(by Rudra Dave)
Apart from being extremely successful at the box office and being loved by the audience, can you guess one more common thing between films like “Kabir Singh”, “Judwaa 2”, “Simmba”, “Bodyguard”, “Luka Chuppi”, “Golmaal franchise”, “Housefull franchise” and “Dhamaal franchise”?
They all had received negative reviews from the film critics.
Now, most commercial actors and directors completely write off film critics by saying that they know nothing about the filmmaking process and the taste of the Indian audience. True?
Well, that would be oversimplification of the issue and would lead to a very general and broad point of view, may be a little disrespectful to the film critics as well.
Why do film critics and the audience have such contrasting choices?
(There are numerous cases where the film critics and the public have unanimously rejected a film. A flop film which has received poor reviews is very common. However, it is only 20% of the time that both the parties have common choice when it comes to liking a film, “Badhai Ho”, “Andhadhun”, “Stree” to name a few, but that is rare).
So let us get into the details.
Firstly, most credible film critics in India have a very high exposure to world cinema (not just Hollywood and Bollywood). They have experienced the art of filmmaking and performances of a completely different level. Their taste in cinema has subconsciously changed into more artistic, sometimes dark, deep and impactful cinema. They will surely not like typical formulaic, sub-standard products which probably appeal to people who do not have such level of exposure to world cinema. So film critics watching most light hearted, commercial “masala” films, try to find a point of the film (and the need for that film) and what it is trying to convey and unfortunately for them, those movies have nothing much to offer them. Most of the critics are turned off by watching the trailer itself and subconsciously enter the cinema halls with a preconceived notion of how much they won’t like the film but will have to watch it as a part of their job!
Another noteworthy thing is that the conflicts or issues which affect the audience and the critics are totally different. Some of the issues which have an impact on general public are showing unethical and immoral lead character, making fun of religious sentiments, infidelity, terrorism, anti-nationalism and more, whereas film critics have issues with lack of democracy in voicing opinion, misogyny, racism, sexism etc. Both are correct in their own ways.
Talking at a micro level, both the parties have issues with different things.
For example, an average Indian family will be okay with inequality in roles (actress having no substantial part and only used in songs and dances) or when the hero mouths a sexist line which is meant to make audiences laugh.
But they will not be able to digest the fact that their favourite Shah Rukh Khan is cheating on his wife with Rani Mukherjee in “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna”.
However, a film critic would get annoyed with sexist and racist lines or inequality in roles or screen time and would be okay with infidelity shown in the film since it shows the reality.
A film critic will get irritated when Kabir Singh, a Doctor hits his girl whom he truly loves and will admire when a gangster Faisal Khan from “Gangs of Wasseypur” asks for “permission” from his girl for sex and goes away quietly when rejected. The audience and critics both hate Kabir and like Faisal in those respective moments. However, the audience does not judge either of the characters. They will not question the director or the writer for the actions of their characters. They see the film in context and “just as a film”. They will neither follow Kabir Singh by getting addicted to alcohol and physically abusing their girl nor follow Faisal Khan and become gangsters! The audience just wants to get engaged and entertained. Show them good characters and great stories and they will come to the theatres, no matter what. The only condition is that the main objective of the film should be engaging and entertaining the audience, be it any genre. Some of the snooty film critics on the other hand have already put themselves on a pedestal and just does not want to engage with films that have the intention to entertain the masses. They strongly believe that the mass audience is dumb. They are clearly not. On the contrary, they are smarter than most people in film industry and will endorse only those things which give them what a movie should give them.
To explain the different tastes of the masses and the film critics, let us take an Example- Imagine that you are accustomed to having authentic Italian food and being made to go into a Desi Punjabi Dhaaba.
Though you might find pizzas there but of a completely different taste. And the best thing that the Dhaaba has to offer- Spicy Punjabi food would not suit your taste.
This is what film critics go through. Their taste is just different, one should just accept it and move on. Continuing with our example, when an Italian lover goes to a Desi Dhaaba, in first few minutes he will get turned off. Later when he is asked to give his opinion about the Dhaaba, he will not having anything to talk about the food because it his beyond his taste. So he will talk about lack of cleanliness, hygiene issues, how dirty and dusty the location was, how the waiter wasn’t polite enough, how discourteous the owner was etc. He will talk about everything but the food.
Another major difference is that the credible film critics are intellectuals.
Hence, the frequent issue of film critics with the “logic” part of the film is highly unavoidable. To give a very stereotypical example, people of the mass circuit like it when an invincible hero single- handedly defeats a hundred men and save the heroine or when the hero delivers a punch line or makes them laugh with his one liners (which might be racist and sexist but people don’t care, they just want that laugh of one second and they move on).
I remember after watching the film “URI-The Surgical Strike”, one film critic said that how come Pakistan soldiers couldn’t hit their target a single time and the Indian soldiers successfully killed all their enemies. The audience gave a proper answer with around Rs.245 Crores of net India box office collection.
To be honest and blunt, the film is made for the audiences and once it is accepted by them, it’s the end of the discussion (one likes it or not).
Another reason is that most film critics (an observed fact) like dark and intense cinema. They live a rather comfortable or in some cases, a luxurious lifestyle. They like to indulge into the darkness of films by some of their favourite directors like Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane or Dibakar Banerjee, because they have not experienced that in their lives. They also like to see flawed characters which powerhouse actors like Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and many more amazing actors from the theatre background generally like to play.
The mass audience on the other hand experience such darkness and intensity in their day to day struggling lives and absolutely do not want see more of poverty, darkness, gritty characters. They have enough stress in their lives already. They want to come to cinema halls to get entertained. They want to see a good story with beautiful locations, high production values, and their favourite stars (all these things still don’t guarantee a hit film). They do not want to watch a “realistic portrayal” of their struggles all over again in the cinema hall. For them their time in the theatres is an escape from their harsh reality.
They will surely not want to spend 30% of their salary to watch films like “Raman Raghav 2.0”, “Trapped”, “Manjhi-The Mountain Man”, “Ugly”, “Photograph”, “Pataakha”, “Sonchiriya” and the list goes on (these are extremely well reviewed and really good films, some of them have travelled to film festivals and have made our country proud. Sadly, they do not connect with the mass audiences).
The worlds of film critics and the mass audience have been, are and will always continue to be completely different. There will be a lot of films that both will reject, both will accept but the majority of the time they will have contrasting views. Also, most film critics do not accept this fact. They argue that at a human level all are same and everyone feels the same emotions, but the fact is that their family background, upbringing, lifestyle, financial situations, politics, sense of humour, desires, fantasies and dreams are poles apart.
So, just because a film critic likes “Sholay” or “Andaaz Apna Apna” or even “Hello Brother” wouldn’t make him or her part of the mass audience.
Film critics watch a film to analyse and examine the film because they have to submit a review of it. Most of them make notes while watching the film. That might work for a slow “festival” type of film but not the commercial entertainers where every sentence has a punch line and one needs to be focused into the film to enjoy it.
The audience on the other hand enter the theatres to give their full undivided attention to the film and hence are able to enjoy it thoroughly.
Lastly, this might pinch some critics but the fact is the general audience watch a movie by paying for the ticket.
Film critics watch films for free (along with soft drinks, Samosas and Popcorn!)
Hence, it is of utmost importance for the audience to get larger than life action, drama, romance, good locations, good clothes, thrill, great songs and their favourite stars, all in one film. When you pay for something, you value it and enjoy it to the fullest, even if you have already consumed the same thing before.
Having said all of this, credible Film Critics are still an important part of the film world.
Their job isn’t easy at all. They have to watch some of the worst films as a part of their jobs. Their high sensibilities and tastes have played a key role in breaking stereotypes and forcing the formulaic filmmakers to push the boundaries in our cinema. They have played an integral part in helping small gems like “Bareilly Ki Barfi”, “Shubh Mangal Saavdhan”, “Newton”,”Dum Laga Ke Haisha”, “Masaan” and many more films. The industry and the audience have discovered and recognised many supremely talented actors like Pankaj Tripathi, Rajkummar Rao, Vicky Kaushal, Seema Pahwa, Sanjay Mishra and many more, because of the support from the film critics.
Today, many people blindly trust some of the credible film critics and watch many films based on their reviews. They have helped the audience in saving their hard earned money too in cases like “Thugs of Hindostan”, “Race 3”, “Zero” and many more!
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
August 11, 2019
“Imagine that you are accustomed to having authentic Italian food and being made to go into a Desi Punjabi Dhaaba.
Though you might find pizzas there but of a completely different taste. And the best thing that the Dhaaba has to offer- Spicy Punjabi food would not suit your taste.” – This doesn’t account for the fact that cookie cutter films EVERYWHERE are not well liked by critics. It doesn’t even HAVE to be a different cultural paradigm (and I don’t even buy that sort of distinction between a GoW and the Golmaal movies because they aren’t from such radically different places culturally as Italian food and Punjabi).
The single biggest difference between the audience and the critics is the latter have to watch movies every week. They watch maybe 100x the number of movies the audience does. If the audience had to watch terrible movies week after week just for the opportunity to review the rare good film, they too would become as weary of generic films that have nothing new to say as the critics. That is the rub, really. It’s the same thing in music. People who only occasionally listen to music and only the top 40 when they do, blindly assume that those of us who listen to less mainstream, more ‘underground’ music are snooty. No, we just OD-ed on all the pop we need for a lifetime a long time ago. We can predict the patterns miles away, you (as in general audience) can’t. That’s the biggest difference. If I can find the relevant video/article, I will post it but a large number of pop hits even follow the exact same progression. Four chords that made a million as Steve Wilson wryly observes. It’s the same thing with films. At least there is a middle ground now (which you allude to like Badhai Ho) but back in the day, 99% of masala films followed the same templates over and over again and once we had to put up with Ajay Devgan or, worse still, Sunil Shetty in these templates, it became (at least for me) a gruesome exercise in self-torture where the charisma of Big B carried the day earlier. I still do heartily recommend the Dhadkan climax in the so bad it’s good category.
“The mass audience on the other hand experience such darkness and intensity in their day to day struggling lives and absolutely do not want see more of poverty, darkness, gritty characters. ” – Sounds nice except that single screens are dying rapidly and multiplexes have long ago priced out the masses from watching films in the theater. When I go to the multiplex, I see mostly people of my strata. I am neither filthy rich nor poor, just right in the middle. The temp staff in my team make 20k or so a month and already find multiplexes too expensive (to say nothing then of the ‘actually’ poor). They just find torrents and share it with each other with bluetooth. Which poor people exactly are making hits out of Golmaal and co?
“When you pay for something, you value it and enjoy it to the fullest, even if you have already consumed the same thing before.” – Speak for yourself. I can think of quite a few films that I didn’t enjoy having paid for them. I would probably be more charitable to such films had I not regarded them as a waste of my money. Trying to force oneself to enjoy them because you paid for it sounds Stockholm Syndrome like to me. By the way, the one time I seriously contemplated walking out mid film wasn’t even a Hindi film but Charlie’s Angels, the one that starred Drew Barrymore/Cameron Diaz. Hands down the worst film I have seen in a theater. The worst I have ever watched (on TV) was also a Hollywood film. A tie between Texas Chainsaw Massacre and American Gothic. I say this because at least our actors are masterful at hamming and can make something out of a train wreck. Hollywood actors are so well trained and skilled they get really uncomfortable trying to ham (with the exception of the comics like Jim Carrey) and be something they are not.
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KK
August 11, 2019
The writer starts by saying “It will be an oversimplification of the issue at hand” and goes on to do exactly that. How do you know critics live a luxurious life? Have you met them all? While sure they are paid to watch, but they don’t live a luxurious life at least not at the level of, say successful businessman or stars or whatever. Just like the artists they also come from the masses. How do you know they don’t understand the daily struggle that many people go through? And how do you define masses? Are you referring to the under-privileged section? But why would they spend money on cinema which is basically a luxury while their incomes fall short of fulfilling their basic needs? Are you referring to the college-going youth or those who work in MNCs or other private companies? Most of the collection of a movie comes from metro cities. It’s very likely that these aforementioned sections will be financially in a good condition, at least as per the Indian standards.
You said that they like dark, intense drama. But not every dark film is automatically good, Even Kashyap has got flaks for films like Bombay Velvet. That movie was as dark and intense as it gets. On the other hand movies like Piku or ZNMD got really good reviews. They weren’t dark. A well-made movie gets good reviews. That’s the key.
Escapism has always been there. And it’s there in the west too. But that doesn’t mean people don’t value good cinema. Why do you think Nolan, whose films are “dark and intense”, is such a big filmmaker? He has two 1B dollar movies to his name. So the issue is not escapism, at least not entirely. And Films are art forms too. They do make an impression on the minds of the audience. So while nobody becomes a criminal by watching a crime movie but the young audience do imitate the action on the screen. For example, there were incidents of eve-teasing where the song “aati kya khandala” was used.
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hattorihanzo4784
August 11, 2019
There is a “film critic” called Anna Vetticad who writes for firstpost. She is like on a whole different level. Roger Ebert is nothing in front of her.
Jokes apart, wrt the topic, I have heard somewhere else on this blog that there is a difference between a film critic and an ordinary banana reviewer. A film critic is a knowledgeable person who has put in a lot of hours in the study and observation of cinema. They are like the coach compared to the directors who are star batsmen. Coaches wouldn’t have scored thousands of runs but even srt and MSD will ask their coach for batting advice and strategy. I’d imagine a film critic also reads a lot of books on cinema and would have watched a lot of Avant Garde stuff from all over the world. As a result, they are one of the best communicators of ideas and interpret what the director has expressed in words.
Whereas your average banana reviewer is just in it because he likes watching movies like the rest of us and usually depends on gimmicks to convey his interpretation of the movie he just watched. If I would ever become a dictator, I would ask my communications chief to establish an oral and written exam for critics who want to write reviews. Very simple questions like the below will be asked –
why is ozu more popular in Japan while Kurosawa outside japan?
Would you consider Scorcese’s “Taxi Driver” a dark version of Chaplin’s Modern Times?
Would you consider playback singing in Indian movies a massive con and a misrepresentation of talent?
There is no right answer for these questions, but all the bhe bhe and meh meh morons will be asked to leave and work more on their craft. I’d imagine a lot of morons in the review business will not receive their licenses.
I was recently watching a discussion between the film companion folk over Kabir Singh and a “critic” had the audacity to propose his theory that – the kind of movies you like will reveal your character. Tsk tsk tsk tsk… Just look at the pathetic situation of these folk nowadays.
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Madan
August 12, 2019
“Would you consider playback singing in Indian movies a massive con and a misrepresentation of talent?” – Misrepresentation of whose talent? I mean, I am sure even the most naive members of the audience always knew it wasn’t REALLY the heroes or heroines singing and that they were lipsyncing to a track.
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Kamal
August 12, 2019
Great article::
Well done. You can be a great film reviewer.
One thing I wanna share about Kabir Singh that I have seen and experienced the character in my college days,couple of my friends very close to kabir ‘s Role. Most of those EDUCATED critics never experienced the LOVE.
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hattorihanzo4784
August 12, 2019
Madan
Whether giving lip sync to songs and dialogues not executed by the actor is misrepresentation of talent or not is an entirely different discussion.
Right beneath the lines that you have quoted, I have also written that “there are no right answers to these questions”, which you completely missed due to reasons best known to yourself.
The very intention to test critic wannabes before giving them permission to criticise movies in the very elaborate hypothetical scenario that I mentioned about is to see if they effing have a viewpoint of their own and if they have any intelligence to analyse stuff that goes around in the films and the film industry rather than hoping to elicit the “correct answer” from them which doesn’t exist for such a question. I might have some arguments against playback singing, someone a lot more cleverer than me might have more reasonable logic for it.
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Madan
August 12, 2019
hattorihanzo4784: I did not miss it at all and that is the very reason for my question. What do you mean when you say there is no right answer to the question of whether playback singing is a misrepresentation of talent. Because unless you are referring to the lipspync aspect, I don’t think this is such an ambiguous question at all. The answer is pretty clear cut. No, it is not a misrepresentation of the singer’s talent. Now if you want to talk about autotune, that happens in contemporary pop music. But the ‘classic’ singers were more than capable technically. That is why I don’t understand why this is a litmus test of any sort. What’s there to debate about this?
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Ravi K
August 12, 2019
“To explain the different tastes of the masses and the film critics, let us take an Example- Imagine that you are accustomed to having authentic Italian food and being made to go into a Desi Punjabi Dhaaba.
Though you might find pizzas there but of a completely different taste. And the best thing that the Dhaaba has to offer- Spicy Punjabi food would not suit your taste.”
It’s more like “film critic calls out mediocre dhaaba for putting using much salt in the dish, while parts of it are undercooked and others are burnt.” It’s not that critics (the good ones, anyways) hate our “dhaabas” and want them to be “Italian food.” They just don’t make any excuses for the bad dhaabas, even if people queue up to them.
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theeversriram
August 14, 2019
Excellent write-up, agree with most of the points. In general box office has better correlation to positive reviews from YouTube reviewers (at least in Tamil) than positive reviews from BR or other professional critics.
End of day, critics and general audience motives to go for a movie is much different.
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Santa
August 15, 2019
All this could have easily been summarized thus: Different strokes for different folks 🙂
Let me nit pick on a couple of points though.
First, is that audiences are giving their undivided attention while critics are distracted by taking notes. I would argue that writing a review requires greater attentiveness on the part of a critic. I suspect that critics are able to absorb and recall details of a film better than any lay person simply because it is part of their job and they are proficient at it.
Second, “general audience watch a movie by paying for the ticket”, while “film critics watch films for free.” So, are the audiences trying to minimize their buyers remorse by liking a bad movie simply because they have already paid for it? 🙂
Seriously though, film critics are not watching movies merely as a source of entertainment. They are doing their job, so naturally one wouldn’t expect them to have to pay in order to perform their job. Or is the implication that critics should somehow be more grateful since they getting for free something that others have to pay for? If they get served samosa and popcorn in the process, well, don’t workers in all kinds of professions get food and perks as part of their respective jobs? If I was a film producer, I would certainly make sure that the person reviewing my film is well fed, not because I want them to feel obligated by chai and samosas, but because I know that hungry = cranky.
I can only speak for myself here as a “general audience” member, but when I pay for a film ticket and the film turns out to be not good, (no matter the action, drama, romance, locations, clothes), I feel more annoyed than if I had simply watched the film on TV.
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vinjk
August 25, 2019
https://whatculture.com/film/10-awesome-ways-movies-got-back-at-critics?page=1
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Madan
August 25, 2019
Don’t know where else to post this, but this was a very interesting video compiled by somebody who seems to have become a FC contributor since then. Didn’t agree with the conclusion but the aspects of acting he delineated were valid and well elucidated.
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The Crustacean
August 26, 2019
For most people, what they expect in a critic’s opinion is merely the weather report
Whether it is safe to venture out into
The common man seeking critic’s opinion actually seeks action-ability.
Critics usually deliver a dose of sensibility disguised as action-ability.
And as I have pointed out earlier, risk being called dilettantes.
I myself have called BR that, once, to which he took umbrage.
I think the writer here seeks to make one thing clear, just tell me if it is bad, and bad as in my terms rather than yours. It is this simple job that most critics find themselves unable to do, and come up with excuses for.
So should the critic be one at all?
Should destiny thrust this delightful profession upon him, should he be a people’s choice kind of critic, or one with all the sensibilities of Dorian Gray’s art for art sake?
If the Blue Sattais and Prashants of this world are popular, they have this rough and ready way of passing judgement, it is good, or it is bad, or in between. That is all that is needed, for a common man seeking action-ability.
Then there is the dilettante himself, seeking pleasures in cinema rare and elevated.
He seeks out the opinion of the critic, as to the promise and location of pleasures that are lofty even if ephemeral. This is the kind of critic who has reflective taste, who kind of elevates the artist himself.
His experience is long, and his appreciation for the nuances of craft and where craft changes to art is considered. He finds the usual unattractive, even boring, and the people who seek out his opinion have similar end points, and their certification is kind of a status symbol for the artist and his artifact.
This is a transaction genuine, both seek elevated experiences, and the serious well informed critic, with elevated tastes can deliver the goods.
In between these two extremes lie another category, which for want of a better word we would term impostors.
Like earlier, here too, there is a seeker and the sought.
In this case the critic is one whose appreciation skills are much lesser than their ability to espouse it. Though every critic needs to resort to gibberish once in a while, the impostor elevates gibberish to fine art.
There is a group which consumes this gibberish. These are the ones who don’t see the movie, they don’t intend to, yet partake of the pleasures of discussing about it, like monks in confession rooms.
Like every meat has its market, to such markets come some who are there for the pleasure of promise rather than the act itself, these are like readers of hard core romances but who would turn away when an actual romance is initiated. Sometimes these two meet and have an orgasmic orgy that has no relation to the subject at hand.
They are at cosplay, to put a word on it.
To summarize, three different markets, three different needs, three different products.
Each of which wouldn’t make sense to the other.
Given this base, the writer of this opinion piece applies himself to arguments of the first part.
Unfortunately he conflates cost with taste, and has been rightly pounced upon.
But his argument is genuine and communicated really well.
“Tell me if the movie is good, and in doing so, please use my desires as a stratum not yours”
The idea is that he is going to spend time and money seeing it, and would like to have a quick preview from you, since you preferred to talk about it. This guy has chaval on his mind, and if you have pulao on yours there is bound to be a disconnect.
In an ideal world, chaval guys would go to a place where that is served, and pulao guys to where that is. But this being not so ideal a world, mismatches do happen, and disconnects result.
This article is a reflection of such a disconnect.
The reactions it has provoked also are a reflection of such disconnect.
Disclaimer: All the usual disclaimers apply.
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Madan
August 26, 2019
The Crustacean : The problem with wanting to know whether a film is good or bad in the sense of wanting to know whether the food at a restaurant is good, is the former is way more subjective and the range of tastes among the audience is also wider. If the only purpose a reader has in reading a review is to know whether he should watch this film, he is better off asking a friend with similar tastes.
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Madan
August 30, 2019
So… here’s an exhibit that expands on the premise of this post. The Newsroom, an HBO series written by Aaron Sorkin, has an 8.6 average IMDB rating. But for some reason, critics disliked it, slamming it as preachy and didactic. This is one thing I noted during the Neerja discussion also, that when critics or watchers says they want realistic, they really mean cynical. That is, a version of reality that conforms to the post modern, irreverent, cynical equilibrium. But if you don’t acknowledge say Jon Carreyrou’s work in exposing Theranos, that’s not realism, that’s just cynicism. That is, the kind of zeal for reporting they show in The Newsroom does exist. It’s not a bad thing to show reporters who care about the facts. I bet privately, in the age of Trump, the same journalists who disliked the series now wistfully admire its message.
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The Crustacean
August 31, 2019
Madan: Could it be that finding a friend with similar tastes is too difficult, the taste market is too damn fragmented.
And yet beneath all this seemingly disconnected chaos, there seems to lie a thin stream, of commonly shared taste, and eagerly consumed.
This is perhaps where the critic should base it on, on a humanity that we all do recognize; by instinct, not afterthought. The best question that should precede the judgement of a work of art is if it did touch you, and you is not you, but the general human in you.
A work of art needs no better advertisement than that, for its time.
And when it can touch, across generations, it can be deemed a classic.
The general stream of criticism, which deviated away from the norm since two centuries back, has played havoc with what are actually shared values, and denigrated it into one of specific tastes which hold no water years thereafter.
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Madan
August 31, 2019
The Crustacean : I don’t know, I listen to very niche genres of music and have had no trouble finding friends to recommend music that I am interested in. The keyword being interested. I can understand that for a passive art consumer, today’s world may appear daunting but at the same time, there are people like Taran Adarsh around to write reviews for them. The market is being served, as it always is. Savvy consumers look at imdb ratings rather than specific critics’ reviews to decide. That is, if you cannot find actual flesh and blood friends, find them online or find a community online that serves your need. There has never been a better time than today to find the art you seek. If you’re prepared to look.
That said, I wonder if consumers of popular art can acknowledge that even if today’s Salman Khan hits are fit for purpose, they are still not as memorable as Gol Maal, Chupke Chupke, Sholay, Deewar, etc. When you lament the breakdown of a shared culture, please remember that artists themselves are much more to blame for this than either the audience or the critics. It is not the critics job to identify with what part of a movie speaks to the universal everyman but for movie makers to work their ass off to find this golden middle. How was Hrishida able to make a product that appeals to audiences decades after it was made but today’s hits have limited shelf life. How were the stars of the 70s able to give themselves to their roles to help create this timeless experience where today Salman is only obsessed with his image.
So it is not that critics are so hard to please so much as it is that makers have found a business model where they don’t have to try hard to net a hit and their aspirations don’t extend beyond it. Consider that the great Disney studios contents itself with making a virtually scene by scene remake of Lion King. And the film turns out to be a yuuuge hit. Sorry, where is the creative enterprise in such an endeavour. It is not wrong for the audience to take it, if nothing else but for old times’ sake, but it is also not wrong for the critic to then point out the dire lack of creativity on the studio’s part.
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The Crustacean
September 1, 2019
madan:
very thoughtful comment that…
yes, the median is open to abuse,
most of it, by makers intent on commercial success…
but that’s besides the point
the idea is that there is some kind of authority figure whose opinion is esteemed and the movie critic is that figure, a shortcut to the IMDB etc you mentioned.
he is kind of third leg that keeps the cinema stool standing, and when he forsakes his job to go look elsewhere, then the structure collapses, and his opinions become mere entertainment than the value add it is supposed to be. it is like your friend came to you for advise and you decided to pull his leg, or talk to the mirror.
my contention is that the critic fulfills an important function in keeping good cinema going.
the film maker would take that as an important input, and try to reform himself, and his product.
however most critics turn criticism into individual pursuits, along paths that mean nothing to the average viewer or the film maker.
most critics therefore are not read by the people they review, unless you thrust your nose into their domains, like BR did with MR. Nice to read, perhaps illuminating too, in a limited way, but of no use either to future film makers or to the present. it is my guess that if MR had taken BR to heart, we should have seen better movies from him, not re hashes of earlier attempts.
my overall point was also that this has been a phenomenon recent, of the last two centuries.
an nose up approach to art that ill serves it.
am pointing out that there is a better way,
in spite of the market fragmenting, as you pointed out.
it is what the market desires and deserves…
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Madan
September 1, 2019
“most critics therefore are not read by the people they review, unless you thrust your nose into their domains, like BR did with MR. Nice to read, perhaps illuminating too, in a limited way, but of no use either to future film makers or to the present.” – But it is not meant to be of use anyway. Just as films per se are of no use in a pure economic sense to society. Why do we still watch films? Because we enjoy the experience. Likewise, there is a market for critics because people like to read a critic’s thoughts on film. Some expect alignment in views while some read just to see how the critic has written about the film.
“my overall point was also that this has been a phenomenon recent, of the last two centuries.” – But there weren’t even films before the last century, right? Whether it’s films or recorded music sold as tapes/CDs/digital downloads or mass publishing, these are all twentieth century phenomena. The sheer volume of art products being released created a market for writing about the art itself.
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Madan
September 1, 2019
“my contention is that the critic fulfills an important function in keeping good cinema going.” – But in my view, that function, if at all it exists, is served by a critic holding ART to a high standard rather than lowering his own standard to that of the audience. And yes, I do believe in the notion of a standard. As in, a critic will want to see good technical values in a film and not just a good story. At an even more basic level, a critic or a discerning listener dislikes autotune in music. That the general audience doesn’t, doesn’t mean the critic is somehow wrong for having this dislike.
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The Crustacean
September 4, 2019
madan:
i did include literary criticism in the “critiqued” list, did not mention that, i understand the confusion that “experience of film” translates to money, and the one who seeks that critic’s opinion is seeking to see that his money is well spent, which was the point i was trying to make.
the idea that art(conflated from cinema has no…) has no economic value is reductionist allegory, in real economies and economics, art is one of the prime economic drivers and a flagpole indicator in any consumption economy. it can even be concluded that when the economy is lagging, then art is not being paid its due, and when it is booming, it is paid more than it is worth.
i do agree that the critic has to elevate his art, but that does not and should not come from whimsy, which is what i find in most criticism. if it is beyond the common pale, then educate them and let us see it elevated, not for the few, but for the many.
someone linked a nyt article up here in the comments, and though i have major disagreements with its conclusions, it makes for worthwhile reading as to what elevation of art actually means, and more importantly the work involved in it, and how seriously it is to be pursued.
i rest my case
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Madan
September 4, 2019
The Crustacean: But how is it whimsical or wanting to educate the audience if you simply express an opinion that is different from theirs (to the extent at all that the audience has a monolithic opinion which it doesn’t). You seem to want the critic to second guess the audience take on it which is what sounds disingenuous to me.
If I am being reductionist, it is only because the premise of the post already is. Again, there is no one monolithic audience opinion about a film. There is a range. Because a film became a hit doesn’t mean everyone liked it and because it didn’t doesn’t mean, nobody liked it. As in first past the post politics, the commercial success of an art product depends upon building a sufficiently large coalition of various target groups, income and age group wise, that would watch the film and ensure its success. It does not depend on appealing to everyone. In another discussion, I read somebody complain that a band or artist could move lots of copies in New York for a week and get on the Billboards without people across the coast even knowing of their existence. But that is exactly how art distribution works. There was actually a band that got big enough to sell out Carnegie Hall three nights in a row being popular only in a few Northeast states of the US. It’s simply about locating a large enough critical mass in the moment. That says literally nothing at all about the artistic worth of the work itself, for which no reliable framework exists anyway. But what enables a film to do well today has very little correlation to how well it is going to age in the future. Therefore, there is really no solid ground for the critic to talk up a film simply because he expects it to be successful (albeit this happens via paid reviews). For the critic to share the viewpoint of the audience, the maker would have to identify and universal human condition and make a good enough film about it. That doesn’t happen very often anymore in Bollywood.
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The Crustacean
September 6, 2019
you see a bottle of milk, and it is possible that your thoughts take off in many directions, some which are not germane to the bottle, its contents, or to its consumption. no harm, but still whimsy….
i hope you get me.
there is no harm in whimsy, and yes, there is a certain Wilde charm to it, but anyone attempting it should not expect to be taken seriously. perhaps this is kind of old world, but one expects a critic to be serious, if not about himself, but about the art, even when the art itself is of laughable merit.
i understand that not all good art transcends human differences and differences in taste, but the best art usually provokes reactions not only universal but deep. this is a lodestone, for the critic and the consumer, and once we disregard this lodestone, we begin to flap about.
for the artist, the same is boring, and yet if he travels too far away, then the dangers of vacuousness beckon, as with much of modern art.
where the focus has moved away from artistry, and into topics that art talks about. which is silly, because art, in itself is a output of the senses and more importantly an evocation of it.
good art is said to make you think, however that is but a belittling of the artistic impulse.
good art should evoke, and then if it can make you think, then it is a beneficial extra.
unfortunately in the morass of crap that modern criticism is, this key point is lost, and therefore my flagellation into this subject. they have somehow convinced artists that artistry is not the key point, intellectualism is, so the morass that is modern art, where you need interpreters to tell you what it means.
the king, as you can see, wears no clothes, but that is something that cannot be talked about.
having destroyed literature first with intellectual flagellation, and then art, critics have turned their attention to cinema. their lack of sensual taste, and appropriations of intellectual taste are sure to destroy this medium as they did to the others.
if you do not believe me, just go take a look at the deconstruct videos that abound in youtube, a lot of guys trying to deconstruct cinema, and the intellectual crap that emanates from there is nothing short of depressing. and more importantly has no relation to the subject material.
so what is the harm, you may ask.
the harm is that man is more a slave to ideas than to his senses, and that ideas persist far beyond their lifetime. which is not bad in itself, and which is good for intellect based subjects, like say science and math.
but in art, it moves the masses away by refusing the sense based reactions that it evokes, and moves into an arid field where mere intellectualism triumphs. this is happening to cinema now, where a boatload of amateurs who sound knowledgeable are trying to move people from their intrinsic sense of merit into something supposedly superior.
for the masses who are led, it soon becomes a badge, to be associated with one stream of critical opinion, whatever its worth be, and in the long run, the essence of art is lost, and poseurs and divergents take the stage.
and therefore…
one artist recently made history, dubious at best, of having his art disintegrate on auction.
a good talking point, but…
the dangers of intellectualism in art has reached a point of no return.
and soon cinema…
i bemoan that bad critics are unmaking good cinema, or at least veering off its course.
i do understand your point, that taste is not monolithic, but then the best art manages to do exactly that, it touches you despite your opinions and predilections, it makes monoliths of taste that stand, and for centuries. unless we use that touch as a lodestone, then cinema is also lost to us.
so you understand my discomfort with dilettantes.
and whimsy…
it is cute, but it does not help
and it is not becoming to people who are serious about art
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Madan
September 6, 2019
The Crustacean: I am aware of the deconstructionists and heartily despise them. I had a lengthy and nasty argument the other day with a dude who insisted art always has moral consequences. But for all that, I don’t think they represent the entirety or even the majority of critics. Further, you seem to be indulging in something that I have pointed out before: of importing arguments relevant in a Western context and applying them here. In the Western world, critics or other media per se wield more power. They can get a work of art ‘cancelled’ for not toeing the politically correct line. That is pretty much censorship and I don’t support it. In the Indian context, though, critics simply don’t have that kind of influence nor do they indulge in the cancel culture rhetoric. With that being the case, I don’t think they even have the power to ruin art, for all that you insist they have.
Lastly, I don’t agree that the best art is that which appeals to anyone. Because there is no such thing. I have heard people dismiss Beatles or Michael Jackson as overrated and these are the best selling artists of all time pretty much. I have heard people claim that Rafi’s voice is unpleasant or even that he is besura(!) but he had so many hits over three decades. There used to be this feisty participant in this blog who claimed Ilayaraja was overrated and he rigged/manipulated producers into working with him. I am not asking you to accept that all these artists are great, by the way. My point is they all achieved the highest level of success attainable and reached the largest possible audience available to their medium. If THEY cannot win everyone over, nobody else has a choice. The examples are legion by the way. ABBA sold millions of copies and are fondly remembered by many but they also attracted much opprobrium in other quarters.
The only reason art appeared to be monolithic before was the aristocracy had one definition of art and imposed it on everyone. This was easy enough since only they had the means to pay for it ere the advent of mass distribution of art. They simply disdained and/or refused to recognise folk or rural music traditions even though classical composers were not above appropriating these to develop motifs. By and by industrialisation loosened these controls on art, be it the advent of nightclubs where bands could perform for an audience or, as mentioned earlier, mass distribution in the form of records or films. But there never was one monolithic taste we all subscribed to. We are capable of liking a lot of things and not in a way that always overlaps with others’ tastes. And that’s a good thing. It’s enough if it means something personally for you or me. It doesn’t have to mean the same thing to all of us. What I do push back against is the notion that art in and of itself has no meaning. On the contrary, it is one of the most meaningful pursuits of humankind in a true and non material sense. If this appears to contradict what I said earlier, it is because you likened a critic’s review to a product feedback and art has no UTILITY in that sense. Its value in monetary terms is usually generated from scarcity. The absence of scarcity has demonetised music long before Modi brought the word into popular lingo. But the meaning, in a philosophical sense, of art is so valuable as to potentially be priceless.
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The Crustacean
September 9, 2019
Your writing begins to achieve feel, nice
The blog editor seems to screw up the paragraph structure when it posts.
So I broke it down into distinct paragraphs.
Lets see if it holds
Sorry to straddle fields in here, I hope you don’t find it confusing.
Para 1:
The critics (in India) are not there yet, but are getting there, and i see it as worrisome
Para 2:
The problem with Nose Ups is that they keep shifting the goalposts.
Which is one of the problems with the intellectualization of art.
The moment the critic get bored with one thing, they are ready to move to another, and find reasons to fit it to the critical narrative.
And somehow the resulting sham intellectualism seems new and logical for others to make the move. The bigger problem here is that this moves moves artists too, and therefore the art into directions strange, and away from our shared humanity.
It was Picasso (or was it Dali?) who once gave a woman an almost exact painting of herself, and when she expressed surprise that he could do it so well, said, well, this is the baseline from where we all emerge.
Para 3:
So when modern art is mocked, it is because it made itself mockable.
Credit goes to the critics (plus the many avant garde schools) who have managed it over the last two centuries.
Today to enjoy modern art, you need a degree, or you need to fake it.
I once asked a modern painter if he was doing art, or expressing an idea, and he said, though many of us are interested only in the art, the critics notice you only when you do something outrageous.
So we have a community of insecure artists who have to kowtow to supposedly superior tastes, and since these opinions move money, they are to be taken seriously. So you know that it is only for lack of a gun, and ammunition that I have not taken to shooting the critics.
Para 4:
Now apply that above understanding to Carnatic music!
Whose rabid intellectualization has made it almost unreachable to the common man.
Not because it is highbrow technical, but because it has lost its ability to make us feel.
So rather than have the raga do things to us, the things that it is supposed to do, we end up doing things to it.
Like asking who its father is and the scales it moved on.
Hell, if it did its job, even a kid would shut up and listen.
That art, despite it reaching heights sublime, has been lost…
Thanks to its intellectualization.
And the croakers who imagine that frogs are in the audience.
Para 5:
There is craft, and some people think that when craft acquires individuality, it becomes art.
That is a base notion, a mistake that even seasoned artists make.
Craft becomes art only when it is transcended, much as poetry, which in breaking the base rules of grammar and yet managing to make us feel, transcends prose.
The individuality, if any,is a later artifact that derives from the (sustained) transcendence
It is neither the cause of transcendence, nor a necessity for transcendence.
Para 6:
Watching a McEnroe, or Gower, or Ronaldinho on the field, you are aware that they are special, though you cannot really break it down.
It is a magic that derives from an elevated and entirely internal state of play. they hover on the edges of the game’s grammar and then in a moment of magic, transcend it. A transcendence that even its creator finds difficult to explain, or break down.
In other words there is technique, and then there is a magic that consumes the technique and transcends it. Unfortunately for most critics, their ability to remain open to magic has been lost, they find technique easier to deal with, and rate those highly whose technique is better.
Which is why many are out of sync with popular opinion.
Good craft is certainly better than bad art, but that is true only in blatantly bad cases.
When the critic goes for craft rather than art, because it is more accessible, intellectually, he moves the art and the artist away from the populace, and kills it ultimately.
The list of lost arts is therefore quite long.
Para 7:
Then the other thing you pointed out, the debate between art for art’s sake, and art for society.
It does not really matter.
Art whatever the platform it chooses to play on, should finally move us, and without us knowing why.
Para 8:
The way to rate good art is to ask if you can find the words to describe it.
If you can, then the Art is not yet there.
The best art, like beauty, can leave you speechless.
Not only you, but everyone around you.
Not only for now, but for generations.
That is the superior art.
And very few cases of it actually exist.
And if you listen to the critics, you will miss many of them.
Para 9:
The moment we come to the understanding that Art is an intensely human endeavor, and that when faced with the best of any art, we are all uniformly moved, even when we are not aware of the technicalities, is when Art will really find its rightful critics. Most of the ones around, however well and intellectually or charmingly they express themselves, are more or less sham.
Para 10:
I once had a friend argue that since cinema is a collective endeavor, it should not be clubbed with other arts. In a limited sense, he is right, but in a case where the director is also an self confessed auteur, this cannot hold. I guess that we should hold everyone to a common baseline.
That does not mean that a hit is elevated, but that a hit that moves generations and uniformly is worthy of a higher respect than one that is superior in technique. There can be differences in technique, but their end point is same, to move us, and keep us moved.
So when we list the world’s greatest artists, we do come across that rarefied few, who without any effort, manage to move us all, and across generations. To arrive at that list and earlier than us, is the job of the critic, and it is a job that needs to be taken seriously.
Para 11:
Since you mentioned Ilayaraja, I should confess that I find only about 20 percent of his work exceptional. As for the others, Rahman hovers at say 7 percent, MSV at 13 odd, and most of the others between 1-3.
Strangely the ones I seem to like seem to be universally liked to, give or take a difference of 1%. I know, I polled.
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Madan
September 9, 2019
I am breaking my response in two as it became long and unwieldy. 😀
“The bigger problem here is that this moves moves artists too, and therefore the art into directions strange, and away from our shared humanity.” – Well, if there is a lengthy post up here complaining that critics don’t give movies that the audience likes a fair deal, it suggests the opposite of what you have stated above, that in fact the critics don’t move artists that much at all. IF it does, it only reflects the said artists’ lack of conviction. But I don’t believe it does. Artists grumble about critics because they too, like other humans, crave approval. Isn’t that what this discussion is about too? You as well as the person who composed this reader’s write in would like the critics’ approval but on your terms rather than theirs.
“Whose rabid intellectualization has made it almost unreachable to the common man.
Not because it is highbrow technical, but because it has lost its ability to make us feel.”
Actually, no, because it IS highbrow technical. Because its concerns are technical. And because that means one has to first learn a good deal about the music form, either formally or by trial and error, to appreciate it, it discomfits those who do not want to put in the effort and they then proceed to decry it as intellectual. Now there is a lot of Carnatic music that doesn’t do anything at all for me but that applies to almost any genre of music. Or indeed any genre of art. Again, it is not possible for every artist to appeal to every palate though you have made that unrealistic conception (which I will address later).
“Hell, if it did its job, even a kid would shut up and listen.” – No! In fact, if you move even slightly beyond the most easily accessible kind of art form, this ceases to be the case. Let me humour you (or not!) with an anecdote here.
Like most who spent their childhood in India, I was only exposed to Indian music and the Indian system in which no conception of harmony exists. Therefore, when my father played the Beatles tape we had and then lamented the lack of an antara/charanam in these songs, I would nod in agreement because that is all I conceived possible in music. He had this routine where shortly after he said this, he would switch back to Hindi film music. This went on until I did by and by, through trial and error, open my ears, my imagination to harmony. And realised that, obviously, the lack of a second stanza of different melody is not a lacuna in Western music. It’s a different animal; it moves differently. It moves on a harmonic pulse and we Indians don’t pay attention to it. But THAT is our loss, not theirs, not that of the artists.
Tldr version: A pure gut reaction can be unreliable if extended to art that is far beyond your comfort zone. It then becomes necessary to understand this particular genre’s own aesthetic and sensibilities. By and by, through repeated exposure, you can tell right away at letter A when the people start to move, as Stevie Wonder put it. This applies to Carnatic music as well. 10-12 years ago, I would have found Balamuralikrishna intimidating. Now I find his voice powerful yet sweet and extremely compelling. Once the grammar of his music stopped confounding me, I could get to the heart of what he was trying to convey.
“Watching a McEnroe, or Gower, or Ronaldinho on the field, you are aware that they are special, though you cannot really break it down.” – Sure but Nadal is also special. Just special in a less immediately apparent way, especially to casual watchers. And I am distrustful of an argument that elevates the judgment of those who don’t engage with tennis seriously over those who do, some of whom may in fact play the game albeit at a much less exalted level than Nadal or McEnroe. This is even more the case with Djokovic. Because casual watchers don’t drop their jaw in surprise at how early he is picking the ball to return deep in impossible ways, how he is able to stretch his body at the max and still make a screaming passing shot winner. They don’t because they only look at where the follow through of his shots end and then proceed to deride it as ugly. But is it really ugly or is it that some people watch it through a narrow prism and have no interest in expanding their horizons?
” Unfortunately for most critics, their ability to remain open to magic has been lost, they find technique easier to deal with, and rate those highly whose technique is better.” – This is possible. I can certainly see it happening but more because of the amount of art critics are expected to surf through and evaluate. Your argument has a throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater element, which is my chief concern and I will come to it.
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Madan
September 9, 2019
Continuing…
“Good craft is certainly better than bad art, but that is true only in blatantly bad cases.” – Unfortunately, blatantly bad cases are legion. In cinema and in any other medium. I have seen a Tamil film that was so bad that both myself and my cousin wanted to up and go out of Satyam in the middle of the movie on a hot, summer day where our locality had a day long power outage (which was what had motivated us to seek out some film, any film to watch in airconditioned comfort). This was also the day we treated our popcorn as reverentially as if it were Tirupati prasadam. The movie in question was Sarvam. And it’s not an exclusively Indian cinema thing. I felt like walking out of Charlie’s Angels as well, the one that starred Demi Moore, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz. Hollywood jumps the shark less often but it’s not completely immune as aforesaid movie or Texas Chainsaw Massacre show (what on earth were Renee Zellwegger and Matthew McConaughey doing in THAT film!)
But I will waste no more time in coming to the heart of our differences and what I said I found unrealistic in your conception of what makes for great art.
“The moment we come to the understanding that Art is an intensely human endeavor, and that when faced with the best of any art, we are all uniformly moved, even when we are not aware of the technicalities” – No, we are not all necessarily even moved. And we are definitely not uniformly moved. Especially not when we are not aware of the technicalities. I think technicality is anyway a buzzword here. What is most important is familiarity with the cultural mileu that informs a medium. Insisting that it is unimportant closes our doors to a plethora of art. Appreciating its importance opens many doors instead.
For eg, if you took a stereotypical middle aged Madras mama who has never listened to anything other than Tamil music and exposed him to BB King, it is very unlikely he will get much further beyond his sandpaper voice. But in the blues world, BB King is a legend and deservedly so. But to get there, one has to appreciate that S P Balasubramaniam is not the be all end all and that there are a zillion valid styles of singing that can work well provided they are wedded to the appropriate context. By the way, King is renowned more for his guitar than his singing but blues listeners wouldn’t generally say his singing gets in the way of his music because they are aware enough of the genre to expect and accept it.
I actually had an experience once that brings out how unrealistic your expectation is. A colleague of mine noticed I listened to Western music a lot. He was a Bollywood listener. One evening, whilst returning from work, he asked me to show him a sample of the stuff I listened to. I very carefully steered clear of the heavy metal and played him Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. He didn’t get past the first 20-30 seconds. Just the intro with the beautiful (to me and millions of others) vocal harmonising threw him off. But he didn’t stop there. He was incredulous and asked me how could I listen to this stuff. Fortunately for him, I am a very polite guy hehe. People love to say music has no language. Maybe it doesn’t but it does have strong cultural markers and only the intrepid make the effort to jump over these hoops. Therefore…
“Art whatever the platform it chooses to play on, should finally move us, and without us knowing why.” – No, in order for art to move us, we have to move. Move our bums and walk up to the art and reach out to it, reach past our comfort zone, allow ourselves to be temporarily discomfited. It’s like growing a muscle. Alternatively, what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. The intrepid audience member seeks out experience based on how EXCITING it may be rather than based on how likely he or she is to enjoy it. Because the curious person knows it is impossible to predict the likelihood of enjoying a work of art. And this seemingly pessimistic formulation actually prepares the intrepid ones, and I count myself among them, to receive art with an open mind.
You define art as essentially a one way experience where the audience is passive and allows itself to be moved – akin to being hypnotised – by the art. I define it more as a two way process where both the artist and the audience communicate. This communication is most evident in live performances. An engaged audience in turn lifts the level of the artist and he/she performs with more intensity and passion. A distracted audience can, by the same token, pull down the artist’s level as he starts questioning whether the effort is worth it with this lot.
So, in summary, I do agree that it is important for critics to emotionally connect with the art and not just focus on technique. However, when you formulate great art as that which moves us ALL uniformly, you have set an expectation that is not just unrealistic but impossible. I don’t know anything about what your own preferences are in the arts as you have not put the cards on the table. However, what I can say is it is only possible to conceive great art in that manner if one restricts oneself to a set of genres one is already familiar with through the formative years. This is what a lot of people do as well. But that is merely a drop in the ocean. There is so much else out there. And just because cultural variations make it difficult for us to immediately relate to it does not make that art lacking in greatness. Quite possibly it is great and we just don’t know it yet.
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Saahil Siddiqui
March 14, 2021
This article is like a roller coaster. At times it is very aware of the scenario and at others it gives the most stupid reasoning. At some places, only a single context is taken into consideration and others left out. I’m pretty sure the writer suffers from ADHD. Stop justifiying tomfoolery and dumdfoundedness in the name of “masses”. Stories are universal, storytelling is universal. Educate yourself and admit that Indian filmmakers are not very smart and as a result the audience is the least smartest in the whole scenario
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