The funny business of Films
I wanted to write a post on the film I saw last night. As with most mundane of offerings, the more worse off the product is, the more creative my critique becomes. This suffices but you start to lose your zeal when everything you watch is mundane, irrelevent and just plain old bad. Its becoming a sad plight, I love the movies. Its one art form that captured me young and has never let go. I ache to be able to go to a film and feel moved, to feel... But apart from the growing DVD nights, the multiplex doesn't satisfy & its disappointing.
So instead of another ranting on another bad flick, this is a ranting on the whole big picture.
Zantos wrote about the Danish TV show about kidney donation & to continue that discussion, here are my thoughts.
The media business is set to explode all across the world. I can imagine salivating executives coming out their conferences with numbers buzzing in their heads, new jargons flying about like saucers and a triumphant boss rubbing his hands with glee shouting "Show me the money!"
Technology has created new ways to create content, new ways to distribute it and new ways to digest it. So the going should be great but it isn't. Why?
Because no one knows how, why or what that 'content' should say. Over last month I met many so called important movie executives & it all seemed so strange. They all have money, bags of it . They all want movies which are different, which are cool, which are meaningful but don't know where to look. They proudly stake their claim to spot a winner because now they have a 'script' department. What they don't mention is that this script department is two nubile young things working on subsistence pay to read and judge scripts. Who are they, what is their qualification and on what basis do they judge.
I wrote a script some moons ago, but never took it out anywhere. No I wasn't scared of the judgment but yes I was scared of who would pronounce this judgment. Whose subjective sensibilities would make my destiny? Whose own childhood memory, first love, college experience, his first pay, the car or the humble train e/she took to work would decide what I offer is of what quality?
And herein lies the problem. On one side of the stage are the waiting audience needing entertainment, information, insights. And on the other side of the gangway is the executives wanting to deliver, wanting to satisfy this apparent need and make some serious moolah.
In the middle are the artists - not knowing on whose directions to move. Who pulls the strings? The money men who'll offer them a chance? The audience who will make them a star? Or themselves & that voice in their heads that made them come to this tentative world of struggles & souls?
And so we get the kidney doner show, the movie with all the resources but no resolution, the song with all the pomp but no voice, the art with all its shenanigans but no voice.
We are developing so fast & there are so many opportunities but no training, no world -view, no ethical conundrum, no definition of taste, no political stand point, no basis in the role we play in the world. No clue how are actions and our work acutely affect and create a new consciousness. No idea of long term impacts and absolutely no concern that as a small or large part of the media, of the world, we leave our imprints in one way another.
Apologies, this turned out to be a highly personal stream of consciousness piece but then true love does always have the deepest agony :)
