My interview on The Shin Pad Podcast

Posted on April 28, 2023

Posted in: Cinema, Interview, Personal

26 Responses “My interview on The Shin Pad Podcast” →

Jay S

May 2, 2023

I enjoyed this interview. It was like a behind the scenes look into the workings of a movie critic and a journalist. Like BR is interested in learning about the creative processes in movies, I am also interested in the creative/career arc of BR for shaping a unique career as a writer, as a movie critic, as an interviewer. I liked it’s free form as well.

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brangan

May 2, 2023

Thanks, Jay. And don’t you think the guys did a great job with the structure and questions? I really enjoyed the conversation.

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Jay S

May 2, 2023

Yes. They did. Whenever an interviewer gets a an honest new nugget of a lived experience and/or perspective from the interviewee, you know they have done a great job and my time as a listener is well spent.

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brangan

May 4, 2023

Part 2 is up.

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MANK

May 4, 2023

Brangan this is fantastic. great set of question and answers. i never seen you cut loose like this regarding your profession\craft. I’m surprised that there are so few comments on this one. This should be pinned at the top of the blog so that the visitors could understand your process. I liked how the interview is very methodically bifurcated into so many precise sections and the contrast between the 2 parts, the first being more personal (criticism of you work, your own experience with filmmaking etc) and second more professional . Very enjoyable and relatable, especially those Mani Rathnam sections in the 2nd part.

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brangan

May 4, 2023

Thanks MANK 🙂

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Madan

May 5, 2023

Seconding MANK. Great interview.

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brangan

May 5, 2023

Thanks Madan. Like I said, those guys were super-invested in this, and it felt good not having to do that whole “tell me about your journey from engineering to film criticism” all over again.

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Madan

May 5, 2023

I thought the whole discussion about your self analysis after Madras and then Jai Bhim (the latter only made you more fearless) was brilliant. Like MANK said, they really got you to open up by asking the right, informed questions, not unlike what you do in your own interviews.

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hari prasad

May 5, 2023

Finished listening to this on Spotify.

The guys , as you said had some shockingly good questions to ask rather than the usual shtick.

Even their interview with Sudhish Kamath was really good.

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Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan

May 5, 2023

Thanks to Jay S, MANK and Madan for taking the time to watch our interview and sharing such lovely words. Thanks again to BR for offering us the time and support. My friend and I are so grateful to each of you.

Thanks, Mr. MANK and Mr. Madan. To be honest, we didn’t expect BR to open up like he did either. We had asked for 60 minutes of his time and we ended up talking for more than 120 minutes. We had planned on 15 to 16 different topics and had just zeroed in on the basic flow of the conversation. BR was such an easy person to handle, so it was easy for us to pick threads from his answers and bind them into our pre-decided flow/pattern of the interview.

We are truly lucky that we got BR to open up so much about his process with absolute lucidity and ease, something he considers the most difficult thing to crack in interviews.

Regarding the lack of comments, I guess it directly affirms BR’s comment on the second part of our interview about how the engagement on the blog has decreased gradually and how discussions have lessened to a large extent, even for movies directed by top directors like Mani Ratnam, Bhansali etc.

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Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan

May 5, 2023

Thank you, Mr. Hari Prasad. Extra thanks for taking time to listen to our other interview (s) as well. It feels really nice. 🙂

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hari prasad

May 5, 2023

And good to know that you too watched Sudhish’s Side A Side B and Good Night Good Morning , I thought I was the only one!

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MANK

May 5, 2023

you’re welcome Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan. As an old timer, i do remember that you used to be quite active in this blog’s comments section not so long ago.

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vijay

May 5, 2023

yeah remember Madras and the complete reverse of the ‘overanalysis’ criticism that happened to BR… the irony of that.. another instance of irony before that was Mani of all people putting down BR mildly for trying to intellectualize and read into his films in that book..:-)

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vijay

May 5, 2023

the guy is asking why are there fewer director brands compared to stars these days as compared to years past(which itself is a debatable premise) and your answer to that is totally off on a tangent about how directors got to make their mark and eventually became brands starting from just one Sridhar in the past to many like him later on (which incidentally is the exact opposite of what the premise was) … Hmm..I think being around film world afflicts everybody with a bit of kamalahaasanitis 🙂

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brangan

May 6, 2023

vijay: Over our long e-association, I well know your aversion to and impatience with “reading” a film, so your comment does not surprise me. 🙂 But for others, here are two bits from the THALAPATHY chapter:

“The first time colour seeps into the film is when the child is held up against the sun, and that becomes a motif right through the film. It’s a very strong reference to where he came from, a link that takes this story to the epic and back. We had to shoot around the times the sun was at a point we wanted. For instance, in the sequence where Surya’s mother comes into his hut, later in the film, we wanted to make sure we had a huge sun bleaching the frame right behind her. We wanted the sun present when mother and son meet.”

“Here, the focus at the beginning was always about how the child that was born, and we see an underage girl who delivers her baby and leaves it in a bogie. We tried to make the train take a curved route, almost like a river. We had to search a lot in order to find a railway path that gave the feeling of the child being carried along in the water.”

MR has always thought of film in visual metaphors. The difference between him ans Pa Ranjith is this. If you miss the two points above, you will still get THALAPATHI. Whereas, Ranjith wants the Dalit-authored book to visualluy signify that the book-reader is Dalit. These are two very different things.

MR uses his visuals to add information to a scene. Ranjith wants his visuals to convey (in this instance) the Dalit-ness.

So there is no “overanalysis” here. It is just two different approaches.

As to why MR chides my attempts at reading his films, he does not to explain everything. While talking to him in person, he explains a lot. But he feels revealing it to a public might “take away the magic of the scene.” I’ve tried telling him that today the “magic” is anyway gone because you are showing PS1 and PS2 making-of featurettes as promotion and we see Karthi with a rope while doing stunts and all. But that’s his take — that he should not reveal an authorial position that makes his explanation the only reading. And people should be interpret (or just watch) a film any way they want.

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Jay S

May 6, 2023

I found part 2 engaging as well (though it covered relatively familiar territory) and just wanted to add a comment. What BR mentioned about Nadal,, I have felt about Serena Williams… She can turn the match around anytime. That makes her great to watch. Nadal’s premature memoir was boring and quite repetitive.

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vijay

May 6, 2023

BR, of course I dont need any explanation on all this and neither am I averse to any sort of analysis..I mean we all do some of that ourselves at a subconscious level both for films and music,just the extent/nature of it may differ. I am not too big into political readings of a film myself. .. whereas somebody else may be.
I was only joking about the irony of how you got grief from a section of audience for not getting a certain subtext in Madras whereas here in this blog in the past its been the exact reverse of that, most of the times.
and about dalapathi thats why I said its ironical, that MR of all folks, puts you down mildly for intellectualizing, when he indulges in all these visual metaphors himself and ‘intellectualizes’ all the time.

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vijay

May 6, 2023

” MR uses his visuals to add information to a scene. Ranjith wants his visuals to convey (in this instance) the Dalit-ness.”

Right, and I am not too fond of the latter approach. You cant expect your audience, even if its a film reviewer to be on top of all these things and be like a mobile wikipedia. If I dont get the dalitness I dont get it,simple. Unless before the film’s release you had sufficiently warned the audience of what the context of your film was and has mildly goaded them into reading up on Dalit authors or something..and thats not practical too all the time. I expect PS-2 to work even without knowing what the book intended. and this is why I think Sarpatta may have worked better. To me it is one of the big theater misses of the covid era. Cant begin to imagine how it would have been watching Dancing Rose’s arena moves in a theater setting.

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shivaprasad

May 6, 2023

@brangan – I would love to hear more about this “pushing the envelope of (bringing aspects of art to) mainstream cinema is much harder than making art (cinema) itself” (paraphrased).

Isn’t Cinema a product of all the subconscious mingling of all influences we have had through our life. If as a mainstream filmmaker, one particularly enjoyed (and got inspired/influenced) by that kind of filmmakers more (David Lean, Steven Spielberg, Akira Kurosawa etc), isn’t it obvious and easier for them to do movies of similar kind? Isn’t it their default state of creating?

While there are limitations (Interval, Songs, Fights, Genre templates, Stars etc.,) of mainstream cinema. Aren’t these limitations also a double edge sword? Audiences are ready to forgive even if a chunk of the film doesn’t work, because they are already familiar with the ethos of that kind of cinema. Also it provides the situations where the filmmakers can subvert audiences, because they totally understand the expectation (at least the good filmmakers). Isn’t trying to push the ‘form’ of cinema itself which the audiences aren’t familiar with at all, with tools/techniques that filmmakers themselves don’t know for sure, if it is ever going to work or not. If it doesn’t work, if it doesn’t hit the mark, there is just going to be apathy and dismissal from the audience, Don’t you think that is at least equally hard?

If mainstream filmmakers have to worry about dealing with the stars (dates, schedule, process, behaviour or commitment), the art filmmakers have to worry about not even getting collaborators. If the mainstream have to worry about, audience not liking a part of their movie, the art filmmakers have to worry about even remotely reaching a part of the audience.

I am not saying making art infused mainstream movies are exactly easier to make. Just trying to understand deeper on your take on why you think is it particularly harder.

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brangan

May 6, 2023

shivaprasad: I hope I am answering your question correctly, but the main thing is that we are taught to read texr but not read visuals. So we are stumped when we stand before a painting. There is a method to even Picasso’s work. And the best mainstream filmmakers risk alienating the audience by telling a lot of the story through pure visuals.

Take the scene in PS2 where 5 Pandiya assassins dress up as Buddhist monks to enter a vihara and kill Arunmozhi Varman. Now, you can have the leader say, “I think the best way to kill this prince is inside the vihara” or some such thing that ALERTS the audience that such a plan is afoot.

But what Mani does is brilliantly simple and completely free of dialogue. We are not yet told about the plan. We get a scene of a man whose head is being shaved. We have another man behind whose hand is draped with saffron robes. And we immediately know what the plan is. And for those who missed “reading” this visual, we still get them standing with knives inside the vihara.

So in a way films like the one Mani and Kamal do are deeply rooted in the mainstream (romance tracks, comedy, drama) – and yet the emphasis is on using CINEMA as the medium.

And my contention is that it is difficult to do this in a mainstream film because you risk alienating audiences who are just there to munch popcorn and have a good time.

Hope that answered your question.

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shivaprasad

May 6, 2023

@brangan – Do you mean it is harder because they have to cater to every audience, majority of whom are not cinematically literate whom they don’t want to make anxious or alienated for them not understanding. So, they work in layers of visual information, without giving the feeling of either being inarticulate or being redundant, while catering to different audience? So they have to draw the line of how to do it. But, in art films we already know the audience is going to be cinephiles, so we can do away with the thought of worrying about how much is too much redundancy.

But, they do have fallbacks in case people don’t get it. “I think the best way to kill this prince is inside the vihara” – If audience don’t get this through visual information, there is a score immediately following, which informs us emotional high of what is going on, whoosh sound effects of men crossing, fast track shot of camera climbing up the monastery, so the audience knows there is an action scene or set piece coming. If they miss the build up of the depth of information, they don’t have much to lose (because they weren’t expecting that anyway). They still get what they want. (I think CCV starts like this too, not entirely sure it’s been a long time).

So, your contention is that this kind of layering (while intentionally trying to avoid verbal exposition) has more risk and hence harder, because they are trying to reach every audience. I still don’t entirely agree with you 🙂 but, is this a fair reading of your take?

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Madan

May 7, 2023

Some thoughts on the Nadal-Fed part which I couldn’t resist, of course.

I think Nadal is in fact extremely, extremely talented. Nobody can hit tweeners nearly as well as Fed with just hard work alone. Nadal’s touch is as such underrated because his fondness for sleeveless tops that show off his biceps has created this image of him being all brawn and muscle. Apart from such subjective considerations, Nadal had a deep run at Monte Carlo at the age of 16. Fed was nowhere near that level at his age (trust me, had Sampras met Fed in 99 or 00, the former would have crushed him). Nadal was born to utterly dominate clay to an even greater extent than Fed looked to the manor born at Wimbledon. And this is of course how it’s played out as Nadal towers like Everest over everybody else at RG. And he still has enough repertoire and versatility for HC and grass. And this isn’t even necessarily a very gradual development. The very next year after his RG breakthrough, Nadal reached the W final and made Fed sweat in the third set. But neither Fed nor his fans (myself included) heeded the warning signs thanks to this muscle/clay myth and imagery. Looking back at those matches, it’s clear that even then, Nadal was already showing good all court ability and by 2008, he was ready to turn the tables on Fed (as he did).

The basic difference between the two is Nadal is much more disciplined about what he does with his talent. (a) Nadal, like Lendl or Graf, practices obsessively and does more in practice than what he executes in match situations. In fact, Nadal is like Graf in some respects – very, very hard working and perfectionist, self-effacing and modest and shy and introverted (where Fed has a bit of Becker’s big mouth). (b) Nadal always chooses the high percentage option – with almost robotic precision – in any given point while Fed has a bit of Martina Hingis-itis and gets bored and wants to try something cheeky just for the sake of it.

This lack of discipline is also what I think has contributed to Fed’s ‘legendary’ chokes, especially against Djokovic. If Nadal had Fed’s serve, he would go flat down the T every time on match point. He would never let Djokovic get a look at a decent return. But Fed’s fondness for variety maybe confuses him at times as to what he ought to do in that moment.

It is in fact Fed who is the anomaly. A recalcitrant and arrogant genius. Bit like Mac. But he was hungrier for success than Mac or Nastase, so he actually made the effort to adapt to a new racquet and improve his backhand out of sight. But it is ingrained in every great player to pursue the high percentage option obsessively. Fed got away (nearly) with choosing a different path for so long. Until this habit earned him the dubious distinction of losing from championship point at Wimbledon for the first time in some 50-60 years (you have to go back so far to find a precedent it’s embarrassing). Yes, I will never be able to watch that moment. Ugh! So close and yet so far. Having beaten Nadal in the semi, he had to serve one, just one ace, to beat Djokovic and slam the door shut on the debates. You had one job, Fed! Jeez!

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MANK

May 7, 2023

The opening scene of Raavanan is a perfect example of what Brangan is talking about. The entire sequence builds to a crescendo ( the moment of raavanan abducting Sita). through a series of rapidly cut montages without any exposition or dialogue. This is one of the greatest cinematic moments Mani has ever created. It is also very very confusing for a mainstream audience

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shivaprasad

May 8, 2023

@MANK – I get that there is a lot of skill and craft involved. I am a fan and I constantly learn a lot from his directorial craft. There are scenes, even verbal ones (with expository dialogue) which have serious cinematic techniques.

Just going back to PS2, In the scene with Nandini carrying the “Muthirai Mothiram“ in the bullock cart, the timing of some cuts feel like a slight jump cut. Nandini is on the right side in the wide shot, but when they cut to her close-up, she is almost at the edge of the other end of the frame. The cinematography/staging and editing makes the scene a little dissonant, making us feel like she is at two places at one time. When she meets the young Pandiyan prince, the cut from wide to close up is an 180 degree axis shift, the effect is so abrupt that it feels like the wavering is over and she took the opposite side. When she meets vandhiyathevan tied up, she rotates around him in one direction and so does the camera which is her POV (don’t remember if it’s clockwise or otherwise). The moment when he starts saying a secret, the rotation stops, as the secret is being revealed, the camera goes closer on both of them. By the time they are done with the conversation, the camera very slightly moves to the other side. It gives an emotional effect of a screw tightening, and then it suddenly stops but the camera or she doesn’t unscrew, as the story goes, they haven’t untied/cut-loose vandhiyathevan.

Direction is a very under-appreciated craft, so there is always a risk of alienating people, that’s why the best films are never the biggest grossers. But, there is a risk of alienating people in art cinema too, with cinephiles too. Cinephiles come in a spectrum too.

These visuals are not Picasso (they aren’t cubist, or trying to push the form of painting, that is 2 dimensional to get to the truth of a three dimensional world). We constantly keep interpreting visuals, because that’s how we see the world. There is a primal part of the human brain that interprets these images for us, for example the body language/facial expression of people around us. Cinema started with silent movies, we never had a problem interpreting basic visuals (once they got over the initial shock). As we study and practice more visual arts, we go deeper into understanding it, like any other art.

My question was because I wanted to understand if his take is a subjective opinion or is there any objective premise to it. I mean is it like Physics is harder than Maths, which could differ from person to person. Or, is it like playing the Piano with both hands is harder than to do with one hand, which is true to almost all humans (at least at first). To me, I felt like they were apples and peaches, not really comparable.

If they are comparable, then I am trying to understand, why say “BARDO” which doesn’t have just visual storytelling (as information), but deeper visual metaphors. Say – in the Ravanan shot, you can say Vikram is just diving into the water, but you can also interpret it as, he is cool and collected amidst all the chaos, as he measures the depth of the turbulence before diving head down into it (also when she jumps in like 10 minutes later, we can look parallels). But, you could have the fallback of this being just a cool hero introduction shot for the general audience. But, BARDO doesn’t have many of those fallbacks to latch on. You have to engage in surrealist visual metaphors to really get the film, to which even most cinephiles are alienated. Isn’t that hard and risky too?

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My interview on The Shin Pad Podcast

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