MAY 19– Among the treasures that spilled from a Bernardo Bertolucci boxed set that’s currently cannibalising my leisure time (or should that be work time?) is La Sua Giornata Di Gloria (His Day of Glory), a partner-documentary to Partner. From the opening minutes, a few words I feel compelled… nay, impelled to share:
“The spectator must actively participate in the show with his vigilant attention and critical spirit. As Barbaro said, ‘The suggestiveness of cinema as performance doesn’t exist. It depends only on the ingenuity of the person who contemplates the film.‘ In the early days, a train coming towards the cinema stalls made the audience run out. There’s even a story about a Carabiniere who actually fired his pistol at the bad guy on the screen. These days, no one shoots at the screen any more. Cinema is no longer an irresistible illusion.”
“Rather, it’s the screen that shoots at the audience. Indeed, it bombards them, trying to influence them. It’s a concentric attempt to recapture the lost irresistibility of cinema with 3-D films, subliminal messages, divas and myths, but, above all, with slogans like, ‘Go to the movies to relax! To forget! To stop thinking!’ No… I tell you to go to the cinema to resist! Oppose the film, or any performance you see. Question it while it’s underway. Agree with it, disagree with it, but don’t remain passive! Don’t let yourself be invaded by the images!”
PS: The Barbaro referred to, above, is this (relatively) unheralded gent. And the portion in bold is the only thing that interests me as a critic (or, you know, discussion-generator). I have little truck with what the director wants to accomplish, or whether a scene was intentionally designed so or if it was the result of a happy accident. The only thing that matters is how the film on screen speaks to me, namely “the person who contemplates the film.”
PPS: And speaking of Bertolucci, here’s one of my favourite scenes from Last Tango in Paris, where Brando is the very embodiment of how Pauline Kael described him in her review, “a drunk with a literary turn of mind.” (This may also be the scene that inspired Kamal Hassan’s chillingly profane outburst against the grandmother he so loved, and who has now abandoned him in her death. The film, of course, is the marvellous Virumaandi, which — unlike Anbe Sivam, which has diminished alarmingly with each viewing (and to paraphrase the Energizer Bunny) — just keeps growing and growing and growing.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Just Another Film Buff
May 19, 2010
Thanks for sharing this, BR.
Umberto B’s third paragraph serves to remind why film criticism, like filmmaking, is a political act.
Authorial Intentionality has been a very interesting topic of discussion for me last year. My point is that if the evidence for an inference is there in the work of art, why bother trying to figure out if it was the artist’s intention to put it there?
This is how the great Robin Wood ends his essay on Psycho: “Hitchcock is a much greater artist than he knows”
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ramesh
May 19, 2010
barbero is not an ‘unheralded” gent, he was pretty well known in jean renoir and andre bazin’s time(the pre new wave times) as some sort of a studio critic for Italian 20’s and 30’s cinema of di sica(early version) carnieri and ophuls.
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brangan
May 19, 2010
JAFB: The third para is not UB’s. It’s the narrator’s. UB’s is just that quote tucked into the second para.
ramesh: “Unheralded” in the sense he’s certainly not someone whose name readily comes up as an institution like Bazin (or even Kael, in the more “popular” spectrum). I guess it was because Italy wasn’t quite the cinematic force that France was — in terms of both filmmaking as well as writing (Cahiers and so on).
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ramesh
May 19, 2010
rangan,
thats because realism in cinema sort of went out of fashion with the french leftists. dude was an early champion of Italian neorealism(some claim he coined the phrase, although thats in dispute) the bazin-cahiers championed cinematic idealism held its own . I remember a bazin article where he critiqued realism (referring directly to barbiero and disica ,as a “representation of reality no different than storytelling” ill try and find a link..
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Rahul
May 20, 2010
JAFB and BR, I remember having read that by Robin Wood a long time ago so correct me if I am wrong, but
1. Isn’t Wood an observer of the auteur theory as well?
2. How does one reconcile the auteur theory with the non significance of “authorial intentionality”?
If the suggestive of cinema “depends only on the ingenuity of the person who contemplates the film”, then isn’t the auteur theory rendered irrelevant?
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brangan
May 20, 2010
Rahul: They’re not irreconciliable. An auteur can still make the movie he wants, with his stamp all over it, and be primarily responsible for how it turns out. This, however, is about the other side, the deconstruction part. Hitchcock can still have Marnie walk away on the platform with a yellow handbag but that doesn’t stop me (or any viewer) from having theories about the handbag that may NOT be what Hitchcock intended.
Because we’re getting into deconstruction here, where the meaning of the film rests in the tale, not the teller (like DH Lawrence said). But that said, any number of people could take away any number of things from a Wong Kar-Wai film, but yet each one will acknowledge the “authorial” signatures in them — the constants like time, doomed love, and so on. These “constant components” are very much in tune with the auteur theory of how a film is MADE and it’s not irreconciliable with how a film is VIEWED (in a deconstructionist sense).
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ramesh
May 20, 2010
BR
are sure it’s deconstructionist and not something to do with the ambiguity of lacanian markers in a semiotic sense 😉
!ust messing with you.
the auteur theory predates both semiotics and deconstruction and so cannot answer questions of meanings and significance of text..
after all _ an author is hardly responsible for history any more than a lamb is responsible for the person that consumes it.
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Bala
May 20, 2010
On an aside, I had the shock of my life recently while reading a piece by Roger Ebert when I realized that Godard was still alive and making films.Link to the article below.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/05/cannes_5_waiting_for_godard.html
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Rahul
May 20, 2010
That’s a nice explanation. Adding to it, sometimes when there is ambiguity in interpretation, the viewer in his process of deconstruction can invoke the auteur theory, referencing similar scene in another movie which he can interpret,and that would enrich his experience.
On the other hand, the auteur theory is itself susceptible to subjectivity as in, two different viewers might see different signatures in the same author’s work.
So, authorial signature(auteur theory) and the deconstruction process have a co-dependent relationship.
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brangan
May 20, 2010
JAFB: Also, a funny aside about the point you make, “if the evidence for an inference is there in the work of art, why bother trying to figure out if it was the artist’s intention to put it there?” When I first started writing reviews, I’d get a lot of comments about how I was “reading too much into the film” or how I am “seeing things that are not there” (i.e. unverifiable as the director’s intention). And I used to say, “Well, they may not exist to your eyes, but how can you say they aren’t there for me?” I don’t get those comments any more, which means my readers have either given up with a weary sigh, or they’ve come around to the dark side 😉
Rahul: Reg. “So, authorial signature(auteur theory) and the deconstruction process have a co-dependent relationship.” I wouldn’t say they have a “relationship” as such because the former is about how a film is MADE and the latter is about how a film is VIEWED.
1. You can be deconstructionist about an auteurial film.
2. You can be deconstructionist about a non-auteurial film, i.e. a piece of hackwork.
3. You can be non-deconstructionist about an auteurial film. (i.e. you may read only what the teller wants, and not what’s in the tale.)
4. You can be non-deconstructionist about a non-auteurial film, in which case, you pretty much just sit back and sack out 🙂
That’s the beauty of movie-watching. The same person can adopt any of these methods of viewing a film. But yes, you are very right about “the auteur theory is itself susceptible to subjectivity as in, two different viewers might see different signatures in the same author’s work.” But in general, someone considered an auteur would be so singular in his preoccupations that there’d be little room for doubt about what those signatures ARE, even if there are ambiguities (or differences in opinion) about what those signatures MEAN.
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ramesh
May 20, 2010
and sometimes what they are is what they mean.
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ramesh
May 20, 2010
the last quip reminded me of a scene from michael madana kama rajan ‘what do you mean’ ‘i mean what I mean’ ‘aiaio enna elaarum meen meenngral!’
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Rahul
May 20, 2010
“I wouldn’t say they have a “relationship” as such because the former is about how a film is MADE and the latter is about how a film is VIEWED. ”
Agreed. I perhaps wanted to say that they influence each other, but “co dependent relationship” sounded like a cool phrase 🙂
Though I disagree with you that there is a possibility that there can be no deconstruction. If the author himself is not deliberate or willful about a signature,then how can “you may read only what the teller wants” ?
I think the authorial signature is empirical in nature. It has a descriptive instead of a prescriptive function.
Every film has some authorial signature; but will differ in degree. Every viewing of cinema would involve a deconstruction but would differ in degree.
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vidyut
May 20, 2010
So, the guy who is accused of “Vidiya, Vidiya, Ramayanam Kaettuttu …” wasn’t really wrong after all? All manner of (mis)interpretations are ok? Sounds like a voodoo theory .. Or, maybe that wasn’t the intent ? 🙂
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vijay
May 21, 2010
For me Kamal’s performance in Virumandi pales in front of what he did in Anbe Sivam, easily his best in the last decade. Although as a whole movie the latter worked only in parts while Virumandi soars. In Virumandi, after seeing Kothaalath devar, annalakshmi and Peikaaman, I thought that Kamal would have been best served sticking to his work behind the camera and leaving the lead role to someone else. He was a distant fourth behind those other three in effortless acting. In fact the casting was so perfect that ironically Kamal casting himself was the letdown. Neither his looks, nor his usual mannerisms(be it the oppaari scene or the romantic scenes with Abhirami) fit in with the rest of the crowd, who looked like they were picked right out of a village somewhere in interior Madurai.
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vijay
May 21, 2010
I’ll add even Rohini and Napoleon’s cameos to the list of fine casting/direction. Kamal pretty much scores in those depts. in his Rajkamal films.Might have picked up a thing or two from KB. But the actor in Kamal has’nt had much to do these past 10 yrs or so.Maybe it is time for a permanent role switch.
I am definitely not looking forward to the next KS Sorikumar-directed romantic triangle with Thayirsaadham Maddy and Trisha.
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vijay
May 21, 2010
So are we going to be deconstructionist about Ramanarayan’s latest classic or not? It has all the usual auteur touches-presence of reptiles(or transformers this time), a 5-yr kid as the lead, Graphics as an aid to storytelling and such.
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vijay
May 21, 2010
“My point is that if the evidence for an inference is there in the work of art, why bother trying to figure out if it was the artist’s intention to put it there?”
you don’t want to credit the director for a brilliant concept(or conceit as they say) which was entirely conceived in your mind.And that happens often with movie critics. Credit yourself, if you want to, for having an over imaginative mind that helps draw multiple inferences. But don’t rush to credit a simpleton like Bala for what he might not have intended to do. Meanings can be read into a lot, even in a Ramanarayanan film, the mind willing. The perception of the director’s capability and intent, in a critic’s mind, is what causes the degree of analysis and interpretation to differ. And that brings me back to an earlier point I made- a movie-watching experience where nothing is known about the director/film before vs watching it with prior knowledge that it was made by an A-list director who did x number of yrs research on it or whatever. That skews up things a lot. Maybe if BR had not known beforehand that Kanchivaram was directed by Priyadarshan, the surprise the movie provided due to muted expectations, might not have been as much. Who knows? I myself am trying to forget who directed Raavan, for the past few days(yeah right!)
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APALA
May 21, 2010
Dear BR,
Now, who is auteur – is it the director or the script writer?
Isn’t the tale more important rather than what the teller wants you to “see”? Also, that’s kind of taking away the experience of the TALE talking to you – by letting the personality of the auteur influence you to “VIEW” things?
BTW, in this Studio era, is it even possible?
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brangan
May 21, 2010
vijay: I completely disagree when you say “over imaginative.” Imagination is very different from interpretation. The former means seeing things that are not there. The latter is about links and inferences derived by actively engaging with the material. There’s a world of difference.
APALA: Reg “Isn’t the tale more important rather than what the teller wants you to “see”?” That’s exactly what’s being said above 🙂
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brangan
May 21, 2010
And she’s back. First Sagarika acts all fake-contrite and writes:
“Can you edit out the login info from my comment? I won’t resume emailing, I really GET it this time. That’s a paid subscription and don’t want everyone and their mother to login, globally, and freeload off the Merc servers. It’s unethical (I know that sounds supremely ironic, coming from me, but still) – please oblige.”
Of course, no one really believes her because this has been the pattern for a few years. Sure enough, despite assurances like “I really GET it this time”, the subsequent comments arrive.
For BR # 14: “Adi aathi! @48 la Ofelia, @58 la Kathy Bates – I’m loving this mentalmorphosis in increments of 10. But seriously, Norman Bates ku theriyaadha enna, eppadi Kathy Bates-a oattanum nu? Avar thaan ‘Taxi’dermist aachey.”
And for this post: “Inniki kaarthaala company vaasal la oru white “Johnson Controls” van nindhundu irundhadhu. Adhu side la, were these words in blue and green: “Ingenuity Welcome.” Yappa, literal naalum ippidiyaa?”
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Suresh
May 21, 2010
@vijay: Reg ‘virumandi’s ‘ casting I can’t say much since I have not watched that movie, but felt very similarly regarding the casting of ‘Avvai Shanmugi’. For all the gender transformation, the support cast is the one which salvaged the movie to some extent. Gemini, Manivannan and Delhi Ganesh were just perfect. Kamal comes lagging behind.
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Adithya
May 21, 2010
Wow BR, I would expect more bitty ruminations on the topic of comment no.21!
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ramesh
May 21, 2010
sorry for the tangent but please pass this on. Its a good cause.
FREE LINDSAY!!!
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Sagarika
May 22, 2010
Ada asadu Adithya! Unakku theriyaadha? It’s not “Bitty” any more, wonly “Bity” Ruminations. Paakaliya, #15 and #16 la recent-a introduce panna spelling change-a?
Naan enamo Ramsu kitta oru pechukku sonnen “un typos pidichichirukku” nu. Ivar ennadaa na Samy song range la illa poyittar, going and *introducing* a typo in category name and all. (Two days ago, no typo, is what I’m saying.) Wait a second… maybe we are supposed to “interpret” it as a metamorphosis from category to, well, Cate”gory” — kadichu kodhariduven-garaaraa?? Aiaiyo, romba bayamaa irukku…
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Sagarika
May 22, 2010
Wow BR, just for nearly biting off Vijay’s head @20 arguing that “interpretation” and “imagination” may both be revolving around the Sun but certainly NOT on the same orbit, I forgive thee all the maanatha vaanging.
It needs to be said more often that writing imaginatively about something you inferred (from the “movie” you just watched, as it relates to, say, a “book” that you read a while back) is certainly NOT the same thing as making stuff up that’s simply not there.
In that vein, happy to “infer” that I’m no psycho (besides, like I said, there’s one and only one Psycho!), merely an (over)analyst. Pull arikkardhu. Purinjukka ve mudiyala. First I get thrown under the bus. Then promptly shoved into an ambulance too? Phew.
Anyway, talk of Marnie’s yellow handbag just transported me to the pie-shaped yellow figure on the Google-doodle today, ostensibly a nod to the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Some of us lauded by listening to Pac-Man Fever; looks like you, in your (insanely) inimitable way, celebrated by changing “Bitty” to “Bity” (on #15 & #16). Why? To draw attention to the (little known)fact that Pac-Man is based on a ravenous Japanese folk character whose appetite could never be appeased?
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vijay
May 26, 2010
Late response but..
“I completely disagree when you say “over imaginative.” Imagination is very different from interpretation. The former means seeing things that are not there. The latter is about links and inferences derived by actively engaging with the material. There’s a world of difference.”
Yeah there is a difference, but often the line between interpretation and imagined inference is blurred. Thats my problem. Actually, even that is’nt my problem. Crediting the director for that is my problem. You cannot deny that there is a bit of extrapolation involved at times when drawing these inferences. How far you go stretching the links that you talk about to get to the inference decides how imaginative you are. A friend of mine came up with the “inference” that in Nanda, Surya symbolized LTTE, his mother was Rajiv Gandhi and Raj Kiran was the TN govt. or something like that. I dont exactly remember the details now. But the point was that he was able to convincingly relate the whole rajiv-LTTE story to Nandha. And he said that Bala had merely portrayed the LTTE story symbolically.It sounded quite convincing at that time, even if far-fetched. Is’nt some imagination involved there in drawing that inference?
Just go back and read your own Naan kadavul review after a couple of years and you’ll probably realize what I am talking about. You know the “manichaen duality”, “metaphorical rebirths” and other stuff that you came up with. And I was’nt the only one who felt that way either, if you look at the responses there.
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vijay
May 26, 2010
Or if not the above, take Raj’s example of Moondram Pirai. He said that it was a teen fantasy of protecting a vulnerable girl which most of us have had at some point, a sort of a dream, and then the climax is when we are rudely awaken with a cold splash of water. BaluM had taken this fantasy and made into a film and unless he said it himself no one would have guessed that this was what the film was based on. Yet, if you had to draw that inference after watching the film and without having read Balu Mahendra’s interview talking about it, you would have had to be really imaginative to draw that inference. I use the word “imagination” in that sense. It isn’t a straightforward inference at all. In this case though, you can credit the director as you know his intent already.
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vijay
May 26, 2010
Also,
“The latter is about links and inferences derived by actively engaging with the material.”
In that case there should be only ONE inference for every film. why are different reviewers ending up with different inferences and interpretations? Because everyone is connecting the dots in their own way, which suggests that there is a bit of imagination (or creativity, if that is a better word) involved in the interpretation. Reviewers tend to be creative themselves at times.
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brangan
May 26, 2010
vijay: I think we’ve had this discussion earlier. You say that your problem is “Crediting the director.” But what JAFB and I are saying (by way of “deconstruction”) is that we don’t care, really, about the director’s intention — only about the film. What Balu Mahendra says in his interviews or what Bala says is irrelevant. What matters is Moondram Pirai and Naan Kadavul and what those films “say” to us.
There are two ways to go about film analysis. One is to presume that the director is the sole author of the film (and surrender completely to what he wants you to see). But I subscribe to the other — i.e. there are two authors, namely the director and the viewer. What the viewer “sees” may be very different from what the director intended, and that may be a problem for subscribers to Approach One, but that’s the only thing that matters to those who swear by Approach Two (as said above, “the tale” not the “teller”).
So your friend is entirely right (in HIS way) when he talks about LTTE and such in Nandha. If he says Bala INTENDED all this, then he’s treading on dangerous territory, because there’s no way to prove it. But if all he’s saying is that “there is a convincing case to be made that this is LTTE-stuff, and this is why I think so,” then he’s perfectly right. I’d love to read that analysis.
As for my NK review, I may change (on subsequent viewings) my opinion about the film, but I don’t see how I can un-see the duality and the rebirth aspects, because that’s what the film is all about — (1 )good/evil and (2) a man-god’s prevention of a pathetic soul’s reincarnation.
I see now what you mean by imagination though, even if there’s too much looseness with that term that makes me uncomfortable. I prefer your other term “connecting the dots,” which assumes that the dots are indeed there and the connecting is up to the viewer. (As opposed to “imagining,” which implies, to my mind, that the dots themselves are dreamed up by the viewer.)
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