The Hollow Reel

When was the last time you got up after a Hindi movie feeling like – Wow what an excellent piece of art! Is it just me or the only emotion that the movies these days invoke in most people is that of total disgust. But that cannot be right seeing the outrageous crores these movies make. So what is it then? Have our minds degenerated enough to watch and admire unreal action, cheap jokes and raunchy songs. Why is it that more number of deteriorated forms of Manmohan Desais came up in the last few years rather than evolved forms of Gulzaar and Hrishikesh Mukherjee? Why is that to express the emotions of love or sadness not one song from these movies comes to our mind and we keep going back to the depth of Kishore Kumar and Manne De’s melodies? How come the decades in between have blown up in smoke with not many legends left to reminisce? So many questions and not one answer.

Last night while skimming through some music channels, hunting for a soothing pre siesta song, all I came across was item numbers with imported women dancing provocatively to badly crooned tracks. These were only interrupted by upcoming movie trailers which, to say the least, could put one off cinema all together. All they comprised was cheap stereotype dialogues, flying cars kind of action, some semi porn skin show and a few rather offensive dances.

It’s quite distressing to see the loss of sensitivity in the cinematic experience.  Films, which is apparently one of the most popular art forms and a widespread medium for indoctrinating and communicating to the masses, has experienced a rapid sinking of standards. The technology in the motion pictures may have leaped forward but isn’t that all-peripheral to the content? With a colossal dip in the substance itself the animation behind the man jumping off a high rise or the stunts with trains and cars just fail to touch a cord.

The India film Industry in the 70s and early 80s all heart. Whether it was the multi starrer action in Sholay and Amar Akbar Anthony, the romance in Abhimaan and Anupama, the riveting sensitivities of life in Masoom or the subtle comedies of Jaane Bhi do Yaaron and Golmaal; they all creatively explored and communicated countless emotions in the most mesmerizing manner. The characters created would convince you of their existence. Be it the intense lover, the comic friend or the dying mother, the character would be engraved in you for a lifetime and beyond. Who can possibly forget the intensity of Vijay in Deewar, the joy created by the wit of Professor Parimal Tripathi in Chupke Chupke or the undying tragedy of Anand.

Those were the simpler times and this simplicity reflected in the films. Times have changed. The society now is far more corrupt, rude, vulgar and unscrupulous and this disorientation is what we see in the motion pictures today. What is worse is that the representation of the cultural change has been done in the shoddiest manner. We do get to see an occasional genuine Lunchbox or commercial yet inspiring ventures like 3 Idiots or Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, but the numbers of such films are regrettably low.

Walt Disney once said, ‘We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.’ I guess the creatively challenged Shettys, Bhatts, Johars along with the factory made actors with more muscles than brains have totally bypassed this notion and started abusing art rather than portraying it at its best. The sole motto is to make more money, period.

Is there any chance of revival or is the corruption of Indian Cinema a norm that we should accept and live by? Woody Allen once said, ‘If my movies don’t show a profit, I know I am doing something right.’ But he also said that, ‘If my films make one more person miserable I feel I’ve done my job right.’ The Indian filmmakers today seem to follow the latter more than the former. Yes they are making more and more people miserable by the stereotype senseless cinema because all their heart pursuits is those mean bucks. I hope they get it right, I hope the art flourishes, I hope for a revolution, as all I have is hope.