is not doing much for the story. There is no view of the conflict rising and great character revelation occurring.

In the final act, one can see a predictable end, which doesn’t deliver. In fact, Jaya’s outburst at Yogi, is quite out of line, by what we have been shown throughout the film. If this was actually a setup, which would be paid off by getting together with Yogi, all happening in the last 10 minutes, then it was a long time coming. Besides, showing a fight over his demeanor earlier, maybe as a good turning point at the midpoint would have clarified the issues of Jaya clearly and even put Yogi on an alert.

Everything turning out fine in the end, with no proper setup, is a feeble resolution. Besides, the lack of roles for other two characters - ex-friends of the two, who crop up in the end also seemed forced; as if the realization happened that the story didn’t have much momentum and it was perhaps better to close the story.

Character

Who is the protagonist of the film? This question highlights a problem with the story. When you set up a character as your central figure, in this film Jaya, she is the one who needs to be driving the action.

From beginning to middle and interestingly, even at the end, when Yogi runs to go for her, she tends to be a passive character. This stems from the fact that Jaya’s character lacks the will. As such the character is not driving the action.

She does set the ball rolling by making her profile, but once the Yogi character comes into play, she is reactive for most of the story. It’s evident that Yogi, the male character is the quirky one, who tends to be more engrossing to watch, but if he takes the important calls, then it gets difficult to identify with Jaya. Not putting Jaya at the forefront also robbed us of viewing her dealing with her conflicts, even if she is reactive. We need to see her struggle, the challenges she faces and how she deals with and eventually resolves.  

The other characters, her friends, including the salon circle, are present to bring laughs by expressing a certain setting. She isn’t comfortable with it, and sure, in the end, she will learn to deal with it, but there should have been more depth with at least one or two side characters. They would have helped in fleshing out Jaya much more.

The big opportunity lost was in the brother of her character. If you take him out, it wouldn’t have made much difference to the story. We could have seen Jaya being more active. That backstory, of her family, wasn’t needed. Yet, video chatting with the brother, the new norm of today was definitely an interesting device. Adding some conflict with him could have opened new doors for us to see the development of Jaya. Strangely, the brother becomes an angel for Yogi, which is not unconvincing, but again, we don’t see it coming as such from Yogi.

It is to the credit of Irrfan Khan that he brings a certain demeanor, the pauses, that does show his character being conflicted or lost. So when the brother mentions the word, boyfriend, it hits him and he goes chasing Jaya at the end, which seems to work. But again, it is a problem – if Jaya is the primary protagonist, she is the one who should be doing the running. Her character arc (growth) is quite all over the place.

Bringing an ex-flame of Jaya at the end and justifying that as her reason to go with Yogi (to Gangtok) perhaps was an intended twist to surprise audience. Does it work? It would if it reveals some unique aspect of her character or takes the plot forward. Coming just at the end it doesn’t mean much. As a plot device, it may have had merits – creating a rift for the supposedly indifferent Yogi or showing Jaya’s longing for a man. This ‘chilled or cool’ friendship between two old friends doesn’t add any drama.

Other Angles

The tone of the film is of course, light-hearted, but by filling it up with silly characters and such situations, it doesn’t augur well if we don’t relate with Jaya’s character, her predicament. The journey is for a reason. The interaction on the trip will shape her and perhaps, even him. But by focusing too sharply on the funny, it fails to bring in the dramatic truths about her character.

As the stakes are not strong, the pace seems tardy. How much can one watch the same (humorous) acts if it doesn’t raise the tension? The change of settings is refreshing but as the story progresses in the (challenging) middle act, it ought to reveal more and present more obstacles.

Eventually, what’s the story about? What’s the underlying idea or theme of the film? Is it that you ought to come out of your comfort zone and experience life as it flows? Or is it that you can only find a new partner or a new beginning when you let go of the past? Well, intellectually, one may draw various inferences, but when you watch a film, nothing sits well.

Some parts also look contrived for effects. The (typical?) Jaya drunken scene. Her sudden outburst at the end. If we meet two ex-girlfriends of Yogi why is the 3rd one missing, when that’s what has been set up right from the beginning – going to meet his three female friends? Likely, while editing they realized that the flow was not fluid.

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Well…

I am sure, the filmmakers, maybe Zee as well thought that this can be a great film. You have two good actors. Nice, novel concept. Going on a journey, shooting at different places and showing new terrains to the audience, appears to be a positive factor. However, if your characters are not in sync with their goals, if their problems are not pronounced and if we don’t see them struggling through till the end, then it sure is very difficult to pull through. Eventually, you need to set up, respect and pay off the dramatic conflict.

Even with Irrfan Khan wanting to be a co-producer and actor, this screenplay should not have been approved until it was sorted out. It required a lot of slog.

Building a strong script requires going back and forth many times to ensure the dramatic conflict is clear and it helps if you work extra hard on it. Zee Films may see it differently and so may Irrfan Khan Production but the response also shows that the film didn’t hit its mark. It had a potential with its concept and two skilled leads but the challenge was in crafting a dramatic story. 

If it doesn’t work on the paper, it will not on the screen.

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FILM ANALYSIS – ACE IN THE HOLE

(This post was in response to a blog – Ace in the Hole (no 7))

I for one see Chuck as someone who has a heart. It’s submerged for most of the film. However, Wilder foreshadows a lot of things and carefully expresses instinctual moments of Chuck, which reveals, at times of him being ‘lost’. He sure is cynical. His actions are ruthless, but there’s a bit of humanity in him even if it may not seem so. This itself reflects the brilliance of Wilder and Douglas.

Ace in the Hole follows (Joseph) Campbell’s The Hero Journey’s steps to a great extent. Chuck has a want, a goal. He has a call to adventure and literally gets into the cave and crosses the threshold. Eventually, he shall have to deal with his shadow. Only, in this case, he doesn’t come back with a positive reward. One may argue that he does – learns about what life’s supposed to teach him.

Some points on how they show Chuck’s humane side in contrast to most of his actions till the end:

– His relationship with the rookie reporter, who looks up to him, isn’t totally one-sided. He unconsciously is his mentor, but also fair. When given a chance – he tells the rookie to not work for him. Also, him directing the kid to the chair also shows his humanity.

– When he realizes the man may not survive, his amorality turns around; he is genuinely angry at the wife. Sure, he used her, but when the crisis reaches the peak, he wants her to be kind to her nice hubby.

– Interestingly, when the wife comes to thank him and Chuck wants her to play the weeping wife, it’s Chuck’s expressions that show – he is not amused. Why? That’s also a part of his inherent nature. In fact, she is there in admiration of Chuck, willing to sleep with him. But what does Chuck do? Slap her!

– The big one and this is where the screenwriters and Wilder as director and Douglas as actor walk the delicate path of showcasing his ‘heart’. In the very first instance when he meets Leo, what’s Chuck’s instinct? To save the man. Though when he reaches back to the kid, he becomes his ‘normal’ self.

As the situations get more complicated with Leo not doing well, Chuck is tested. And there’s a moment in the middle of the film when Leo calls him his best friend. You have to observe Chuck’s expression – guilt is written on his face. This is where the writers start to push it in. But does he change instantly? Nope. Wilder knows better and instead of giving us a contrived change, he carefully arcs Chuck’s character.

There’s also his interactions with Leo’s dad over the film. A kind man, who is honored and grateful to Chuck for his attempt to save his son’s life. This is an interesting strategy – in one way, it shows how ruthless Chuck is, but slowly this builds a sort of pressure on him, arcing him subtly and slowly, highlighting – trust/faith in a con-man has the potential to change him.

What happens when he returns sensing that Leo isn’t doing good and meets the dad? He lies and… see how he feels guilty. Now he takes it forward – by boozing. In comes his conscience keeper, his boss, who counters him. Boss is upright and Chuck is low, out of control. Chuck’s life has started to go out of control – he has started to discover or sense his shadow. And complications will only get worse when he shall have to choose – to get another rocking piece of news or save the man.

This is built up brilliantly by writers and the director. Consider again the expression of Chuck immediately post his celebratory gesture when the mother comes and lights the candle. Our man’s not happy within. There’s some sort of sanity residing in him.

For all the ills he has done, he now has to pay a price to correct what he can and do what he must – try saving the man. Sure his ‘mode’ lets him lie (make him seem honest) to the Sherif that he can’t have a dead-man for the story. But…the man’s changed. Again, they don’t bring it out up front, on the nose kinds.

Again, brilliant stuff. Wilder piles on the agony. So much so that Chuck tans the Sherif in anger and when the contractor comes in and informs Chuck that now the short-solution can’t work, this is when the floor is wiped below him. Wilder from total brightness brings in a shadow to cover half his face and then…he turns around and hits the printer with his towel. The machine goes on and on…printing.

Chuck now gives one last desperate shot inside the cave. Angry, trying to save the man on his own. Almost crying. Shouting at Leo to make him breathe. This is the final frontier for Chuck to not commit the biggest crime. And then goes off to fulfill the dying man’s wish.

Eventually, Chuck is willing to get stabbed and instead of seeking help, all he wants is for Leo to meet the Father. It’s not Leo, who is being read the sermon, it’s more about Chuck. What does Leo say – Bless me, father, for I have sinned. Who is the camera pointed to and what are the expressions? It’s Chuck. Feeling the same. And he shall not be forgiven.

Lastly, the theme of the film needs to be addressed. For all the cynicism being expressed by Wilder against the media and people, he shows the way – Tell the Truth.

Chuck makes all the effort – wounded more so in his soul – and reaches the height to proclaim to the world about Leo’s death. He is still not ready to let out completely and goes to the media to speak who refuse to listen.

Eventually, he dies in the very office, where he read the words, Tell the Truth. On the verge of telling the truth to everyone, he doesn’t get that chance. How ironic is that? And…this is where Wilder is expressing the premise: lying doesn’t pay. One’s soul will forever be in the dark if you don’t go with the truth.
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ANDREW SARRIS. NO MORE.

(Written on June 22, 2012)
The cinema is a deep, dark mystery that we auteurists are attempting to solve, and, what is infinitely more difficult, to report our findings in readable prose – Sarris

(AP Photo/New York Times, Fred R. Conrad)

I have been aware of Andrew Sarris though never dug his works. He has been celebrated as the pioneer of film criticism and his demise has led to some good pieces on him that reflect on his invaluable contribution.

Below are insightful excerpts from Jim Emerson’s blogon Sarris and here’s Ebert on him. Early this week I read an old blog of David Bordwell and he acknowledges that his movie-manic life changed, got direction, when he started reading Sarris.

Sarris was the person who propagated the auteur theory in America – director is the chief architect in film-making – and brought attention to the American directors, which changed the way how movies were looked at. However, interestingly it’s not as if he ignores the other crew and their valuable inputs.

My own interpretation of the auteur theory was based originally on the weird notion that good movies did not just happen by accident; nor were they the products of some mindless beehive of activity. I proposed instead a pattern theory in constant flux to explain certain stylistic signs of personal creativity in what had otherwise been dismissed as an industrial assembly line. My business was history, not prophecy. After looking at a score of films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a score of films directed by John Ford, and a score of films directed by Howard Hawks, no one could tell me that Hitchcock, Ford, and Hawks were not authentic auteurs. This was not to denigrate the role of the actor, the writer, the cinematographer, the editor, the composer of the music, the sound technician, the set designer, and the myriad artistic and technical contributors to the finished motion picture. There were instances, in fact, in which the true auteur of the film was not the director at all, but a producer like Selznick, a cinematographer like Lee Garmes or Gregg Toland, a set designer like William Cameron Menzies, a special effects wizard like Frank Bashevi, a composer like Miklos Rozsa or Max Steiner, a writer like Ben Hecht, or actors like Garbo and Cagney, Sullavan and Stewart, Leigh and Olivier, Hepburn and Tracy, Dunne and Grant, Arthur and Boyer. My “theory” was intended as the first step rather than the last stop of film scholarship. […]

His comments on the theory highlights what films ought to be and emphasizes on ‘interior meaning’.

… [The] ultimate premise of the auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning, the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art. Interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director’s personality and his material. This conception of interior meaning comes close to what Astruc defines as mise en scène, but not quite. It is not quite the vision of the world a director projects nor quite his attitude toward life. It is ambiguous, in any literary sense, because part of it is imbedded in the stuff of the cinema and cannot be rendered in noncinematic terms. Truffaut has called it the temperature of the director on the set, and that is a close approximation of its professional aspect. Dare I come out and say what I think it to be is an élan of the soul?

Lest I seem unduly mystical, let me hasten to add that all I mean by “soul” is that intangible difference between one personality and another, all other things being equal. Sometimes, this difference is expressed by no more than a beat’s hesitation in the rhythm of a film. In one sequence of “La Règle du Jeu,” Renoir gallops up the stairs, turns to his right with a lurching movement, stops in hipline uncertainty when his name is called by a coquettish maid, and, then, with marvelous postreflex continuity, resumes his bearishly shambling journey to the heroine’s boudoir. If I could describe the musical grace note of that momentary suspension, and I can’t, I might be able to provide a more precise definition of the auteur theory. As it is, all I can do is point at the specific beauties of interior meaning on the screen and, later, catalogue the moments of recognition.

The three premises of the auteur theory may be visualized as three concentric circles: the outer circle as technique; the middle circle, personal style; and the inner circle, interior meaning. The corresponding roles of the director may be designated as those of a technician, a stylist, and an auteur…. Technique is simply the ability to put a film together with some clarity and coherence.

He talks about direction in contemporary times (which was 1960s) but it’s as relevant today.

Nowadays, it is possible to become a director without knowing too much about the technical side, even the crucial functions of photography and editing. An expert production crew could probably cover up for a chimpanzee in the director’s chair. How do you tell the genuine director from the quasichampanzee? After a given number of films, a pattern is established.

Indian CinemaThis has a huge relevance for Indian cinema. Two points. One – You don’t need to be aware of the skills. Just direct, deal with actors, who shall do their bit and in a similar vein interact with the crew, who shall do their role. The director is happy to have his designation. It’s a badge of honor. And as long as you execute something that is good enough. Two – Patterns are formed as you work, of how you work – the evidence is on the screens and one can see where the affinity lies.

Film-making is hard. Every one slogs. Yet the results of story-telling are the evidence that the skill-sets of our crew, especially the auteur – director and his main partner, writer are lacking too much. Else, even if not box office successes we would have stories that would impact the audience.

What’s needed is emphasis on the learning. What’s required is to someone show the light. In an era, where noise is what sets the standard – greater, the better, we are extremely satisfied, maybe also indifferent, with what we get to digest. When we are conditioned for nonsense, we seek more of it. The few people who take different paths unfortunately either haven’t mastered the skills or / and themselves succumb to the 4-seconds of fame they achieve.

What’s missing and importantly, what’s negatively impacting our society: strong story-telling. This is a medium of magic, of internal meaning, of a medium that can create moments, capture life in tidbits that has the capacity to see us our soul, to be truly entertained and have some personal meaning.

Hope we get folks, who can be Sarris for our nation, can do the needful. Perhaps the need of the hour is even more than ever. With an audience that’s dispassionate and disinterested we need critics who can throw the spotlight on what’s black and what’s white. Even more significantly, inspire the makers to do justice to themselves.

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FILM ANALYSIS – VICKY DONOR

(Written on June 22, 2012)

I wasn’t too keen to see the flick but a couple of friends insisted that I should. It was supposed to be great and had been a big success at the box office. They loved the flick but after struggling to watch it, I didn’t.

I consider it a badly made film – loose (no-tension) plot, fake character transformations, playing cute for the heck of it, contrived situations, over-the-top cranky-&-saintly characters…

Obviously, Shoojit Sircar in love with Delhi and its people and Bollywood’s affection for Delhi lingo made Dilli-giri the focus. However, after a bit, it gets too tedious to watch.

Shanghai shines like gold before it even though I didn’t fancy the film; the multiple narrative tracks and the camera/editing style messed up the emotional impact. However, Shanghai was a pretty challenging story to tell and Banerjee put an effort. For sure. I can go and watch it again.

This one is one helluva drag; seems to me they wrote the script in 7-days. Looks like a lazy attempt. It does something for the sperm-donor subject, but give me a break if that makes it a good story told!

Of course, the world loved the characters and the lingo and made it a big hit. But boy…the story-telling sucks.

In some ways, it’s worrisome that it doesn’t matter much to the audience. Is it because they are so used to seeing the nonsense that even if something is done right, or they see something refreshing, they fall for it? What’s interesting is that many people I know, who are also exposed to ‘good’ cinema, also don’t register the poor execution. Perhaps they are too much in love with certain aspects – characters + lingo, in this case – and ignore the rest.

Vicky Donor suffers from not having an active protagonist. This implies that the goal that the protagonist will chase isn’t going to be driving the character and as such the stakes aren’t high. What this does for a story is that the characters are not compelling. They are made interesting courtesy their behavior, their lingo and whatever antics they may do.

Considering how folks love Delhi and it’s people on the screen – mainly their mannerisms, every other film based on Delhi, overdoes it. The same happened in Band Baaja Baraat. When the effort should have been in building conflict, the makers enjoyed what they witnessed – cute dialogues and fights, even if contrived and…kept going onwards with that.

Vicky Donor, story-wise doesn’t go anywhere. At all. Sure…it’s about sperm-donation. Sure they use humor to explain this subject that people would have felt repulsed with and that’s about the smart thing they did with respect to the story. It helps when they have actors who can be convincing in their over-the-top behavior.

However, one returns to the point – what’s the story about? And who is it about? Going by the actions the protagonist is Dr. Chaddha, not Vicky, though the story-teller sure want the guy to be at the forefront. It’s Dr. Chaddha who has a goal. Who has complications when Vicky goes off and Dr. Chaddha is the man, who gets him back and sets his world right.

In a way, it’s absolutely fine but when you focus the movie on Vicky and his family and his love life, then he should be driving the engine. Not just the sperms! The writer/director are clearly in love with the characters and settings and kept playing around the same.

It’s more of a documentary, though even good ones have rising tension. In this, there are just cute and supposedly-funny (which worked with the audience) dialogues exchanges between the family and Vicky. As for the love angle, it’s totally dry. There’s no logic for a banking girl to fall for a good-for-nothing guy. Well…one may say that can happen. Ok. But…how does a relationship evolve and grow and how the two interact? How the two fall in love? One guy pesters. The other one doesn’t respond and isn’t amused. Then a friend points out – he is cute and there you go. she starts to go around with the dude.

Some critics have loved the writing and the direction. Precisely two departments that falter massively. Lame dialogues. Worse is using the crutch of verbose to get a relationship going! There’s no concrete action. It’s all superfluous. And…the movie drags big time.

From another perspective, Vicky Donor sets or continues to set a dangerous precedent. A smart, educated girl falls for a guy who flirts and that’s it. All the reaction that happens, post their relationship getting serious, including marriage, tends to be a joke.

The writing/direction is lazy and they could have done a huge favor by working in hard on characters, their interaction, provided them with flaws, struggle and given convincing reasons on why the two matter to each other.

The inference. The girl is hot. The guy is a tapori. And there’s the best match!

I could even take-in such nonsense if the plot progresses forward, if the obstacles rise, but this is where the question arises: whose story is it? Dr. Chaddha is the guy who is running around but we now focus on the romance. Contrived and farcical, it takes the story nowhere.

What you get is Punju-Bengali issues dealt with humorously so as to be applauded by the audience. And this gets so contrived and character transformations happen over instant. One moment they hate each other. Next, they are loving ’em, for no rhyme or reason.

Vicky Donor is a very interesting film in Bollywood. Lauded for being a ‘fresh’ flick, with no star, concerned with ‘serious subject, it has become a big hit.

But what’s the learning – create loud, over-the-top characters, focus on jokes, almost like stand-up comics, show ’em cute, put some songs, show some emotions, it doesn’t matter if it’s fake, if the story is one-dimensional, just create an upbeat flick with some good tempo, bad fast-paced editing is fine, and have some music, get some Punju angle and stupid humor and…there you go!

Delhi’s best deal has been Khosla Ka Ghosla. Anyone seriously interested in screenwriting or film-making should study the two films side-by-side. It would be clear like the difference between heaven and hell that this one’s not a patch.

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FILM ANALYSIS – SHANGHAI

(Written on June 21, 2012)

I consider Dibakar Banerjee (DB) with the best storytelling sense in Bollywood. He has that knack and with varied topics has managed to tell good stories. However, for once I was disappointed, with Shanghai.

I believe that this was his toughest story to ‘show’ – commenting on the politics of our times; the scope is very broad and challenging. Both in terms of setting and characters of the story ‘Z’.

He has followed ‘Z’ (the film) to a good extent except for one big change: creating the (Kalki) character of Shalini, a lover, who takes forth the battle to get the criminal behind bars. Or well…she is supposed to.

This is a problem, or a challenge very difficult to deal with: trying to put a passive character at the center of the story. Then…dealing with multiple narratives and intending to focus on stories of other key figures. The danger is in keeping track of the core of the story.

The big flaw for me is his strategy of execution to tell the story. With regards to cinematography and editing.

He goes hand-held for most of the times, which gets jarring over the time; worse, it takes you away from the characters. I am sure the Shanghai crew will back their strategy but shakiness, all the way, even if justified, is very hard to execute. It can work if the characters are developed and arc well; you need emotional resonance. Shanghai doesn’t exude that.

Hand-held relates to certain tension and for most parts, the tension isn’t there. Even though to be fair there’s a conflict at play. What hampers this is the editing. The quick-paced editing takes you out of scenes too quick to feel the (emotional) impact. Again, either they didn’t get good footage (!) or it was deliberate, which I would like to believe. There are moments when the characters (especially, Shalini) seem to linger on too much on the camera. Besides, the transitions seemed to take you out of things. Now…that could very well be what DB wanted but they do take you out. At least me.

For me, Kalki was alright. I thought the direction and editing made things seems bad for her. As for Hashmi, he was effective but at times DB went the Kashyap way, which I can’t relate to – focusing on character traits that ought to appear cute/funny – taking you out of the story; this is highlighted especially by the (lame?) dialogues.

It’s admirable that he tried to tell this story. For trying multiple narratives. For making a comment on the system at play. For getting good performances. Well even for the ‘detailing’, which many critics have stressed on; sometimes I don’t know what’s the big deal – you need that stuff. I mean, yes, I appreciate the sets and the real locations, which I salute DB a lot for but you need that for the sake of the story; plus it’s not Wake Up Sid stuff, where struggling young adults have a house that should have a rent of 50K/month! But then…those films are another genre.

One angle as some have pointed out – some of the stuff seems naive. This is a serious picture in a way. Focusing on realism. I am not disturbed by the songs et al. In fact, I won’t be surprised to find that the Bollywood dance show actually happens. Am sure it can be worse. Is Shalini plain dumb to not understand how the system works?

Krishnan is the smart cookie and Deol plays him well but what spoils stuff is the weak writing and quick cuts. I don’t know why Krishnan avoids talking to the activists till the very end. One cliched masala-movie stuff: quick resolution when Deol takes on Sheikh – “I know you have done this, I know you have nexus et al…” What’s the point? To be impressed that our man has integrity. Well, you were on the right track – here’s a character caught in-between, here’s a dude who stands for the principles you stand for, but does DB emphasize the struggle? He highlights it for sure but the turn-around is too quick and goes for a quick-fix.

The big point – Which characters you relate to? How emotionally affecting the story is? He was there and…wasn’t. I thought the story had meat but it was poor execution. Trying too much. Doing too much. Moving around too much – the camera, literally!

I was pretty curious to know how the highly acclaimed ‘Z’ was and well, it’s fully available on YT: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheodorakisZ

Made in 1969, the scale, when it comes to having gang-fights is kind of bigger. But DB follows the film to a good deal. The big difference is the narrative flow. ‘Z’ flows simply even though it’s a complex film – no straight-forward protagonist. However, by making the judge (Krishnan) the key guy, who keeps following up, you are more in sync with the story. Garvas does less and achieves much more.

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A.O. Scott on criticism: "This is not a progressive kindergarten." - scanners

Interesting debate on film criticism, especially in the comments section:
http://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/ao-scott-on-criticism-this-is-not-a-progressive-kindergarten

Pandora’s digital box: Notes on NOCs | David Bordwell

Bordwell on how Network Operations Center (if control of projection is given to them) may affect the exhibition industry, especially in usa, where they may not be much choice for the exhibitor.

Wonder how the scenario will pan out in India. With each for himself, and with not much unity within the particular domains (exhibitors or distributors,) it would be interesting to see how things pan out, especially when some folks control both the sectors. I guess there's still some time left before substantial shake-ups happen.

Observations on film art : Pandora's digital box: Notes on NOCs

“Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking” | Scott Myers

From Psychology Today:

1. You are creative.

2. Creative thinking is work.

3. You must go through the motions of being creative.

4. Your brain is not a computer.

5. There is no right answer.

6. Never stop with your first good idea.

7. Expect the experts to be negative.

8. Trust your instincts.

9. There is no such thing as failure.

10. You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are.

11. Always approach a problem on its own terms.

12. Learn to think unconventionally.

I think my two favorites are this:

There is no such thing as failure. Whenever you try to do something and do not succeed, you do not fail. You have learned something that does not work. Always ask "What have I learned about what doesn't work?", "Can this explain something that I didn't set out to explain?", and "What have I discovered that I didn't set out to discover?" Whenever someone tells you that they have never made a  mistake, you are talking to someone who has never tried anything new.

Learn to think unconventionally. Creative geniuses do not think analytically and logically. Conventional, logical, analytical thinkers are exclusive thinkers which means they exclude all information that is not related to the problem. They look for ways to eliminate possibilities. Creative geniuses are inclusive thinkers which mean they look for ways to include everything, including things that are dissimilar and totally unrelated. Generating associations and connections between unrelated or dissimilar subjects is how they provoke different thinking patterns in their brain.  These new patterns lead to new connections which give them a different way to focus on the information and different ways to interpret what they are focusing on. This is how original and truly novel ideas are created. Albert Einstein once famously remarked "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

And then this summary:

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

The thing about creative writing: We're not dealing with widgets, rather we're pilgrims in a universe infused with mystery. As desperately as we may want to believe there is some foolproof routine or all-knowing system to write a great story, the truth is writers are wranglers of magic.

And that's the way it should be, at least in terms of being authentically creative, perhaps nowhere more than screenwriting. Anybody can write a formulaic script. It's only writers who go into their story and engage their characters within the context of their story universe as organic, alive and real entities with their own back-stories, personalities, wants, needs, fears and so forth that we tap into the magic.

And so a toast, fellow pilgrim. May we commit ourselves each day to the ever-challenging task of engaging our Creative Self in order to Wrangle the Magic!

For more of the Psychology Today article, go here.

"Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking" | Scott Myers

The Art of Screenwriting No. 1, Billy Wilder | Paris Review

Legendary stuff from Billy Wilder. What stories he tells! Hilarious and insightful. If you love the guy, go through the (long) interview, else you may check the excerpts below.

The Art of Screenwriting No. 1, Billy Wilder | Paris Review


Excerpts...

Theater vs Pictures
The tragedy of the picture maker, as opposed to the playwright, is that for the playwright the play debuts in Bedford, Massachusetts, and then you take it to Pittsburgh. If it stinks you bury it. If you examine the credits of Moss Hart or George Kaufman, no one ever brings up the play that bombed in the provinces and was buried after four shows.

With a picture that doesn't work, no matter how stupid and how bad, they're still going to try to squeeze every single penny out of it. You go home one night and turn on the TV and suddenly, there on television, staring back at you, on prime time, that lousy picture, that thing, is back! We don't bury our dead; we keep them around smelling badly.


On Disappointments
Now, I do have to admit I was disappointed by the lack of success of some pictures I thought were good, such as Ace in the Hole. I liked the movie very much but it did not generate any "must-see" mood in audiences.

On the other hand, sometimes you'll have a rough time, and the film will turn out all right. On Sabrina I had a very rough time with Humphrey Bogart. It was the first time he'd worked with Paramount. Every evening after shooting, people would have a drink in my office, and a couple of times I forgot to invite him. He was very angry and never forgave me.

Sometimes when you finish a picture you just don't know whether it's good or bad. When Frank Capra was shooting Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, after the last shot she said, Will that be all Mr. Capra?

We're all done.

All right. Now why don't you go and fuck yourself. She thought the picture was shit, but she won the Academy Award for it.

On Writing Partner, Brackett
After Sunset Boulevard, Brackett and I parted friends. Twelve years together, but the split had been coming. It's like a box of matches: you pick up the match and strike it against the box, and there's always fire, but then one day there is just one small corner of that abrasive paper left for you to strike the match on. It was not there anymore. The match wasn't striking. One of us said, Look, whatever I have to give and whatever you have to offer, it's just not enough. We can end on the good note of Sunset Boulevard. A picture that was revolutionary for its day.

On Writing Partner, Diamond
We had a great deal of trust in each other. But sometimes with writing you just can't tell, especially if you're writing under pressure. Diamond and I were writing the final scene of Some Like It Hot the week before we shot it. We'd come to the situation where Lemmon tries to convince Joe B. Brown that he cannot marry him.

"Why?" Brown says.

"Because I smoke!"

"That's all right as far as I'm concerned."

Finally Lemmon rips his wig off and yells at him, "I'm a boy! Because I'm a boy!"

Diamond and I were in our room working together, waiting for the next line—Joe B. Brown's response, the final line, the curtain line of the film—to come to us. Then I heard Diamond say, "Nobody's perfect." I thought about it and I said, Well, let's put in "Nobody's perfect" for now. But only for the time being. We have a whole week to think about it. We thought about it all week. Neither of us could come up with anything better, so we shot that line, still not entirely satisfied. When we screened the movie, that line got one of the biggest laughs I've ever heard in the theater. But we just hadn't trusted it when we wrote it; we just didn't see it. "Nobody's perfect." The line had come too easily, just popped out.

On Writing Partner, Chandler
He accused me of having as many as three martinis at lunch. Furthermore, he wrote that he found it very disconcerting that Mr. Wilder gets two, three, sometimes even four calls from obviously young girls.

Naturally. I would take a phone call, three or four minutes, to say, Let's meet at that restaurant there, or, Let's go for a drink here. He was about twenty years older than I was, and his wife was older than him, elderly. And I was on the phone with girls! Sex was rampant then, but I was just looking out for myself. Later, in a biography he said all sorts of nasty things about me—that I was a Nazi, that I was uncooperative and rude, and God knows what. Maybe the antagonism even helped. He was a peculiar guy, but I was very glad to have worked with him.

On Writing
To begin to make even a mediocre film you have to learn the rules. You have to know about timing, about creating characters, a little about camera position, just enough to know if what you're suggesting is possible. They pooh-poohed it.


On Fitzgerald
Whenever we saw Scott Fitzgerald there, we'd talk with him, but he never once asked us anything about writing screenplays.

Pictures are something like plays. They share an architecture and a spirit. A good picture writer is a kind of poet, but a poet who plans his structure like a craftsman and is able to tell what's wrong with the third act. What a veteran screenwriter produces might not be good, but it would be technically correct; if he has a problem in the third act he certainly knows to look for the seed of the problem in the first act. Scott just didn't seem particularly interested in any of these matters.


On Hawks
At some point he worked with Howard Hawks on To Have and Have Not, and he cowrote The Land of the Pharaohs. On that movie they went way over schedule with production and far past their estimated costs. On screen, there were thousands of slaves dragging enormous stones to build the pyramids. It was like an ant heap. When they finally finished the film and screened it for Jack Warner, Warner said to Hawks, Well, Howard, if all the people who are in the picture come to see it, we may break even.


On Hecht
Hecht truly endeared himself to the people he worked with. A producer or director would be in a jam . . . the set built, the leads hired, the shooting begun, only to admit to themselves finally that the script they had was unusable. They would bring out Hecht, and he would lie in bed at Charles Lederer's house and on a yellow tablet produce a pile of sheets, a screenplay ready to go. They'd take that night's pages from Hecht's hands, forward them to Mr. Selznick, who'd fiddle with them, have the pages mimeographed and put in the actor's hands by morning. It was a crazy way to work, but Hecht took the work very seriously, though not as seriously as he would a play of his. They call that sort of thing script doctoring. If Hecht had wanted, he could have had credit on a hundred more pictures.


On Lemmon
It was wonderful to work with some actors. Jack Lemmon. If we were to start at nine, he'd be there at eight-fifteen with a mug of coffee and his pages from the night before. He'd say, Last night I was running lines with Felicia—his wife—and had this wonderful idea. What do you think here? And he'd go on. It might be wonderful and we'd use it, or I might just look at him, and then he'd say, Well, I don't like it either. He worked hard and had many ideas, but he never was interfering.

Sometimes I'd have an actor so stubborn that I'd say, All right, let's do it two ways. We'd do it my way, and I'd say to my assistant, Print that. Then to the actor, All right, now your way. We'd do it his way with no celluloid in the camera.

On Producers' Comments

WILDER

I was talking once with a writer who had worked at Columbia who showed me a script that had just been read by Samuel Briskin, one of the big men at that studio. I looked at the script. On every page, there was at the bottom just one word: improve.

INTERVIEWER

Like The New Yorker editor Harold Ross's imperative "make better."

WILDER

That would be one word too many for these producers. Just improve.

On 'Idea Guys'
There was one guy who never wrote a word but who came up with ideas. One of them was: San Francisco. 1906 earthquake. Nelson Eddy. Jeanette McDonald.

Great! Terrific! Cheers from the producers. A film came out of that sentence.

Do you know how Nelson Eddy ended up with his name? He was Eddie Nelson. He just reversed it. Don't laugh! Eddie Nelson is nothing. Nelson Eddy was a star.

On Studio Rivalry
The studio era was of course very different from today. There were many different fiefdoms scattered around town, each producing its own sort of picture. The Paramount people would not converse with the MGM people; wouldn't even see each other. The MGM people especially would not consort for dinner or even lunch with the people from Fox.

One night before I was to begin One, Two, Three I had dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz, who always had wonderful food. I was seated next to Mrs. Edie Goetz, Louis Mayer's younger daughter, and she asked what sort of picture I was going to make. I told her it was set in Berlin and we'd be shooting in Germany.

Who plays the lead?

Jimmy Cagney. As it happens, it was his last picture except for that cameo in Ragtime.

She said, Who?

Jimmy Cagney. You know, the little gangster who for years was in all those Warner Brothers . . .

Oh! Daddy didn't allow us to watch Warner Brothers pictures. She had no idea who he was.

On Direction
Film's thought of as a director's medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It's that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot—the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they've had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.

On Writers & Stars
Nobody consults the movie writer. In production, they just go wildly ahead. If the star has another picture coming up, and they need to finish the picture by Monday, they'll just tear out ten pages. To make it work somehow, they add a few stupid lines.

Brackett and I were writing a picture called Hold Back the Dawn. Back then, no writer was allowed on the set. If the actors and the director weren't interpreting the script correctly, if they didn't have the accent on the right word when they were delivering a gag, if they didn't know where the humor was, a writer might very well pipe up. A director would feel that the writer was creating a disruption.

For Hold Back the Dawn, we had written a story about a man trying to immigrate into the U.S. without the proper papers. Charles Boyer, who played the lead, is at rope's end, destitute, stranded in a filthy hotel—the Esperanza—across the border, near Mexicali or Calexico. He is lying in this lousy bed, holding a walking stick, when he sees a cockroach walk up the wall and onto a mirror hanging on the wall. Boyer sticks the end of the walking stick in front of the cockroach and says, "Wait a minute, you. Where are you going? Where are your papers? You haven't got them? Then you can't enter." The cockroach tries to walk around the stick, and the Boyer character keeps stopping it.

One day Brackett and I were having lunch across the street from Paramount. We were in the middle of writing the third act of the picture. As we left our table to walk out, we saw Boyer, the star, seated at a table, his little French lunch spread out before him, his napkin tucked in just so, a bottle of red wine open on the table. We stopped by and said, Charles, how are you?

Oh, fine. Thank you.

Although we were still working on the script, Mitchell Leisen had already begun to direct the production. I said, And what are you shooting today, Charles?

We're shooting this scene where I'm in bed and . . .

Oh! The scene with the cockroach! That's a wonderful scene.

Yes, well, we didn't use the cockroach.

Didn't use the cockroach? Oh, Charles, why not?

Because the scene is idiotic. I have told Mr. Leisen so, and he agreed with me. How do you suppose a man can talk to some thing that cannot answer you? Then Boyer looked out the window. That was all. End of discussion. As we walked back to the studio to continue to write the third act, I said to Brackett, That son of a bitch. If he doesn't talk to the cockroach, he doesn't talk to anybody! We gave him as few lines as possible . . . wrote him right out of the third act.

On Being a Director
I don't come from the theater or any dramatic school like the Strasberg school, and I didn't particularly have ambitions to be a director, to be a despot of the soundstage. I just wanted to protect the script. It's not that I had a vision or theory I wanted to express as a director; I had no signature or style, except for what I learned from when I was working with Lubitsch and from analyzing his pictures—to do things as elegantly and as simply as possible.

The Art of Screenwriting No. 1, Billy Wilder | Paris Review

Perfectly Happy, Even Without Happy Endings | NYTimes.com

SEEING Lindsay Doran on a midafternoon stroll near her office in Culver City, Calif., you might wonder about this woman with the flowing curls and contemplative smile. Art historian? Massage therapist? Micro-financier? A little of each.

Ms. Doran is in the movie business, and her résumé runs from production executive on "This Is Spinal Tap" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," to producer of "The Firm," "Sense and Sensibility" and "Stranger Than Fiction," to president of United Artists Pictures, and now an independent producer.

What's not on her résumé is just as intriguing: script doctor, for one, and anti-smoking advocate who helped lead the effort to eliminate on-screen puffing. But the biggest position missing from the official CV is her role as a missionary for mood-elevating films. Terry Rossio, a writer whose credits include "Shrek" and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, playfully describes her as a "Pied Piper, leading all those ratty, bleak and violent screenplays in town over a cliff."

Ms. Doran is an omnivore who likes movies light, dark and in between. But when she attended the Austin Film Festival last year, "something I found both terribly sad and terribly sympathetic," she recently recalled, "is that aspiring screenwriters ask again and again, 'What can I write that a financier wants to make?' Not, 'What can I write that fills me with joy?' " 

 After reading the book "Flourish," by Martin E. P. Seligman, a catalyst of the positive-psychology movement, she began rewatching films through the lens of what Dr. Seligman identifies as the five essential elements of well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. (He refers to these elements collectively as perma.)

The results surprised her. And they inspired a stealth campaign to reverse the Hollywood superstitions that a "movie is only art if it ends badly, and that you'll only win an Academy Award if you write or direct a movie about misery or play someone miserable," as she put it. During the past six months, at a symposium and in a series of presentations to filmmakers, she has strongly advocated the concept of cinematic Zoloft.

"What shocked us," said Dan Lin, a producer of the Sherlock Holmes films whose team recently watched a Doran presentation, "were Lindsay's points about what audiences care about most — relationships and the positive resolution of those relationships. We had previously thought what was most important was the lead character winning at the end of the movie."

Reflecting at her home here in December Ms. Doran said: "Some people say I'm just talking about formula filmmaking. What I wanted to know is: Why is the formula the formula?" She analyzed box-office hits and critically acclaimed movies on the American Film Institute's favorites lists. She broke down their emotional components, isolated the elements of mood elevation and tested her findings against those of market researchers. She concluded: Positive movies do not necessarily have happy endings; their characters' personal relationships trump personal achievements; and male and female viewers differ in how they define a character's accomplishments.

Ms. Doran had long been drawn to "funny dramas and comedies that make you cry," she said. Now she knew why.

In a July presentation before the Second World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association in Philadelphia Ms. Doran recalled her first "aha!" moment, when she recognized that the perma elements of well-being that Dr. Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania professor, had identified were the basis of the movies that made her, and others, happy. She showed how these five factors were embedded in films as far-flung as "Ferris Bueller" (characters who displayed positive emotions throughout), "The Godfather" (characters fully engaged in what they're doing throughout) and "The Karate Kid" (a character completely focused on accomplishment).

"It's no surprise to say that American movies specialize in stories of accomplishment," she told her audience, adding later, "When Jennifer Grey finally dares to make the scary leap at the end of 'Dirty Dancing,' when the Karate Kid performs the impossible kick that wipes out his opponent, or when King George VI gets through his wartime speech without stammering — those accomplishments are among the great pleasures of cinema."

Ms. Doran's second "aha!" moment came when she consulted a veteran market researcher who oversees hundreds of previews annually. "I listed the five elements of well-being, and he said, 'I can already tell you one thing: Audiences don't care about accomplishments.' " She was thunderstruck. Wasn't the Hollywood ending about accomplishment?

No, he said, adding: "Audiences don't care about an accomplishment unless it's shared with someone else. What makes an audience happy is not the moment of victory but the moment afterwards when the winners shares that victory with someone they love." So she mentally rewound the concluding scenes of these "accomplishment" films. Ms. Grey leaps into the arms of Patrick Swayze at the end of "Dirty Dancing," and after that she reconciles with her father. Jaden Smith performs that impossible kick at the end of "The Karate Kid," but afterward makes peace with his opponent and shares the moment with his mother and trainer. Colin Firth conquers his stammer at the end of "The King's Speech," and then shares his victory with his wife, daughters and the crowds cheering outside the palace. The film closes with a title card that reads that the king and his speech therapist remained friends for the rest of their lives.

"Three generations of psychiatry and psychology have been suborned by finances to the misery agenda," Dr. Seligman said in an interview, explaining why there is not much government grant money to support research on mood-elevating films. "Movies are a form of soma," he said, referring to the idea of an uplifting drug, and he hypothesized that "more perma-like movies would make people's lives better, but nobody's researched that."

Jonathan Haidt, a University of Virginia professor of psychology and the author of "The Happiness Hypothesis," said, "People not only use movies and music as soma to feel good, they use it to open themselves to others." It may follow that watching narratives about positive relationships in a darkened room alongside others is elevating. 

Not long after Ms. Doran's insights about the nature of movie accomplishment and relationships, she realized that relationship movies were gender-specific. In movies aimed at men and boys, she said, "there is the goal, the thing the hero is trying to accomplish." Then, she continued, "there's the relationship, usually with a woman, child, friend or father. Usually at the end the hero realizes the relationship is more important than the accomplishment." But in most movies geared toward women, she realized, the relationship is the accomplishment.

"Some would say that this is patronizing to women," Ms. Doran said, but she saw it differently: "Maybe it just means that women have figured it out."

When she shared this with some female producers, she said, they were surprised.

The actress Emma Thompson said in an e-mail, "My initial reaction to Lindsay's presentation was a bit like when you read something in a book and think you've always known it," but then you realize "the only reason you thought you knew it is because it's so well put and so clear." (Parenthetically she added, "Sometimes a comedy like 'Spinal Tap' is as good as a double dose of paracetamol.")

Ms. Thompson, who has worked with Ms. Doran on five movies including "Sense and Sensibility,"  was struck by three of her conclusions. First, some of the most elevating American movies "are about people desperate to achieve something that they do not get to achieve." (George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life" doesn't get to travel the world, Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" doesn't win an acquittal for his client.) Second, many of the greatest romances ("Roman Holiday," "Casablanca") are about lovers who can't or don't remain together. And in many of the most successful movies of all time accomplishment is accompanied by incalculable loss: In Ms. Doran's words, "Obi-Wan dies, Dumbledore dies, Gandalf dies, 1,500 passengers on the Titanic die, thousands of Pandorans die." The protagonist may be happy at the end, "but his smile," she said, "is laced with the loss that's come before."

What this suggested to her is that "the accomplishment the audience values most is not when the heroine saves the day or the hero defeats his opponent." Instead, she said, "the accomplishment the audience values most is resilience."

So where does Ms. Doran go from here? As she continues speaking with filmmakers and studios, she said in an e-mail: "I think the thing that they're getting out of it is that the 'happy ending,' the one that is most memorable and might make people go back to see the film a second time, might not be about winning. It might be about not winning, about finding something deeper that means more than victory."

"A lot of people seem stunned," she added, that ending with a character who survives loss "might be both the more inspiring and the more commercial way to end a movie."

Perfectly Happy, Even Without Happy Endings | NYTimes.com