iART: AN ACTOR

For some being a professional actor is simply a job just like being an accountant, an engineer, a doctor and so forth.  For other hard boiled brains, being a professional actor is a lifestyle, something that seeps into their personal lives even after the camera has turned off.  Many say a brilliant actor is a schizophrenic. Someone who embodies his/her character to such extent that it becomes almost impossible to differentiate between the actor and the character.

I am not sure if I'll be diagnosed as a schizophrenic if I confess that I am a pathological liar, I pretend to be someone else for most of my day and I enjoy doing that.  I don't lie to gain an advantage which is the known and accepted purpose of lying.  A person lying for no apparent advantage is considered either a stupid or insane.  But there is another reason to lie which is, at its core, the most elemental of all reasons.  Lying is pretending to be someone who you are not.  And isn't this acting?   The ace actor Naseeruddin Shah stated "everyone is born with myriad of abilities, not just acting, but many other.  Over time, we lost that ability but that doesn't mean we never had it."  I have to second that point.  In younger, more volatile, years, we all lied that we've been studying like we were supposed to when we were simply watching porn.  Essentially, we were pretending to be someone else when we were a completely different person. We were acting.   For most, this joy of acting disappears with age as the environment and the surroundings take over.  

Only two kinds of people stay connected with this dreadful habit.  Let's talk about the first kind.  People who are born in environment and family structures with history in acting usually have the support to pursue a career in acting.  Their upbringing is steered around the performing arts.  Such people become actors from outside in.

The second kind are those for whom acting offers solace.  If we think about it lying, if committed consistently, has the ability to incarnate a new personality.  Lie that you are a writer, then back that lie with bogus evidences (more lies), keep stacking onto those bogus elements, and for this one person, you become a writer. This one person has no idea that you are a boring financial analyst in some blood sucking consulting firm and not some struggling writer with the next demented idea for a film.  The solace lies in the fact that by lying, or acting, one can escape the harsh reality or a reality that is not in sync with its wants.   If a reality isn't pleasing enough, create your own.  For severe cases, it become mental disorder. For minor cases, it leads to acting.  Such people become actors from inside out.  Needless to say, the two kinds might have overlap cases as well. But those should be rare since a person belonging to a filmmaker's family, which is affluent, has no major reason to seek escapism from reality!

Having said what an actor is, one must understand there is a major difference between an actor and a professional actor.  An actor is a sense of inner satisfaction.  It is a slick art of embodying another personality with carefully structured lies.  The purpose of lies could simply be an entertaining and/or educational presentation or, as mentioned earlier, an escapist's route.  Whatever, an actor is an actor for itself.  But a professional actor is anything but simply an actor.  The main responsibility of a professional actor is simply to use his/her "actor" to convey the writer's/director's vision to the audience. Nothing more, nothing less.  It is a job of communication.  A bad actor becomes a hurdle between the vision and presentation because it stands out as an actor.  A good actor simply disappears.  Just like a good lie, which simply makes the truth disappear. 

iREVIEW: The Cabin in the Woods

Starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz and Richard Jenkins. Written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. Directed by Drew Goddard.

The Cabin in the Woods, from the trailers itself, seemed a very different sort of horror film to begin with.  Therefore, the expectations have to be higher than usual.  The first good move by the filmmakers is they make no bones about the fact that the film is way more than just a retreat-turns-to-a-nightmare slasher saga. We know if the first scene is not about some youngsters packing up for a trip but rather a bunch of scientist talking about their secretive and crucial project, then the film is not about the cabin either.

In fact, the film is not a horror film also.  Yes, it does have a few scream moments planted far in between, but they aren't the highlight.  The film is actually about this unbelievable experiment, the "puppeteer" scientists, the process of conducting the experiment and lastly the boys and girls stuck in the cabin.  In this film, you scream, you laugh and you drop your jaw at more than several instances.

If we stack all the turns and twists of the film on one another, we do realize that this film is a baby of a mind that has been craving to produce something crazy at an incomprehensible level.  If you think about the secret task (not experiment mind it) and the purpose of the task (which is revealed at the end), you'd understand that when it comes to free thinking, audience can accept anything as far as it is entertaining.

Whenever I write a review, I am usually concerned with the underlining themes stacked in layers atop each layer and I love to peel them one by one.  But this can only be done once the adrenaline of the movie has settled and you are all set for analysis.  In this film, and I'll be honest, there is no underlining theme or message or anything of that sort.  This film is simply a testament to the fact that entertainment can find its place on such dizzying heights of free thinking that you get a new dimension to writing, if you are a writer. You get a new dimension of experience, if you an audience.  Well, is this the message?

**** / *****

iART: First Impression

[As this day marks the beginning of another sequential posts (the other being iREVIEW in which I simply give my movie reviews assuming that you have already viewed it), I ponder on a miserable and perplexing point of initiality.  Art is such a vast subject.  It's boundaries cannot be fathomed, they can only be realized.  It's rules cannot be followed, they can only be defied to create new ones.  So I start with an appropriately titled episode "First Impression" which is a mere conglomeration of all the thoughts emanating from within me as I think about iART.]

What is an Artist? What makes for an Artist? What do you need to be one? Artist has two divisions of creativity within him (masculine gender is used for simplicity only!): the art, and the craft.  If and only if these two factors are developed within a human, only then he can be considered as an artist.  An artist without any art is simply a mimicry craftsmen. Obviously, mimicry craftsmen only exist in theory for a simple reason that a skilled craftsmen (in turn unskilled craftsmen don't exist either!) acquires that skill partially from "the art" section of his consciousness.  A prospective craftsmen can learn all the nuances as an inheritance during his developing years which makes his craft so vuluptuously intricate, but he must add a new definition to what he already has on hand to carry down the legacy of his forefather's craftsmenship.  This new definition is he himself, his stamp, his art. Without this art, he is merely a mimicry craftsmen.  All he can do is mimic the craftsmenship he inherited and mass produce it.  His production is an art but he is not an artist.

The exact opposite of mimicry craftsmen is an artist without a craft, who is not an artist to begin with. An artist is a source and a medium of art. The source is the art itself, the medium is the craft. Great Indian lyricist and poet Javed Akhtar said [paraphrase] "Life is a double lane road. One lane is worldly, which takes you away from yourself and closer to relationships, materialism and pleasures of tangible and emotional stimuli. This is the easiest route and hence is favored by the society.  The other lane, the treacherous one, is full of aloneness, self understanding and one is afforded no solace of being attached to anyone or being of value to the world. This is the lane to yourself." The second lane is  life itself and life is not a double lane road, it only seems as one.  A person who can access the lane to himself can access the art.  Art frees you from the world, makes you honest, gives you the courage to be yourself, encourages you to raise your voice, lets you appreciate your space in this world. Art is everything that YOU are.  As perplexing this statement might sound, if one looks around and simply measures his life for a moment, he will know if he has the access to his art or not with as simplicity.  Most of us, shockingly, simply walk down the easy lane. We have access to everything around us but have no understanding of ourselves. It's mind boggling that how we can say we love a person more than ourselves, when we don't even know if we love ourselves or not.  An artist is not a narcissist, he simply exists with complete realization of himself and his presence. He thoroughly understands all the qualities that emanate from him and their effects on the world. 

When you understand the aloneness, that art within you, the urge to appreciate the vastness around you is immeasurable. Why wouldn't it be? This is the first time you are an audience to the reality and not a mere participant.  The reality is so colorful, not just beautiful, so full of different shades, the ups and the downs, the hills and the valleys, the fragrances.  How can you not appreciate it? And if you decide that you will acquire a medium (a painting, writing, singing, etc.) to present your appreciation, you become an artist.  An artist who keeps the art to himself isn't benefitting anyone in this world, including himself.  His appreciation must be heard and applauded and realized for the world to have a meaning.  An artist must access himself, and then have a medium to show everything he realized to everyone who didn't.  

iREVIEW: Midnight In Paris

Starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marian Cotillard and Michael Sheen. Written and Directed by Woody Allen.

Gil Pender is a guy living in a jagged relationship with not only his fiance, Inez, but the contemporary times as well. Gil is a self-proclaimed Hollywood hack who churns screenplays left and right for successful movies but isn't satisfied with a villa in Beverly Hills and his plans to movie to Malibu with Inez. What he'd rather prefer is to live in Paris for the rest of his life and write novels but he isn't certain if he has what it takes to be a novelist.

On its veneer, Midnight In Paris deals with an intriguing, but simple, issue of a person living in a time completely out of sync with his psychology. But why is he hallucinating about living in a different era all together where he gets to meet and receive feedback on his debut novel from the likes of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald? Not that Gil isn't leading a perfectly normal life with Inez in USA where they occasionally plan to sneak in a trip to Paris, just like any other American. Gil isn't, like anyone else, out of sync with time but he is simply out of sync with people around him. Our worlds, as I've always believed, are defined by the closest of our friends and family. We might be living and thinking about a macrocosmic world, but its the microcosmic details that define us. That's why I believe the detailed microcosm is the most interesting part of any character's life.

To be honest, there is not much of an analysis and dissection that can be performed on this film. There aren't so many layers laminated on one another to make Midnight In Paris. Midnight In Paris deals with just one issue of fish out of the pond. Yes, in Gil's case one might think that the pond is actually the bygone era and hence it is too bad that he's as jumpy and peevish as he looks. That's where Midnight In Paris differs, it does not bolsters the cliche but adds a new perspective to it. The last scene when Gil happily strolls down the bridge with Adriana, who says "Paris is most beautiful when it's raining", the film screams at us that it's not that a person is agitated to be out of the pond, but its restiveness lies in the fact that his loved ones don't realize that he has lungs with which he can breathe in an otherwise choking air outside the pond.

The film is great and so is Woody Allen! But if a 90 minute movie seems a little, just a little, slow at times, it just might be the case that I was watching a movie that wasn't just my taste. But anyways, very much recommended. Watch it before going to Paris. The film is so good looking that I won't be surprised if it was partially funded by French Tourism department!

**** / *****

iREVIEW: The Truman Show

Starring Jim Carrey, Ed Harris and Laura Linney. Written by Andrew Niccol and directed by Peter Weir.

[BRUTAL SPOILERS]

So, Truman drifts away from the shoreline of Seahaven and down the calm sea in his sailboat after surviving the wrath of unpredictable storms. He sits with his head up on the front deck sailing towards his lifelong dream of exploring the beautiful world around him. Today he will. But then... the boat suddenly collides into... horizon! Truman bolts to the front of the boat and slowly extends his hand to touch the horizon. He closes his eyes trying to contain his brain from exploding. And then he touches the horizon! It is a wall! Truman breaks down and begins clobbering the wall in front of him, trying to rip it apart and break free. He isn't just pounding any wall, he is pounding the wall of his very own existence. The Truman Show is all about this scene which is the climax of this highly intellectual film. This film tries to analyze the most fundamental instincts of humans, which is freedom and self-consciousness of its existence. As late OSHO, an Indian mystic, once said (paraphrase) "Humans and Animals differ at a fundamental level. Animals aren't aware of the fact that they are."

I loved this film for two reasons: (1) As I watching it, I was thoroughly enjoying its nail-biting entertainment factor, (2) The more I think about it, the deeper the film gets. One wonders what Truman's immediate thoughts are as he is feeling the concrete horizon! He sure has realized the world around him is limited. A person can live in confinement for a specific reason, like in a prison, but having no consciousness about the existing boundaries of the world is the ultimate confinement of all. Humans flourish on the fact that anything is possible, achievable, opportunities are abound and the reasons to move on are limitless. The world itself is infinite. But when everything the world has to offer has a limit and you are unlucky enough to find this out, suddenly your growth stops and so does your reason to exist. As a newborn, our world is small enough to comfortably fit us in one room of a house. As we grow, our world grows and keeps expanding in our psyche till we are six feet under. Truman's desire to go to Fiji didn't arise merely from the sudden relocation of his first love to Fiji but all he is trying to do is expand. The world seem to be closing on him as he grows older. An opposite of what human instinct is coded to respond to. And when the instinct is suppressed, an uprising takes place. Truman, who was devastated by the thought of even crossing over a bridge, grabs a sailboat in hopes to explore the rest of the world. He literally sails way, taking in his own hands the responsibility to expand his world.

It is unfortunate that Truman finds out the truth only in his adulthood that the world around him is a set for a television show, all the people he ever knew from his mom to dad to wife are all actors and even the weather is nothing but one of human's many demented creations. But at least he finds out and has the liberty to all the answers that troubled him for so long. It is funny that humans are thought to have an unquenchable thirst for attention. At least that's what keeps the fraternity of performing arts all pumped up! But what happens when you are the center of all the attention? When every action of yours seem to have a witness. When everything that moves around seem to be doing so in sync with your actions. The Truman Show tells us it is debilitating, excruciating and sympathetic for others to watch.

At the end of the day, we are humans and nothing more. All we need to be sure of is that we exist. Nothing more, nothing less.

I am sure everybody enjoyed The Truman Show as well!

***** / *****

MELODY OF THOUSAND EMOTIONS

TALE OF A HAUNTED BANKER BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG (DRAG ME TO HELL)

Not many tunes are as enchanting as this one. This is one of those scores that instigates just about every emotion in the human psyche. From uplifting triumphs to self-loathing losses, I can think of any scenario from my checkered past and immediately relive those emotions as I put this tune on a repeat. As a failed attempt, I'll try to gather some of the emotions this tune reminds me of (not limited to at all): hope in the distance (initial humming), nostalgia, a lost love, a gained victory, dream come true, a dire realization, charm of the ordinary, importance of being extra ordinary. BRILLIANT! Such are the tunes that help us. The writers, I meant!

Listen here.

Keep writing, Rushdie!

What is wrong with people? As I paraphrase Rushdie from a recent event in India where he was allotted ample time to speak since Imran Khan, the Pakistani politician and ex-cricketer, failed to show up because he wouldn't want to be a part of an occasion which honors "somebody who has caused immeasurable hurt to Muslims all around the world (that is Salman Rushdie)", (and now what Rushhie said, Phew!) "if the offendedness [he meant offensiveness] is a line where you block your ideas, then freedom is just talks [or something like that]". I have to agree with Salman Rushdie.

Freedom of speech came into being for two fundamental reasons (well, it was resurrected since freedom of speech was always in the fabric of all early humans and was suppressed only when the politics corrupted the world): first, freedom of speech instigates brains, especially the youth's. And the more a person is allowed to talk freely about any subject with any perception, the less opinionated minds are born. Yes, the verbal language must pass under censor board because freedom of speech is a celebration of life, humans and their thinking and not of utter obscenities and profanities but an idea should not be chained by religious boundaries, political dogmas, diplomatic thinking and definitely not by any governing laws. In fact, it is a government's foremost duty to make sure that a work of excellent literary value, whether it be supportive or contradictory, is being published and is in reach of any citizen interested in it. It should neither be glorified nor condemned. This is freedom of speech which is in turn a freedom of actions and decisions.

Secondly, how can you ban a writer? The most a narrow-minded government can do is ban the work. After some research, I concluded that my vote is to ban Satanic Verses not because I was offended by it but as Khushwant Singh puts it "it's just bad taste." From the excerpts I have read and heard, I don't understand the point of his so-called blasphemous writing. Maybe I have to read the whole thing and if I find a coherent point in it, which I am sure I won't, I'll come and write about that as well! But for now, I am in support to ban the work. But not the writer! In doing so, the government has made Salman Rushdie probably more popular and heroic than he really is! He's simply a writer who has a passion to express his thoughts, how creative, controversial, glorifying or filthy they might be, via paper. What's the big deal? Why would the whole Islamic world cherish the fatwa for Rushdie's death or ban HIM from several nations (including India which is unfortunate)? This is beyond me. Moreover, the problem with any suppression is that is actually ends up glorifying the subject being oppressed because it is simply humane (or perhaps common to the whole animal kingdom) to be curious about the secretive matter. I think banning something doesn't really stay loyal to its true reason which is to hinder the access and all it does is open up a flood of smuggling, corruption and other perversions in our minds. Ban alcohol and it'll be smuggled from outside not only because people are fond of it but because it has to be experience since it's banned and evil and "not for light heart".

Before I end, I just want to add the last of the ideas in this moment within the realm. There is a thin line between criticizing and disrespecting. The former is the process of dissecting a certain ideology to prove it to be harmful or distasteful to the society with strong evidence to support your position while keeping in mind that you might be oblivious to a perception that discards your opinions, whereas the latter is simply throwing stones at it for which you don't have to be a genius.