As I watched last night’s Academy Award presentation, I couldn’t help but think back to the 2009 awards nostalgically, a time where Slumdog mania was in full force, Bollywood stars were taking the stage, and saris were seen on the red carpet. At last night’s ceremony, though the one shoulder dress was the trend, not a sari was to be seen. Nor a desi person in the crowd. Who woulda thought – there actually was an end to the Slumdog Millionaire madness.
But there was one film. I hadn’t heard of it till last night, but as I saw the nominees scroll for short films, I saw Kavi scroll by. Though the film did not win last night, I was still curious to see what it was all about.
‘Kavi’, American director Gregg Helvey’s short film about an Indian slave boy has lost out the Oscar in the Best Short Film (Live Action) category to the Danish entry ‘The New Tenants’…The 19-minute-long fictional film in Hindi, was the only India connection at this year’s Oscars, as opposed to last year when the Mumbai based potboiler ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ bagged eight golden trophies. [ptinews]
I’m not usually a fan of shorts, but I may have to check Kavi out. I do find some of the language on the movie’s website slightly problematic though, and I wonder if the film has a similar undertone. Has anyone out there seen the movie? Also, thoughts on last night’s Academy Awards in this post Slumdog era?
SD was a British film w/a British lead. UK already has too much of a presence in Hollywood as it is.
Fetishized India isn’t Indian at all.
“I do find some of the language on the movie’s website slightly problematic”
Which language? I find it slightly irksome when people use the term “slavery” to describe indentured servitude (“slave wage” is an oxymoron — slaves by definition get no wages), but it’s so common that I’m not going to give “Kavi” a particularly hard time for it. The tone of the website seems no worse than that in something like “The White Tiger” when describing the abusive treatment of servants and other laborers in India; it’s just a bit Sally Struthers instead of sardonic.
And here I was only blaming the lack of awards for Slumdog Millionaire yesterday on racism.
“I do find some of the language on the movie’s website slightly problematic though”
Taz, I’m also curious (in a nice way) about what language was problematic.. I glanced at the website, but didn’t see anything jump out.
Well – I did say “slightly” – all my slight concerns were those laid out by PG – The “Sally Struthers instead of sardonic” tone. Nothing major, just something that makes me look a little side eyed and wonder how the movie’s tone is.
So having the other 10 leads (youngest and teenaged versions of the the kids, plus two of the three grown up versions, plus Anil and Irrfan) not to mention the entire rest of the cast, plus an Indian choreographer, cinematographer, assistant director, casting director and music director/composer doesn’t count for anything with you? And since when is there a rule that Hollywood is only for Americans? Do you get annoyed when non-Brits win BAFTAs?
The source material for the film was written by an Indian as well. Was Vikas Swarup “fetishizing” India when he wrote “Q&A?” What counts as “Indian” in your book? Really, I’m curious. Would you consider “Monsoon Wedding” to be ‘fetishizing’ India because the director isn’t an Indian national? Inquiring minds want to know.
Q&A had about as much to do with Slumdog Millionaire as Adaptation had to do with The Orchid Thief.
Regardless, it was still the source material, just as “Maximum City” is the source material for one of Danny Boyle’s next films. I get the impression from Darth Paul’s comment above that he would brush off that effort as well. Does having a non-Indian director make the story any less Indian? Does the entire team have to be Indian for the film to be considered Indian? (I feel like that’s what I meant to say earlier, maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could have been.) In any case I feel that claiming SM was “fetishizing India” is unjustified. Amitabh Bachchan said roughly the same thing, and it just came across as sour grapes. Just my two cents.
Not really. Get past the racial fixation. The point is that people outside of India who try to talk about it tend to radically oversimplify an extremely vast and diverse country. Everything gets reduced down to some overarching theme about poverty or spirituality or some other such nonsense with no actual look at what life is like from the eyes of someone who is actually there.
It’s not exclusive to “Whitey” either. I’d say Sashi Tharoor makes a habit of fetishizing India as well. Some level of generalization is required to be able to talk about the groups, but few seem to understand that the generalizations are a clumsy attempt to lump a lot of different things together, not an accurate representation of what’s being described. Just reading through the site you get a lot of the same themes. It’s generally either a gross oversimplification that treats India and Indians as caricatures of one thing or other rather than as a diverse country filled lots real individual people (Slumdog Millionaire, for instance) or it’s some naive kid with a liberal arts degree going on about how (s)he must “save the world” yet can’t seem to help sounding like Rudyard Kipling with an American accent.
More like inquiring mind (singular), but ok:
Screenplay, director, lead actor (singular- there’s only one lead in a story like this), editing, production studios- all British. And FYR, the cinematographer is Danish, not Indian. The actual Indians (non-cast) were more or less in subordinate positions. “Co-director”…WTH is that? 2 people doing 1 job sounds wack.
Fetishization: based on the public reaction vis-a-vis farangis promoting it, not the story itself. All the buzz created a pitifully brief fad for perceived Indianness, which more or less means anything the average American can get at Urban Outfitters or Masala Wok. The absence of any sort of Indian (or desi, even) buzz NOW pretty much demonstrates what fetishized fad we were in this time last year.
I’m not sure what ‘racial fixation’ you’re referring to. Unless it’s to my using the word “Indian” earlier, in which case I’d point out that “Indian” is a nationality (at least that’s how I was using it, in response to an earlier commenter’s pejorative dismissal of Dev Patel as British). And everything gets radically oversimplified. No one assumes that every person knows everything about a topic. Simplification, at least in media, is always going to happen, in reference to all countries, not just India. (It also may come as a shock to you that there are people outside of India who do, in fact, know what they’re talking about, and that ‘radically oversimplifying an extremely vast and diverse country’ is not the sole purview of people outside of India.
I think you’ve just described the global film industry in general. I think you also forget that SM was never intended to be a documentary. Sometimes a movie is just a movie.
I think it actually demonstrates that no one in the entertainment industry gives a sh*t about what gets nominated in the ‘live action short’ category.
Sorry, I meant sound engineer. My mistake.
Loveleen Tandan was credited as the co-director on SM (she was also the casting director). You may (or may not) recall that there was a pretty big stink about her not being awarded a directing Oscar along with Danny Boyle.
“The point is that people outside of India who try to talk about it tend to radically oversimplify an extremely vast and diverse country. Everything gets reduced down to some overarching theme about poverty or spirituality or some other such nonsense with no actual look at what life is like from the eyes of someone who is actually there. “
I think it is sort of difficult to talk about a certain aspect of India without sounding like you are fetishizing it– especially with people you don’t know. Usually on this site, I see people responding to a certain topic (i.e.. Slumdog Millionaire) on that topic (poverty, slums, and so forth). What happens then is people can very easily get upset because the comments are focusing on one aspect of India, not the full and vast range of things. Yet, I also see blog articles about Tata Nanos, or Indian Billionaires, etc. Usually on those posts comments are related to that. People get less upset about that. I think the bigger issue is not that some issues regarding India, such as poverty, casteism, slums are a sore topic because in the U.S. there has been more focus on them than the positive things, such as growing economy, great IT educations, expanding middle class, awesome Delhi Metro, etc.
It is hard not to appear to oversimplify a nation when trying to make a kind of art on one specific topic. If I wanted to document Hijras in India, you’ll see a different India than if I show a film about 3 IT students, or a film about a child in school, or a film about a rich guy with troubles in love.It’s the nature of the medium. Can you imagine trying to make a film that captures all aspects of India? Or even a book? Sounds impossible to me.
I think this is compounded by the fact that many Americans consumers who films like Slumdog Millionaire may appeal to are ones who want to see something different from what they are used to. They don’t want to see “The Great Debaters”, or a lifetime original on spousal abuse in America, so they are drawn to the different struggles of another nation. Hence they are drawn to things about slums, child labor, religion etc– things that are not visible or take very different forms in the U.S. Hence the cycle kind of continues in that people who do know something about India may know more about the problems or some precursory idea about ‘spirituality’ and nothing further. But I suppose it’s all about consumer demands.
Your assumption that accusations about the film being out of touch and prone to fetishizing were rooted in Danny Boyle’s race rather than him actually being out of touch. See, there is a difference between saying “He’s out of touch because he’s British/White” and saying “All British/White people are out of touch.” You accuse Amitabh Bachchan and Darth Paul of the latter when what they’re actually saying is the former.
I don’t see how you’re reading any of these statements into anything I said. First of all, not everything gets radically oversimplified. A good writer can write a character who actually seems like a real person instead of a vehicle for moving the plot forward. A good writer can likewise create a setting for a film that seems like a real place with real people rather than an egregious caricature. Caricature has it’s uses, just see any Tim Burton film, but it’s the pretentions of authenticity and “this is the REAL India” tone that makes things goofy.
And sometimes a movie is an overhyped exercise in mediocrity that earns success by tapping into stereotypes and pretending they’re genuine.
Well hey, if you didn’t like it you didn’t like it. A lot of people did, which is why it managed to be as successful as it was. If you hate it so vehemently, so be it I guess.
The reason I brought up Amitabh’s dismissal of the film was because it felt disingenuous. He was outspoken (as were many in the Indian media) about SM peddling ‘poverty porn’ as if that weren’t a real facet of life for some people in his own country. It was a pretty rich statement for someone who now makes a career out of playing patriarchal billionaire-type characters and who has never had anything to say about poverty being shown in non-Indian films (and who has said in at least one interview that he admired the film “City of God”). It sounded like he just didn’t like it and was trying to come up with some sort of ‘academic’ justification for it.
Darth Paul never said that Danny Boyle was out of touch. He dismissed the entire movie out of hand for being British, which, without any further explanation, reads an awful lot like “British people (ie non-Indians) can’t make films about India.”
Linzi, thanks for saying that so much better than I did. 🙂
It’s not a “talk about everything or talk about nothing” deal. The problem is that these movies tend to be made with this strange tone that has become increasingly prevalent in modern-filmmaking where directors feel like their job is to tell, rather than show, their audiences what is going on and how they’re supposed to feel. This creates a tone where the viewer either feels like they’re being lectured (this is how things really are!) or moralized to. The tone can be more credible if the guy adopting it thoroughly understands the history and cultural context of what he’s talking about, but this research is never required when shopping around for a film. That’s why you end up with movies like City of God or Slumdog Millionaire. If you’re not going to bother trying to be faithful to the people and the city you’re using a setting, you might as well be setting the movie in the slums of Rivendell rather than Rio De Janeiro.
How much South Asian History do you reckon the film major from USC learned before going off on his trip? How much exposure do you reckon he had to India beyond the Sally Struthers lens and the Incredible India marketing campaign? How much of this do you think a studio is going to expect him to have when he looks for funding?
Regardless of the ethnicity of the staff, the auteur is the one who sets the vision and scope of the work and if the auteur is a non-Indian making a film whose primary market is non-Indian, what you’re going to get is a view of a story through the eyes of a non-Indian that focuses on their concerns and their values rather than those of the people being portrayed. I realize people get defensive when it is suggested that cultural differences make the kind of thorough understanding required for this sort of thing extraordinarily difficult, but it’s a fact. To understand another culture well enough to write a good story set in it takes a lot of experience and immersion. Americans tend to be privileged with attention and the advantage of having most people know some basics about where they come from through dissemination of pop-culture so it actually takes a lot of dedication for us (I include myself in there despite being Indian because any non-Indian country I go to is going to present the same challenge for me) to be able to get that understanding.
“How much South Asian History do you reckon the film major from USC learned before going off on his trip? How much exposure do you reckon he had to India beyond the Sally Struthers lens and the Incredible India marketing campaign? How much of this do you think a studio is going to expect him to have when he looks for funding? “
You could ask him: contact@kavithemovie.com
I would really like to know how the adjectives “overhyped” and “mediocre” have translated to “vehement hatred!” in your mind.
He didn’t say it was a film about poverty, he said it was poverty porn. Note that “porn” is the key word there. Sex is a real facet of life for everyone, that doesn’t mean there is any artistic merit in voyeuristically filming it for cheap thrills as an end in itself rather than as a worthwhile and meaningful part of the story. Jamal spent the entire movie jumping from one shallow cliche to another.
Whenever I read an article in a magazine on a subject about which I am not especially knowledgeable, I tend to take whatever it says at face value and buy into all the theatrics and caricatures it presents me. When I read an article on a subject about which I am familiar and knowledgeable, however, then 8 times out of 10 I come away with the impression that the writer was either too lazy to do any proper research or too stupid to get any of it. It’s not hard to believe that one wouldn’t notice the glaring flaws in a portrait unless you actually have the opportunity to see what the portrait is of firsthand.
“Jamal spent the entire movie jumping from one shallow cliche to another. “
Yet his “shallow cliche” of a life is quite a lot like (unfortunately) many of the former street children I worked with in Jaipur. (Though many of them had to deal with more things in addition, like rape, domestic violence, and drug abuse).
The shallow part I saw was the love story– it didn’t have any substance. But that is pretty typical of most romantic films I have seen.
I suppose that’s fair, but it still seems incredibly hypocritical (of him, not of you obviously). I wonder if he had similar comments about “poverty porn” in regards to Salaam Bombay? At any rate, my feelings about his dismissal of the film (actually not just his, but that’s neither here nor there) are pretty well summed up by this article, so I’ll leave it at that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/jan/15/danny-boyle-shows
To the topic at hand, I pay more than average attention to the Oscar race and found myself knowing just as much about “Kavi” this year as I did “Smile Pinky” last year. Which is to say not a lot. Unfortunately short films and documentaries, no matter how “exotic” they are to western entertainment writers, just don’t get as much publicity as feature films. Had SM been in short film form, no one would have heard of it.
Melissa– the article you linked to is very… umm, harsh, I guess is the right word, on Bollywood films. There assumptions bring up a discussion I had with my Hindi teachers once.. it is about the audience and what appeals– In India, where you can walk outside and see poverty at your doorstep, fantasy “escapist” films are more popular. Films are generally to entertain an audience, and Bollywood allows people to enter a different world from the norm. Additionally, modern Bollywood is widening it’s scope and includes much more than typical middle/upper class love stories. They are addressing many more issues in society, though still often middle or upper class ones. Also, Bollywood song and dance are an integrated part of Indian culture, not just the films. Kids learn the dance moves, people listen to the songs form Bollywood movies on the radio– whether or not they have seen the film.
On the flip side, take a look at the movies that often appeal to Americans– let’s face it, Americans tend to favor movies about dark and depressing topics– crime, poverty, abuse, government conspiracies. Americans often enjoy films about things they don’t see outside their door step.
I don’t think one type of cinema is better than the other– they cater to an audience and evoke different feelings. And even while being ‘escapist’ Bollywood films also often educate people and throw in social messages, they often work as a way to get mass messages out to an audience (Taare Zameen Par and dyslexia, for example)
Yeah, I’m pretty well aware of the ‘Bollywood’ formula, etc. The point I hoped to express with that article link was Amitabh’s seeming stubborn refusal to accept that SM wasn’t some sort of libelous fiction (and how his own inflated sense of self-importance had more to do with his dislike of the film than the actual subject matter). Nirpal tends to be pretty harsh in his assessments of most Indian films, so I think the tone of the article has to be taken with a grain of salt. (I probably should have prefaced with that, sorry.)
I don’t think you can really say that “Americans tend to like ‘x’, and Indians tend to like ‘y’.” Some Americans like ‘dark, depressing’ subject matter. Some just like fluff. Some like a mix. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that pattern would hold true in most countries. There’s a strong tradition of socially conscious film making in India, but (in my opinion) it’s only recently that parallel cinema has started to not just become more mainstream, but become blended with commercial cinema; at the very least the line is becoming blurred, which I think is great. Five years ago the shop where I usually purchase Hindi films had a supply that could be mistaken for a shrine to Karan Johar; last week the two films they were prominently displaying were Amul and Dev D, and they were selling like hotcakes. It’s nice to see, at least in some places, that ‘mainstream’ is starting to consist of something other than pure escapist fluff. (Not that I don’t love the fluff!)
“I don’t think you can really say that “Americans tend to like ‘x’, and Indians tend to like ‘y’.” Some Americans like ‘dark, depressing’ subject matter. Some just like fluff. Some like a mix.”
I guess I was talking in terms of consumer power– what tends to be popular– what people buy. I’m not saying there is not fluff cinema in America– Meg Ryan and Patrick Dempsey anyone? Just thinking about the general ratio of films aired..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_in_film
Top Grossing Films of 2009:
1 Avatar 20th Century Fox $2,599,607,444 $720,607,444 $132,296,376 $89,291,338 2 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Warner Bros. $933,959,197 $301,959,197 $84,089,250 $34,999,141 3 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 20th Century Fox $884,491,832 $196,573,705 $56,859,040 $24,725,499 4 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks $836,297,228 $402,111,870 $44,383,558 $33,554,033 5 2012 Columbia Pictures $769,653,595 $166,112,167 $31,052,159 $20,207,104 6 Up Disney/Pixar $723,012,453 $293,004,164 $55,413,275 $13,396,267 7 The Twilight Saga: New Moon Summit Entertainment $706,870,989 $296,307,000 $43,409,449 $38,148,045 8 Angels & Demons Columbia Pictures $485,930,816 $133,375,846 $30,726,140 $14,065,391 9 Sherlock Holmes Warner Bros. $468,978,470 $206,616,070 $39,795,286 $25,909,170 10 The Hangover Warner Bros. $467,323,663 $277,322,503 $36,033,624 $17,934,378
Out of these, I would say Up, The Hangover and Ice Age are not ‘dark’ or “depressions’ (though I haven’t seen any of them, correct me if I’m wrong)
Top Grossing Bollywood films of 2009
1 3 idiots Rs. 201,38,00,000 2 Love Aaj Kal Rs. 66,35,00,000 3 Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani Rs. 63,18,00,000 4 New York Rs. 62,50,00,000 5 All The Best: Fun Begins Rs. 61,00,00,000 6 Wanted Rs. 60,54,00,000 7 Kaminey Rs. 59,00,00,000 8 De Dana Dan Rs. 57,30,00,000 9 Blue Rs. 55,87,63,209 10 Kambakkht Ishq Rs. 52,00,00,303
Dark or depressing films- New York, Wanted, Kaminey (maybe, who has seen it?), any I am missing?
sorry.. the second source was here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood_films_of_2009
I think “dark and depressing” is being used as a synonym for “dramatic.” Of the US list, I would say the majority of the non-comedies are simply ‘dramatic.’ It’s not as if your average moviegoer is scanning the film listings and saying “I’m going to find the most evil, dark, horrible movie I can.” (Though I’m guilty of looking at movie lists with an eye towards British accents and period costumes, so who knows?)
One thing’s for certain: based on your lists, no one can accuse the majority of American (or Indian, for that matter) movie-goers of having good taste! 😉
an indian director likely would have caught many of the cultural nuances that were inaccurate in the movie. but this is not really a racial thing – it’s a matter of sufficient exposure and understanding of the subject matter. there are plenty of people who are not biologically indian but who have an excellent grasp of the indian culture. and the switch from hindi to english, given the socio-economics of the protagonists, made it hard to take it seriously for the rest of the movie. also, i cannot believe that dev patel was the best actor for the lead – terrible accent or not. i actually think this was a great story – quite sad that the execution was so off in so many ways. btw does anybody know why loveleen tandon was added as co-director? i’ve always thought that it may be because she ghost-directed the hindi portions, but i haven;t read anything that talks to the real reason.
and i don’t think monsoon wedding was fetishizing anything – it was a look at a very specific societal dynamic in india (and mira nair grew up in india, and this was based on the society to which she was exposed firsthand). i suppose sm was also a narrow look, which is fine, but the treatment of the subject could have been better and more accurate.
btw, the SM-mania is not over for me – a year later, i still have several colleagues coming up to me telling me that they just saw SM and how great it was. i try hard to coneal my real opinion of the movie 🙁
Does having a non-Indian director make the story any less Indian?
No. but don’t you think coppola brought something to the godfather? spike lee to malcolm x?
“the SM-mania is not over for me”
it’s just starting for me. wait, which SM are we talking about here
“I think “dark and depressing” is being used as a synonym for “dramatic.” Of the US list, I would say the majority of the non-comedies are simply ‘dramatic.’ It’s not as if your average moviegoer is scanning the film listings and saying “I’m going to find the most evil, dark, horrible movie I can.” (Though I’m guilty of looking at movie lists with an eye towards British accents and period costumes, so who knows?)
One thing’s for certain: based on your lists, no one can accuse the majority of American (or Indian, for that matter) movie-goers of having good taste! ;)”
hehe, true true! Well I think maybe my description of “dark and depressing” may have thrown you off… maybe it was not the best description on my part. Perhaps dramatic is a better term but I am not quite sure if that is exactly what I mean either… A lot of the dramas have a dark element– crime, abuse, the never-ending battle of good vs. evil. 😉
I definitely agree with you on the language bit–the first time I saw the film I found their sudden grasp of perfect English pretty jarring. From a practical standpoint I know Danny Boyle has made mention of the challenge of getting a western audience for a 100% Hindi language film. Audience ease of understanding the dialogue probably had a lot to do with that decision. I’m also fairly certain (but I could be wrong) that Dev Patel had already been chosen for the lead role and his Hindi would have been as uncomfortable to listen to as Katrina Kaif’s. I’m not sure that he speaks it with much ease, whereas the other actors all spoke English naturally.
They probably could have found another lead, though I think part of the impetus in casting Dev was his popular appeal in the UK, having starred in Skins. I think acting-wise he was very good–most of the negative comments seem to be about his accent. In the end I think you either really like the movie and are able to overlook those things, or they bother you enough to diminish your regard for the film. They’re both certainly valid opinions.
the movie, not the blog.
in an interview a few years back, rahul bose (an indian actor known for being selective about his films) made the statement that 95% of films are crap. when the interviewer assumed that he was only referring to indian films, he corrected him to say that he meant movies from all over the world. i wouldn’t go as far as 95%, but i would have to agree that most film industries produce a substantial share of crap movies.
A lot of people, knowing that I like Indian cinema, proudly inform me after seeing SM that they “saw a Bollywood movie too!” I just let it go. At this point I’m just happy that they chose to see SM over the likes of Hannah Montana or some such miserable junk.
Absolutely they did. The reason I asked my original question is that floating around somewhere in my head is the hope of going into film making. If I were to make a film about India or with Indian characters, would my film be dismissed out of hand as not authentic because I’m not Indian? What if I wanted to set a film in Italy, or Japan, or Mexico? Is there a point at which the cultural background of the director/writer/etc completely prevents them from making a film that does justice to the country they’ve set it in? The original comment that I responded to waaaaay up there gave the impression that, at least in his mind, foreigners can’t make a film about India as well as an Indian can. I’m curious as to how pervasive that opinion is.
“If I were to make a film about India or with Indian characters, would my film be dismissed out of hand as not authentic because I’m not Indian?”
Depends on the depth and scope of the film. A short film, perhaps. Something like the godfather or malcolm x, which are two very deep personal stories about those communities likely so. Slumdog Millionaire was set in India, but basically a western film.
for me, it’s not. there are plenty of people who were not born into a certain culture but are exposed to it enough to really get a feel for the culture, people etc. or, if making a film, take enough care to ensure that they convey the culture properly. for instance, kristin scott thomas – born in england, but spent most of her life in france and considers it now home. i don;t think anybody, thus far, has questioned her language skills in her french movies, and were she to make a movie in french, she knows enough about the culture such that authenticity likely would not be an issue.
i think this accounts, in large part, for why indians did not consider this an indian movie – because it was not intended for an indian audience. generally, i thought it wasn’t a great movie (danny boyle has def. done far better work), and then adding in the inauthenticities etc, it was clear that it was not made for an indian audience.
” (danny boyle has def. done far better work)”
such as the movie “millions”
If I were to make a film about India or with Indian characters, would my film be dismissed out of hand as not authentic because I’m not Indian?
I guess only you can answer the question as to why you want to make such a movie in the first place. Most filmmakers stay fairly close to the milieu they know best. Satyajit Ray (to take an example) hardly stirred from his base in Cal…, sorry Kolkota. He did make Shatranj ke Khiladi and Sadgati in Hindi and a documentary on Balasaraswathi but otherwise stuck to his beloved Kolkota and Bengal. But you might be interested to know that there is at least one American, Ellis R. Dungan, (1909-2001) who did make movies in India; indeed, he directed some of the early Tamil movies between 1936-50. I really doubt that many Americans – even Indian-Americans – know about him, but he’s fondly remembered in the Tamil movie industry. In 1994, he made a visit back to Chennai (Madras, that is) and in his autobiography, he recalls the experience:
In January of 1994, I again was invited to return to India by some friends in the film industry (of course, the invitation is always open there)…When I got to the reception on my behalf, I was overwhelmed by all the attention from the press, film organizations, and actors. Most of the guests were from my filmmaking days in Madras. Among them was the great actress/musician M.S.Subbulakshmi and her husband T.Sadasivam. The chief minister of Madras and the American consul general were also there to welcome me.…M.S. sat next to me at my table, along with her husband, and later during the evening she honored me with a song. What a reception! Friends congratulating me…all the former film stars greeting me…I couldn’t believe it! These people were all there for me? Many of the guests would embrace me or get down on their knees and ‘take the dust of my feet’. And they wanted me to get up and speak, but when I got to the podium I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t speak. Words failed me, and the tears started to flow. I know the guests must have been disappointed, but I had to offer my apologies and sit back down. I’d never experienced anything like that in my life.
Interestingly, Dungan didn’t understand Tamil at all! The issue of how Dungan ended up in India is interesting in itself – google is your friend. The above extract and more is available here:
http://www.sangam.org/articles/view2/?uid=691
Anyway, to answer you, if Vikram Seth can write “The Great California Novel”, there’s no reason why an outsider can’t make a movie about India.
Suresh: that’s really interesting, I’d never heard of Dungan. Thanks for sharing that 🙂
No problems, Melissa. Many of the early Tamil movies had many more songs than are there in the average movie these days but the songs in Meera and Shakuntalai (two of Dungan’s movies) are still remembered. Here’s a youtube link to one, the famous Kaatrinile Varum Geetham (“the breeze brings with it the song” — not a good translation, I know) sung by M. S. Subbulakshmi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCiqqFVY4Xw
i thought boyle picked dev patel because it is hard to find his physiognomy among indian a-list actors.
During the red carpet leadup, we did see on elderly Indian couple on the carpet in the background watching the celebs do their interviews – the lady was wearing a red sari.
And Slumdog and Gandhi were british movies. It takes foreigners to make world class movies about India. Bollywood is content to churn out garbage by the thousands every year.
What nonsense yoga fire. There are FAR more indians living in slums or working as child slaves than working in call centers, international corporations or as back office code coolies. Why do you want to only focus on a tiny minority of indians?
Yes, there will be some who will, just like there are some who dismissed Slumdog for overwhelmingly silly reasons (like yogafire’s objections above, which seem to confuse the basics of documentary and fiction, among other things). of course, the reasons might be articulated differently, because it does sound stupid to say that they reject the movie purely because whitey did it. so, if necessary, it will come down to actually debunking whatever objections the naysayers have, and whether those objections have merit.
Well if you had the luck to go to UCLA and study with Vinay Lal you wouldn’t have learned much
Oscars is for English language movies (& hence hollywood). There are lots of wonderful Indian movies although they can’t compete for Oscars. AR Rahman won Oscars for Slumdog, but he made wonderful music from a long time & din’t win any major international awards..(Bombay & Roja) Bottom line is Indian movies don’t have to win Oscars to be considered as world class.
always hilarious to see the uberpatriots crawl out of the woodwork
@Melissa, I have to laugh at you because you are deriding Amitabh for statements he NEVER made about Slumdogs. Obviously you are one of the gullible people who believe everything read in the tabloids – I won’t say newspapers because most papers nowadays are crappy. Amitabh on his blog posted comments from readers both PRO and CON Slumdogs and opened up comments for debate. Some papers erroneously reported that he said Slumdogs was “poverty porn” when it was a reader who coined that phase in one of the comments posted by him. I hate to see misquotes posted as FACT and by someone who is trying to come across as “intellectual” when it comes to cinema.
BTW, contrary to your disdain, Amitabh is famous not for playing a billionaire in a couple movies but for playing the common man who fought against the system in most of his old movies. Not all Bollywood movies are just escapist fare some movies with singing and dancing have social messages embedded in them without just being dark and dismal.
It is a fact the foreign movies that usually win awards focus on dark subjects – Holocaust, slavery, human rights, sexual abuse, child abuse, etc. So of course Western filmmakers incorporate those subjects into their films to get attention from critics and award juries. One of the most beautiful movies I have seen from India, The Blue Umbrella had a lyrical quality but was not dark and dismal enough to win foreign awards.
“It is a fact the foreign movies that usually win awards focus on dark subjects – Holocaust, slavery, human rights, sexual abuse, child abuse, etc. So of course Western filmmakers incorporate those subjects into their films to get attention from critics and award juries.”
Exactly. How about a “dark” film on the native american genocide, or transatlantic slave trade that doesn’t show white people as the saviors?
Exactly. How about a “dark” film on the native american genocide, or transatlantic slave trade that doesn’t show white people as the saviors?
Firstly, what’s stopping you? The best way to counter is to make such movies oneself. Secondly, even with Hollywood movies, it is known that movies which focus on “socially relevant” themes usually win awards. Many are simply forgotten and often the ones that are remembered are the non-winners. As an example, only one of Hitchcock’s movies – Rebecca in 1940 – won the Academy award. Yet arguably, his movies (North by Northwest, Rear Window and so on) are more remembered than some of the winners.
Anyway, the way the movie business operates is well-known. In India too, there are old complaints about how Muslim, Christian and South Indian characters (“Madrasis”) are reduced to stereotypes in Bollywood movies. Rehashing these old complaints seems pointless to me.
Hence, if you want to judge Slumdog Millionaire, I would certainly not focus on the poverty. That is too easy. The question is, given the theme which is only to be expected, does it have anything new to offer? I don’t know since I have not seen the movie but that is how I would go about making a judgement. In the same spirit, when judging Bollywood movies I would not focus on the songs or the melodrama – those are taken as given. The question is, given the constraints of the form (songs, melodrama), does it have anything new and substantial to offer?