THE REEL

Once in a lifetime, comes a chance for every actor to bring a character alive in a manner that it was not expected. Let me correct myself - Once in a lifetime comes a character that is known because of the actor, even though he/she was never the leading man or woman.

Last night watching Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can for the umpteenth time triggered the thought about the small roles that are worked really hard upon and are often missed or not talked about because they are "small" or done by "character actors". The latter is one of the most silly phrases in the lexicon of films that should be banned immediately.

There are certain roles that once essayed by the actor/actress in conversation, are made timeless and never be imagined with any other performer.

Christopher Walken is unmatchable in the film as Frank Abagnale Sr. Notice how it is difficult to mention him as the father of the protagonist, considering he is a supporting actor, because the picture Walken has painted is outstanding. He infuses the character with the kind of life that would make me embrace the character and thank him for being a great human. And that there can be no successor is to state the obvious.

This is what gives me the maximum kick while watching a film. When an actor grabs the character by balls and gives 200% and makes it his own, it is time for the smile of admiration and inspiration to appear. Films are not made by the leading men and women, nor the larger than life characters; the small beautiful ones that add to the bigger picture are responsible for the finished portrait. Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty is another example; since George Burns, he is the only other actor to have created the quintessential image of the almighty, "the alpha and the omega". Any other actor is highly unlikely to upstage these two great ones. That there surely will be someone, is the beauty of the world of films!

I have immense regard for actors like Om Prakash, Kader Khan, Rip Torn, Kathy Bates, Sam Granger, and the hundred others who have made film watching, entertainment. I feel the need to introduce one of them as of today; this blog is not the biased and daft representation highlighted by Mr Jabberwock who probably wants the world to know how much he knows.

Anyhow, the man is Stephen Root. It is difficult to say, "oh do you remember the man in XYZ film who does XYZ?", because this man is immensely talented and appears in roles that would not usually leave a memory imprint unless you are really into acting and films (and not like Jai Arjun Singh). The best compliment that ever came out for him was by Varun Mathur while watching Coens' retelling of Odyssey, O brother, where art thou?
Root essays the role of the blind radio station manager who helps Clooney and his friends record "Man of constant sorrow". After watching his 5-minute appearance, Varun remarked, "Goddamn! He is so blind!" As an actor, I would have honestly died if I ever received such a compliment. Not that I imply that Root should be gracious to my dear friend's compliment; he worked damn hard at the character. It is impossible for me to discern a clear image of the man because the polarity he exhibits in one role from another is inspiring and definitely worth learning. His portrayal of the absolute-loser-turned-hero in 2004's surprise (and massive) hit Dodgeball: A true underdog story is endearing, worth rooting for, and most importantly real, absolutely real. The film's biggest triumph is shown to be this man's coming out of shell when it comes for an average middle aged man to walk out of the shadows and be the hero, for himself and his children. Root makes it happen! And he exhibits this brilliance in each of his films. Dodgeball has this wonderful lineup of such actors - Root, Torn, Hank Azaria and the incredible Alan Tudyk. Watch them to understand what acting is really, all about.

In India, we lack such actors and this is because we do not exploit them anymore. We give them stereotypical caricatures and expect them to rise above the script. Jimmy Shergill is a huge exception to this because somehow the actor manages to do that every time. He has such a power that one day I want to sit with him and learn how he does it in the worst of the scripts (Eklavya). Things are changing and I hope they change faster and go back to the days of 50s and 60s when it was the supporting cast that made the film because they were given the attention they deserved. We have performers like Kader Khan, Vinay Pathak, Ranbir Shorey (who still needs to hone his skills), Gulshan Grover, Danny Denzongpa, and the always abused but never used Sushant Singh, Mukesh Tiwari and several others.

Continuing in the same vein, a notable mention should be made of Anil Kapoor for the film Taal. Or Akshay Kumar in Mujhse Shaadi Karoge. The whole argument is, when after watching a film, one would remark, "Watch it for him/her!". I shall not take the risk of offending the female readers and would like to talk about Julie Andrews as Queen Clarisse in The Princess Diaries or Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. These two actresses leave no space for any other actress, ever to fill in their shoes. They are that good!

And any of my discussions on actresses is incomplete without the legendary Smita Patil. For those of you who consider people like Shabana Azmi a good actress, kindly rethink and reassess. The telephone scene in Mahesh Bhatt's Arth shows the difference between a good actress (Patil) and a mere pretender (Azmi). And all this happens while the latter talks throughout the scene with the former just responding with her expressions... much like the most amazing actress ever, Nutan, in the song Jalte Hain Jiske Liye, in Bimal Roy's Sujata. That is what makes one say watch Sujata for Nutan or watch Arth for Smita Patil.

Tip of the day: For those of you wish to understand the use of body language in the best manner possible, take a lesson or two from Om Prakash and Kader Khan.

Over the past few years, with the advent of urbanisation, corporatisation and terms similar in nature used solely for marketing gimmicks, Indian cinema has lost the flavours it once exuded and stood for. The world theatre was always attracted to the simplicity of depiction and sensitive touch to the characters portrayed on the silver screen. It is a sad time for the industry, especially the Hindi film industry that is trashing out one hit film after another, with little or no sense. The formula is simple – A-list stars (most of whom have inherited the baton), spunky songs and outfits, little bit of this and little bit of that that speaks of sheer gloss and lastly, no hard work at all. Though the ‘product’ rakes in crores (Dhoom 2, Fanaa et al), the substance is conspicuous by its absence. When I started wrecking my brain cells, it dawned that the decline of values that Indian cinema once stood for have been neglected and pushed into oblivion. The aspects that make populace of this nation go berserk with the veneer today are nowhere concrete in nature and absolutely garbled shit. It disappoints an avid fan to see the dismal condition of films now; for someone who grew up on cinema, there is little hope I see given the prevailing predicament. What is it that we are missing or have forgotten that makes this so unbearable? What has made the directors minds go blank that they churn out films that the submissive viewer ends up spending money on? Is it the time; that can be argued as we still have films like Maqbool and Omkara? Is it purely the lack of integrity and the right aptitude of filmmaking? I guess all of it and a whole lot of other things.

Pathos: Think of a film called Jaagtey Raho, one of Raj Kapoor’s most brilliant films ever. Think of Do Bigha Zameen, Kaala Paani etc and one will find that what appealed the most to the Indian audiences was a mirror image of reality. The critics worldwide were charmed because of the sensitive screenplay and portrayals by the actors – leading or supporting. Even the 70s, which by far were the best and the worst decades, carried the forward the baton of the protagonist’s suffering that made the ‘Angry young man’ the quintessential image. It aroused sympathy for Vijay in Deewar much as it made the viewer understand the diversion of Chhenu and Shyam from their constructive careers. Indian society, by the virtue of its survival is based on suffering and not indulgence much as American civilisation is. This is the disturbing reason as today’s films are based on the latter when they can easily (and should) incorporate the former. This does not mean that commercial interests should be put on the backburner. Not at all. We need films like Dhoom 2 so that the actors don’t die the sorry, oblivious death that their predecessors (Radhey Shyam, Master Shiraz, Sulochana, Nadira) had to face. But if the sensitivity of the heart is not taken care of and brought out, it is obvious that decadence will follow. There must be a connection with the viewer; otherwise there is no point for art ever.

Passion: When I first saw Lagaan, my heart was jumping with joy that finally there is one director who works for his love of cinema, in true sense. Every frame of that film has been meticulously crafted; it reminded me of the genre that boasted Pakeezah, Mughal-e-Azam and Navrang. Of course, there is no comparison with these cinematic gems given they are par excellence. But this film, like all of these, shines bright showing that Ashutosh Gowariker and the crew injected every drop of their passionate blood. Film making is indeed an art, provided one realises the dynamics of it. There must be the scent of the crew's hard work in the final picture because that will attract viewers over the ages. In this regard, a movie like Don works as it found a viewer in my uncles and then me, and finally my 13 year old cousin who says this sort of cinema is exciting despite the wrinkles.

Panache: Today, the Indian cinema's benchmark is Hollywood 'cool' factor. This is the reason why Abhishek Bachchan in Dhoom 2 resembles a clown cut out of B-grade action films of the 80s from LA Boulevard that used Electropop music. The hangover of the West has to be done away with. That is not panache; mere copycats can never be impressive. Unfortunately, there has been so much of this dose that the audience, as mentioned above, has been submitted into accepting it for no discernible reason. Guru Dutt made his lead actors look stylish, Sohrab Modi did that too and a lot of directors who made films for the love factor ended creating a style quotient of Hindi film industry actors too. The earliest example that comes in the head is Ashok Kumar in Kismet. He was the actor, along with another thespian Prithvi Raj Kapoor who set the benchmarks of acting in Hindi film industry. We have our own styles and instead of making a mirror image, let's work to create style statements that are not clones of Hollywood.

Paucity of screenplay: When was the last time a screenplay created the right kind of magic for the viewer? The Nu-age writers are drawing inspirations from the film noir of 50s or following the path set by Karan Johar. This man is single handedly responsible for destroying the art of screenplay; he has the potential, the evidence are few scenes in K3G that are simply fantastic but he chooses to destroy it putting gloss all over. Another one was Farhan Akhtar; he literally took his success to the head. Today, there is only one script written and then interspersed with dialogue again and again. The characters need to be fleshed out, there is a certain sensitivity required while dealing with the subject/issue and most importantly, one must never let go off the track by fusing idiotic songs and sequences just to make the film marketable. For instance, a film like Astitva by Mahesh Manjrekar rapes the subject of extra-marital affair in such a way that it makes the heroine look like a slut. Guru is the biggest example of a lack of screenplay; well this film should be shown to everyone as an immaculate example of 'worst film ever". So let's not go there at all. When there is a screenplay, and a proper one, the movie goes over the head and bombs at the box office. Inspirations should remain true to the meaning and not become a frame-by-frame copy. The story, and the characters, must grow in stages for the viewer. The character of Amitabh Bachchan in Chupke Chupke is one such example.

Well, surely there lots of other reasons, some said and some yet to be articulated. There is a possibility of a second list on this blog for the same... some time in the near future.

It has been long, no wait, it has been fucking long since I blogged for my love of cinema. The reason I started Cinema Framed was the lack of good blogs (with the exception of Jabberwocky that is simply excellent and a few others) on movies. Actually there isn't any real good blog that deals with the silver screen. Complaints aside, let the blogroll begin...
To start with, here I go with my list of all time mood uplifting movies.
Watch this space.

I have wasted an eon of time deciding over the pilot for this blog. I presumed that this forum will be read much like bongshell's or anurag 'Satya' kashyap's huge blog. Needless to add, I was daydreaming again. But anyway, as I watched Living Daylights after a real long time, and discussed it Varun Cobain, there was a moment when I was teleported to the day I felt like this big movie fanatic.
I didnt know that James Bond existed until 1995, that is when Goldeneye was put up and I had to buy a ticket in black to see what is it that makes 007, the man who is so much of everything.
I liked the movie, it was crisp. I also liked Xenia Onatopp and the laser watch, Tina Turner's rendition in the league of Shirley Bassey(whom i discovered 3 years down the line). What I couldnt understand was the weak plot of the opening scene. It wasnt impressive.
The day - now the moment i felt like one, sorry for straying away (what the heck, who reads this anyway), was when I discovered an old video shop, I am talking about the year 1996. This was a huge shop and you had to literally spend like and hour's time to get your movie. It was a basement shop with possibly every movie, it looked like so. And I with oodles of confidence STOLE three movies, You Only Live Twice, Octopussy and Living Daylights. Lucky for me, there were three bonds instead of one or two.

Now why am I talking about these movies and JAMES BOND? The reason is simple - I have heard about how Daniel Craig is not that great a Bond and Casino Royale 2006 is not the typical Bond film. It is dark, it has dry humour and since it traces the commander to the days he was just inducted, there is a lot of charm missing. Also the plot is not what was expected of Bond.
Now, this is not good. I find this to be one hell of a good movie. What happened to Living Daylights in '85 and perhaps On Her Majesty's Secret Service in '69 is being repeated with new words. The reason I feel is the mistake of a man called Richard Maibaum who oscillated between two characterisations that he created, modified, reinvented and presented to the audiences.
The dark Bond of From Russia with Love,which content wise I feel is the best Sean Connery movie ever, had to be given a beating by a certain 'Pussy' in Goldfinger. Then there was the stupid character written for Moore in Live and Let Die that matured only twice - For your eyes only and Spy who loved me. His greying hair sent many yawns to the audience in View to a Kill. The presence of Grace Jones was the interesting factor and a kick ass opening song by Duran Duran. In between came a wooden Aussie called George Lazenby who came close to the character in one of the most amazing works in the series.
But what really took me by surprise and a good one at that was the John Glen feature of 1985. Living Daylights undoubtedly remains (in my head) as the most fantastic movie the Bond franchise ever produced. It was everything that Bond movies werent before. Unfortunately this and its successor both were not appreciated by the audiences. Even Roger Ebert has written a very heeart felt but not to offend the common audience and the critics and purists. I wish he had praised Dalton, Glen, the editor, Derek Meddings and the sound director more.
So, this doesnt form the apt introductory article for my cinema blog, but it has at least rolled the dice. http://cinemaframed.blogspot.com begins with a list of favourite Bond movies with separate articles on trivia and a lot of other stuff.
Off for a smoke and then the show begins....