25th Nov 2007 ; Documentary film screening ; Visions Of Light

Visions of Light will enthrall lovers of movies and photography buffs alike. For those who happen to fall into both categories, it's a rare treat.

Konangal's launching of regular screening on 4th Sunday

Visions of Light:
The Art of Cinematography (1993)

Documentary on Cinematography , English – 92 minutes.
Screening at Ashwin Hospital Auditorium on 25th Nov 2007 at 5.30 pm

Visions of Light states that cinematography is the art of light -- blending it so it enhances the director's vision. Often, one of the most overlooked elements of a film is its cinematography. Paradoxically, it is also the most important, whether specifically noticed or not. Movies are a visual medium where the pictures shoulder the lion's share of the burden. A movie can have a good director, accomplished actors, and a riveting script, but if the photography is poor, the production is doomed.
. "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography" is the vibrant, gloriously documented tale of the evolution of motion-picture photography, told in the words of the cinematographers themselves and in scenes from 125 films.
This 90-minute documentary is so energizing that when you leave after seeing "Visions of Light", you'll want to rush out to see, or see again, virtually every film that has just been recalled. "Visions of Light" may not change your life, but it will certainly enrich your appreciation for the whole complex, collaborative process by which random ideas are somehow transformed into films that occasionally exalt.
The clips in "Visions of Light" recall virtually the entire history of cinematography, from D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (1915) through such 1990 releases as "Goodfellas" and "Do the Right Thing." Though it has the manner of a conventional anthology film, this documentary is no mere exercise in nostalgia. It's a vastly entertaining introduction to an art that's not always easy to see.
The film is divided into three sections. The first, and shortest, traces the early days of Hollywood and the importance of camerawork in silent films. The second section deals with the black-and-white era after the introduction of sound. Covering roughly the years between 1930 and 1960, Finally, color movies are presented. From Gone with the Wind to films of the eighties, the various techniques used by color photographers to achieve moods and portray emotions are detailed.
Film, whether it's "Coconuts" (1928) with the Marx Brothers, Orson Welles's "Magnificent Ambersons" (1942) or Jules Dassin's "Naked City" (1948), the immediate response is to the entire experience, not to the particular elements that make up that experience. One remembers general feelings: pleasure, pain, laughter, boredom, anger, joy. Films, even bad ones, have a way of being so totally involving that only great and terrible moments are remembered. The craft by which effects are achieved goes unnoticed. This is the way it should be, according to the 27 cinematographers who are interviewed here.
There are exceptions. There's absolutely no way that anyone can look at "The Magnificent Ambersons" for the first time and not emerge from the theater bewitched by Stanley Cortez's remarkable deep-focus camera work. It's almost as if the movie were in 3-D. Deep-focus, the method by which characters and objects far from the camera are seen as clearly as those that are close, had been used many times before, most memorably in "The Long Voyage Home" (1940) and in Welles's "Citizen Kane" (1941). Yet in "Ambersons," deep-focus becomes the film's resonant "voice": as important to the story as the information supplied by the soundtrack narrator.
It was also impossible to ignore the effect of color in the first great Technicolor films of the 1930's. Indeed, the Technicolor movies were shot in a way to constantly remind audiences they were seeing color, as when in "Becky Sharp" (1935), photographed by Ray Rennahan, the heroine's cheeks turn a decided red when she's suddenly embarrassed.

Mostly, though, the cinematographer's art is supposed to go unremarked upon by everyone except other film makers. "Visions of Light" recognizes the possibility that today's more sophisticated, more cinema-literate audiences stand to have their enjoyment enhanced by these insiders' comments on their art.

Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels share credit as the directors of "Visions of Light." In such circumstances, it is usually difficult to tell who contributed what, though Mr. McCarthy, a critic for Variety as well as a writer of other film documentaries, is also credited with having written "Visions of Light" and conducted the interviews. Some extra credit must therefore go to him for somehow managing to obtain remarkably informative testimony from the sort of artists who are not usually all that articulate.
Or, as Conrad Hall, the man who shot "In Cold Blood" (1967), says at one point, "I think visually." He and his associates may think visually, but before the camera in "Visions of Light" they also talk extremely well about what they do best.

Ernest Dickerson, Spike Lee's long-time collaborator, remembers when he was a boy and first saw David Lean's "Oliver Twist" (1948), photographed by Guy Greene. The huge emotional impact, he says, was at first mysterious to him; then he realized that "it was the light." His story, like those of the others interviewed here, is a story of light and the absence of light. In cinematography, it's a magical, constantly shifting equation.
"Visions of Light" follows the history of cinematography from the remarkably productive collaboration of Griffith and his cameraman, the great Billy Bitzer, into the Golden Age of the silents when, the interviewees agree, the camera was free, being small and portable. "Sound," says Vilmos Zsigmond ("McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," among others), "was a great catastrophe for movie making." Because the early sound cameras were so big and cumbersome, movies almost stopped moving.

"Visions of Light" recollects, among other things, how movies (and cinematographers) recovered their freedom, how cinematographers invented what they needed to develop along the way, how individual studios established their own visual identity through the kinds of films they specialized in, and how the "look" of movies changed in the 1960's when directors moved out of the studios to actual locations.

It's a documentary loaded with its own memorable first-hand moments, as when Gordon Willis talks about his contributions to the "Godfather" films, which earned him the nickname "Prince of Darkness." "Sometimes I went too far," Mr. Willis says of the deep shadows he favored when lighting Marlon Brando. He pauses, then adds with no false modesty, "I think Rembrandt went too far, too, sometimes."

"Visions of Light" is a sumptuous achievement of its kind. The responses to Mr. McCarthy's questions are so good and so rich that its text might well make a book. In any case, that text exists in "Visions of Light," accompanied by a dazzling array of clips to show what the interviewees are talking about. This is not a movie to be seen on anything except a screen that is at least three times taller than the person sitting in front of it.

Visions of Light will enthrall lovers of movies and photography buffs alike. For those that happen to fall into both categories, it's a rare treat. This documentary presents an insider's view of the cinematographer's role, It's likely that in the next film you see, you'll be far more aware of camera's role in the creative process.

Courtesy : reviews from New York Times & James Berardinelli

18th Nov 2007 Screening : Satyajit Ray's Jana Aranya

Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.

– Akira Kurosawa

JANA ARANYA

A Film By
SATYAJIT RAY

1975, India. 131 min., B/W
In Bengali with English subtitles
5.45 pm, 18h Nov 2007
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium, Ganapathy CBE

Somnath Banerjee is a sweetly handsome young man. At the outset, he is about to graduate from Calcutta University when he is victimized by a myopic instructor who cannot read his exam answers, depriving him of a graduation with honors. And so Ray starts out by offering a biting satire of a ludicrous educational bureaucracy. Yet all of Somnath's experiences while a student, and all of his book learning, have left him ill-prepared for the cruel realities he will face while attempting to enter the job market. Harsh fact first intrudes when he is told, "You're so young. It'll be ages before you're established." These words are prophetic.
At its core, Jana Aranya is a story of tainted innocence. Its hero is an unsophisticated young man who is surrounded by depravity. None of the rogues in his midst are blatantly evil. Rather, their villainy is subtle, and they justify their unsavory ethics in the name of rat-race survival.

In Jana Aranya, Ray also explores a theme that is a constant in his work: familial relations, and the psychology that exists between parent and child. Somnath's obstacles are not all job-related, in that he is influenced by his widowed father's high expectations for him. The old man, lacking in understanding of the manner of the modern world, accordingly is alienated from Somnath.

Satyajit Ray creates a clever, highly engaging satire on capitalism and moral integrity in The Middleman. Using incongruous imagery and lyrical narrative, Ray depicts the hypocrisy of economic prosperity and professional success. Somnath's daily trips to the employment offices invariably take him through city streets riddled with homeless people and beggars, under a graffiti sign that reads: "1971 is the year of victory". Mr. Shaha's (Santosh Dutta) description of a luxurious British colonial mansion is juxtaposed against a hypnotic, frenetic tour of a dilapidated building. Ironically, the potential sale of optical whiteners proves to be Somnath's darkest hour. Note the minimal, candle lit scene where a disillusioned Somnath alludes to his unpalatable task.

The Middleman is a fascinating, contemporary parable on the corruption of the human soul, a poignant tale of an idealistic young man who stumbles into a corrupt world outside of his creation, and is swallowed into the chaos.

This is the final film of Ray’s trilogy known as the Calcutta Trilogy. The first two were Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970) and Seemabaddha (Company Limited, 1971). All the three films study the effect the big city of Calcutta has on the educated youth and the price it extracts from them.

( May 2, 1921 - April 23, 1992 )

Satyajit Ray is perhaps the most well known Indian filmmaker to the World and inarguably among the dozen or so great masters of world cinema.. Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta into an exceptionally talented family
who were prominent in Bengali arts and letters. His father died when he was an infant and his mother and her younger brother's family brought him up. After graduating from Presidency College, Calcutta, in 1940, he studied art at Rabindranath Tagore's University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. The desire to learn about Indian arts to be successful as a commercial artist and the lure of Tagore, perhaps, were too strong to ignore.

Tagore had been a close friend of his grandfather and father. Trips to nearby villages for sketching exercises, were his first encounters with rural India for the city-bred Satyajit Ray. He took up commercial advertising and he also designed covers and illustrated books brought out by Signet Press. One of these books was an edition of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhya's novel, Pather Panchali, which was to become his first film.

In 1947 Ray established the Calcutta Film Society. During a six month trip to Europe in 1950, he managed to see 100 films, including Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief - 1948), which greatly inspired him. He returned convinced that it was possible to make realist cinema and with an amateur crew he endeavoured to prove this to the world.

In 1949, the great French master of cinema, Jean Renoir had come to Calcutta to scout locations for The River. Ray walked into the hotel where Renoir was staying and sought a meeting. Soon Ray was accompanying Renoir on his trips in search of locations to outskirts of Calcutta during the weekends. Seeing his enthusiasm and knowledge about cinema, Renoir asked him if he was thinking of becoming a filmmaker. To his own surprise, Ray said yes and gave Renoir a brief outlineof Pather Panchali, which he had recently illustrated.

In 1950, with absolutely no experience in moviemaking, Ray started working on "Pather Panchali" In 1955, after incredible financial hardship (shooting on the film stopped for over a year) his adaptation of Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) was completed. and on August 26, 1955. Pather Panchali was finally released in Calcutta. The film did only moderately well in the first two weeks but was a box-office hit later. The success of Pather Panchali gave Ray total control over his subsequent films. in all his numerous functions — as screenwriter, director, casting director, and composer. With 40 years of filmmaking, Ray of course have a lot to say and a lot more to know about.

Prior to the 1956 Cannes Festival, Indian Cinema was relatively unknown in the West, just as Japanese cinema had been prior to Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950). However, with Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray suddenly assumed great importance. The film went on to win numerous awards abroad including Best Human Document at Cannes. Pather Panchali's success launched an extraordinary international film career for Ray.

A prolific filmmaker, during his lifetime Ray directed 36 films, comprising of features, documentaries and short stories. These include the renowned Apu trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito [1956] and Apur Sansar [1959]), Jalsaghar (1958), Postmaster (1961), CharulataDays and Nights in the Forest (1969) and Pikoo (1980) along with a host of his lesser known works which themselves stand up as fine examples of story telling. His films encompass a diversity of moods, techniques, and genres: comedy, satire, fantasy and tragedy. Usually he made films in a realist mode, but he also experimented with surrealism and fantasy.

About forty years of filmmaking, with a film a year, was interrupted by his fragile health in the mid-1980s. Ray's Ghare-Baire (Home and the World, 1984) based on a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, was a return to his first screen adaptation. While shooting, he suffered two heart attacks and his son, Sandip Ray, completed the project from his detailed instructions.

Ill health kept Satyajit Ray away from active filmmaking for about four years. In 1989, he resumed making films with Ibsen's An Enemy of the People as the basis for his Ganashatru (Enemy of the People, 1989). This was followed with Shakha Prashakha (Branches of the Tree, 1990) and Agantuk (The Stranger, 1991).This series of three films were to be his last. Many film critics and film historians found these films a marked departure from his earlier work.

In 1992, He accepted a Lifetime Achievement Oscar from his sickbed in Calcutta through a special live satellite-television event and Bharat Ratna(the Jewel of India), the ultimate honour from India.

Beisde a film-maker, Satyajit Ray was an extra-ordinarily good story teller. Most of his books are written for children except few. He was the creator of many famous characters such as Professor Shonku, Felu-da, Tarinikhuro and so on. Fictions , short storires, illustrations etc. written by were fascinating. He gave life to Felu-da through two of his movies, "Sonar Kella" and "Joy Baba Felunath". Sandip Ray too is working on Felu-da movies even after he has passed away.

Satyajit Ray died on April 23, 1992.

11th Nov 2007: Outreach Programme Screening : The Chorus

Lift Every Sweet Voice and Sing, Rascals, Sing
- New York Times

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 11 wins & 21 nominations
A Film By Christophe Barratier ,
Year : 2004 , Country : France ,
French with English Subtitles
Screening at Aruna Thirumana Mandapam
NSR Road Sai Baba Colony Coimbatore
11th Nov 2007 at 6 pm.
Call : 94430 39630

The Chorus - "Les Choristes"- is a Golden Globe-nominated, French-language drama - its characters are well drawn and it delivers its uplifting message with succinctness, sincerity and skill.

1949, post-War France – In a dark room, doom-filled school for troubled boys where hope itself in short supply, a mild-mannered new teacher has just arrived, only to find himself surrounded by prepubescent thieves, inveterate liars, unapologetic rebels and lost souls beyond reach. When Clement Mathieu introduces these supposedly hard-core delinquents to something they’ve never experienced before – the freedom and joy of music – he discovers there is far more to these children than anyone dared to believe.

Click here for trailer of The Chorus

The inspiring teacher here is a sweet- spirited bumbler and failed composer , who, with no other options in his life, takes a job as an instructor at a nightmarish, state-run boarding school for problem teenage boys.

The school is administered by the usual ogre, a self-important, incorrigibly petty bureaucrat whose philosophy is what he calls "action-reaction," or severely punishing everyone for the slightest infraction of the individual.

Of course, this Draconian approach doesn't work very well in practice, and the school is a blackboard jungle and a particular hell for the sensitive new teacher. But one day he gets the idea of funneling some of that youthful energy into a boys' choir, and the rest is history.
Inspired by the 1945 French drama, "La Cage aux Rossignols," the story is seen in flashback from the contemporary point of view of one of the students who is now a famous symphony conductor and is reading a memoir left by the teacher.

The performances are affecting and believable, the script never overdoes the brutality or schmaltz, and you leave the film impressed by the undeniable truth of its message: that a good teacher can make a profound difference in a lot of lives.


Christophe Barratier

“What I discovered is that directing is like being the captain of the boat. One of the most important things for the director is to cast well, not only the actors, but also the technicians. You don't really direct the kids, you just choose the right kids, because these kids didn't know about acting. You had to show them for who they are...really, themselves. Likewise for a DP or sound engineer, if you make the wrong choice, you are in an impossible situation.”
- - Christophe Barratier


Christophe Barratier was born in 1963. had undergone classical musical training from the age of seven . An acclaimed guitarist , he has won prizes in several international competitions. In 1991, he joined the production company of his uncle Jacques Perrin, Galatée Films. There he learned the art of film production and participated in the production of acclaimed documentaries including Microcosmos, the people of the grass (1995), Himalayas, Children of a head (1999) and Le Peuple migrateur (2001) as executive producer.
Click here for Christophe Barratier's interview.

In 2001, he started to experiment with the short film , The Gravestones , adapted from a story by Maupassant. It was selected for the Festival Short of Clermont-Ferrand. THE CHORUS is his second feature film. He is working on his third fim .

Screening on 04th Nov 2007 : Woody Allen's THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO

The Purple Rose of Cairo
- at 84 minutes,it's short but nearly every
one of those minutes is blissful. -New York Times

A film by Woody Allen
Year : 1985
Nominated for Oscar and another 14 wins & 11 nominations
English with English sub titles ; Run Time : 84 Minutes
4th Nov 2007 ; 5.45 pm ; Ashwin Hospital Auditorium, Ganapathy
Konangal – Call : 94430 39630

The Purple Rose of Cairo is not merely one of the best movies about movies ever made. It is still more unusual, because it comes at its subject the hard way, from the front of the house, instead of from behind the scenes. Its subject is not how movies work but how they work on the audience. –Time Magazine

The Purple Rose of Cairo

A delightful tale centered on how cinema can change lives, if only when the lights are down, Woody Allen combines romance with intelligence to great comic effect.

Click here to view clipping from 'Purple Rose Of Cairo'

Jeff Daniels playing the dual roles of Tom, a character in the film-within-the-film, and Gil, the actor who portrays Tom. Tom literally breaks the fourth wall, emerging from the black-and-white into the colorful real world on the other side of the cinema's screen. He is drawn out by Cecilia (played by Mia Farrow), a film buff who goes to the movies to escape her bleak 1930's Great Depression life and loveless marriage to Monk (Danny Aiello). The producer of the film finds out that Tom has left the film, and he and Gil fly cross-country to the New Jersey theater where it happened. This sets up an unusual love triangle involving Tom, Gil and Cecilia.

The Purple Rose of Cairo contains so many wonderful elements that it seems arbitrary to pick out any as special, yet there is one theme which runs strongly throughout the entire film. This is the manner in which common relationships are turned upside-down, most obviously with the transition of Baxter from fiction to reality. Further along this resonates with the abandoned film cast switching from performing to viewing, as they wait to finish their scene, and the flipped relationship of Cecilia and Monk. Perhaps this is Allen's way of indicating that a movie, no matter how frivolous, can have a worthwhile impact on its audience (together with the fact that the real world can never be as perfect as the fictional, that this is a pipe-dream)? If so, it can all be summed up in the expression of Mia Farrow as she sits entranced while Astaire and Rogers dance their hearts out; in a series of subtle graduations her face transforms from a mask of sorrow to radiant joy (even though the world outside remains as horrid as ever). Such is the power of the moving-picture!

It also recalls Mr. Allen's own small classic of a story, ''The Kugelmass Episode,'' about a professor of humanities who becomes so infatuated with Madame Bovary that he finds himself inside the Flaubert novel making mincemeat of the plot line.

Though Mr. Allen does not actually appear in ''The Purple Rose of Cairo,'' his work as the film's writer and director is so strong and sure that one is aware of his presence in every frame of film. It doesn't overwhelm the contributions of the others, but illuminates them, particularly the glowing, funny performance of Miss Farrow. It's as if this wonderful actress, in spite of her English stage credits and all of her earlier films, was finally awakened only when Mr. Allen cast her in ''A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy,'' ''Zelig'' and, most spectacularly, ''Broadway Danny Rose.''

On a side note, the performances and script are both excellent (each bolstering the other). There's a wealth of humour to be found in the story, particularly in the way Baxter tries to apply movie precepts to the real world, although this is leavened by a deep emotional counterbalance (skillfully applied by Allen). If anything, The Purple Rose of Cairo is a touch too manipulative, notwithstanding the terrific finale.

Woody Allen

Woody Allen (born Allen Stewart Königsberg on December 1, 1935) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His large body of work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era.[1] Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema and New York City, where he was born and has lived his entire life.

Allen was born and raised in New York City to a Jewish family; his grandparents were Yiddish and German-speaking immigrants. Nicknamed "Red" because of his red hair, he impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks.Though in his films and his comedy persona he has often depicted himself as physically inept and socially unpopular, in fact Woody Allen was a popular student, and an adept baseball and basketball player.

Click here to watch Woody Allen interview - you can continue the interview further with links provided here.

Click here to view Woody Allen's monologue from his film Annie Hall

To raise money he began writing gags for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. At sixteen, he started writing for stars like Sid Caesar and began calling himself Woody Allen, which would remain his moniker (although it's unclear if Allen ever legally adopted the stage name). He was a gifted comedian from an early age. After high school, he went to New York University where he studied communication and film, but, never committed as a student, he was thrown off his course due to lack of punctuality and commitment. He later briefly attended City College of New York.

His first movie production was What's New, Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the initial screenplay. He was hired by Warren Beatty to re-write a script, and to appear in a small part. His first conventional effort was Take the Money and Run (1969), which was followed by Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death.

In 1972, he also starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, which was directed by Herbert Ross. All of Allen's early films were pure comedies that relied heavily on slapstick, inventive sight gags, and non-stop one-liners. Among the many notable influences on these films are Bob Hope, Groucho Marx (as well as, to some extent, Harpo Marx) and Humphrey Bogart.

Annie Hall marked a major turn to more sophisticated humor and thoughtful drama. Allen's 1977 film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture – an unusual feat for a comedy. Allen’s has written and directed 43 movies till dates which includes many greats like Manhattan, Hanna and Her Sisters .

Allen continues to write roles for the neurotic persona he created in the 1960s and 1970s; however, as he gets older, the roles have been assumed by other actors.

Konangal Outreach Programme screening on 28th Oct 2007 : Not One Less

Run time: 109 min / year: 1999 / Chinese with English sub titles / On 21^st Oct 2007 at 6 PM at Aruna Thirumana Mandapam , Opp Spencer Super Market, NSR Road, SB Colony / Contact : Call :4376226 ; 9443039630

Not One Less

Yimou Zhang’s "Not One Less" enlarges the possibilities of filmmaking even as it grounds itself in one of cinema's oldest, most basic principles: the camera's ability to document reality. Despite its deliberate austerity, "Not One Less" is extraordinarily rich. And despite the look and pace of raw documentary film, the movie is a splendid, assured piece of storytelling. Its narrative emerges slowly and organically from a mass of observed detail so that it feels like a series of events the camera has discovered out in the world, rather than like the realization of a scheme the filmmaker has devised beforehand in his mind.

At the center of "Not One Less" is Wei (Wei Minzhi), 13, a primary school graduate who has been pressed into service as a substitute teacher in the Shuiquan Primary School. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each day and promises her an extra 10 yuan if there's not one less student when he returns. Wei stands a few inches taller than her charges, and it is hard not to hear more than a trace of irony in their voices when they address her, according to the dictates of courtesy and custom, as "Teacher Wei."

Her main qualifications, other than the fact that no one else wants the job, are an innate, unsmiling bossiness, neat handwriting and her ability to perform, in a tentative, quavering voice, one song about Chairman Mao. Wei Minzhi's performance, if that is the word for it, slowly takes on a heroic cast. Her character is composed of equal parts pigheadedness and cluelessness, which is to say that she's 13 in a way that anyone who knows a real 13-year-old, or has been one, will recognize. When troublemaker Zhang Huike manages to runs away from school, forced to try to find work in the nearby city of Zhangjiakou to support his ailing, debt-ridden mother, Wei has a mission: to get to the city, recover Zhang,.

The neorealist elements of Not One Less contribute to its ability to transcend the sentimental. All of the actors in the film are amateurs. Moreover, most play a version of who they are in real life: the mayor is actually Tian Zhengda, a village mayor; the TV station manager is, in fact, the manager of a local station in Zhangjiakou. The two central children, Wei Mingzhi and Zhang Huike, who play characters of the same name, were found in rural Hebei schools after a long search by the director and his team. This semidocumentary aspect of Not One Less—its use of hidden cameras (during Wei’s interactions with crowds in the city, for example), location shooting, and natural lighting—results in a fascinating uncertainty. There is a sort of ambivalence or play between the different genres of realism, staged documentary, and fiction that is reminiscent of recent masterpieces of Iranian cinema (Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami being the two most prominent exponents) "Not One Less" earns its emotional payoff the hard way. It may be the greatest film ever made about obstinacy, which it reveals to be not only a virtue, but also a species of grace.

This screening is supported by : HOLLYWOOD DVD SHOPEE , NSR Road, Coimbatore ; Ph 4382331 , : 98416 58466

Yimou Zhang

Zhang was born in Xi’an in 1951 to parents of "bad" class background and reportedly sold his own blood to buy his first camera. He grew up in socialist China where class struggle dominated life and literature. Like many young Chinese of the time, he was sent to farms and factories during the Cultural Revolution and so gained grass-roots knowledge of life in China. His portfolio of photographs helped win him admission to the cinematography department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1978, after successfully appealing a decision to bar him on the basis of age..

Zhang's first work, One and Eight (as director of photography), was made in 1984 together with Zhang Junzhao. Zhang's input was telling: he shot from obscure angles, and positioned actors and actresses at the side, rather than center, to heighten dramatic effect, using a “unique and emphatic visual style, based on the asymmetrical and unbalanced composition of the shots and the shooting of color stock as though it were black and white". Like his fellow students, these aesthetics signaled a departure from the tradition interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Local critics immediately sat up and took notice of this new cohort of daring artistes who were defying conventions of Chinese cinema.

In 1985, in appreciation of his talent, Fourth Generation director Wu Tianming invited Zhang to Xi'an Film Studio for his upcoming project Old Well. Filming of Old Well was completed in 1986, with Zhang as co-acting as cinematographer and actor — a role that won him Best Actor at the Tokyo International Film Festival. In return for his participation in Wu's project, Zhang made Wu promise logistics support for his own first directorial effort, a project that he had envisioned for some time.

In 1987 Zhang embarked on his directorial debut, Red Sorghum, starring Chinese actress Gong Li, handpicked by Zhang, in her first leading role. Released to widespread critical acclaim, Red Sorghum catapulted Zhang into the forefront of the world's art directors, winning him the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival. He has directed 17 films till date.

Nevertheless, we could say that Zhang Yimou himself is a son of China whose filmmaking gazes at past, present and future through the "son". In this sense, generation and gender are equally important in his films although the visual and often spectacular focus is on his female leads. Gong Li is his most famous star and his pictures with her are his most famous films. His propensity for visual display has been fiercely criticised in China for its exoticism and lack of historical authenticity. However, Zhang does not claim that his films document China or its people; he creates fictional worlds through moving images that often defamiliarise, shock, seduce, and subvert. He documents desire instead, circulating themes that have long haunted the national psyche and using seductive image-ideas that marry reality, dream and nightmare.

Screening on 21st Oct 2007 : BREATHLESS

A film that broke every dictate of

the conventional film making

Jean-Luc Godard’s

BREATHLESS

French with English sub titles
Country : France
Year :1960
Run time : 90 minutes
21st October 2007 - 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
Sathy Road ,Ganapathy, Coimbatore
Call :4376226 ; 9443039630

Compared to Hollywood conventions, this film stands out, because it takes conventions aside and speaks in Greek to them. This is a classic due to the conventions it created: it defined French New Wave with its hand-held camera shots and improvised dialogue. Truffaut and Godard stated in Cahiers du Cinema that film should express the soul. A Bout De Souffle is a film relating to the auteur, Godard, in ways films today can only admire.

The film also vibrates with onscreen references to popular culture and the affects of the media in ways that anticipate later theorists of the postmodern. It draws, albeit unconsciously, on Marshall McLuhan's contemporary ideas on the 'Global Village' and Roland Barthes' work on the dominance of culturally produced signs in society. Belmondo's character is literally obsessed with Bogart's poster and screen persona, and constantly checks out his style against cinema posters of 'Bogey' as well as imitating his gestures in numerous mirrors.

Belmondo is excellent, and classically existential (rather like Mersault in Camus' The Outsider) as the feckless young hood who steals a car, kills a motorbike cop, and chases after some money that is owed him for robberies past so he and his casually picked up yank chick (Seberg with a cropped head look that became existential de rigeur for years) can get to Italy.

Other cultural references and film in-jokes swarm throughout Breathless: admired cult stylist, the film director Jean-Pierre Melville, appears as a celebrity novelist being interviewed; Daniel Boulanger appears as the police inspector. Jean-Louis Richard and Philippe de Broca appear, and there are also bit appearances by Godard, as an informer, by Truffaut, and Chabrol (who also acted as supervising producer).

And of course there are many legends about the actual shoot including the use of wheelchairs as camera dollies. Renowned cinematographer Raoul Coutard's legendary ability in hand holding heavy 35mm cameras in long takes also comes to the fore. Coutard's amazing work, predating Garret Brown's invention of Steadicam, can be seen at its best in Jean Rouch's short contribution to the compilation film Paris Vu Par (1965). This begins with a hand-held shot that traverses many rooms, an elevator, and street, and runs for a full 20 minutes!

Click here to view a scene from Breathless

Finally there was the matter of the film stock which was in fact painstakingly hand-joined rolls of a very fast Ilford black and white still camera stock along with short ends of other stocks. This produced the grainy 'naturalistic' effect that Ken Russell – and later just about everyone else – was to borrow for his social 'realist' documentaries. Just about everything that looks different about Breathless became the signifiers of alternative, radical, independent film almost immediately.


Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from an preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II, Godard became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland, and attended the school in Nyons ( Switzerland ). His parents divorced in 1948, at which time he returned to Paris to attend the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949, he studied at the Sorbonne to prepare for a degree in ethnology. However, it was during this time that he began attending the François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and Eric Rohmer. In 1950, Godard with Rivette and Rohmer founded a "Gazette du cinéma", which published five issues between May and November. He wrote a number of articles for the journal, often using the pseudonym 'Hans Lucas'. After working on and financing two films by Rivette and Rohmer, Godard's family cut off their financial support in 1951, and he resorted to a Bohemian lifestyle that included stealing food and money when necessary. In January 1952 he began writing film criticism for 'Les cahiers du cinéma'. Later that year he traveled to North and South America with his father, and attempted to make his first film (of which only a tracking shot from a car was ever accomplished). In 1953, he returned to Paris briefly before acquiring a job as a construction worker on a dam project in Switzerland. With the money from the job, he made a short film in 1954 about the building of the dam called _Opération béton (1954)_ (Operation Concrete). Later that year, Godard's mother was killed in a motor scooter accident in Switzerland. In 1956, Godard began writing again for 'Les cahiers du cinéma' as well as for the journal "Arts". In 1957, Godard worked as the press attache for "Artistes Associés", and made his first French film entitled _Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick (1957) (Charlotte et Véronique). In 1958, he shot Charlotte et son Jules (1960) (Charlotte and Her Boyfriend), his own homage to Jean Cocteau. Later that year, he took unused footage of a flood in Paris shot by Truffaut and edited a film called Une histoire d'eau (1961) (A Story of Water) which was an homage to Mack Sennett. In 1959, he worked with Truffaut on the weekly publication "Temps de Paris". Godard wrote a gossip column for the journal, but also spent much time writing scenarios for films and a body of critical writings which placed him firmly in the forefront of the 'nouvelle vague' aesthetic, precursing the French New Wave. It was also this year that Godard began work on À bout de souffle (1960) (Breathless). In 1960, Godard married Anna Karina in Switzerland. In April and May, he shot Petit soldat, Le (1963) in GenevaParis. However, French censors banned the film due to its references to the Algerian war, and it was not shown until 1963. In March, 1960, À bout de souffle (1960) premiered in Paris. It was hugely successful both with the film critics and at the box office, and became a landmark film in the French New Wave with its references to American cinema, its jagged editing, and overall romantic/cinephilia approach to filmmaking. The film propelled the popularity of the male lead Jean-Paul Belmondo with European audiences. In 1961, and was preparing the film for a fall release in

Goddard's work is phenomenal . From 1954 to 2006 Goddard has directed and given us 90 films and still he is busy . He is currently living in Switzerland. Like Ingmar Bergman, Goddard is one of the most important golden pioneers of Cinema , whose works have raised the art of Cinema to the level of literature and universal respect.

Screening on 07th Oct 2007: KES

KES
Film by Ken Loach
Country : England
Year : 1969
Duration : 110 Minutes
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium , Ganapathy CBE
07th October 2007 ; 5.45 pm
Call 94430 39630

Ranked seventh in the British Film Institute's recent selection of the 100 favourite British films of the 20th century, Kes remains Ken Loach's masterpiece. While the director has reached similar aesthetic heights in subsequent years (Days of Hope [1975] and Raining Stones [1993] immediately spring to mind), the film remains a template for Loach's abiding concerns: the struggle of the British working class to achieve life's basic needs, dramatised through the plight of an individual character; the significant impact of public institutions upon personal lives; sensitive performances with an ear for regional dialects; and an unobtrusive yet evocative visual style that illuminates character and place in a naturalistic fashion. Arriving as the '60s drew to a close, Kes heralds the end of “kitchen sink realism” and the true arrival of one of contemporary cinema's major artists.

Click here to watch the trailer of the film 'KES'

Kes details the life of Billy Casper (David Bradley), a lonely teen facing a bleak future in a Yorkshire mining town. An outcast at school, Billy's slight frame and unkempt appearance make him an easy target for teachers and bullies alike. Unfortunately, home provides no respite. Billy's father is absent, his inattentive mother (Lynne Perrie) offers little guidance or love (referring to Billy as “a hopeless case”), and his abusive older brother Jud (Freddie Fletcher) takes out his hostility through punches and insults. However, hope appears in the form of a kestrel, which Billy captures as a fledgling and trains to fly on command. Soon, the bird reveals not only Billy's untapped potential, but also his desire to escape his toxic environment. It's no accident, of course, that Billy is obsessed with the only bird owned by the lowest social orders during medieval times. As Loach notes, “It's a bird for the riff-raff of the world.”

Ken Loach

Born in 1936 at Nuneaton,Warwickshire, England (his father was a factory electrician), Loach attended King Edward VIGrammar School and following two years in the RAF read law at St Peter's College, Oxford. There he performed in the now well established comedy group, the Oxford Revue. He started out as an actor in repertory theatre, but in the early 1960s moved into television direction and was credited in this role on early episodes of Z-Cars in 1962.

In 1966 Loach made the socially influential docu-drama Cathy Come Home portraying neglected subjects such as homelessness and unemployment, and presenting a powerful and influential critique of the workings of the Social Services. In the late 1960s he started directing films, and in 1969 made Kes, the story of a troubled boy and his kestrel, based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. It remains perhaps his best known film in Britain. Till 1990 he faced many difficulties with his projects.

Loach experienced a miraculous, creative resurgence in the 1990s with the advent of Channel 4 funding and producers Sally Hibbin and Rebecca O'Brien. His recent films invest warmth and humour in their characters' plights while allowing political alternatives to develop naturally out of the narratives. Like Cathy Come Home or Kes, they also sympathetically address the issues facing working class families, including union politics (Riff Raff [1991], Bread and Roses [2000]), familial difficulties (Raining Stones, Ladybird Ladybird [1994]), drugs and alcoholism (My Name is Joe [1998], Sweet Sixteen [2002]) and contemporary political struggles (Hidden Agenda [1990], Carla's Song [1996]) and Wind That Shakes The Barely [2006].

Ken Loach is a director admired, and often loved, all over the world. For his remarkable output, Loach has won numerous international prizes and long overdue critical recognition . Despite political ebb and flow, fickle artistic trends and film financing difficulties, he remains steadfast in his commitment to progressive ideals and a personal cinema. Loach's films are art of the highest order. While exposing the failings and limitations of human experience, they also provide a path to change and progress. His body of work firmly celebrates the fact that life is worth living.

Courtesy : Senses Of Cinema , Wikipedia .

Dinamalar 16 07 2007 Click on this write up for larger image.

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16th Sept : Ballad of a Soldier

Ballad of a Soldier

A Film By Grigori Chukhrai
Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 2 nominations
Year :1959 Country : Russia
Run time : 89 minutes ; Russian with English Sub titles.
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium, Ganapathi , Coimbatore
16th Sept 2007 , 5.45 pm ; Call 94430 39630
Email : konangal@gmail.com

Russia's fight against the Nazi war machine cost that country 20 million lives. Ballad of a Soldier takes a simple premise — one young soldier, Alyosha 's journey home to visit his mother — and shapes it into a polished lens. Through that lens Ballad projects those 20 million, and at the focal point burns a humane, non-dogmatic meditation on the incalculably tragic cost of war.

We are told at the outset that Alyosha is killed at the front, never to return to his mother, to Shura, or to anyone else again. Ballad of a Soldier's conclusion strikes a single, clear tone with one of the most poignant of wartime questions — what if? What if Alyosha, decent and honorable and deserving of a full life, had not died in the war? What could he, and by extension some 20 million Alyoshas, have become? What could this everyday hero have contributed if he'd been allowed to fulfill his promise? Ballad doesn't answer the question. Instead it tells us that Alyosha dies a "simple Russian soldier" (a citizen of a country, not an ideology) because he never had the time or opportunity to be anything else.

Technically rich yet possessing a refining simplicity, Ballad of a Soldier is a quietly powerful work that could have diminished into soapy melodrama or government-stamped rhetoric. Instead, director/co-writer Grigori Chukhrai delivered a personal ode, one indeed as emotive and straight-shooting as a ballad, to his own postwar generation. He did so with then-distinctive attention to varying responses war brings out in individual people, with moments of unmistakable (and now sweetly chaste) sexual heat, and without resorting to the clichés, stilted symbols, or pompous phraseology that did so much harm to Soviet cinema.

Grigori Chukhrai

Grigori Naumovich Chukhrai (Russian: Григорий Наумович Чухрай; May 23, 1921--October 28, 2001) was a prominent film director and screenwriter in the former Soviet Union. He is the father of director Pavel Chukhrai.

He was born in Melitopol in the Zaporizhia Oblast of Ukraine. A decorated veteran of World War II, Chukhrai's wartime experiences profoundly affected him and the majority of his films were connected with events of the War. At war's end, he studied filmmaking at the Soviet State Film School and then developed his craft as a director's assistant at the Kiev Film Studio. By the mid 1950s, he began writing and directing his own films, gaining cinematic recognition outside the Soviet Union at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival with his film Sorok pervyj (The Forty-first).

In 1959, Chukhrai co-wrote and directed his greatest work, Ballad of a Soldier. A story of love and the tragedy of war made without the usual Soviet propaganda, the film received great acclaim at home earning the prestigious Lenin Prize. It was heralded internationally for both its story and cinematic technique and at Cannes in 1960 the film was awarded a special jury prize for "high humanism and outstanding quality." Ballad of a Soldier overcame the Cold War barrier and premiered in the United States in 1960 at the San Francisco International Film Festival in San Francisco, California. The film won the Festival's Golden Gate Award, for Best Picture and for Best Director for Grigori Chukhrai. Playing worldwide, the following year it earned the BAFTA Award for Best Film. Grigori Chukhrai and script co-writer Valentin Yezhov were nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.

Chukhrai's next film, released in 1961, was titled Chistoye nebo (Clear Skies) and told the story of a Soviet pilot who survived Nazi imprisonment during the war but was later accused of being a spy. In 1984, at age 63, Grigori Chukhrai directed his final film. He wrote a book of war memoirs and in 1994, for his lifetime contribution to film, Chukhrai was given a Nika Award, the Russian film industry's equivalent of an Oscar.

Grigori Chukhrai died of heart failure in Moscow in 2001 at the age of eighty.

Konangal Outreach Programme Screening on 9th Sept 2007 : Rabbit-Proof Fence

Leaping The Fence Of Australia's Past

Rabbit-Proof Fence
A Film By : Phillip Noyce
Year : 2002, Run Time : 93 minutes ; Country: Australia
Screening on 9^th Sept 2007 at 5.45pm
Venue : Aruna Thirumana Mandapam , 279, 280 N S R Road (Opp.Spencer Supermarket ) Coimbatore.
Call : 94430 39630 , 98416 58466, 4382331 .

Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on the book ‘Follow The Rabbit Proof Fence’ by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It concerns the author's mother, and two other young mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, in which they were placed in 1931, in order to return to their Aboriginal families.

Based on true events, "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is a moving story of racial prejudice, agoraphobic desert vistas, and amazing endurance as three girls walk 1,500 miles to find their mothers in 30s Australia.

These are the shocking facts behind the movie: during the early years of the 20th century, white Australians panicked about the supposed disaster of an "unwanted third race" of "half-caste" Aborigine children.

Special detention centres were set up across the continent to keep the mixed race children from "contaminating" the rest of Australian society, and orders were given to forcibly remove "half-caste" children from their families. It was a disastrous, racist policy that brought about the misery of the so-called "stolen generations".

In "Rabbit-Proof Fence", Australian director Phillip Noyce gives us a perceptive, uplifting drama that highlights - and overcomes - that racist policy. Having been forcible separated from their natural mothers, three girls - Molly (Sampi), Daisy (Sansbury), and Gracie (Monaghan) - escape from the Moore River Native Settlement, presided over by AO Neville (Branagh).

With an epic journey ahead of them, the girls set out to find their way back home by following the rabbit-proof fence that stretches across the Outback. Cutting back and forth between the children's journey and Neville's increasingly desperate attempts to capture them, Noyce's sensitive dramatization swaps angry politics for emotional sympathy, concentrating on the plight of the children instead of ranting against the authorities.

By highlighting the realities of this hidden genocide (unbelievably, the policy continued until the early 70s), "Rabbit-Proof Fence" stands as a powerful, worthy testimony to the suffering of the stolen generations.

This screening is supported by : HOLLYWOOD DVD SHOPEE , NSR Road, Coimbatore ; Ph 4382331 , : 98416 58466

Phillip Noyce

(born April 29, 1950)

Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, and began making short film at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast. He joined the Australian Film & Television School in 1973, and released his first professional film in 1977.

After his debut feature, the medium-length Backroads (1977), Noyce achieved commercial and critical success with Newsfront (1978), which won Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay.

Noyce worked on two miniseries for Australian television with fellow Australian filmmaker George Miller: The Dismissal (1983) and The Cowra Breakout (1984).

Miller also produced the film that brought Noyce his greatest acclaim in the United States — the thriller Dead Calm (1989) which turned Nicole Kidman into a star. His greatest commercial success to date has been the Tom Clancy spy thriller Clear and Present Danger (1994) starring Harrison Ford.

Noyce achieved great acclaim in Australia for the "stolen generation" picture, Rabbit Proof Fence, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film in 2002.

Naaivaal Film Movement honours pioneers of Tamil cinema

Unsung Heroes

M. Senthamizhan’s documentary tells you who the real pioneers of Tamil cinema are..

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The invite had a long list of questions. Sample this: ‘Did you know that a man from your city travelled throughout the country 100 years ago to screen films? Do you know the interesting trivia surrounding Variety Hall Road? How did films initia lly pull in the crowds?’

Who could resist these? So, we promptly parked ourselves at Hotel Tamil Nadu for a documentary film screening organised by Naaivaal Film Movement. The film Pesaamozhi (Silent Language), directed by Chennai-based M. Senthamizhan was to provide answers to all those questions. And, it did.

The documentary traces the journey of Tamil silent movies, the masters behind them and seeks to crack riddles hitherto unexplained. It is sprinkled with interesting nuggets, interspersed with observations and opinions of experts.

In 1905, Swamikannu Vincent, a draughtsman in the Railways from Coimbatore, bought a projector from a Frenchman in Tiruchi, to become South India’s first exhibitor.

And, this was to cause a dramatic change in the entertainment arena of the nation. He set up a touring cinema that went around small towns and villages in the country. In fact, he went as far as Rangoon, Peshawar, Lahore and Mumbai with his touring cinema.

Crowd-puller

It was a hit among the public. There were no tickets. Instead, it was barter system: the audience emptied a bag of grains for viewing a show. As the films were silent, a storyteller explained them to an astonished audience. He was their god. They ensured all his requirements were met.

Unfortunately, storytellers were to wane into nothingness when the era of silent movies ended with the birth of the talking movies.

Says film historian Theodore Baskaran: “Cinema brought about a social revolution, because unlike drama, the audience were not discriminated against. Anyone with an anna or two could watch them. However, this easy access to the public brought about nonchalance among the intellects. Victoria Public Hall was close to Sudesi Mithran’s (newspaper) office. But, not one film review was written by Bharathiar in 20 years.” This is why, there is nothing l eft of Coimbatore’s son Vincent, except a road named after the theatre he built: Variety Hall Road.

Similar fate encountered greats from other parts of the State such as Marudhamuthu Moopanar, and Nataraja Mudaliar who produced South India’s first silent movie Keechaka Vadham (1918).

Kittusamy, who runs the Welcome Saloon opposite Delite Theatre recalls how as a seven-year-old he saw his neighbour Vincent choosing a car from an assembly lined up at his house.

Nuggets

Another neighbour narrates how during Vincent’s funeral, the city experienced aalankatti mazhai. Director Senthamizhan’s fine touches throughout the film command mention: Be it a naked village boy gaping at a row of bullock carts or offbeat snapshots from the film shoot itself!

Senthamizhan calls for concerted efforts for garnering all possible details about these heroes who remain unsung in the annals of the Indian film industry.

If you have details on these heroes, or want to purchase the DVD (Rs. 250), contact the director at 98412-74384.

Sound bytes

Theodore Baskaran (Film historian)

“During the time of the touring cinemas, there were breaks between scenes, for the projector to cool a bit. To keep the audience engaged during such breaks, wrestling, comedy and concerts were introduced. These, perhaps, were the harbinger to the incongruent song, fight and comedy tracks in films today.”

Paavendhan (Researcher, Tamilology)

“Most of the records on films in the country give details on actors and directors. However, many fail to understand that theatre history, exhibitors, studios, and even the audience are very integral to the film industry. And, this is why we find very little details on these, even on the internet.”

Paamaran (Columnist)

“The recent celebration of Tamil film’s platinum jubilee took into account the first ‘talking’ movie Kalidasan (1931). This is a painful pointer to the fact that even the film industry and the Government have forgotten the doyens of the Tamil cinema, who had screened/produced silent movies since 1913.”

M. Senthamizhan (Director)

“Silent movies were ignored by the intellects in the State, who believed that a medium (silent films) that drew innumerable crowd could be of little consequence. This may be one of the chief reasons why none of the 130-odd Tamil silent movies or their documents remains today.”

Courtesy : The Hindu , Metroplus dated 30 07 2007.

02nd September 2007 : Magendran's Uthiri Pookkal

Uthiri Pookkal

A Film by J.Magendran
Tamil ; Year : 1979
Run Time : 143 minutes
2nd September 2007 at 5.45 pm
Venue : Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
Call : 94430 39630

Uthiri Pookkal is based on a short story by Pudumai Pithan,. It portrays village school head Sundara Vadivelu’s life , his lust and his arrogance. The sadistic character of Vadivelu portrayed by Vijayan is unforgettable. Fascinating characters, excellent performances make this movie a memorable one. Mani Ratnam said in a Hindu interview , “In ``Udhiri Pookkal'' the scattered images made fantastic poetry. If I get anywhere near what Mahendran did in ``Udhiri Pookkal'' I'll be a happy man.” That sum’s up the greatness of this movie.

Uthiri Pookkal and Tamil Cinema

Tamil cinema has completed 75 years. Tamil Film Industry holds an important position in film production in India . According to available data from Film News Anandan’s book, number of Tamil films produced till 2003 is a staggering 4003 . This figure does not include dubbed movies from other languages. Again from 2004 to 2006, another 241 Tamil films have been made. But how many of these films can be counted as ‘real cinema’ or ‘ good cinema ‘. Sadly, the number will be in single digit for any serious cinema lover. Very rarely , one or two film makers defy the existing norms and make memorable movies in Tamil despite all the odds. We must be ever thankful to them. Magendran happens to be one and his Uthiri Pookkal is one such film – a rare masterpiece.

J.Magendran

Born in 1939 in Tamil Nadu . Magendran's first film (as director) ‘Mullum Malarum' was released in 1978. Then Uthiri Pookkal was released in 1979. Magendran has directed 11 films till 1992. His recent project Saasanam, with funds from NFDC is yet to be released properly. It is very hard for any original, talented filmmaker to survive in our Tamil Film Industry. Same has happened to this wonderful, talented original director. Magendran has almost disappeared from the scene and is almost forgotten.

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தமிழ் சினிமா

"நல்ல சினிமா என்பது நல்ல புத்தகம் போல என்பது என் கருத்து. நல்ல படங்களைப் பார்த்துதான் படம் சம்பந்தப்பட்ட என் அறிவை வளர்த்துக் கொண்டேன். எனது அறிவு புத்தகங்கள் படித்து வந்தது இல்லை. ஷேக்ஸ்பியரையும் , சார்லஸ் டிக்கன்ஸையும், ஆஸ்கர் வைல்டையும், டென்னசி வில்லியம்சையும், ஆர்தர் மில்லரையும் நான் படங்கள் வழியேதான் பயின்றேன். ஏனென்றால் எனது இளமைக்காலம் படங்களின் யுகமாக இருந்தது. ஆனால் தமிழ் சினிமா அன்றும் இன்றும் அதே கீழ் நிலையிலேயே இருக்கிறது. நமது சரித்திரப் பெருமையையோ, நமது மண்ணின் கலாசாரப் பெருமையையோ அவை எடுத்துச் சொல்ல முன்வந்ததில்லை. அதைப்பற்றி நமது தமிழ் சினிமா ஏதாவது பேசியிருக்குமேயானாலும் அவை வெற்றுப் பம்மாத்துக்களாகவே
இருக்கின்றன. "
- ஜெயகாந்தன்
நன்றி : http://www.tamilcinema.com/