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New Beginnings
Colours...lights...lissom figures...flashing clothes...dreams unfolding...new beginnings.
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Spent Sunday evening attending a fashion show. The NIFT Kolkata, class of ’05 graduation fashion show.
The excitement of the evening was enervating. The energy of young minds seeing their creations being paraded to hearty applause was infectious. There were screams, whistles, cheers and shouts. Here were young dreams spreading there wings to lift off to a new flight. Leaving behind three years of graduation to launch themselves into the new realm of a profession. As somebody who had taught them for a while, I did feel a sense of pride in being a participant in their making.
The energy and high of this evening would possibly give them a boost, which will see them step out into the world to chase their dreams on a high. Some of them would inevitably come crashing down, some would be bogged down by ‘reality’ and a few others might sail through. Yet they’d always have the glory of this evening to take along with them. When at times life seems daunting, they could realign themselves to the high they felt this evening.
They got a boost, which few others experience, towards a new beginning.
Yet theirs wasn’t the only New Beginning.
There were other ‘new beginnings’ taking place this weekend.
A friend lost a precious possession this weekend. One’s mobile phone, and with it an accumulation of phone numbers...connections...relationships. Each acquaintance was now a potential new beginning.
But the phone wasn’t the only thing lost. Another relationship, one much more closer to heart, was lost this weekend. My friend’s love got engaged...to somebody else.
Something was dieing within. Does death of something always precedes the birth of a new beginning in the continuum of time?
In a world of collapsing dreams and familiarity, the now of accumulated dreams and hopes was dissolving to an enforced New Beginning.
Another friend, on a distant shore put in papers at work. Launching off onto a new beginning into unchartered territory. For there was neither job offer nor proposals in hand. Just a realisation that the present work situation had outlived its creative potential and new horizons to fulfilment had to be sought. Even if it meant stepping, off into a void. No highs of a blast off, no assurance...just a New Beginning.
Another group of friends in a day’s workshop were discovering a completely new realm of creativity. Through myriad activity, they were exploring the playwright within themselves. Setting off to complete and launch a play within three months from now. The energy of the group was palpable in their happy reactions, when I queried them as to how the workshop had gone, thanx to a consummate facilitator. Suddenly they had stumbled upon an unexpected New Beginning.
And I remained a witness to all these New beginnings, standing in the continuum of time.
Did I too seek a new beginning?
I don’t know. For many a new beginnings, have I seen, become prisoners to the confines of old habits. Somewhere a new beginning is our desire to seek release from a past, which has exhausted its creative potential.
Yet the past itself is incapable of locomotion...unless we carry it along. Yet if we didn’t carry the past along, what would happen of boost experienced in past highs?
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Is there a new beginning only at some momentous occasion? Or does each moment have in its fold a new beginning?
What if a new beginning was wrapped in each breath we took?
Each exhale a letting go of a used past.
Each inhale the promise of a new beginning...
What’s a new beginning other than a state of mind?
Oh well decided to restart this blog...my own small step towards New Beginnings. And man proposes while God disposes. The net connection was down for all these days. Thus this post nearly 5 days behind schedule.
But they do say...better late than never! :P
Movie Markets
An accidental discovery of a passion
I became a movie buff by accident.
When I wanted to be in film making, it wasn’t out of love of movies per se. In fact I hated movies. As a kid, I would run out of movie halls, for I hated seeing them. It was reading the book Star Wars in the 80’s, as I had missed seeing the movie as a kid, staying in Shillong in ’77 (and in those days, there could be close to a 6-year lag before new movies could make it to such remote places).
Reading the description of Star cruisers, light sabre duels, Death Stars suspended in space and dogfights between X-wing fighters and Tie fighters in Star Wars...I was bedazzled. Could they show all that on a cinema screen?
For in those days all I knew about special effects was the double exposure I had seen in some old movies to show that the ghost was in the house. Reading that book, I knew that if there were one thing I wanted to become, it would be a magician like George Lucas, who could show the unimaginable realised on a screen.
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Thus began an interest in special effects, which then expanded to an interest in animation. And herein the interest remained confined.
A proxy paper chase
Until towards the end of ‘80s, in absence of any paper chase I could do in special effects I decided to do a diploma course in Film theory at Chitrabani (Literally - Language of picture), in Calcutta. And then...the horizon of films opened up. I got to know that there was a world of cinema which existed beyond ffice:smarttags" />
Got to know and love filmmakers from all parts of the globe. Was spell bound by black and white films (whoever saw BW films those days?) which kept us glued to our seats. Kurosawa and Kieslowski became my favourites. And the more I learned about film making, the more I was stupefied as to why and how our own local Hindi movies could be so stupid? No subtlety. No play of lights. No brooding scenes. All shot in bright all encompassing lights and sets all done in garish bright colours. Each movie having the lead pair traipsing around trees in some form or another. Why did they all have to be the same?
Humdrum’s raison d’etre
Until I got to know why this was done. The scenes had to be so brightly light, so that even when it was being screened in a distant village of rural
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But things have changed now. Thanx to the multiplexes.
Recently saw two movies, which proved to be heart-warming experience as to which way the future of Indian cinema is headed. “My brother Nikhil” and “Hazaron khwaisheyn”. MBN has been done by a fellow Chitrabani alumni Anirban, (the principal of Nikhil’s old school has been named Gaston Roberge, as a tribute to then director Father Gaston Roberege) was a refreshing tale and has a future in the commercial circuit. “Hazaron khwaisheyn...” was a little patchy towards the end, but over all an enjoyable, yet not a conformal experience.
Being a period film of sorts, I kept a lookout for any anachronistic prop in the film with a sense of glee, but could only spot wrong helmets being used by the riot police (In those days they used the World War II vintage British design helmets. The current helmets are WWII American vintage, which got used in the film). But most importantly movies telling diverse stories and not necessarily conforming to demands of a greater pan Indian market now has a chance.
The effect of multiplexes, and now increasingly the preference of non-resident market has started opening up new outlets for fresh ideas, as against the bottleneck of past ‘mainstream films’.
It was Dil Chahata hai, which was the first metro movie I feel. And there has by now been so many others. No big stars, no mega budgets, just interesting tales told in interesting ways.
Open source Film-making?
It was the industrial revolution, which brought about a paradigm shift in thinking. Firstly, there could be power other than with warlords and royalty, by bringing a class of “Industrialists” and “Entrepreneurs” and that resources could be garnered to produce things of gigantic proportions. From the Eiffel tower to the Titanic, to gigantic movies on Titanic.
For the first time it was shown that, common individuals could contribute to realize giant endeavours. It lead to the creation of corporations and enterprises. For the first time the power of the masses could be harnessed to take giant strides.
We have come a long way hence. Yet something still remains common from the pre-industrial age era. It’s the structure of functioning. It continues to be hierarchical, exclusive, and bent on setting barriers so as to stave off ‘competition’.
The film making industry is also a spawn of this same thought process. It takes behemoths to make films. Ours (bollywood) might be considered to not corporatised, but it remains very much behemoth-ised by moguls. Wherein the industry is controlled by a select club, and the crumbs are happily left for some ‘Indie filmmakers’ and their cause even championed by the big players, as long as the larger chunk of the movie making biz pie remains with them.
Yet all of us in someway or the other seeks to be a storyteller. Many even have more than enough dollop of talent to be able to contribute to the process. But the high walls of these established citadels of creativity seems unassailable for most people. Some Blair witch project might get made...but how would common people pump in the millions of currency to hire a big star or even vet a project?
Well most of us are now aware of the open source initiative. Removed from efforts of profiteering, the open source movement became an effort to be true to the concept of “Off the people, by the people, for the people”fficeffice" />
However, the challenge of putting this whole effort together would be akin to putting together massive jigsaw puzzle blindfolded?
Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith
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Revenge of the Sith. The film dovetailed the first trilogy into the second. The movie was not a very moving one. Possibly because the denouement is known...after all we have all seen Star Wars, the first movie, now the fourth part of the hexalogy. Or possibly, because George Lucas has never been strong in terms of dealing with emotions. Emotions, to him are concessions one would make, filling in the highlights, of a much greater canvas of spectacular visuals and choreography of visual magic. The movie was pure eye candy. He’s pushed the frontiers of visual magic so far, that now the only true limit, is imagination.
He has plots for three more movies in his head (or he has possibly put it down in some diary, or notepad or i-book of his), the final trilogy of his nine part saga. But he has affirmed that he won’t be making them into movies. Will that be sad? I don’t know.
For I wonder if he should have had brought the complete series of Star Wars out, at the time when the idea had first hit him, in the mid seventies. Can you imagine how oracular it would have been? In seventies it would have told us, how the Republic tore apart the veneer of democracy and established itself as a hegemonic empire.
People would then have seen parallels between what he had foretold then and what is now unfolding in the game plan of the “Republican Power” in a uni-polar world. A power, which is quick to declare other cohabitants of the planet as rogue states and parts of an Evil axis.
Now Star Wars is just keeping up with actual events, and the only thing predictive about it is how closely the Troops of Liberation-ary armies resemble the storm troopers depicted by him in the first Star Wars (and the storm troopers wear white in the film...so how can they be the bad guys? After all bad guys wear black?). Funnily, it was the name of his movie, which was strategically used as a Trojan horse by the erstwhile actor turned ‘Republican’ president which brought about the collapse of the other power by pulling the economic carpet from under their feet, in chase of a Space War mirage and brought about an unipolar world.
I wonder if in that country, seemingly made by God and always with the ‘Force’, people wonder that the dark side has actually taken over the reins? There was the line which Amidala says in the movie which was haunting: “Have you ever wondered if the Republic which we were fighting for is no longer there?”
The relevance of the messages which were to be carried by the Star War series has now become jaded I think. Movies like The Matrix, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy etc have carried messages which possibly have portents for the masses for the future, while Star Wars only mirrors the present.
Talking about messages, the more I see movies like Star Wars, Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, the more I feel that creators such as the Wachowski brothers, George Lucas, Tolkin more than creators are mere conduits to a creative stream which actually creates these tales. Where the grand idea consumes them, and utilises them to seek their realisation. For the ideas, born through these ‘creators’ resonates with the global consciousness. Resonates possibly with messages embedded within us?
But all said and done, George Lucas continues to be an idol for me. It was reading his biography “Sky Walking”, which had so inspired me. It was reading the book ‘Star Wars’ which had set me off towards my goal of making films...a movie like Star Wars. To me he’s a visual magician, who inspired an army of illusionist (Industrial Light and Magic...how apt...Magic wrought with Light in the scale of an industry).
But I haven’t created a movie like Star Wars yet. The reason: Well where would you get the resources to make a movie like Star Wars in ffice:smarttags" />
Possibly if we were to empty our minds...of all the thoughts, vestiges of importance, desires, ambitions which clog it...then we might make some space for an actual dream to settle in. Possibly that creative cloud will fill our minds with showers of magic as it has in the minds of George Lucas, Walt Disney and others.
As it was said in The Alchemist: When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
As also the other favourite quote from it:
The world's greatest lie: At a certain point in out lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.
May the Force be with you!