Many of us are enamoured by the world of movies. Atleast many of us South Indians. We all grow up watching a certain era of movies. The 70s or the 80s or the 90s.. whatever.
We dream of the characters.. We cast them afresh in our mind. Our hearts ache for the characters. When the boy gets the girl, we feel as elated as we'd feel had we won a Nobel. The BGMs keep playing in our ears without our iPods. We dissect, analyse, replay, rework and do everything that the director did, before the movie reached us. Some of us spend more time than the director spent, making the movie. Basically part of our body constitution is cinema. We need air, water, food and cinema.
I'm not a huge fanatic.. but once in a while there comes a movie that shakes my ground. That blows me. My senses freeze. Time stops. I wander in that movieland. I live the characters in my head. I re-listen to the conversations. I try to make sense of everything. I practically spend (or waste, as you may call) a couple of days or a week for that one movie. That's my 'give back' policy to the director. I feel, all this time invested, reaches the director, so he can make more better movies next time.
Recently the ones that took away a huge part of my time were:
The dark knight
Inglorious Basterds
The Lives of Others
Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya.
Maybe because Tamil is my mother tongue I appreciate a well made tamil movie more than English movies. I also like Tamil songs a bit better than other languages.
So, as a somewhat self confessed lover of movies, I have the same problem as Gautham mentioned. He said he has visuals running in his head always. He needs to put that to paper and make the movie.
For me, I have these huge conversations, huge characterisations in my head. How we could have a more interesting lead pair.. more interesting, funny, witty, intellectual dialogues...more realistic settings and occasions where people meet...the obsessions of the characters.. what kind of books do they study? How do they live their life? What songs play in their car? An elegant and respected portrayal of the working woman and her workplace...her knowledge.. most often it's 2 people and conversations. This visual runs almost always. It's a little easier having it in your head. You could choose the faces. You're not limited by market issues. You can twist the characters. You can give them shades. You can show their vulnerability. You have have these fantastic dialogues which the masses may not understand. You can invent a beautiful chemistry between the lead pair. You can have mindblowing love flowing around.
All this in your head, will suffer the lost in translation syndrome, were it to come to paper and from paper to someone else's head to the face (the final acting). How much gets lost?
Also, when you want to make experimental movies with different cast and different narrative styles, the markets and producers hesitate to take a risk. I really doubt how profitable some movies are. Some people make movies just for passion. We recently saw how sick the Vishwaroopam episode turned. Kamal would have gone nuts because of that. We, as citizens have created obstacles for our beloved film makers. We eat and drink their food and we spit on them. When they expect the most, we let them down. Whoever was behind that ugly controversy, which led to loss for Kamal, hail them!
So, here I am.. the visuals running clearly, auto correcting themselves and feeding (and ruining) my other senses. My short movies are not affected by the classes or masses or market demands or corporate production houses. It just runs happily in my head. Only let down is, my work suffers enormously (If, I am working). Else, I make and watch movies for free. I am my own master!
That's a freedom. Someday when you've made too many movies and are exhausted, you may come to this state where you're content with the movie playing just for you.. in your head.
We dream of the characters.. We cast them afresh in our mind. Our hearts ache for the characters. When the boy gets the girl, we feel as elated as we'd feel had we won a Nobel. The BGMs keep playing in our ears without our iPods. We dissect, analyse, replay, rework and do everything that the director did, before the movie reached us. Some of us spend more time than the director spent, making the movie. Basically part of our body constitution is cinema. We need air, water, food and cinema.
I'm not a huge fanatic.. but once in a while there comes a movie that shakes my ground. That blows me. My senses freeze. Time stops. I wander in that movieland. I live the characters in my head. I re-listen to the conversations. I try to make sense of everything. I practically spend (or waste, as you may call) a couple of days or a week for that one movie. That's my 'give back' policy to the director. I feel, all this time invested, reaches the director, so he can make more better movies next time.
Recently the ones that took away a huge part of my time were:
The dark knight
Inglorious Basterds
The Lives of Others
Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya.
Maybe because Tamil is my mother tongue I appreciate a well made tamil movie more than English movies. I also like Tamil songs a bit better than other languages.
So, as a somewhat self confessed lover of movies, I have the same problem as Gautham mentioned. He said he has visuals running in his head always. He needs to put that to paper and make the movie.
For me, I have these huge conversations, huge characterisations in my head. How we could have a more interesting lead pair.. more interesting, funny, witty, intellectual dialogues...more realistic settings and occasions where people meet...the obsessions of the characters.. what kind of books do they study? How do they live their life? What songs play in their car? An elegant and respected portrayal of the working woman and her workplace...her knowledge.. most often it's 2 people and conversations. This visual runs almost always. It's a little easier having it in your head. You could choose the faces. You're not limited by market issues. You can twist the characters. You can give them shades. You can show their vulnerability. You have have these fantastic dialogues which the masses may not understand. You can invent a beautiful chemistry between the lead pair. You can have mindblowing love flowing around.
All this in your head, will suffer the lost in translation syndrome, were it to come to paper and from paper to someone else's head to the face (the final acting). How much gets lost?
Also, when you want to make experimental movies with different cast and different narrative styles, the markets and producers hesitate to take a risk. I really doubt how profitable some movies are. Some people make movies just for passion. We recently saw how sick the Vishwaroopam episode turned. Kamal would have gone nuts because of that. We, as citizens have created obstacles for our beloved film makers. We eat and drink their food and we spit on them. When they expect the most, we let them down. Whoever was behind that ugly controversy, which led to loss for Kamal, hail them!
So, here I am.. the visuals running clearly, auto correcting themselves and feeding (and ruining) my other senses. My short movies are not affected by the classes or masses or market demands or corporate production houses. It just runs happily in my head. Only let down is, my work suffers enormously (If, I am working). Else, I make and watch movies for free. I am my own master!
That's a freedom. Someday when you've made too many movies and are exhausted, you may come to this state where you're content with the movie playing just for you.. in your head.
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