Cinema as an art?. Review on General Tips on Cinema as an Art

Cinema as an art?

It’s purely for

entertainment. It’s for fun, to forget all the stress that we had the whole day

and then chill. These are the very common answers that you would find to hear

when you ask some one the very question which is asked in the title. It this

very common understanding amongst the audience in India that provides a

completely different work for creative directors, actors, cinematographers, and

writers who to a larger extent try to do something very soulful, highly

creative giving cinema the real meaning, that its an art.

The increase in the use of technology is

making this whole process a bit easy, which carries its own advantages and

disadvantages. Now film makers with low budgets can make excellent films, but

at the same time the human factor of the work is missing. A film may be

technologically superb, but it is soulless if there is no strong script, good

acting and above all appropriate direction to the requirement of script.

Breathtaking locations may be a part of the script, but to base the success of

the film with just that leaves a void in this art. For example a film like

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna would not have been so successful if the location of the

film had been in India.

Locations have a restricted role in film

making, one of the bright examples of which is Neil & Nikki, a horribly

made movie whose only fuel was its foreign locations. Those who think that

making films is as glamorous as saying Lights, Sound and Action, then let me

tell you its one of the most difficult form of communication where a combined

effort of some hundreds with a well conceived script, an understanding

director, well written dialogues and excellent acting performance where actors

live the character is required. Films which win the Oscars have the level of

dedication in the filmmaking that can be easily understood after watching the

film. Indian Cinema is also not lagging behind in its creative abilities, but

it’s far less in number than that in American Film making. Directors from the

late 1930’s like William Wyler, Cecil B De Miller to 1960’s like Alfred

Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and to the recent ones like

Gus Van Sant, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton and other have been quenching this

very thirst of artistic film making, not to forget that American Cinema earns

millions of dollars each year through popular themes. But this phenomenon is

slowly missing in India with very few films and film makers making movies that

can be considered to be master pieces.

Film makers like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam

Benegal and Govind Nihlani have been continuing making cinema with least techie

make up and a lot of good script and acting. Other film makers like Mani

Ratnam, Ashutosh Gowairkar, and Ram Gopal Verma have been trying to put a mix

bag where the film is creative and at the same times makes money so that they

end up finding a financer for their next vernture. Indian cinema at the same

time is also finding young and aspiring writers, directors and actors who are

trying to be largely creative, examples of which can be films like Khosla Ka

Ghosla and No Smoking which were difficult to imagine a few years back. Films

in other Indian Languages are also been increasingly creative, one of the best

example is a Telugu film titled “Anukokunda Oka Roju”( Suddenly One Day), in

which there are literally no loop holes, the script is very good, excellent

communication through dialogues, wonderful cinematography and overall superb

action. But what turned all this in to mockery is a copy of this script and then

a remake in Hindi titled “Sunday” which changed the original thriller script in

to a mockery comedy.

This immediately shows the depth of the lack

of creativity largely and the ease with which scripts can be copied. Probably

the film makers of Sunday though this process to be easier than it really is.

The increasing concern is also the music in most of the films, film makers are

now concentrating in involving independent bands or singers with music

directors and then make a single good song track which gives promotional

mileage to the film. Lack of this is also letting cinema die, slowly. Most of

us get in to the scene in a film due its gripping background score which

lightens or intensifies a particular scene. But this is also slowly missing; an

example is the background in “Halla Bol” which is really very bad. Indian

Cinema can award itself in different places globally and can get to promote

itself. Ironically most of those awarded and most of the promotion is of

commercial cinema which is least creative.

To end

with an optimistic note, Indian Cinema with new rules of market and the

involvement of corporate funding should have a creative outcome than an

enterprise which makes more money for the firms which finance them. Cinema can

be commercialized but not hampering the art in it. Finally a salute to all the

people who gave us master pieces, to all those who are doing so and a warm

welcome to those who are going to do so. May this art live forever.