A collection of thoughts on writing about movies for a living.
I keep getting these emails where people ask me how they can become critics. I wish I had the answer. At least, I wish I had the answer they want me to have, which is: “Step 1, do this, Step 2, do that, and voila, you’re a critic.” Instead, I tell them that being a critic is first about being a writer, and to be a writer, you have to read a lot. And then you have to develop a unique relationship with the screen in front of you, and have these conversations with the movie that’s playing. And you have to have the ability to translate an intangible experience (feeling) into something tangible (writing). I end up sounding like a New-Age idiot, and they end up, well… unhappy.
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And then I tell them to maintain a blog and create imaginary deadlines. See every film released every Friday and try to write about all of them by Saturday afternoon. It’s one thing to write about a film you really like. But most films are going to be those you’re okayish about or those you downright loathe. Try to see if, after a couple months, you still have the enthusiasm to keep writing about cinema. If you do, you may be on to something.
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If a film has been made with a certain amount of ambition and craft and respect for the art, then it will always leave you with thoughts that you can expand on in a review – even in, in the final analysis, the overall appraisal is negative. A review, after all, isn’t just a tallying-up of plus points and minus points, but also a summation of the (intensely personal) responses the film evoked in you. The more (intensely personal) responses a film evokes, the more there is to write about.
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Some Fridays are bad news for a critic. The releases are unadulterated junk. And these are the Fridays I get asked, “But how do you manage to sit through these films?” And I say that it’s really not that big a deal. Bad days happen in all lines of work. However bad the film is, you still end up sitting in an air-conditioned theatre for two-and-a-half hours. That isn’t exactly a deal breaker in this profession. At least, you’re not stuck in a cubicle, one in a sea of cubicles…
* * *
Someone once told me, “You’re one of the lucky few who get paid to watch movies. Never forget that.” I’ve never forgotten that.
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Even if the film is dreadful, there may be something in it that’s worthwhile. A music director’s debut. A character actor’s work. These tiny epiphanies should never be discounted.
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And yet, you don’t have to write about every aspect of the film. For instance, if an actor is merely going through the motions, there’s no need to acknowledge him. But if the actor is extraordinarily bad or extremely good, then there’s some point talking about the extraordinary badness, the extreme goodness.
* * *
Unless you were on the set or sat in on preproduction and post-production sessions, you know jack squat about who’s responsible for what. If the film’s too long, it may be a function of the screenplay, so stop blaming the editor. If a performance in a scene is bad, it may be because the frames were edited in a certain way that erased the actor’s “continuity,” so stop blaming the actor. Respond, instead, holistically to the scene, to the moment.
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And stop trying to figure out what the director intended. Only he knows. Besides, there’s no guarantee that what he wanted to make is actually what he’s ended up making. Trust the tale, not the teller.
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The access to inexpensive moviemaking equipment has resulted in great freedoms for young filmmakers – and a great problem for critics. The traditional practice has been to review every film that’s released on a Friday. But when these films turn out to be amateur efforts – a lot of enthusiasm and little else – what can you really do?
* * *
The other-end-of-the-spectrum version of this problem arises when you have a film that’s obviously a labour of love, that’s obviously been made with a ton of money and sweat and blood – and the end result isn’t worthwhile. You feel for the creator, but, again, what can you really do? Some critics get around this problem by saying “oh this is still better than the stupid comedies we get every week.” But seen that way, any film that’s not a stupid comedy is automatically going to get a free pass, right?
* * *
Write for yourself. That is, think of yourself as the audience. Write the kind of reviews that you’d like to read. There are always others to do the consumer report kind of reviews. The acting is good. The writing is okay. The cinematography is bad. That sort of thing, as if a film is a kitchen utensil you hold up against the light to check for holes. You’re discussing art, for crying out loud. It is going to mean different things to different people. No matter what you write, you’re never going to make everyone happy. So why not write for yourself, and hope that at least a handful like you will end up happy?
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There is no such thing as an objective review. While writing the review, you’ll discover things about yourself – about the baggage you carry, about the biases you harbour – that you may never have anticipated. And all of this will inform your analysis. That’s why there is no such thing as an objective review.
* * *
Learn to recognise which feedback to take, which to ignore. Not all praise is meaningful. (Of course, it’ll make you feel good for a second. It should. But not longer than that.) And not all censure is valid. There will be those who question your motives, your reasons, your this, your that. Only you know whether what you wrote is what you really felt. And if you’re satisfied, if you can sleep at night, that’s the only thing that matters.
* * *
No one knows anything about these things. You could follow all these rules and flop. You could make up your own rules and make a breakthrough. The latter is probably the better option.
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Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Aran
March 14, 2014
My number one advice is… don’t take anyone’s advice. 🙂
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thotsvandi
March 14, 2014
“But most films are going to be those you’re okayish about or those you downright loathe. Try to see if, after a couple months, you still have the enthusiasm to keep writing about cinema.”
BR,OMG I wanted to ask this question and thanks for answering! You critics are really our saviors when it comes to mokka movies. I just can’t invest in a film I don’t like! So I may never be a critic.
I first read your blog when a friend shared your ‘I call it the Raja genre’ post, I was amazed at the line were you described ‘katrai konjam’ song. From then on I always come back to your reviews after watching a movie.
You catch points of a movie which others leave, but at the same time, some times you were not telling what I felt you should be telling. But even then your reviews are genuine, needless to say and you are a damn good writer.
Your conversations was one book I completed reading in days and felt sorry when the end was nearing, each page was soo interesting!
And I will be happy if you share lists like 10 films for a film rookie, 10 films I will never for forget or 10 films you adore!
“That sort of thing, as if a film is a kitchen utensil you hold up against the light to check for holes.”
– LOL.
You should write more, thanks!
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MANK
March 14, 2014
Brangan, any particular reason for a post on this subject now?. were you so fed up with queries on how to become critics that you just ranted this out?. 🙂
Unless you were on the set or sat in on preproduction and post-production sessions, you know jack squat about who’s responsible for what.
yup, exactly the reason why i like your reviews so much. i always found it funny how critics rate editors and photographers as good or bad or whatever. my only grouse have been how you use to put down the directors’ opinion about his films. i am a firm believer in the auteur theory of moviemaking where the film being the sole POV of the director .even though i know that its more often not the case and only few directors like manirathnam or SLB or Imtiaz Ali… may have that kind of power.But i am getting around to your POV about tis. Perhaps the director himself must be handicapped by several reasons like lack of funds , producers’ pressure,lack of good casting etc etc…. that he may never realise his full vision.
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Aparna
March 14, 2014
WOW! This is just a *brilliant* piece!
“If a film has been made with a certain amount of ambition and craft and respect for the art, then it will always leave you with thoughts that you can expand on in a review – even in, in the final analysis, the overall appraisal is negative.”
– applies to writing too? Love all the thoughts here, will be re-reading.
Oh, and the daughter read it over my shoulder and went “he is good”. She’s said it before… but this time, I heard the awe in her voice! 🙂
(And, Baradwaj – after this: “Only you know whether what you wrote is what you really felt. And if you’re satisfied, if you can sleep at night, that’s the only thing that matters.” – you did sleep, right?)
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Anu Warrier
March 14, 2014
If the film’s too long, it may be a function of the screenplay, so stop blaming the editor. If a performance in a scene is bad, it may be because the frames were edited in a certain way that erased the actor’s “continuity,” so stop blaming the actor.
That latter half is an interesting view. I must say I’d never thought of it like that. Brings to mind a certain gentleman’s rants against editors when he watched a preview of his son’s film. So there is a point to his diatribe?
Care to explain why the film’s length is a function of its screenplay, though? One would think that is what an editor is there for; to edit that screenplay keeping in mind the overall tautness of the film. Genuinely curious, here.
I agree that no review is objective. But isn’t there an inherent judging involved in the appreciation of any art? It is nice when others concur, but almost always, movie-watching is a subjective experience.
(My husband and I have heated debates after watching a movie. Oooh! To the point where I’ve banned him from coming with me to the theatre. *grin*)
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Anu Warrier
March 14, 2014
where the film being the sole POV of the director
@MANK – may I intrude to ask if the film is the sole POV of a director? I mean, if there are two interpretations of a scene that are both valid, is it the viewers’ fault if they accept one or the other, even if the director shouts himself hoarse that he meant this one POV?
We run into this all the time in literature; the prime example being Robert Frost’s Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening, and its last stanza which ends with And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. Many eminent critics have analysed that to mean that Frost was talking about death. Until the irascible poet once fumed that he was the one who wrote the poem, and he knew that he had – literally- meant ‘before I sleep’. He went on to add that being outside on a snowy night in Massachusetts would make anyone wish they were back home and in bed! Yet, the alternate explanation rears its head ever so often. Is that as valid as what the poet intended it to be? And does the viewer/reader/audience have to take away only what the director intended? Or, do we analyse films/literature/poetry/drama, etc., too much, so that we lose sight of the whole?
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venkatesh
March 14, 2014
BR: Career blues ?
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Sara
March 15, 2014
BR, thanks for the write-up. I have a slightly related question for you. I totally get that writing on films gives you a creative outlet, and if not for films, I’m guessing you’ll be writing about something else close to your heart. Having been a cubicle-dweller in the past & abandoned it, how have you managed to convince yourself that you’re now making useful contributions to society? I personally don’t want to get into film reviewing, but as a cubicle dweller, I find this mindset (of being useful to society) to be a bigger roadblock for getting into arts full time than anything else.
I hope you understand that this is not a trollish question. I wouldn’t pose the same question to, for instance, a completely passion-driven artist who never entered mainstream cubicle life in the first place.
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auroravampiris
March 15, 2014
As long as we’re praising BR on here… I think he’s the first film reviewer I read who did not have any aspirations of “objectively judging” a film among “mainstream” critics. So many other newspaper critics pander towards this weird notion of matching up film qualities against a checklist (as BR mentioned) and then weighing the film to deliver a verdict of sorts. I think BR’s best reviews are where he ponders WHY a film works in spite of itself (like say, Kadal) and when he seeks to unveil the WHY of how a film goes about doing something rather than the HOW.
Come to think of it, BR seems to be the anti-Khalid Mohammed. Where KM’s best reviews are for films he loathes, BR’s best reviews are for films he loved.
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meera
March 15, 2014
“Trust the tale not the teller”
– this from the critic who is constantly accused of intellectualising every scene, every shot!
Even after you have engraved it on your blog, some folks are never going to get the part about a review being subjective. sigh!
The two best parts of this post, is the picture from ratatouille and Ofcourse insisting on writing. How on earth can you rate the critic if he refuses to improve his writing?
Excellent pointers!
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Aran
March 15, 2014
@Sara – I realize your comment was directed towards BR, but I can’t help but take a little bit of an exception to your classifying artists as not useful to society. How do you define the word ‘useful’? I think people in the arts have an important function in society. In creating food for thought, they enlarge the minds and mentality of people in the society. They deal in ideas that move members of a society forward, or backward, or any which way. 🙂 If you’re looking for a direct evaluative component or ROI to what artists do, that might not be a good measure of how it works.
Specifically in terms of what BR does, I could say that it enriches the film industry in ways where filmmakers or even aspiring filmmakers might read his thoughts and chew on them, directly having an effect on the work they do. Reviewing might lead to a thoughtful public that sees a film in a more nuanced way after being introduced to reviewers who write about movies in different ways. In general, writers make people more reflective, they open doors into a point of view that is other than your own, they give you a glimpse of something outside of you. If you see movies as a reflection of a society, or made by people emerging out of this society or as a reaction to societal issues, writing about movies can also be seen as contributing to sociological, psychological, anthropological, communicative ideas of what it means to be a part of society. Seen this way, I wonder what contributions a cubicle-dweller makes to society – seems to me the mere cubicleness of it all seems to be about cutting one away from society. 😉
Also, I’m sure BR is also passionate about what he does, so wonder why the distinction between him and passion-driven artists.
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ramitbajaj01
March 15, 2014
What about the ambitious part? I mean won’t a critic get tempted to try out a scene or two himself. I mean how does a critic make peace with the part of the brain that asks him to go be a director or a screenwriter or an editor or even a side character?
BTW, I am also curious to know what you do on weekdays.
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Sara
March 15, 2014
@Aran: You’re stuffing lots of words into my mouth. Please re-read my question: I put some effort into phrasing it that way. I’m not placing any value judgment on any profession & need no convincing about artists’ contributions. My question was about a certain mindset that I think BR ‘gets’. If you don’t ‘get’ it, consider yourself very very lucky!
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brangan
March 15, 2014
Anu Warrier: No, that “Raavan” thing wasn’t an editing thing. In the sense that — owing to length — certain aspects of the development of the character were axed. So that’s a call the director takes, with the editor. I’m talking about a different thing. Let’s say you have a multiple camera setup — the actor may have reserved his best for a particular shot, but owing to other considerations, the editor may choose a different take. And thus the actor’s performance may be diminished.
About length and screenplay, what I mean is this: if a screenplay is so tightly written that every scene has things in it that are referenced by other scenes and therefore nothing can be lopped off without the film losing meaning. That sort of things.
You’re still looking at editing as “cutting the film length” and “tautness.” That is just one of the many functions of an editor.
Regarding your question: ask if the film is the sole POV of a director
No — because, again, what someone wants to do and what someone ends up doing needn’t be the same thing. You may want your movie to mean something. But it’s not necessary that your audience is going to take away the same things. This is true of all art.
Sara / Aran: I totally get that writing on films gives you a creative outlet
It’s actually a little more than that. Writing is my profession. Had I been a software person, then maybe this would have been an “outlet.”
Having been a cubicle-dweller in the past & abandoned it, how have you managed to convince yourself that you’re now making useful contributions to society?
I’m not sure I (or anyone) got into writing (or music or whatever) in order to be “useful to society.” (I hope I’m getting your question right.) The reason for my switch from cubicle-dom to writing was “passion-driven,” I’d think. It was about channeling this side of me that wasn’t being used, and it was not to “better” society or something like that.
The logic was simply this:
(1) I hate what I am doing. I want my creative side to come to the fore.
(2) I love movies, music — I seem to respond to them in a fairly different way.
(3) I love writing — I seem to be a fairly decent writer.
(4) Reviewing seems a good way to combine both.
(5) Nobody seems to be writing the kind of reviews I’ve liked reading, so maybe there’s a niche there.
(6) Unless I give up what I am doing, I’ll never be able to find out if I can corner that niche.
And as Aran said, I think my contribution to society (or rather, the 250 people who read me 🙂 ) is to create “food for thought.” Also, to provide entertainment/ engagement. If you’re giving me 5 minutes of your time, I want those five minutes to mean something to you. I want to give you something in terms of language (which is form), in terms of thoughts and idea (which is function). I want to give you something you’re not likely to get anywhere else. And I want what I feel and write to provoke an emotion in you — a smile (ah, I though that too), a frown (hmmm.. I’m not sure I agree with what’s he saying here), or maybe even rage (what a bloody idiot!).
I hope the form/content balance is good enough that you don’t NOT have an emotion, and simply skim through this and leave. At least that’s the general idea.
Does that answer your question?
auroravampiris and everyone else; Thank you so much for the kind words.
ramitbajaj01: Every time someone — not just a critic — says, “This part sucked” it means that they would have done it differently.
PS: No part of my brain has told me to be a “side character” 🙂
PPS: On weekdays, I write the column and other things. You don’t think they magically get done an hour before they go up on the blog, do you? 🙂
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Santa
March 15, 2014
“Trust the tale, not the teller”
@BR: .It would seem from some of your previous posts that you believe in the auteur theory of film-making. If so, the tale does reflect the tellers creative vision and so it wouldn’t be completely out of the line to try to guess what the teller was going for, no? This, of course, assumes that the director is known well enough to be recognized as an auteur.
On a note unrelated to this post, there is a question I have been meaning to ask you. How is is that whenever I’m reading the “Critical Reception” section of Wikipedia entry of a Bollywood film, your reaction is never there? Do you actively go an edit these entries to remove any references to your reviews? Not trying to spin a conspiracy yarn here. Just that it’s inconceivable (to me, at least) that all other mainstream reviewers’ responses are there, but not yours.
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Sara
March 15, 2014
BR, thanks for sharing that. Reading your & Aran’s responses, I realize that I might not have put my point across properly. I’ll try to do a better job now, but before that let me make it clear once again that I’m NOT questioning the contributions made to society by creative persons. I’m not claiming that an artist contributes either more or less than a typical cubicle dweller at all. I don’t even know if they can be compared.
My question was more about the leap. You made the leap to writing and you became successful, and so all’s well that ends well. But suppose to this day you had continued to just write on your blog with maybe a handful of readers following your blogposts, but without any book or a paid gig, I’d expect that at that point, you’d question your contributions (for, what’s an artist without an audience?). It’s this inherent risk of failure that could diminish your creative contributions, that I was referring to. If one were passion-driven to begin with, they would completely discount this risk and make the leap easily. But for a person with a technical training, the mindset is such that it’s hard to ignore this risk. If the said person is from a typical south Indian middle-class household, the responsibility to one’s family and one’s society only magnifies this risk. I assumed that risk assessment would’ve figured prominently in your decision to make the switch. I was just curious to know how you dealt with this perceived risk.
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Ceaser
March 15, 2014
Santa:Just that it’s inconceivable (to me, at least) that all other mainstream reviewers’ responses are there, but not yours.
Santa, has it occurred to u that the good dr. is a big fish in a small pond(tamil film reviewdom), but when it gets to the bollywood ocean , he gets upstaged by the sharks(Khalid mohammed,….) and whales (taran adarsh,Komal nahata,other critical geniuses of their ilk,…….) 🙂 . Pray to god that he stays that way and never acquires the sensibilities of those sharks and whales out there 🙂
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Gradwolf
March 15, 2014
“It’s actually a little more than that. Writing is my profession. Had I been a software person, then maybe this would have been an “outlet.””
Heh.
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ramitbajaj01
March 15, 2014
ok, sure, I don’t think you spend only an hour writing this stuff. 😀 I am sure you spend your weekdays to watch good movies to gather thoughts for your writing. But do all that lead to only one column for saturday? Afterall, reviews you start only on friday and end by saturday. So, I was really curious to know what extra, productive you do on weekdays. Now, you have answered that you do other writings. I wish you elaborate on that. Well, I know, occasionally, you get assignments for magazines and all that. But since I revere you a lot, I genuinely want to know your *regular* work. If you say, you devote your regular hours for book-writings, I will be content. (I guess, one online link also mentions that you teach at a chennai film school. that’s interesting.) I am also curious if you are a full time employee at Hindu or part time (I hope I am not being intrusive.)
Regarding ‘one part of the movie doing differently,’ I guess there is a difference between just ‘somebody’ and a critic. I reckon that a critic can feel the technical things of a movie more deeply, so he would be more inclined to go and showcase the better part. Moreover, I believe a ‘somebody’ first becomes a critic and then becomes the part of filmmaking. So I wonder how come some of these ‘somebodies’ just stop at being only the critics. Now I am not undermining your profession. In fact, I am so happy that some of these ‘somebodies’ settle down and make others enlightened by analysing art. I am just curious how do you make peace here. How do you tell the director in you to shut up and do the equally important things at hand? (Somebody like me sitting in front of laptop thinking about going into cinema is one thing. Most likely, many like me would only harbour dreams without taking actions, but a critic is generally in the vicinity of actors or directors or other people. Voices in your head should be more compelling, no?) Maybe, your case is different. As, not just cinema, writing is also your love. But I wish you could provide me a general answer.
I think that there is a difference between writing fiction and writing cinema. The former is a human drama and the writer is already living that life. (in the manner of a character or the incidents or the way of talking.) So, the writer and the written part are not mutually exclusive. Even writing biographies I believe is a hand-on experience in the sense that the writer appreciates certain qualities and strives to emulate. (at least I would like to believe so.) And if we assume that even the cinema writer is content with celebrating the human part of the cinema than the technical part then it’s a little tough for me to buy. I mean how can somebody write about cooking (willingly or out of routine) and not try hand at it.
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ramitbajaj01
March 15, 2014
(I guess you have also written screenplays for some movies and that’s intersting. You don’t wish to take it up as full-time?)
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rajesh_ny
March 15, 2014
Having that image from Ratatouille is a brilliant touch for this article on the art of criticism!
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Sutheesh Kumar
March 15, 2014
My comment in your previous post:
“i like your writing style, the way you recreate any scene in a movie the way you have you have analysed it. Your insights are i suspect, eerily similar to the way the creator of that scene had envisioned.”
Your reply:
“And stop trying to figure out what the director intended. Only he knows. Besides, there’s no guarantee that what he wanted to make is actually what he’s ended up making. Trust the tale, not the teller.”
“Learn to recognise which feedback to take, which to ignore. Not all praise is meaningful.”
Wow! In two neat strokes you laid waste to all my gushing in the previous comment. Now, that is you. Well, no problem with that.
Talking about reviews, where i really connected with your reviews were your takes on Irandaam Ulagam, Raanjhana and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.
“Trust the tale, not the teller.”
Your reviews for Maniratnam, Mysskin and Selvaraghavan movies seem to suggest otherwise.
PS: What do you think about Kochadaiiyan’s soundtrack and trailer? Oops! I forgot that you go to the movies with a clean slate. Anyway, it was worth a try.
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abvblogger
March 15, 2014
Regarding this comment: “Having been a cubicle-dweller in the past & abandoned it, how have you managed to convince yourself that you’re now making useful contributions to society?”,
I think this is a fantastic question worth addressing generally. First let me just say that people are useful in all sorts of roles. Even as hard a subject as economics is built upon the foundations of something as soft as utility. There is utility in a smile, in the way you serve someone, or even in the way you beg, if you happen to beg. We’ve all bumped into some beggars who brighten another person’s day.
But if you don’t believe in that wishy washy stuff, and say one is either useful or not, then it is the cubicle dweller who would find it difficult to justify their usefulness beyond a point. After all, it would be hard to say that anything you do in a rigidly structured corporate job is truly your own; if not you, someone else recruited in that position might have performed just as good a job. The only really useful people measured by that criterion then, are not engineers or doctors (because there are many good engineers and doctors waiting to take their place), but creatives and entrepreneurs. Both create something new, and something that in all probability would not have existed without them.
Yes, film reviews would exist without BR. But his kind of reviews? There is a genuine divergence between the way one writer / artist does their work from another, a greater divergence perhaps, than the way one corporate drone completes their duties from another. Of course, management & senior folks at corporates do creative work too, ranging from product design to project choice, that shapes the future of their company. But your average cubicle dweller who doesn’t make it to that top layer of decision-making? Usually quite replaceable.
You see, ultimately the cubicle dweller is not respected because they do genuinely useful, original work that wouldn’t be done without them. They get respect and social approval for having a steady, stable income for the hours & freedom they trade. They toe the lines drawn by their organizations because it enables them to produce marriages & babies with a regular & safe schedule. There’s nothing wrong with all this. Yet it’s important to recognize what is socially approved is not always socially useful.
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brangan
March 15, 2014
Santa: it wouldn’t be completely out of the line to try to guess what the teller was going for, no?
Of course. See, a certain amount of generalisation is inevitable in an article of this sort — and this is art, after all. So yes, in trying to deconstruct a film, we *are* in a way trying to get at what the teller is going for. Where I come from is based on two things:
(1) the teller himself may not know where something came from, i.e. the unconscious aspect of art which can be surprising to the creator himself (we hear about writers etc. saying all the time they don’t know where the story is taking them)
(2) Even if the teller wanted to do something, it doesn’t mean he achieved it, given the vagaries of filmmaking, which (unlike, say, painting) is the work of many people and involves a lot more compromise.
And no, I’ve never edited anything on Wiki. I guess I’m just not on their radar, that’s all.
Sara: Even if I were doing a software job and had a blog on the side with an audience of five, I don’t think I’d question my contributions. For I am doing what I want to do in the time I have to do it. That is in itself an achievement, no? And why should having fewer readers diminish my work? If all I’m looking for is an “outlet,” then I have it. And five readers is still better than none. I may have had technical training yes, but my brain isn’t wired that way all that much. I didn’t do much risk analysis when I jumped. I just jumped. There was this thing inside me that was telling me it’s now or never. So I chose “now.” And I just jumped.
ramitbajaj01: I work full-time with the Hindu. This week I had the column, the “Power for the People” story, and the latter involved a bit of calls and going back and forth with drafts. It’s hard to say why it takes time, but writing does take a lot of time.
About the “director in me,” I’m not sure I have one. I respond to films the way I respond to books etc. I don’t think “this is how I would have done it.” If I don’t like something, I think “this doesn’t seem to work,” and then I try to see why.
There are a lot of people who write restaurant reviews and don’t cook at all 🙂
Sutheesh Kumar: Oh man, that’s not what I meant at all.
“Your insights are i suspect, eerily similar to the way the creator of that scene had envisioned”
– this could still be true. I am not saying I don’t get close to the director’s vision. If you see the Mani Ratnam book, there are several points where my “theory” has matched his “reason”. But there are an equal number of times when he’s dismissed my theories, and I am saying that that shouldn’t be a reason for me to say that that theory is invalid or wrong. I hope I’m making this clear.
“Not all praise is meaningful.”
Again, this wasn’t about you at all, but more an injunction to not say “people are praising me, I have arrived, there’s nothing more to be done.” Praise is always wonderful. But sometimes it can get to your head. And you shouldn’t let that happen. In the sense that you should be hardest on yourself.
Wrote about my thoughts on the “Kochadaiiyaan” soundtrack in the Rahman post. Do take a look.
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Baranidharan
March 15, 2014
This is my blog for movie reviews: http://kollywooddoctor.blogspot.in/
Been writing reviews for 3 years now. Started as a hobby and now it became an addiction 🙂 A good one actually, something to keep me engaged other than my regular day job!
After reading this post, I feel that I’ve made almost all the DONT’s that were mentioned in it 🙂
Still I’m learning. Please read and suggest me areas of improvement. Thank you!
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Madan
March 16, 2014
abvblogger: Interesting views. I disagree a little, to the extent that everything is dispensable at some or the other level. Bach and Brahms are literally history now, it’s nearly half a decade since John Coltrane died as well, Hitchcock and Ray are no more. Neither is Henry Ford for that matter. Now we can argue all day on whether or not the world is worse off for their loss but it most certainly hasn’t caved in and died out. And at a micro level, anybody who does his job very well is indispensable within his community/neighbourhood. There may be some doctors we particularly rely on or even a driver who is punctual and safe. And Having to replace either may be an incredible hassle for the ones ‘influenced’ by their work. And don’t people say the boss is the no. 1 reason to quit? Does that not conversely make a good manager a great motivation to stay on in the job? We should all pray that the day never comes when everybody in the world aspires to be either an artist or an entrepreneur because the foot soldiers are equally as indispensable…in totality, if not necessarily at an individual level. The worst thing would be for the foot soldiers, which I suppose includes most of us, to believe their work is not valued and they shouldn’t really try to give their best. And perhaps this is already happening at some level – check out DiCapirio’s barb at the police officer about policemen, teachers, firefighters getting paid less while a swindler like him makes millions in Wolf of Wall Street.
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Madan
March 16, 2014
BR: Great write up and very important points for people interesting in doing any creative stuff as such, and not only writing on films. Especially the fact that a professional critic cannot choose what films he wants to write on, he must keep reviewing, even films that are terrible.
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Bayta
March 16, 2014
Interesting piece. I particularly like this line: ” you have to have the ability to translate an intangible experience (feeling) into something tangible (writing).”
That, in a nutshell, is why I like reading film (or music or book or any other form of art) reviews. I often have trouble verbalizing my emotional response to art and it helps to read someone else’s response even if I don’t agree with it.
Also, this piece reminds me of this round table discussion – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVjcidL803U – where a bunch of film critics touch on some of the same points. The point about how being a good writer is essential to being a good film critic (which was expressed in this piece as well) especially resonates with me. I read the reviews I do primarily because I like the writing style of the reviewer.
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ramitbajaj01
March 16, 2014
ok, fair enough 🙂
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brangan
March 16, 2014
Baranidharan: something to keep me engaged other than my regular day job!
That’s all that matters, really. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Bayta: I didn’t mean to say that you cannot be a good critic if you’re not a good writer. I was saying that to me writing (form) is as important as the analysis (content), and that’s what I look for in other critics. But if a critic is good, I wouldn’t mind reading him even if he pens down his thoughts in tweets or bullet points or disjointed paragraphs.
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abvblogger
March 16, 2014
@Madan, I agree with you. That’s why I mentioned that the very idea that people can be useless to society is flawed, especially when we consider the totality of things. Once we view society as an interconnected web, where every part influences the rest, we see that everything is ‘useful’.
I only made the case that creatives and entrepreneurs are ‘most useful’ if we assume for a moment that the flawed premise (that some roles are more useful) is true. I only point out that a creative person has no cause to question his contribution to society.
We do rely on people who do their job well. And that’s the foundation of usefulness. Sadly, that’s not reflected in social prestige (Wall Street financiers who don’t do their job well are more sought after than a driver who does his job well) or by how much we’re paid. Economic value is driven by scarcity; which goes to show that it’s a very narrow measure of value. There are rich rewards to doing a job well; but because those benefits tend to be centered in relationships and self, they cannot be explicitly displayed like a sports car or an industry award or front page interview.
Perhaps that is why we all hanker after a certain type of value; not because there aren’t other ways to be valuable to fellow humans, but because those ways aren’t advertised as much to us. They’re not as obvious or enticing. You gotta find intrinsic satisfaction; it doesn’t work as hard as the glamorous promise of extrinsic satisfaction works to find you.
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MANK
March 16, 2014
Brangan , you wrote this on another thread, but i suppose this is much better discussed here as we are discussing critics and criticism.
You wrote:I get asked this wrt movies too, but I don’t find myself “enjoying” movies less because I look them more pointedly. It’s just that my “enjoyment” includes this aspect
but doesnt it affect the overall enjoyment when you are concentrating on the technical aspects like framing,cutting,lighting etc as much(if not more) on the emotional quotient of the particular scene ? , unlike say an layman who might be watching it merely for its emotional\entertainment quotient.I always have to watch a film atleast twice , once for its technique and on for the actors and perfs to fully appreciate and understand a film, especially a great\classic film.Something like The godfather or Seven samurai. I have seen them so many times and still , when i watch it again something new comes to the fore, a camera angle, a lighting scheme used, a twitch in the facial expression of pacino or Brando that i hadnt noticed before and that convey something about the film and character that i had not noticed before. As a critic,Are you able to process much of these information in the first viewing itself or have you also been genuinely surprised when you re watch these films and discovered something new about them?
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Bayta
March 16, 2014
@MANK – I *just* posted a reply to that very comment of BR’s and wondered right after hitting submit if maybe that discussion wouldn’t be better carried on here. And my reply was along very similar lines as your comment. Maybe I should copy/paste it here?
@brangan: ” I didn’t mean to say that you cannot be a good critic if you’re not a good writer. I was saying that to me writing (form) is as important as the analysis (content), and that’s what I look for in other critics. But if a critic is good, I wouldn’t mind reading him even if he pens down his thoughts in tweets or bullet points or disjointed paragraphs.” – If writing is as important to you as the analysis, how can you say that you wouldn’t mind reading someone who doesn’t write well? What then makes him a “good” critic? Tweets, bullet points and disjointed paragraphs can be well written too. This very piece of yours is a case in point, no?
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Madan
March 16, 2014
abvblogger: Right, got you. And really couldn’t agree more with this:
“You gotta find intrinsic satisfaction; it doesn’t work as hard as the glamorous promise of extrinsic satisfaction works to find you.”
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vijay
March 16, 2014
BR, but at a more fundamental level, the switch from a profession where you can be fairly objectively judged perhaps(like say core engineering, marketing) to the realm of art where there is no such fixed metrics, how do you handle that? That I guess would be the biggest question for all those software/engineer types trying to dive into something like this. Leave aside money, career graph, job security etc. Feelings of insecurity,whether I am really doing anything worthwhile etc. Or is peer recognition the thing you look for to validate yourself and are satisfied that since you are fairly well known/respected in your circles and that in turn makes you sleep well at night?
I have always wondered about this. Maybe I had asked this earlier in this space too.
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vijay
March 16, 2014
“Wrote about my thoughts on the “Kochadaiiyaan” soundtrack in the Rahman post. Do take a look.”
which post,Are you talking about the piece on Highway? That had a passing comment on a single from Kochadaiyaan, not the entire soundtrack I guess
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ram murali
March 18, 2014
what happened to kadhal-2-kalyanam? Will it see the light of day? Crossing my fingers for this one since I would love to see the output of your screenplay.
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brangan
March 18, 2014
MANK: No, it doesn’t affect overall enjoyment when you’re noticing other thing because it’s not an either/or thing. You do it simultaneously.
The other thing you talk about — having to see film many times, and each time you see something new — is another issue altogether. And yes, that is certainly the case.
Bayta: What I meant is that if someone has a really good point to say about a film and he’s not an especially great writer then I can respect the point being made separately from the *way* it’s being made. I wouldn’t read this critic consistently, but you cannot overlook a good insight.
vijay: I don’t think the metrics thing is all that rigid. You could work your arse off in a corporate setting and still be overlooked etc. So a certain amount of “subjectivity” exists everywhere. Just that it is more here. The feeling of insecurity exists, but it’s a good thing I guess. The equivalent of a stage actor’s butterflies in the stomach. But then, if you cannot handle that, you shouldn’t be doing this.
ram murali: That’s with Mirchi Movies, boss. Don’t know what they plan to do with it. Meanwhile, you can watch this film 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangan_Style
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MANK
March 18, 2014
Brangan, Let me just expand on that question?. Is there any film that you watched the first time and gave it a low rating and watched it later and wanted to give a higher rating?.Have you ever wanted to retract any heavy criticism that you have had made about a film .Ever felt that you said was really unfair? Ala Roger Ebert reviews of The godfather part ii and Blade Runner. He had blasted both the films in his initial reviews when those films came out, but later included them in his greatest movies list with glowing apologies.
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vijay
March 20, 2014
“I don’t think the metrics thing is all that rigid. You could work your arse off in a corporate setting and still be overlooked etc.”
That’s different, you are talking about office politics and external appreciation and stuff which is a different issue and comes afterwards. At the end of the day though, atleast YOU know for sure what you have accomplished and can take a certain measure of satisfaction , the rewards being a separate thing. But here,in your field, you could end up questioning/doubting yourself all the time, leave alone external appreciation. And even if you did get a pat on the back you could be wondering whether you really deserved it for writing that particular piece. That kind of insecurity that comes with your territory. I believe peer recognition offsets some of that
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brangan
March 20, 2014
MANK: I am sure there are a lot of films that I watched a second or a fifth time and liked better. But again, the sixth viewing may not be as good. Just because you liked/disliked a piece of art in a particular sitting doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the same reaction is what you’ll have later.
vijay: No, I think it’s similar. At the end of the day, I too know what I have accomplished. Given the deadline, did I do a good job? Did I hit all the benchmarks? Did I succeed in doing what i planned to do? These are all questions that are valid for me too. If I get a pat on the back, I don’t always question if I “deserved” it. Because I know best what the circumstances were and I know, sometimes, that I did deserve it. And the time I didn’t deserve it, I take the nice words as a two-second ego boost and then I dismiss it and get back to ground level.
Conversely, self-doubting could happen in a corporate environment too. Am I doing the right thing? Am I wasting my life doing this crap? All these are questions the corporate guy can get as well.
I get that the free-flowingness of my kind of job is a little more. But not all that much more. The kind of insecurities you talk about have more to do with the kind of PERSON one is rather than the kind of JOB one is doing.
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abvblogger
March 22, 2014
@vijay You reminded me of a gem an artist friend shared with me: he told me that the best thing he’s learned along the way is that it’s possible to switch from focusing on external validation to internal validation. That is, the fact that you’re doing what you want to do, makes it good enough. Nobody really needs a third party objective certificate that they’re doing the right thing. Or that their work is good. In other words, you stand firm upon the foundation of yourself, and what you think, as opposed to other props. And that’s how you sleep well at night.
When you think about it, it makes sense. If you’re working in a subjective field like the arts, why isn’t your subjective opinion enough? By definition, because it’s subjective, there’s no ‘good’ work, nor ‘bad’; there is just personal opinion. It’s not like engineering, where you know you’ve done shoddy work because the bridge you built fell down. Subjective work has objectives, but it transcends those objectives. Whereas an engineer can’t say, my broken bridge has transcended the objective of bridging 🙂 At least, he won’t remain an engineer long saying that.
Moving from objective domains to subjective domains requires that shift in thinking. Heck, being a confident human being requires it, because whether you’re an artist or not, most of you, as a human being, is subjective. It’s false to think that you can assess yourself objectively. It’s impossible. All you have is a crowd of opinions to choose from, yours foremost among them even though your own opinion is biased.
All easier said than done, but it’s part of the challenge of life right? I’m sure that people who get national awards and large numbers of fans etc are happy because now they have both internal & external validation.
Maybe that’s why people start in an organization like a newspaper or some other creative production, where they get supervisors, mentors & peers. Plus, the very fact that you’re paid to do it is external validation. Even artists who can’t start in a paid position start within a community of other like-minded artists and so on.
I loved this discussion 🙂
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vijay
March 24, 2014
“Conversely, self-doubting could happen in a corporate environment too. Am I doing the right thing? Am I wasting my life doing this crap? All these are questions the corporate guy can get as well.”
BR, I am talking specifically about insecurity arising from being in the realm of art where evaluation is subjective(internal or external) vs other regular technical metric-driven fields like say engineering/R&D for instance. I think the difference is much bigger than you make it out to be and I don’t even see a lot of scope for debate here. Yes, there are career disappointments, occasional boredom, self-questioning that takes place in a corporate setting too. But these are different from a fundamental insecurity arising out of not knowing how good/bad you really are because of the realm you operate in. How do you know that your own evaluation of your work is the “right” one? Because you feel so? There are no well defined metrics. By metric I am not talking about managing to getting an article out despite a hard deadline or finishing more number of pieces than the guy sitting next to you in a week and so on(even if your office rewards you for that) . I am talking more about the writing quality itself and stuff like that. In contrast, the metrics/achievements for the other job are well-defined and quantifiable too.You either came up with an idea that worked or you didn’t. You either solved a problem which your colleagues couldn’t or you didn’t. I don’t think I need to explain this further
“If you’re working in a subjective field like the arts, why isn’t your subjective opinion enough?”
abvblogger, thats a different mindset altogether. One that artists have to resort to, all the time. Like , I did what I thought was best or looked or sounded good to me at that time, and that’s my internal validation and I’ll leave it at that. But switching from the other field(where internal validation needn’t be opinionated) to this kind of mindset is a big jump and that’s what I was asking BR about. What I am arguing against is his assertion that a corporate job in that setting isn’t all that different from what he is doing now. I think, it IS, bigtime. Also, in arts, your opinion of your own work could change with time. Like you could have composed a song or written something yesterday night and went to sleep thinking it was good only to get up the next morning and feel like it was a piece of junk(believe me, it happens all the time, even for pros). So you could constantly end up internally validating and de-validating yourself all the time, fighting an inner battle. And that’s what I summed up as insecurity.
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Madan
March 24, 2014
Very interesting discussion here. I think there’s plenty of scope for insecurity in the corporate world too and being that I am a part of it, I can talk about it with more authority than the arts. Sure, the metrics to measure performance may be objective but when it comes down to perceptions, how much you deserved your promotion or bonus is basically a function of how much the other person likes you or hates you, as applicable. If veteran X doesn’t know upstart Y or dislikes him for some reason, then Y has received an out of turn promotion even if Y contributed more to the organisation than X. I don’t do it myself, but I know a lot of people who set financial goals each year for themselves and when they cannot fulfill them, it distresses them immensely. I think it is true for any walk of life that you can retain, er, your sanity only by keeping your focus drilled on the process, on the small, everyday victories and taking it day by day. The moment you think too far ahead, you might allow emotions like anger, greed, jealousy, complacency, etc get into your head. It is probably tougher for someone in the field of arts to remain level headed and grounded over a long career but many artists also get into the field for the love of it while many corporate professionals work for a living, for money.
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abvblogger
March 25, 2014
@vijay Without debating your points, I’d simply add one thing: subjectivity isn’t the same thing as anything goes, which is the same as saying there’s no validity or basis at all to one’s judgment. The instincts, judgment and emotions that go into assessing art aren’t totally arbitrary or senseless. They are more fluid than math, but not necessarily an utter vacuum of chaos that produces huge insecurity either.
I think it is the degree to which you acknowledge that validity which will determine whether you live in security – or feel that overwhelming insecurity. For people who prize the 100% certainty of 1 + 1 is 2, it is a big shift. I like to recall what cognitive scientist Steven Pinker says: art is a pleasure technology which gives us pleasure without making us eat food, do work or mate. This human technology is incredibly diverse with unlimited potential (so you have billions of songs), but it still has to fit the human mind (so not all that is called art is actually pleasurable). In that sense, the objective measure of art is whether it actually produces pleasure for an audience, no matter how small or big.
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Aran
March 25, 2014
A subjective judgement applied to one’s own work is often also more critical and harsher than what an external set of judging something might be. I know I judge my work more harshly than I would someone else’s.
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Bunny
March 26, 2014
“There is no such thing as an objective review.”
Does this explain why the top-most film critics of India don’t review Bhojpuri and Punjabi films? Obviously because they don’t want to say anything bad about them.
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