In a State where cinema is a genetic obsession and there fore pervades all aspects of life, you only need a figment of an excuse to deliver a discourse on it. Mine has come in the form of some reader responses to celluloid references in last week’s column. It is a happy provocation that I am gleefully pouncing on, thanks to the aforementioned gene, for I am no less a film buff than the CM and cm, Chief Minister and common man, respectfully and respectively! Only that I am also part of the addicts-anonymous, either suffering from familiar withdrawal syndromes or at least tentatively trying to shake off the ill-effects, once the show is over.
As a modern phenomenon, cinema can be explained both in the historical and psychological perspective. Motion pictures are just about hundred years old and succeed other mass means of artistic/cultural expression like literature (prose and poetry), sculpture, painting, dance, drama and song. But despite its nascent status on the chronological hierarchy, cinema beats the other forms of art that claim far greater antiquity hands down in terms of appeal, spread and scope. And this brings us to the passion part of cinema. If cinema’s popularity has put its predecessors and peers in shade, it is owing to its emergence as the ideal medium for the play of imagination, creative or crass. We all lead many lives – one in the physical plane and the rest in our minds. Cinema is the most attractive avenue for projecting and even living out these other lives … of fantasies, dreams and even others’ realities that are otherwise beyond our means. It naturally follows that at core cinema can never be real. Either it simulates what is not there or exaggerates what is there. The element of ‘virtual’ is inherent though it may vary in degree; and even that is dependent on the beholder’s bias. In short, it is make-believe, wherein the maker and the believer revel in the realms of the unreal on reel!
Indeed, with such an umbilical connection to the human psyche, cinema’s sway is understandable. But precisely owing to that power and its intrinsic disconnect with practical life, cinema’s influence has also to be kept under check. Anything in excess is poison and the intoxication of the celluloid can convert a connoisseur into a common front-bencher even before you say ‘cut’. I have been a fan like you and your neighbour and we all know what that spell can do: A ‘fan’ can only spew hot air, and can never see cold logic vis-a-vis his chosen one. Thankfully, my idols have quit; some, the reel world, many, the real world. I now have the advantage of hindsight and not being in the arena, it is easy for the likes of me to pelt pebbles at the present picture from the secure shelter of the past. But that does not mean the picture is very pretty, either.
Rather it is scary because the threshold of entertainment has been repeatedly breached and the State seems like one big theatre of the absurd with continuous shows. In the last forty years of Dravidian rule, barring caretaker-cameos by Nedunchezhiyan and O Panneerselvam, all CMs – Anna, K, MGR, Jaya & Janaki – have entered the Secretariat via Studios. And there is always a host of wannabes waiting in the wings. This has been possible only in TN (Tinselnadu?) where visiris outnumber voters and punch dialogues pass for public policy. For the record, Andhra comes a very distant second.
But much as I detest filmdom’s forays into power politics, I rue even more the infiltration of politics into cinema. Politics is shady stuff, inside and outside: What you see is what is. But whatever the seamy or sleazy shadows on either side of the screen, cinema, in theory, is still art. For it to be polluted by politics is a perversion of a vital medium of public expression. Politics, the art of the possible, holds no possibilities for art. For instance, competitive bidding by political moneybags, from distribution of awards to award of distribution rights makes cinema less and less amenable to creativity. This is bad in a scenario where already the shining stars have pushed the script to the sidelines, unless it is written by an ‘award-winning’ CM. But worse, stars with political stars in their eyes, besides being an eyesore and an assault on the ears, are also a test on your sanity! But then, would any sane person venture to watch them in the first place?
The preachy postures of such pompous stars can at least be dismissed as puerile comedy. But the pretentious concern of commercial cinema for some public causes is more damaging. I am not talking of filmdom’s off-screen aborted adventures on Cauvery, Hoggenakkal or Sri Lanka. Even without politicos playing villains, movies, as they have evolved, offer little positive impact on society. On the contrary they have kept pace with the deteriorating moral standards and often lead the way. And with other media relying on them for content and various technological modes too at their disposal, the sweep of filmdom has expanded manifold. Add to it the human penchant for the primal that most cinema caters to and the plot gets murkier. It is in this context that depiction of causes in the pretext of public interest actually distorts them. Already, vital issues like corruption and terrorism stand diluted owing to dumbing down by TV news media.
But if TV trivialises such critical issues, cinema titillates them. A filmi hero felling a corrupt politico or a dreaded terrorist with fiery quips or flying kicks may make for good viewing. But the viewer’s indignation is prematurely expended then and there and what the film-goer carries home is not righteous anger at reality but vivid images of the same hero rollicking with a half-clad nubile nymphet or that item number at the villain’s den! In that, a movie renders a bigger disservice by making the dumb denizen numb to real life provocations. Again, even in the lofty but familiar Good vs Evil formula, while the villains always seem and sound convincing, that is, till they reform or are bumped off, the hero invariably needs the help of the director or special effects to triumph. And that is no credit or consolation for Good!
The raging chastity controversy is another proof of the sensitivities associated with this field and its diversionary potential from more pressing problems. Cinema has to be enjoyed and evaluated by its screen-merit and from a distance without going into its inner dyanamics. Rather, it would actually be worth the while to subject politics and media, which seamlessly mix with cinema in TN, to public glare instead. Again, seeing cinema as a source of enlightenment and even emancipation than as mere entertainment is a major folly wrought by those mischievous genes. The problem is with the beholder, who by taking the theatrics of a film personality too seriously and even identifying with him, ends up emboldening him to step off the screen. Given the nature of the medium, its level of sophistry in India and audience standards, both cinema and its viewers would be better off without hangovers!
The target of cinema is the viewer’s heart, not necessarily his brains and so there is no point intellectualising it! On that count, I plead guilty for I may have done just that now. But it is a paradox that I am not proud of! What to do? Old habits! And I might as well say bye. I must rush to make it to the night show on time. That title song …
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