The Poetry of Cinema

I have been on a writing spree lately. After a hiatus I finally have a lot to say. For the past few days I was not well and spent some time writing or taking some much needed naps. I haven't felt this rested in a while. Moreover after having experienced in the past the wicked joy of writing when in turmoil, I am now enjoying the serene pleasure of penning down my leisurely thought-escapades.

During this time my roommate brought home movies practically every day to keep me entertained. Thankfully she did not discriminate in language while renting the movies and I got treated to some foreign films with excellent stories and directorial art. I could see a distinct difference in the way French, South American or Chinese movies are made. The backdrop is an obvious distinction but the way some of the main characters react to situations and their vulnerabilities were all so very different for each nationality. I had never before thought of human portrayal of human fallibilities being influenced by cultural disparities. I have watched foreign films prior to this but only those that had received international acclaim. The movies I watched over the past few weeks however were small budget movies with an original albeit slightly slow storyline that did not fit into the usual drama, romance, biopic genres and were just simple narratives. Somehow they reminded me of poetry and I decided to write this blog.

Over a course of time I have witnessed scenes in films where a galloping horse, the arms of a clock, a soaring bird or wheels in motion are used as symbolic references for unfolding plot, much like my favorite figure of speech, the deliciously crafty and implicit metaphor. A backdrop if woven around the storyline can be compared to the imagery that is employed so successfully in narrative poetry. If the backdrop were missing, the story would seem disconnected. Hence cinematography, colors and even seasons are often used as a means of setting the tone for a particular storyline. I don't know why, but every time I see rain, power outages or extended moments of silence in a film I feel I could almost cut the tension with a knife. But just like in poetry, it is easy for such illustrations to join the ranks of cliches (reference: the sudden frame shift to budding flowers or crashing waves that used to appear instead of what would've been a love scene in a Hindi movie). I sometimes wonder if censorship and obscenity were an issue, why didn't they find such symbolic substitues for the buxom, bosom heaving nautch girl who has been promoted to the lead in recent films.

Coming back to the experience of watching these delectable pieces of art over the past few days, I realized something about myself I hadn't known before. I found out how much I liked deciphering the sly metaphors tucked into a scene, how gratifying I find interpreting the symbolism that reveals so much more about the characters whose stories make up the plot.

The other day my mother and I were discussing art movies and at the end of our exchange I concluded that every person watching a movie finds in its characters someone that resembles them, somebody who they can relate to. This has led me to a theory as to what might just be a factor in determining the success of the movie and like every scientist, I have devised a cruelly mathematical way of putting it:

***I hypothesize that the success of the plot is directly proportional to the number of main characters that have been adequately or justly explored and hence inversely proportional to the total number of characters in the movie provided of course a minimum number of characters required to actuate the plot are included.***

When people watch the movie and walk away from it convinced or persuaded by the one character who they identified most with, they are more likely to have enjoyed the story (unless they sadly identified with the villain in a commercial Hindi movie). Character analysis must therefore form an integral part of the moviemaking process as it is in poetry.

My very early writing was extremely didactic in nature. I wrote about life, sorrows, goodbyes, friendship, nature and other such generalities that are seen most in what I like to call 'greeting card verse'. Of late I have noticed that the art of writing poetry like wine, matures with age. I add a touch of confessionalism to the poem because I have a lot more of my own experiences to give to those stanzas. Now the generalities in my writing have found a particular episode in my own story to belong to; those moments and frames have now taken the form of metaphors for the impalpable abstractions I so doggedly pursued through my teenage writing exploits.

Nonetheless, too much of the poet's or director's imagination in poetry or films respectively might not leave room for the fertile imagination of the reader or the audience. My early training in poetic technique was forged with the motto "To evoke and not to show".

The professor at my poetry workshop was once exasperated by a student whose every piece told you exactly what you needed to hear to understand the poem. The professor scratched his head manically alarming some of us and finally wrung his hands up in despair wildly exclaiming "For God's sake's, trust the intelligence of your patrons!" I wish some of our filmmakers could be made privy to that piece of advice.

I hope that if I ever had a choice between making a lot of money and becoming an esteemed part of art history, I choose the later. History remembers those who rose above mediocrity and did not allow their art to be defined by popularity. One of these days I might get to updating my blog with a list of what I think are the best employed poetic techniques in contemporary films as an ode to such artists. That should be a fun project. After all it is probably the subtle minutiae in a simple plot that makes it believable and appealing.

A colleague of mine who's not a huge fan of poetry once quite frivolously dismissed the profound art, brazenly declaring, "Poets should just hurry up and come to the point!"

I could think of a few dozen retorts (including a mean little "Well, we now know your views on foreplay") and instead settled the matter with: "Why come to the point when there is so much fun and exploration in detail?"