Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/getting-into-robert-bresson-through-lancelot-du-lac-aka-making-it-easier-to-enter-art-cinema-7580311.html
For three years now, I have been conducting the Young Critics Lab for the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, with Star, and one of the questions that comes from every batch is how to get into foreign cinema, especially the really arty kind. It’s not easy, because even a relatively plot-filled, action-packed epic like Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai seems “slow” to a young audience today. They are unable to see what Roger Ebert did: “it moves quickly because the storytelling is so clear, there are so many sharply defined characters, and the action scenes have a thrilling sweep.” So imagine the problem with filmmakers like Michelangelo Antonioni or Robert Bresson or Andrei Tarkovsky.
I strongly believe that if you want to be critic, you need to have seen all the canonical works. You need to be familiar with the pantheon, even if you later decide this filmmaker or that one does not work for you. And one way to ease into the artier world – let’s say, Bresson – is to pick a work you are already familiar with in some shape or form. As a boy, I was crazy about myths. I’d read everything I could lay my hands on – our own epics, Greek and Roman myths, Norse myths, everything. And I was especially nuts about the Arthurian legends. While in school, I read an abridged version, and thereon, every other kind I could get. One of the last TV shows I binge-watched was Merlin, which imagined Arthur and Merlin as young men (and imagine, Arthur does not know Merlin is a magician).
Continued at the link above.
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lakshmi
October 31, 2019
This is your 100th article on Firstpost. Congrats 🙂
Reminded me of this:
https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/between-reviews-century/
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brangan
October 31, 2019
Thanks Lakshmi. Your assistance has been invaluable.
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Kay
October 31, 2019
Congrats, BR! Here’s to many more such centuries. 🥂
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MANK
October 31, 2019
Ok my favorite Arthurian film is First Knight, with Sean Connery as King Arthur. Yes 😀. There’s also the TV series Camelot with a scorching Eva Green as Morgana. She’s as good or even better than Helen Mirren in Excalibur, which is of course the nuttiest Arthurian tale ever.
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tonks
October 31, 2019
In that sense, Bresson’s cinema is anti-drama — all those “dull bits” are in the film. We don’t just sense the monotony of the lives of these knights, we experience it.
And this is when one realises that perhaps being a film critic may not be quite as fun a career as it might seem at first.
And this piece reminds me that perhaps it’s time to revisit MP and the holy grail. My favourite in their movies have always been the songs with their hilarious lyrics :
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brangan
November 3, 2019
tonks: And this is when one realises that perhaps being a film critic may not be quite as fun a career as it might seem at first.
But this is also “fun” in a way — in the sense that it’s fun to experience different things, dive into them, see what makes art work. Not every film has to be “entertainment” in the traditionally defined sense.
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tonks
November 3, 2019
Different strokes, I guess. Or perhaps just a more evolved taste 🙂
I’m watching Scorsese’s Silence on Netflix, btw, curiosity triggered by Kaykay’s comment underneath another link. This blog and its comments are invaluable that way.
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