Tag: film-noir

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cinema Essay

A Society Under The Influence

So yes this is a reactionary post(sad, always like to be proactive).

I have not seen Arjun Reddy/ Kabir Singh; even when I see it I am sure to dislike it(prejudice alert), but that is because I dislike most movies, it also because we make a lot of dislike-able movies. 

But there is also something to like in all films. What I take away is my own.

As is usual a certain section of well meaning, focused on the future types telling (yelling) about the values of the leading man in the films above mentioned. They have also qualified saying that this is not just about the values but also because the Sandeep Reddy Vanga film ‘glorifies’ such disgusting values.

Somewhere in these cautionary posts of value education would be the mention of the over influence of movies as a whole on society. As a constant movie watcher I would like to agree that movies are influential to the individual, but what these activist uncle types don’t get is that source of influences are multifarious and never really pinpoint.

<I like to use the word uncle a lot, this is not something I picked up from the movies, but maybe because I like to use uncle because I don’t like to use swear words. I dunno, I don’t want to psychoanalyze myself to death, so whenever I use uncle it can be substituted to a word of your choice>

So yes, uncles think there is some kind of linear relationship between the content (or malcontent as they would say) in movies and the depletion of our value system.

Again, they have only good intentions, but they get only linearity, maybe they did social sciences. So they immediately get enraged and come to conclusions that if guy watches a certain actor’s films and stalks girls then surely movie only gave him the idea, where in reality it could be multiple inputs of different magnitude for a person to make any action.

Guy treating gal badly-hey stop showing such things in movies- sooo toxic etc- but guy could have watched his father do it.

Influences are multifarious and come in different sizes and their impact too.

Second question to uncles is that would you really want movies to be the moral compass for the next generation? 

If you really are so concerned about falling values then you must be in a position of greater influence to tell next gen of what good values are and more importantly tell them to avoid movies with bad values.

But here of course, uncles want to just shout at filmmakers for having bad values, not realizing filmmakers themselves are under multiple influences and their values are a resultant.

A good activist uncle who truly believes in the values he wants next gen to have will work himself to become a bigger influence than the movies that he so hates, or he could put trust in his upbringing system and in the next gen wards to choose the best for themselves.

Unfortunately, uncles will do neither, they seem to have understood that movies are soft targets and probably gain from taking moral high ground. Uncles also want to be seen as commentators on art etc. Lool, that’s another long post.

I believe that deep down people know what people are doing(mostly with their own code), so I also have a code to illustrate this. Simplified in the form of three truths.

1. Movies are movies

2. Life is life

3. Uncles will be uncles.

See, three distinct things, no confusion. It is perfectly possible to bring up the next generation with the simple notion that movies and life are different things seldom do they intersect.

But hey, movies are fun. The problem lies only when in social studies driven shixx analysis of it. 

The manual of which is below:

“Every comment on a movie should be a statement (socio-political), every movie should be about some big social theme. Even superhero movies must have some substance”

Social studies analysis be like

X/Y movie is very important because it deals with social factor Z in which director A has infused political theory B but using modern & commercial elements to illustrate the stigma around C

or a trashy analysis would be like

X/Y the movie should not exist (because toxic something something) in the first place now A/B has tried to remake it in some other language. It’s all very toxic and people are clapping in cinema halls and I fear they will these people will turn into mobs and collectively bring down our society etc. X/Y movies must be banned.

Social studies driven shixx analysis has effectively ruined whatever fun movies had little in them for me and I effectively try and avoid reading much into them. At least I am not calling for a ban on social issue based analysis of film- I only say it is an easy way to analyse any art because there will always be problems in society. Unlike  how some uncles are intolerable of movies that show bad values. 

If I want to know about social issues and human suffering( no I really don’t, call me anything) I won’t reach out for a movie because I have encoded values which immediately shout into my ears

Movies are movies

Life is life

and in a much softer tone ” go read a book or something”

A note on Chinatown

Chinatown is one of my favourite films, I also consider it (from my limited understanding of film) one of the greatest films ever made.

It’s got a great cast, Jack Nicholson playing a Marlowe type detective who gets sucked into situations far greater than his doing. Made in the seventies and in colour, but is very much a fascinating take on film noir- a great score, brilliant visuals, a twisted screenplay and a climax that shocks me every time I see it. 

Oh Chinatown  is also about the politics behind water,abuse of power, city corruption and red tap-ism in Los Angeles.

Why did I go off tangent with Chinatown? Ah yes-the need to learn ‘good’ values from film cannot be imposed. Vice versa- bad values too are not immediately lapped up.

Everyone takes home something different from it(that takeaway could be something even the director or writer did not intend), many could very well miss the societal aspects of Chinatown and some could miss its hat-tips to film noir. 

Chinatown is not great because it tackles these social issues, it is great despite it. 

It is great because it tells a great story. That’s what great movies are all about.

Distill that even further, that’s what movies are about. They can be good or bad irrespective of theme or issues addressed or abused. 

“Forget it uncles, these are just movies”

A short note on values 

I have my own or whatever I believe in, three of which I have shared with you already; similarly social values is a collective of all our individual values that doesn’t mean all our values are the same. 

It is also that these values do undergo a lot of change over time. 

Just because a movie is seen by a lot of people does not increase the responsibility quotient of the filmmaker, he/she has the same responsibility like everyone of us. What he conveys is his set of values and what we take away is based on ours. 

Do not forsake important things like values to films and filmmakers and expect to learn from them. 

Summary for some

  1. Influences are many for any action
  2. Filmmakers are easy targets 
  3. Filmmakers have the same social responsibility as the rest of us (not more) 
  4. It is easy to overestimate the influence of movies and underestimate the influence of other factors.
  5. Movies are movies
  6. Life is life
  7. Belief in law is more effective than belief in outrage
  8. Keep watching movies, they are fun

Fin. 

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Books cinema:english Essay Essential viewing Movie Notes Uncategorized

Out of The Past: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

 

FML6 copyI have concluded that reading Raymond Chandler at an impressionable age has contributed the most to my further life choices, be it ‘literature’, movies, terse sentences and of course typing in the ‘courier new’ font.

Chandler started writing when the oil industry crashed and he had nothing much left to do, his creation reflects himself; being weary is his core competence.

If I could go back and play the irritating game invented for social engagement, ‘describe your creation in just one word’, Chandler would have said “tired”. If he was kind, he would add, “I’m tired. Enough!” As always breaking the rules.

So when there is a delay in our usual blog posts, it is probably because we are generally tired. Tired of ourselves, tired of the world, tired and yet careful not to add the growing empty mass that is film writing.  Readers must be thankful in that case.

We forgot to add one word to the above: growing boring empty mass that is film writing.

Boring.

 

 “You’re a very good-looking man to be in this kinda business”

Enter Robert Mitchum

Marlowe is supposed to be in his mid-thirties in the works, curiously but not unnatural the best portrayals of the private eye has come from very old ‘has-seen-it-all’ men.

Bogart was in his forties and Robert Mitchum almost touching sixty, it’s that kind of a role. It requires that kind of experience, it is the ‘hamlet’ of all detective roles, no I’m not joking. A sequel to the Big Sleep was called ‘Perchance to Dream’ which is from the famous of all famous soliloquies.

People and war have made our hero tired, and out of this tiredness comes sparkling wisdom.

Why does Marlowe still do it?

FML4

For the much quoted “25 dollars a day plus expenses?”

Nah, Marlowe doesn’t snoop around for money, but he doesn’t evoke moral mightiness too, he certainly doesn’t identify with a cause or putting criminal behind bars. Thankfully he is not insufferable with his ‘genius’ and actually very funny, like a real person.

I guess he just likes looking at people and what they do.

Looking brings us to Robert Mitchum, in many ways the spiritual remnant of Bogart’s distant masculinity, but looking at Mitchum’s eyes we know that this present sadness had once seen sparkle, that alone makes me feel that Mitchum is truer as Marlowe.

Marlowe watches because he knows that deep down all the depravity there is some tenderness, that’s all he looks for in a client, not money, not name, not fame. And he will do anything to look at that tiny true part of yourself.

Evil doesn’t startle him as much as innocence and goodness

People first, plot go to hell

 

For Chandler, the plot was secondary, the characters weren’t, he would never describe anyone unfairly nor would he puncture them for the sake of plot.

An open opponent of this whole locked room plotting business made him see people as people and not as clues or alibi to get going to the next page.

Marlowe is the same wise-ass to the police as he is to the crooks. An ending in a Chandler story is not its logical conclusion or hurrah for its hero, but the acceptance of reality.

The thread of Farewell My Lovely the film is very simple and it follows the book closely, just out of jail thug Moose Malloy wants to get his girl back. Will Marlowe do it or not?

And the hits keep on coming

FML1

Marlowe is always narrating his tale, when we meet him he is just out of a case, naturally tired; Mitchum looks like he just wants to go home but cannot when confronted by his innocent of a thug client.

Within moments Marlowe becomes the centre-piece of a worm caught in a web, and all he does is just give a sideward glance.

Very easy to be dismissed as non-acting, especially in the age that we live in (as in the golden age of non-acting); but I think tiredness is difficult to bring out as an emotion without being dramatic.

Mitchum gets hit on the head, shot at, danced with, seduced by, but all through the film but he plays it like a detective who knows the ending every single time, people will be people.

I don’t really care about the twist in the end

There is a twist in the end, but the film (naturally the novel) is not moving towards it a big reveal way, for fans of detective fiction and crime thrillers this could prove dampening.

Many things happen and so does a twist.

Detection truly could be one of the most boring jobs if not for the humongous amounts of exciting literature written about it.

<pause for reflection>

Maybe all jobs are boring or it is the nature of them to become boring. But somehow Marlowe and hence Mitchum(because of his ability to understand the character) seem to have cracked it.

This detective is a seeker of the intangible, something remote and indescribable as human kindness, that is his spiritual quest, something not even the thighs of a femme fatale or the muzzle of a gun could distract him from.

Hamlet of the detective class, indeed.

That’s an admirable state to be in and this is an admirable movie.

FML2

 

Out of the past is our series on movies that are anything but current,new,fresh etc; we find the idea of film writing just for the sake of a movie release distressing and also it demeans the timelessness of film itself. Mad or what, we won’t be reviewing old films,just writing about them.

 

 

 

Categories
cinema cinema:english Essay

MODERN PROMETHEUS

MODERN PROMETHEUS

 (Or)

Looking at film through Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron

avengers-age-of-ultron-comic-con-14-poster-full-hd

Immaterial as it may be our opinion on this state, the movies that our generation will be associated with will be the comic book movie, three words now very close to my heart.

The comic book movie now, is the film noir of the past, the western of its time, a broad genre defining a certain time and recalling a certain sentiment. Like the above genres that have been mentioned, the comic book movie will surely get its due, but only in the future.

This sudden construction of a pedestal for the comic book movie is because I truly believe that the comic book movie has in fact erased the boundaries between word and visual which is something every great literary adaptation aims to be, comic books being truly the most visual amongst the printed forms of literature. The comic book movie is also accelerator in the fusion of the genres, and this is because of the variety that each comic character offer.

“Man creates his own demons”

Avengers_Age_of_Ultron_68640

In Age of Ultron, Tony Stark fears for the future of the planet and creates a protective force under the hood. Ultron would be A.I enabled Iron Men to be called onto provide eternal peace for our planet, but as we can all guess, this save the world vanity project (TDKR reference done) goes not only out of hand but also turns back on its creator.

If we are looking to track the genetic genealogy of Avengers: Age of Ultron, then it is most certainly Mary Shelley’s gothic classic Frankenstein, only increment action here and there and populate the screen with powerful beings.

Some of the problems that people had with Ultron was that, the movie did not perhaps have a powerful villain, but I found that this movie had more character than its predecessor; because here (Ultron) there is no reason to create a powerful villain to justify and the characters have already been established.

The end is a more relaxed picture, where the intention is not to be blown away by the graphics of it all, but to go on this adventure with this bunch of misfits who are now emotionally charged rather than charged with heroics, and there is the inter-super banter!

Whedon also indulges momentarily into 1950s territory, the super hero movie giving way to over the bar talk between the troubled in-love damsel (Natasha Romanoff played by the super talented ScarJo) and the world weary-cynical-removed hero (Dr. Bruce Banner). A masterstroke of a love track between the noises.

This is the kind of genre inter-operate ability that is interesting for me to watch.

With Marvel trying to impress us with release dates for mega movies in the years to come, an Avengers movie is no longer about why and how the Avengers trounce their enemies, but about the characters, these heroes and their feelings, the setting, the worlds, the words. Action and villains can take the rear.

I was a partial Marvel movie convert after Iron-Man 3 and a fully changed man after the second Captain America flick and it seems I will remain so after Ultron. I hope that these films are seen beyond than what they are intended for, but I am sure it will now be an un-ignorable thing in the recent future, but right now if you go and tell your friend that Avengers:Ultron is about the perils of creativity and questions if man can really play God, super-men in this case, you will probably be chuckled at.

Post Script to Ultron

**** Captain America is amazing! (as if we needed to tell you that, this is also my answer to “which is your favourite avenger?” question”

****Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic horror novel Frankenstein was subtitled Modern Prometheus as it mirrored the mythical tale, we have smartly made it the title for our Avengers: Ultron piece (we are amazing!). Our subtitle of course is over ambitious, I must confess.

****This piece was written under the utter influence of the Ultron soundtrack, specifically the “heroes” track. Soundtrack composed bby Brian Tyler and Danny Elfman.

**** Most of the times when we say Ultron we mean Avengers: Age of Ultron the movie and not the villain.

Thank you for reading.

Categories
cinema cinema:english

FORGET ME NOT

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Naked pair of feet, running on cold asphalt, headlights catches her image and car swivels out of control edging into the wilderness. Only that the driver of the car had been Mike Hammer, private detective.

Unsettling right from the beginning ‘Kiss me Deadly’ narrates events as bizarre as possible and somehow keeps the mystery till the very end, this in fact is the success of the film is what I believe; the very inability not only in classifying the film but also in describing it.

Mickey Spillane’s contribution to the world of pulp, Mike Hammer is the tough guy equivalent of a fox, playing the dice on both sides of the table for so long, Mike Hammer is awakened morally by a near naked girl running away from the mad house; who speaks at length on poetry and psychoanalysis in the short time she accompanies him, and so begins his quest.

Through the course of the film Mike meets person after person in a desperate attempt to find ‘that’ secret , with each person mouthing out their own philosophies and having hidden agendas, after a point it seems however that there is no apparent agenda other than the suppression of secrets.

People might argue about the film’s wafer thin plot, but now close to sixty years after the films initial release; the director smiles through the film signifying how plot intricacies are so yesterday. But then Robert Aldrich botches up a last minute explanation for the whole thing, I don’t know if the film would have reached a greater audience if any such explanation was not given; but it would have been more sincere than ‘those’ three words.

Kiss me Deadly is one of the most intriguing movies I have ever seen, instils a sense that cinema is essentially visual than verbal, having said  that the dialog here sparkles too; a default characteristic of film noir . Even while watching it, we will realize it is unlike any other.