Holiday Special

I Placed A Call to a Friend

I placed my call to a friend this afternoon. I’d got his number from his wife who asked her son to give it to me. Last time when he had called me, it was from his wife’s cell; so I had that saved on my cell. She just received the call, heard me and handed over the phone to her son. He said they were traveling and I can take the number for his father. Somehow, although I am not able to put a finger on it yet, I felt that they were both rather cold and indifferent. Anyway, I spoke to them nicely, took down the number and thanked the young man who just kept quiet so I had to cut the line. Then I discovered I had got one digit wrong. I finally corrected that and spoke to my friend who seemed lonesome and was suffering from some throat infection which is spread all over Bombay. Sounding like an old Films Division commentary speaker he spoke to me till my battery ran down, as usual. He reconnected and I invited him here and called off. What saddened me during our otherwise normal course of conversation was the fact that a brilliant and innovative sound recordist should find himself thrown out of the fray simply because technology has changed from analog to digital. He was sounding so forlorn. No big studios, no grand machines. No Nagara tape recorder! All gone. Huge empires like Prasad Studios going to seed. No takers for him and his abilities. He said he too is a ‘one man show’ who goes to places like Satyajit Ray Film School to find lucrative ways for disposing their obsolete equipment. A consultant for trash; waste disposal. No wonder the young do not look upon him as a well fitting, oiled cog in the machine and therefore have no respect for a man as wonderful and humble, intelligent, quiet and soft spoken as him. But it was good that we talked. Another friend, a good old Cameraman would be facing similar throw backs of fast changing technology. In a sense we, the so called ‘lovers of Cinema’, who wish to see the state of art of Cinema grow as fine Art and are sad due to the media, rather multi media tornado sweeping all fine things away and saturating our air with toxic invisible vibrations, creating dust and gloom of cheap MP3 like ‘time pass muck’; we are victim of the same phenomenon. My only consolation is that these are passing fancies. The faster they come the faster they go. That Cinema, like any other Fine Art Form will also have to take its time to mature. A quill, a fountain pen or a ball point is not the thing, its Poetry and Literature, calligraphy. It’s a fine thing that technology influences content but evolution of any art form has to go through all these better or worse modifications. They may not actually be for the worse in the long run; vinyl LPs are making a come back with analog sound systems costing the earth! There is nothing to beat a Grand Piano, Stradivarius Violen or an ancient Vichittra Veena. The sound timber of a nice, old, well seasoned acoustic guitar is something else again. The digital cloud shall pass and the worm shall keep turning! That is what I say, and I said it to him. There is only one thing and that is that technicians do not share the optimism of an Artist. They are there to handle machines; they are not driven by ‘vision’, by aesthetics, by philosophy, ideology; by emotion, passion and longing; by a calling, by the devastating urge to get under the skin of fellow beings; which is what makes or breaks an Artist in the last analysis. Which is what keeps us alive and kicking; unaffected by physical aging we remain forever free and young; some of us actually become more childlike and more innocent, full of eternal wonder and awe as we mature. That is something that I thought our technician friends do not share with Rahat and Vishnu.

08:30 PM.

Nurturing an Art form, a new, budding one called the Cinema is not an easy task. Unlike Music, Painting, Dance, Poetry, Sculpture and the Theatre, Cinema has come to us late in civilizational time frame. One can safely say that it is a tiny little infant and within the first few days of its birth and because it is so beautiful, nasty demons such as advertising and propaganda, technology and greed for consumerism as well as some evil spirits like ghosts of Drama and Music have all conspired to abduct it. They feel its power will give them strength for further exploitation of the mass hysteria. They may be right in a narrow, myopic way. Our baby, however, needs to nourish itself before it provides for others. Its mothers are all the Muses and it must suckle at the essence, the milk from the bosoms of all those foster mothers. It will absorb all the six or seven types of juices and gradually develop into a bonny baby. If its life span is to be comparable to other Arts it is clear that this baby will be a long time getting weaned from mother’s milk and start chewing upon life itself for nourishment, there will need to be a very long nurturing and an equally long weaning period. This in real time and space would mean that centuries and generations shall have to look after it keeping the glorious vision and the sound of its wailing, crying and gurgling, looking after its physical security and psychological needs. We shall have to be as careful as doting mothers, right now, as this is the most vulnerable period in the growth and development of its faculties and because suddenly so many evil spirits have materialized to haunt and harm it.

This sort of framework ought to give us our true sense of calling; as guardians, as stewards, as guides and care givers for our Cinema. We must play with it, keep ourselves amused and not lose a sense of the sacred involved in formulating Art as an image of god itself; god can be said to be eternal life force and will to truth. We must never falsify the truth of Cinema as we know it nor must we ever try to subvert it in the guise of loving care as some greedy mothers are prone to do.

As for Cinema Art Practice, the ‘Reyaz’, so to speak; I would like to take a simple example from my own life; playing a simple tune on my guitar. A tune that I already know intimately; not only the notes and rhythm but the nuances and emotional framework of the tune are clear to my mind. Actually I can hum it, whistle it as it keeps revolving in my right hemisphere. Now if I want to play that tune on my guitar, let me see what must be present and functioning at the same fraction of time when the notes form and I hear them. I take it that I am fairly dexterous at my instrument and that I know basics of music; the language, theory and practice.

There must be silence both in my head and in surroundings. I must be seated in correct posture with a well tuned instrument. My nails must be cut exactly and smooth so that the fret work is correct and plectrum does not slip and slide. There should be light enough so that I can see where I am playing on fret board. My stomach should not be heavy and my spirit should be light. Now if for music practice so much is involved and all these elements ought to be present at the same time, then it can be seen as to how much care has to be taken if one say, wants to take a ‘shot’. This simple, basic unit of Cinematic architecture is perhaps one of the most difficult and mysterious event that must take place repeatedly, throughout the process of shooting. It must have a consistency of constituent elements as well as inspiration. If for such a thing as music practice one wavers and gropes for inspiration after say 20 minutes, how can one keep a constant quality of inspiration shot after shot for say a fortnight of shooting? This is only the basic requirement. One needs to know what a ‘shot’ is. Why is it to be of certain duration, what it should include and what must be excluded. When in a given piece of action ought a shot to begin and when should it be ‘cut’ and why? What precedes the specific shot being taken and what is to succeed it? Should the composition be ‘static’ or ‘mobile’? What light condition is to be present for it to become ‘the shot’ and not just any thing that a camera can always record. Then one has to know what comparable and contrasting elements between a ‘still’ photographic shot and cinematographic shot are. What are the qualifications of a ‘motion picture shot’?  What is ‘montage’ and ‘mis-en-scene are questions to be asked later.

Usually, in motion picture production ‘shooting’ is the most hectic period. For one thousand different reasons tensions and tempers always mount. All sorts of so called ‘unit members’ are involved in all sorts of personal, ego or greed driven objectives and desires. The Director is perhaps the only man alive who has any sympathy for any or some of the above mentioned elements. And how, the Director, being pushed and pulled from all sides to keep his vision, his inspiration and even the constituent elements in mind, prey, unless he is a ‘Yogi’ a ‘Rishi or a muni? What I’m trying to suggest is that film making as an art form depends on shot taking at the base level. For any reasonably decent film shoot, therefore it is of paramount importance that a certain vibratory coherence prevails. That there be no extraneous distractions, that everyone ought to be well fed on light, oil free food so that their energies soar like a young bird, the one that wants to fly to the moon, one called ‘chakor’. That everybody should work from a position of sympathy and trust for the Director to enjoy a stress free space wherein he or she can dispense verbal instructions in material form for the vision floating in his mind’s eye. These dispensations are once again the jargon one must not misuse, composition, lighting, focal length, movement, the exposure and focus, texture and color of the intended image; all of these intangibles have to be translated into specific instructions in specific jargon for specific technicians and then comes the most intriguing  human relations fix, the actor/director dialogue. This can really be the limit. It can make or break the whole enterprise. How is one to communicate with an actor?  Now, take all that and push it up the view finder! Lo and behold you have a ‘shot’.

So it is not easy. Filming has to be one of the most enjoyable, relaxed and inspired events in a motion picture production. Editing ought to be like ‘club class’ really; not like a barber shop in a cantonment because, like so many aspects of life, film making too is separated in active and contemplative sections. Life being active one sits in contemplation while writing script. Shooting is an active phase and editing once again is the most contemplative period in film production; I include mixing sounds in this same life infusing stage where Cinema can be evoked. Then of course, we have the active phase when we go out to show our movie. When we mix and mingle with life once more, a specific movie having been delivered as if it were.

I merely ask if any one could create conditions of such a framework of reference within Industrial conditions, where maximizing ‘profits’ in the basic aim. Only a Michelangelo Antonioni could enjoy such a climate of creativity or Robert Bresson; what about you and me? And I answer that yes, DV has today, rather since some time now, made exactly just that possible. And that is my hope. I regard technological changes with due respect and take what suits me for advancement of Cinematic articulation, and I chuck the rest on the mountain of electronic garbage that has already accumulated around the World.

Rahat Yusufi (FTII, Direction, 1969)