The Openings and The Endings.

The Openings

1. Woyzeck : Nabokov said in his essay on Metamorphosis that 'beauty plus pity' is the closest we can get to a definition of art. If it is so then this is the example. Also its my favorite Herzog film, although I haven't seen many.



2. The Player : And they talk about long shots and "great" Hollywood stories.

3. Persona : This opening sequence alarms you that it is not a easy road ahead.




The Endings (Spoilers Ahead)

1. Nights of Cabiria. I think, the most humane and heart breaking theme of art is 'misfits having desires', and how they are brutally crushed by the fitter tribe. Fellini adds another dimension.



2. Blue : Is this what they mean when they say "pull all the strings together" !





3. Sunset Blvd : Another misfit having desire. Beauty plus pity !

How to watch a film !

These instructions are based on shallow (and unmarried) personal experience and not to be taken seriously. These particulars should not be generalized, identified with or anyway followed, except in some formal experimental tests, all these experiments may not be dangerous in a literal way but if taken with (or without) thought can be permanently damaging. Dont care about this self important disclaimer or the similar post that follows, it is for me.

There is a definitive art of film watching, which is different from movie watching. Movie watching is an impersonal affair (watch with friends and pop the corns, no bother). A Fight Club comes as a movie watching exercise, but a Tokyo Story is essentially film watching experience (watch alone, no bother). If you are watching a film, you need to feel completely, utterly free. Free to pause and play, to dance and think, in between the film. To achieve this freedom, some ground work needs to be done. To start with, switch off your mobile phone, for the weak-hearted, we recommend to put them in silent mode at first, and then move to complete switch off mode (It a social exercise also, which will make you realize, that there are no calls that you can't miss, or in some cases it reveals something more basic, nobody calls you). If anyone calls and you accidentally pick the phone, say you are in a meeting, people understand this reason more than anything else, and will give you Chichikovian respect too.

Once you have your mobile switched off, take (or take out) some of things that you feel distract you. Eat and piss, or take a smoke. Take pen-paper if you want to take notes. Never bother that you have to watch the full film in one go, assume you are free to push pause, assume you are free to think astray (forced concentration is obviously not the key here), assume that you are free to not understand anything, assume that electricity wont go off, and a friend wont knock your door. Be comfortable, don't care, shut the world off, in short, - I know how much I hate to say this - be bourgeois (although we all already are).

Always choose the films like a daily routine. Also, don't be afraid to see a bad film, they are much more educative. If I have Mouchette, Late Spring and Naked for a holiday, I would like to see Mouchette in morning after light breakfast, Late Spring will go after lunch, lying on the bed with few hankies handy and Naked with go with evening smoke. Any meeting with friends in between will spoil the experience, go alone to eat or better order at home or even better skip meals (take a heavy dinner to shut up the hunger, and sleep). One can fill up the time between films by reading about the films in general (not those specific films) or see bollywood songs on youtube or Zee Classic (alienation effect). One can dance also, since there is no physical exercise for the whole day. Although it doesn't look like, the idea is to have a healthy diet !

Now start the film. Don't think that you have to see the film or the special features first. Complete anything interesting/inviting/distracting and then move to the film. And in case you have some "scenes" to look in that film, look at them first, don't let them deflect you, vent them off in the beginning like Godard did in Contempt with Bardot, and more importantly don't feel guilty about such pleasures, because now your "soul" is clean. Once you are fine to proceed, switch off the lights, and restart it.

A good viewer must betray himself. He must go against his sex, sexual desires, his taste, prejudices and denounce any prejudgements. This is a way to expand and appreciate and understand more, and at times to get the subtlest of ideas. Most of the times deviance fine-tunes the existing self, makes it more tolerant and free. A Bad Education demands to appreciate and understand Gael García Bernal in all the three avatars. A Teorema calls for even more. One should be like the assaulted white actors of 'Be Black' campaign from Brian DePalma's marvelously Godardian Hi, Mom! , who say "It was a good exercise, Now we know how is it to be Black" (Although in the film, it is loaded with irony). Some may call it masochistic, but don't care much for yourself, you will survive.

Although it depends on the film, in general, watch the film for first 35 mins with total devotion and no questions (just receive the images, eat with eyes). The point is to shut the brains, delay any questions as of now. Give it some time to dress up/dress down. Give the director time and space to clean or fill your mind. And this is one reason I don't watch films with friends who invariably become uneasy when they have invested 30 mins of their ohh-so-precious time in the film, and start demanding what not. Not that a good film will give you a peak around 35 mins, but it is like the gestation period. The film might or might not work after that, but these 35 minutes of pure devotion are absolutely essential. This devotion should ideally be given to members of all class and caste, no snobbery is entertained before the flickering screen.

After you have given some time to the film, it starts to reveal itself. The experience of the movie can be equated to taste or tone of music or color. A good film pays off in humble quanta. The pay off can be like the long conversation between the country priest and countess in Diary of Country Priest, or a devastating look on the face of Vera in Vera Drake. It may be the flash of brilliance in the Brechtian end sequence of Body Double. It can be the pleasure to just watch Cabiria through her journey. The returns from a film are not calculative, they are more of intuitive. When we see one scene for the first time, our first response is based on our intuition, a little later follows the judging part, and much later the deconstruction part (thematically/ideologiocally, technically (sound, camera, action) and inference-wise), which is then re-constructed into a complex response. If the intuitive part and the last complex response are almost same, we feel the honesty of the image that we saw, we feel that we are not manipulated. Otherwise, pretension comes forth. In my self-made, self-satisfying, simplistic theory, I feel that a director starts similarly, he imagines a scene based on intuition, then deconstructs and constructs to check its integrity. The problem with this approach is that most of the times deconstruction is not always honest/correct on a viewer's part, and he ends up getting something that director never meant. This is the peril of interpretation. Is any work of art, signifies how/what we construct(or deconstruct or analyze) it, or what was its original meaning or intent, I am not sure of. But there is a level of interpretation, and cross references, and a viewer should know what and how to construe, for his own benefit, otherwise these interpretation can be merely self serving delusions. In all this, we should accept the crime and responsibility of flattening out the images to map our brain patterns as much as we accept that we are free to do that.

The first impression may not be the most thoughtful one, but the most honest one, and usually tell you something about yourself. Also, we must know that there is difference between - to appreciate a work and to love it. Don't be scared to love, even if you know you can not appreciate it or it is not appreciated by those whose opinion you deeply regard. It is one of the many pleasures of film watching. Also, try to appreciate whatever you can, as cinema is a mixed art. Don't ignore the visual design of a film that doesn't work thematically. Sometimes I feel bothered by the overuse of uncinematic tools like narration (like in Sans Soleil, a great and insightful film though but at times the otherwise evocative narration is too guiding) or the overdose of cinematic tools (like in Theo Angelopoulos' The Weeping Meadow, a potential good film but we can equate its staged, precise and self important imagery to something like fatally smug poetry). At times, I wonder why so much importance is given to the philosophical and moral implications of a film than to its visual language (visual language can in itself be manipulative thematically), much like the discrimination between cerebral and carnal desires, as if they are entirely different.

Once the film finishes, don't rush to get the conclusion and try to find what it meant (I do so shamelessly). Admit if you did not understand it. Big critics have done that. It might hit you one odd night, rest assured a good film, like a ghost, doesn't leave you that easily. As you sleep, and close the day, think about the scene that you liked, and close your eyes.

One of the properties of good film is that its not easily recommendable to everyone. One end up using disclaimers like "You may not like it", "It may be shocking", "There is no plot, if you are looking for one" etc etc. A good film can be colorless, odorless and inert for an inattentive soul. A good film should have spirit to miss the tempting opportunities and heart to hear and see (or rather show) the quotidian. A good film is willing to take risks, walk off the line like Fat Girl does. It can be accused of being a big bore, with either no end result (Chungking Express) or with a shocking ending (Audition) or being too outlandish to stomach (Naked Lunch / Crash), but it tells/reminds you something about you, or the world you live in and beyond or about its own form and flesh.

All said and done one must remember what Tarkovsky said:

It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all. We should long ago have become angels had we been capable of paying attention to the experience of art, and allowing ourselves to be changed in accordance with the ideals it expresses. Art only has the capacity, through shock and catharsis, to make the human soul receptive to good. It's ridiculous to imagine that people can be taught to be good...Art can only give food - a jolt - the occasion - for psychical experience.

On Marriage

From The Importance of Being Earnest

Jack: How utterly unromantic you are!

Algernon: I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. Its very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one might be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.


From Dead Souls

Happy is the traveler, who after a long and wearisome journey with its cold and slush and mud, sleepy station masters, jingling bells, repairs, altercations, drivers, blacksmith, and all sorts of villains of the road, at last beholds the familiar roof, and the lights rushing to met him, and then the familiar rooms appear before him, he hears the joyful cries of the servants running out to meet him, the noise and the pattering footsteps of the children, and soothing, gentle words interspersed with passionate kisses that have the power to blot out all the sad thoughts from his memory. Happy the family who has a home of his own, but woe to a bachelor !

From Annie Hall

[Alvy addresses a pair of strangers on the street]
Alvy Singer: Here, you look like a very happy couple, um, are you?
Female street stranger: Yeah.
Alvy Singer: Yeah? So, so, how do you account for it?
Female street stranger: Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas
and nothing interesting to say.
Male street stranger: And I'm exactly the same way.
Alvy Singer: I see. Wow. That's very interesting. So you've managed to work
out something?

Films this Weekend.

I caught a mild fever midway this long weekend and utilized some of it to see films. Here is the list in chronological order.

Guru: Nothing much to appreciate, except Vidya Balan's death, it is the only high point of the film, sort of pulled loose strings together for a while. Also, Mithun Chakraborty is very good and his sincere contempt for God is only instance I saw in recent Hindi films, where a character shows it - without any guilt, doesn't succumb till end, and is not punished for it.

Salaam-e-Ishq : Nothing to talk about, except that its almost four hours long. I liked the last song sung by Kailash Kher. Its goes "Ya rabba, dede koi jaan bhi agar, dilbar pe ho na koi asar", at last they understood.

Innocence: I liked it but I have one problem with it, its ending. [Spoiler Ahead]. There can be two major interpretations of the ending. After the purple-girls are 'released' from the school, one of them, Bianca (Bérangère Haubruge), go and play under a fountain with a young boy, giggling and splashing water on the boy, and scene closes as the film has started, with fluids and bubble. One simple reading is that she is now liberated and freely exploring her sexuality, which she has meticulously endured, saved and cultivated. The second reading might be dark, her release from school may her descent/trapping into much real and horribly concealed world, earlier she was doing one stage show (which is film's metaphor for prostitution), now its a daily ritual, she is now everybody's whore, free but in fierce competition, and constantly and unconsciously catering to the sexual drive of the world. This revelation will be her true loss of innocence. If the film meant the first one, I looks a bit cliched, even if it is an amazing visual treat filled with horror in every corner (even a simple act of young girl playing on a swing creates sense of horror and fear of unknown), acted by an absolutely brilliant cast, especially the girl who plays Iris (Zoé Auclair). If it is of the second kind, it makes lot of sense. But I feel, its a mixture of the two.

L'Atalante : What can I say. Although this film is set on a ship with newly-wed couple, it seems that Jean Vigo has made a character out of Paris, not just a city alluring and cheating at the same time, but an enticing red lipped whore, a far-off love interest. The farewell scene of Juliette (Dita Parlo) is comic but a single look on her mother's face changes it to tragic. The look at the face of the thief is so feeble that we feel more bad for him than for the Juliette, whose purse he stole. Amazing montage of the rage of crowd and cruelty of a big city. The erotic love scene where distant lovers make love, or the underwater sequence (such sequence in 1934, amazing !) where Jean (Jean Dasté) searches for Juliette or the scene where Juliette walks on ship's deck with foggy background. Idiotic Jules (Michel Simon), who involuntary seduces Juliette and the peddler who charms her and the city where she is lost. This is one of those few films where the re-union of the lead pair is both real and also has dusky dream-like quality.

Suzhou River: Good film. Its like Vertigo, set in modern China and the direction is inspired by Wong Kar-wai. The leads are very good especially the actor who plays Mardar (Jia Hongshen). There is one scene where he is drunk and he acts amazingly downbeat. The film looks too adamant to see allegory in the obsessive tale of love, that I think is its weakness.

Zatiachi: The beginning of the film is very cinematic, the way few characters are introduced side by side their past and their skills. The music and fights are very fresh. The sword fights are short and bloody in an alienating and shocking way. A good tap dance finale. A novel Zatiachi.

Ghost World : Good Film. Thora Birch is extremely good as Enid, who hates extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers. Its heart breaking to see how all those whom Enid thought will never move, move ahead of her. Great dialogues. In one Seymour (played by Steve Buscemi) says "Maybe I don't want to meet someone who shares my interests. I hate my interests." Wow, someone finally said that ! Also Seymour says " I suppose things are better now, but... I don't know. People still hate each other, they just know how to hide it better."

Frozen : They say its about artistic freedom but it is primarily about artistic void. It is said to be based on real events, about the artist, Qi Lei, who is obsessed with death and tries to stage his death through ice burial. With a twist at the end, film mixes art, life, death and 'will to die' nicely. Lead actor ( Xiaoqing Ma) is very good, he says so much without dialogues, he also played the lead in Suzhou River. Not very good, but a nice small film about an artist in trouble.

Gerry: Saw first 45 mins and slept. Its moving to nowhere, and I am liking it.

Will write about some of them in detail later. I am preparing a list of films and film-makers from East Asia and South East Asia, that I need to see. Will share it, once its done.

Omkara and Expletives

Disclaimer: Please don't read if you easily get offended.

There was a huge debate over the use of expletives in Omkara. Though very late, but here is my take on it. Just to clarify, I am from the land where the film is supposedly set and I am a big fan of all those expletives, this post is an effort to do justice to what they deserve.

Before we proceed let me have a code of referring to them. They are not meant to be written (especially not in English transliteration) so we are not going to write any one of them here. We are going to refer them by the first English letter in their transliteration. Also, most of the impact of the examples I quote will be lost, because they are written, not spoken. Call me prude but here we go.

To say the least, I hated the use of expletives in Omkara and the way the whole debate was hijacked by was it a right decision to use them or not. No one ever even bothered about how to use them, which was the whole point. Expletives are never used as exclamation marks. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, they become too obvious (which is bad for their ample use), secondly, exclamatory use make them a statement of sort, which they are not. If I say, "kinghe jaa raa, B" (where are you going, B), it doesn't make any sense. No one sensible will use them like this. The correct use is "abe kinghe jaa raa, B sunta hi na" (where are you going, B doesn't listen to me). It makes perfect sense. Here B doesn't qualify the person but his act of not listening. Note that there is a slight tinge of care for the person you use them for.

Let me make an parallel for the use of expletives. We have a sweet-dish up north, its called gur-gajar. In a small setup (its called a Kohlu) where gur (jaggery) is made, when gur is in the last stage of its making, we put some skinned carrots (cut them across the length such that they don't slice into two, like we do in green chilly pickle) into steamy hot gur, stir them for about 5 mins or so till they become soft and juicy, and then taken them out. After half an hour (just to cool down a bit, but still too hot to handle), they are picked out whole and put in mouths (this usually causes mouth ulcers for children, but who cares). Now there is no single entity, - no gur, no carrot, they are joined into holy matrimony of sweet love. As the carrot enters the mouth with juice dipping from chin to chest, it is an experience and sight to behold. Expletives are like carrots, and the language like gur to begin with. It is not to say that language sweetens the effect of expletives, but it is to say that it assimilates it, they are joined seamlessly. Any attempt to separate them is done in bad taste and stinks of vulgar sensationalism.

Experienced and well meaning people mostly use expletives in between the sentence and never raise their voice while speaking them. They go with the flow of the sentence, adding a more lyrical quality and liveliness (immediacy). There is no show off, they are lukewarm honey dropped from heaven in between the sentences, adding the warmth. No one notices them in the sentence, but every one know they are spoken. For Gods sake, please don't use them like the F word. First thing to note is they are not meant for abuse. They are not just fillers. They are the flavor. They should seep in effortlessly and slowly over time, like flavor in hot-soft muffins, not like an add-on of hard nuts. Its a lazy way to use them. If one watches closely, he/she will notice that most of the expletives are used for inanimate things, situations and life as such, not for people. Simple use of expletive comes with inanimate but personal things, which we love, for eg. scooters, "yaar, B, start ho jaa, G lega kya".

In Omkara, barring few occasions by Deepak Dobriyal, no one used them properly. It was one of the biggest reason why I didn't like the film much. You can call be names, but I get really sentimental about expletives. I see them as a part of culture. At last, after all this talking, I should give you an example of the correct use of expletives. In Khosla ka Ghosla, when Khoslaji (Anupam Kher) tells his friend, Sahni sa'ab (Vinod Nagpal) that his son doesn't like his name, he replies "Khosla saab.. aaj kal ke bachche bade mnc mijaaz ke hote hain...unhe ye kabootron waale naamon mein sharmindgi mehsoos hoti hai ...nayi ?.. unke saath ek baar compromise kar lo, saare budhape ki insurance ho jaati hai...ooo jee.. sach poocho to ye saara desh hi B compromise pe chal raha hai.. hai ji...". The honey dropped from heaven and it was a moment of pure bliss.

NB: This post would not be possible without the help of Vivek and Rajeev. Thanks !

A Poem by Auden

Read this poem, The Unknown Citizen, on Vidya's blog. She says " [it] leaves me with a "wow" every time I read the last two lines". For me it shoots 3-4 lines before that. The last two lines take time to sink in but when they do, they sink very personally !

The Unknown Citizen

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-by W. H. Auden

The Time has Come...

As the cliché goes, the time has come. I will be on a trip, starting today, to Bangalore, Hassan, Belur, Halebedu, Kalasa, Kudremukh, Hornadu, Mangalore, Udupi and back to Bangalore. I don't know much about the places, just read about them on internet. I am taking my camera along for company. I will be back to Hyderabad next year. So, its the last post for this year.

About personal life, it went fine, but I am sure it will take some drastic turn next year. Professional life was good too, may be because I don't care much about it anymore. This year was not a good year for me film-wise, I was able to see about 80 odd films out of which 20 were Bollywood/Hollywood types. There are few films that I saw this year, that changed the way I look at them and were immensely satiating. Here are few of them:

Fat Girl: I was surprized by the audacity of this film and the way Anaïs say, "Don't believe me if you don't want to". Highly recommended.

Ten: It is the most experimental film I saw this year. Out of the ten episodes, there are few that are alarmingly heart breaking and true. Dancer in the Dark closely follows as runner up in the experimental category.

3 Women: The performance of Shelley Duvall is extraordinary. Either she acted too well, or she is like Millie in real life.

Week End: An example of art of the extreme type and film making of the highest order. Its disturbing as heavens and funny as hell.

Kinsey: I always felt that biopics are not film-material in any way but this film proved me wrong.

Late Spring : Another film by Ozu that proves that you can make same film with same cast year after year without losing an iota of novelty. The last scene where the old man peels an orange is even more painful than the farewell of Noriko.

Code Unknown : Its a crumbled masterpiece that shows us how fragmented and interconnected our lives have become.

I have a feeling that I am missing some films in this list, but one can always write next year !

Few directors I discovered later this year

Robert Altman : A truly American director. He visualized our society as a troupe sitting under shade and sunlight of a big banayan tree stage, with life of hopes and dreams crossing each other, ruptured and reared by the sentiments of family, sex, politics, race, cast and condition.

Mike Leigh : A truly British director. I saw three of his films this year, Naked, Secret and Lies and Vera Draka. Although we know he has mellowed down in all these years, but what strikes in his films is the human chord, the perfectly believable characters, the sentiments without going sentimental.

Brian de Palma : A true successor of Hitchcock. The Prom party scene in Carrie is like a greek tragedy (In Indian tradition, one can vaguely equate it to the story of Kannagi), everything good and bad is destroyed, and the climax says that this tragedy lives on. And above all, orgasmatic crucification of Carrie's mother by flying knives.The Museum scene in Dressed to Kill, is a great example of how camera can do all the menacing and peeking. Its also an example how a simple hooking scene between strangers can be turned to art. Reviews of his films here.

In Bollywood films, I liked Jaan-e-man, Khosla ka Ghosla, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Gangster and Taxi no. 9211, in that order. I found Rang de Basanti, Omkara and Dor quite overrated, in that order.

Reading wise it was a bad year but I think it was better than the previous one. Thats all I read.
1) The Sorrows of Young Werther
2) The Old man and the Sea
4) The Importance of Being Earnest (text here)
5) The Overcoat, The Nose and Dead Soul
6) The Stranger
7) The God of Small Things
8) Short Stories (Parinde and Kavve aur Kala Paani ) by Nirmal Verma (Anubhuti profile here)
9) Poems by Nagarjun (Anubhuti profile here)
10) The Quilt and other stories by Ismat Chughtai (more links here)

and Alok, I still include short stories along with novels :)

Happy New Year to all !

Gong Li

Now it is the time to write something about her. I was almost enticed by her small role in 2046. Doomed gambler of love, thats what she plays. I find something sensual of higher order in smeared lipsticks (I even liked Urmila Matondkar's lipstick smearing act in Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya). 2046's final passionate kiss is very erotic, potently dangerous and doomed like love. But nothing come close to the way Gong Li leaves the frame in 2046, with out of bound lip color. I don't remember it fully but I found camera almost fixed on her hand wearing a black glove, carrying a purse and her hips as she climbs down the stairs or may be she walks out on a paved road. At that time, I gave all the credit to Wong Kar-wai. But the next film (The Hand segment of Eros), although also by Wong Kar-wai, proved how she can elevate and blur the line between desire, love and pain of its impossibility. The Hand is more explicit and shorter than 2046 and In Mood for Love, and so it might not work on their level (also, we have the same by Kar-wai many a times), but Gong Li makes every thing delectable, delicate and delicious. Gong Li has power to utter words in a way they mean both rejection and approval, with a firm face, and it all points to a dangerous territory ahead. She is just opposite to other excellent actress, Isabelle Huppert. While Huppert is so bland, covert and distant that what ever little precise emotion she displays gives sublime pleasure, Li displays an oriental mix of emotions, spicy and suppurated, its both pain and pleasure to watch her simmer and sigh.

I saw Raise the Red Lantern last week and the younger Gong Li as as good as her consummated version. The film starts with her close up where she accepts her fate and then she moves on a journey of power, family politics, sex, betrayals, deaths and finally madness. The film, shot in beautiful reds, is a mix of traditions, entrapment, soap opera and alienation, works like a Kafka-like parable. Gong Li's Songlian tries to play the game of the house like the other sisters, trying to be as sinister as them, but eventually loses everything, but in all this she becomes our window to the dark secrets of the house of red lanterns. She elevates this visual treat to something universal and bigger than its parts. Gong Li's Songlian longs for VIP foot massages and the red lanterns, not for the company of the master but for the power it brings along, and as the game becomes more complex, she single-handedly injects ghostly hysteria into the film. Li manages to became a living ghost in the house, a token of all the misdeeds and family secrets, consumed by both. She has gift to fill atmosphere either with unbearable longing, or amorous danger, or both. I must see, To Live and Farewell My Concubine soon. And I think she must work with Almodóvar and Lynch at least once. In Lynch's film, she can even speak Mandarin, it wont obscure the film further.

Robert Altman and American Cinema

When an artist dies, instantaneous interest is generated in his works among general public and his works are revisited by critics. I had not seen any of the film by Robert Altman, till he was alive, although several times I was just about to rent his films (last to last week, I shortlisted two films by Robert Altman and two by Mike Leigh, and decided to rent the later two), but I was intrigued by his films as they appear from reviews (great opera of a wide and varied ensemble cast with a central event having small scale character studies in particular, and American culture in general). I must admit that I have a general prejudice against American films for no solid reason, given a choice I will always choose the other.

Earlier this year, I compiled a list of directors to watch, country-wise, and intentionally left American directors. If this a confession box, let me confess, I have not seen even a single film by John Ford, Terrence Malick, Francis Ford Coppola (saw one of the Godfather, many years back on TV, I don't remember anything from it, not even the score by Nino Rota), John Huston, Howard Hawks, Robert Aldrich, Michael Curtiz, Vincent Minelli, Sam Peckinpah, John Cassavetes, Brain De Palma, Buster Keaton, Nicholas Ray, Sergio Leone, Andy Warhol. I have seen on film each by Orson Welles (its The Trial, not Citizen Kane) and Douglas Sirk. So, the only American directors which I have seen are Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilders. In the contemporary directors I score bit better. I am more or less alien to the genres of Film Noir, Musicals and Westerns.

So demise of Altman, not only generated interest in his films, but American Cinema in general. To cleanse some of my guilt, I have planned to watch films by Altman for 2 weeks and following is the list I came up with, and in that order.

The Player
Nashville
Gosford Park
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Brewster McCloud
M*A*S*H
3 Women
Short Cuts

Planning to write short notes on these films once I complete them. This list is based on reviews, trying to get a mix of his old, new and cult films, and more importantly the availability of films here. If you want to recommend any more Altman films (or any American director and films), please do so. You can help a poor soul in guilt-reduction.

A heartfelt obituary to Altman here. A more comprehensive one here. Altman's sketch by a fan here.