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My interview by Venky Ramachandran – On film criticism
Posted on December 18, 2020
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10 Responses “My interview by Venky Ramachandran – On film criticism” →
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Baradwaj Rangan 
ravenus1
December 19, 2020
This was a grand and pleasant surprise, Venkat R being a friend. Great stuff.
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brangan
December 19, 2020
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brangan
December 19, 2020
ravenus1: You watched this? Thanks 🙂
What is your “critical opinion” about the conversation? 🙂
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Macaulay Perapulla
December 19, 2020
Thanks BR. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My “critical opinion” to myself was that I let the fanboy take over the interviewer. But, yes, it felt good to hear your perspectives. I had more questions lined up, and wanted to go on further more 🙂
And also my “Chitragupta” metaphor fell flat towards the end 🙂 I see you as new Age Chitragupt, who stands in the liminal space between life and death, dialoguing and asking every piece of “content”: Did it create art? Those who answer in the affirmative, acquire immortal status. Someday, I hope I can write a decent script out of this concept and pitch to sanjay leela bansali to make his feverish, meditative homage to life, death and cinema.
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Madan
December 19, 2020
Wonderful conversation. Too much to take in in one sitting, but not complaining. I mean that the depth of the convo was awesome.
I didn’t know words like sulk are seen as uncommon. Seriously? Twitterverse will destroy English, man. 😦 This also ties in what you, BR, said about comments going down on the blog while you get tons of them on the FC videos. People have moved onto videos and can listen to hour long podcasts/interviews but don’t have the patience to read. And with that mindset, any words outside the lexicon of awesome and amazing sound strange. Sign of the times, I guess.
I have also travelled the same journey, of gradually losing touch with cricket and becoming more of a tennis fan. Yes, as you said, the theatrical quality it has makes it more interesting (for me). The close-in views also brutally expose what the players are going through (cricket can’t quite in the same way because the helmet blocks a full view of the batsman’s face). When you have men of steel like the Big Three wearing their gameface on permanently, you don’t get much of a read but with more vulnerable players, you can see just how nervous or confident they’re feeling. And then, there’s the scoring system that drives players nuts but also provides us entertainment as they go from deuce to Ad to deuce.
Lastly, about right place at the right time,yes, this works for almost any major artist. They are ‘successful’ because they captured the zeitgeist and our media (and therefore our views) being so fragmented is also an important reason why you can no longer point to one artist and say that’s the one the nation (or, say, TN or Andhra) is listening to. Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man phase was perfect for the national mood and also the emergence of Salim Javed as scriptwriters with a distinctive style. It would have been a total misfit in the 60s which was the peak of the Muslim social epoch. Ilayaraja too could not have succeeded in the 60s. He himself said that fortunately the movies changed and freed him from the expectations that drove movie making and music scoring when he started (like the need to have a loud violin/brass theme at the end of every scene, which he loathed). For all that experimentation to flow uninhibited, the movies too had to change and let their hair down a little.
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Maru
December 20, 2020
What a lovely conversation, I really enjoyed it.
@brangan: I think there are a lot of folks like me who’ve been reading your blog from the beginning and may not comment very much but really appreciate your writing and videos and especially the community you’ve built (which I too think is your singular achievement and one you should be very proud of). You mentioned your eye/ear for music and I wanted to know why you don’t do more around that. Is that a constraint of the nature of demand from Film Companion consumers?
@Venky R: Well done, I liked the detail and rigor you brought to your questions and the fact that it was an in-depth conversation that flowed organically not worrying about checking off a list of questions. If brangan and you are up for it, it would be great to have you do another round.
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Macaulay Perapulla
December 20, 2020
@Maru, Thank you. You are being kind! I have asked BR to see if we can delve deep into his musical instincts. Ever since somebody wrote in these spaces about the glorious soprano-singing (“undisputed star of the Xmas choir”) days of BR in his St. Johns school, I have been wanting to have a musical dialogue with him.
He gave us an ultra-brief teaser in his recent SPB Ask BR Episode. In the past, he has talked about his family’s influence, when it comes to appreciating ragas and Carnatic music. I would love to delve deeper, although to be honest, I am scared at the prospect of doing this, as I have only been a frog-in-the-well mridangist and singer, whose exposure is largely limited to Indian film music and Carnatic music.
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Madan
December 20, 2020
I would love to read/listen to that musical dialogue too!
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Maru
December 21, 2020
Splendid idea, I’m in too for a musical dialog.
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Macaulay Perapulla
December 22, 2020
Received this comment on Youtube. Who would have thunk that people write such nice comments on, Err, Youtube?
“This was an excellent interview! As a long time lurker on BR’s blog, this is just the kind of conversation I wish I could have with him. I’d say I grew up learning to understand cinema through his blog and the many enlightening comment threads. 🙂
Lovely questions, Venky. BR is as endearing as he always is! It’s fascinating to hear him talk about his work. His intelligence always shines through in his writing and analyses; a one and a half hour exclusive is just a huge bonus! I love the part where he talks about the postcard he received from a reader about his reviews being like Ramayana and Mahabharata. It’s precisely this that hooked me to his reviews. They’re way, way more than the general fare which give you one-line comments at a very basic level. He teaches us to think this stuff through.
Would love a Part 2.”
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