The age of decadence
“What is the style of every literary decadence? That life no longer lives in the whole. The word becomes sovereign and leaps out of the sentence; the sentence reaches out and obscures the meaning of the page, the page gains life at the expense of the whole ….the whole is no longer a whole.”
-Nietzsche in The Case Of Wagner
The age of decadence is what I call the current crop of Bollywood movies. Heard that Abhishek Bachchan has finally come of age in “Dus” and went ahead with the plan, ignoring the prejudice I have against new age Hindi movies. From the headcount in the theater it didn’t appear it would be a hit but it would hardly have any impact on themes of future movies. This age of decadence was so obvious at so many different places. Four male actors dressed up in black and stepping out of four black cars wearing we-mean-business look for no apparent reason at more than one occasion (and I was thus wrongly led to believe that something big is going to happen) or a Suraj Barjatya style wedding, which has become a signature Indian wedding in movies, thrown in somewhere in first half or Shilpa shetty, as a cop, that can be so distracting for other team-members in any critical mission. Devdas when served with multi-crore set and a gushy mushy Shahrukh Khan made millions oversees. Muscle flexing heroes, bewitching actresses and a filthy rich upper middle class family where some members have some “issues” but nothing too serious - it all stands out but what is missing is the soul of the movie. Characters and their whims become larger than the movie itself.
My friends argue that movies are a way to escape from reality and they don’t want to see the ugly reality on the screen as well. Agreed, but do you stoop to any level to unwind yourself? Don’t confuse such movies with a Govinda movie. Latter is genuine fun for a definite group of people whom he tickles with some down-to-earth comedy. He doesn’t delude you; if you find his acting gross, don’t watch him. He is not a trend-setter for the general class of movies. Ram Gopal Verma looked promising in Satya but has been showing a different type of decadence of late. An overdose of surprise or Mumabi underworld, either of these two is his idea of breaking the mould. He does manage to break free from cliché cinema but the central idea doesn’t look anchored in the plot sometimes. He is a brave director though.
Traditionally movies are supposed to convey a social message and be an entertainer. Since all the popular social messages have already been conveyed, in countless movies time and again, over past fifty years and we too are not looking for them anymore, movies are understandably reduced to just entertainers. But looks like Bollywood has run out of ideas as well. The central idea a movie revolves around need not be a useful social message but can be just food for thought or at least a well recognized sentiment that runs throughout the movie. Ardh Satya neither vilifies a person nor imparts a message. It does present a problem, namely the vicious circle today’s society is caught in, but doesn’t offer a close end solution either. But it leaves you thinking long after the movie is over. Characters are firmly entrenched in the plot and seasoned actors bring them to life on screen so well. Or Sholay for that matter, a blockbuster but nothing looks out of place, characters do stand out and so do dialogues but not at the expense of movie itself. People don’t forget the movie Gabbar Singh or his dialogues belong to. The present day decadence has nothing to do with the genre of movies, art or commercial, but it is the trend that is disturbing. Art movies are spared from this degradation because the plot needs to be so potent and pervasive that it doesn’t leave any scope for character glorification alone. They have never been a crowd puller anyway. But the mainstream cinema has never been in a worse shape, not even when Mithun used to rule the roost!
But the question is what has brought about this decadence in cinema? An obvious argument is that cinema only caters to people’s demand since gone are the days when whimsical directors used to create cinema for their own satisfaction. Are we cinemagoers then responsible for this decline? The answer, as per me, is an unqualified yes. Perhaps it is recent wealth that burgeoning middle class has acquired that entices us to see an affluent setting in cinemas too or the growing Indian diaspora oversees that feels nostalgic at everything desi or it is a case of plain intellectual hollowness but somehow we have been sending wrong signals to the movie makers. They feel they can get away by serving us our figments of desires through a loosely connected plot and in the process have identified some pointers to a commercially hit cinema which most of us have been falling for again and again. Sounds like a case of emotional blackmail. For example, my mom would go for any movie that promises few lavish weddings and sas-bahu altercation in the aftermath (when she gets bored with weddings she would like to see some serious stuff!), subtler the feud the better and if this bickering is fueled by other female members of the family it is a definite plus. It’s a different matter that she gets to see all the drama on the TV itself, thanks to Ekta Kapoor. This mass victimization is attributed to our failure in growing up as a mature body of cinemagoers. Accepted that fans of serious cinema were always few but seemingly we, as a whole, have slipped to new low and movie-makers have no qualms in tapping into it. It’s high time we realize we are capable of appreciating and deserve something better. We do not demand a Naseeruddin shah or Om Puri style thought provoking theme on ills that have plagued today’s society but a decent storyline and presentation that don’t make mockery of our intelligence. A little twist here and there and enhanced visuals would be welcome. Contrary to the popular belief Nietzsche did have a philosophy under the layer of aphorisms that constituted his style of literary decadence, employed deliberately to transcend any mere "anarchy of atoms" but there is no such case in Hindi cinema today. Our movie makers are no Nietzsche.
The age of decadence is what I call the current crop of Bollywood movies. Heard that Abhishek Bachchan has finally come of age in “Dus” and went ahead with the plan, ignoring the prejudice I have against new age Hindi movies. From the headcount in the theater it didn’t appear it would be a hit but it would hardly have any impact on themes of future movies. This age of decadence was so obvious at so many different places. Four male actors dressed up in black and stepping out of four black cars wearing we-mean-business look for no apparent reason at more than one occasion (and I was thus wrongly led to believe that something big is going to happen) or a Suraj Barjatya style wedding, which has become a signature Indian wedding in movies, thrown in somewhere in first half or Shilpa shetty, as a cop, that can be so distracting for other team-members in any critical mission. Devdas when served with multi-crore set and a gushy mushy Shahrukh Khan made millions oversees. Muscle flexing heroes, bewitching actresses and a filthy rich upper middle class family where some members have some “issues” but nothing too serious - it all stands out but what is missing is the soul of the movie. Characters and their whims become larger than the movie itself.
My friends argue that movies are a way to escape from reality and they don’t want to see the ugly reality on the screen as well. Agreed, but do you stoop to any level to unwind yourself? Don’t confuse such movies with a Govinda movie. Latter is genuine fun for a definite group of people whom he tickles with some down-to-earth comedy. He doesn’t delude you; if you find his acting gross, don’t watch him. He is not a trend-setter for the general class of movies. Ram Gopal Verma looked promising in Satya but has been showing a different type of decadence of late. An overdose of surprise or Mumabi underworld, either of these two is his idea of breaking the mould. He does manage to break free from cliché cinema but the central idea doesn’t look anchored in the plot sometimes. He is a brave director though.
Traditionally movies are supposed to convey a social message and be an entertainer. Since all the popular social messages have already been conveyed, in countless movies time and again, over past fifty years and we too are not looking for them anymore, movies are understandably reduced to just entertainers. But looks like Bollywood has run out of ideas as well. The central idea a movie revolves around need not be a useful social message but can be just food for thought or at least a well recognized sentiment that runs throughout the movie. Ardh Satya neither vilifies a person nor imparts a message. It does present a problem, namely the vicious circle today’s society is caught in, but doesn’t offer a close end solution either. But it leaves you thinking long after the movie is over. Characters are firmly entrenched in the plot and seasoned actors bring them to life on screen so well. Or Sholay for that matter, a blockbuster but nothing looks out of place, characters do stand out and so do dialogues but not at the expense of movie itself. People don’t forget the movie Gabbar Singh or his dialogues belong to. The present day decadence has nothing to do with the genre of movies, art or commercial, but it is the trend that is disturbing. Art movies are spared from this degradation because the plot needs to be so potent and pervasive that it doesn’t leave any scope for character glorification alone. They have never been a crowd puller anyway. But the mainstream cinema has never been in a worse shape, not even when Mithun used to rule the roost!
But the question is what has brought about this decadence in cinema? An obvious argument is that cinema only caters to people’s demand since gone are the days when whimsical directors used to create cinema for their own satisfaction. Are we cinemagoers then responsible for this decline? The answer, as per me, is an unqualified yes. Perhaps it is recent wealth that burgeoning middle class has acquired that entices us to see an affluent setting in cinemas too or the growing Indian diaspora oversees that feels nostalgic at everything desi or it is a case of plain intellectual hollowness but somehow we have been sending wrong signals to the movie makers. They feel they can get away by serving us our figments of desires through a loosely connected plot and in the process have identified some pointers to a commercially hit cinema which most of us have been falling for again and again. Sounds like a case of emotional blackmail. For example, my mom would go for any movie that promises few lavish weddings and sas-bahu altercation in the aftermath (when she gets bored with weddings she would like to see some serious stuff!), subtler the feud the better and if this bickering is fueled by other female members of the family it is a definite plus. It’s a different matter that she gets to see all the drama on the TV itself, thanks to Ekta Kapoor. This mass victimization is attributed to our failure in growing up as a mature body of cinemagoers. Accepted that fans of serious cinema were always few but seemingly we, as a whole, have slipped to new low and movie-makers have no qualms in tapping into it. It’s high time we realize we are capable of appreciating and deserve something better. We do not demand a Naseeruddin shah or Om Puri style thought provoking theme on ills that have plagued today’s society but a decent storyline and presentation that don’t make mockery of our intelligence. A little twist here and there and enhanced visuals would be welcome. Contrary to the popular belief Nietzsche did have a philosophy under the layer of aphorisms that constituted his style of literary decadence, employed deliberately to transcend any mere "anarchy of atoms" but there is no such case in Hindi cinema today. Our movie makers are no Nietzsche.
posted by Osho | 2:11 PM
2 Comments:
Interesting topic to dwell upon. Infact just recently i had a chance to watch TV for a while, and I must admit that i am fortunate enough not to have spend 10k on it. You are talking about movies lets see the TV and print media as well, we had opened gates for private TV channels sometime back. Look at the decadence there it is sickening i could not stand it for more than fifteen minutes, the content of news channel is more like a climax of b-rated hindi movie they try to sensationalize all the news. I always thought that news should be presented without any bias or prejudice and opinion is different from news, but i have been proven otherwise.
I agree with you that they aggrandize the characters so much so it becomes a Shahrukh movie rather than being a Devdas. If you look at any movie which is relevant not character is over-played or made larger than life. But then masses tend to follow stars not the stories or rather persons not the characters behind the persons.
I have quit watching movies off-late unless of course my mom or my friends insist on watching a movie then also it is more for spending time together rather than movie per se.
the decay is same in the print media. every morning you open times of india and you see only page 3 pictures of semi-clad socialities with a glass of liqour in hand. They standard of newspapers has degraded to such levels that you can see more ads, matrimonials and of course socialities in the papers. The kids get exposed to such hypocracy at tender ages. The news content is reduced to around 5% and do you the number of pages which ToI prints everyday it is a staggering 100 pages each day at a price of Rs.5 and i dont think any one has either the time or the patience to read it. It become a garbage or rather a waste of resource look at it from economic point of view they waste so much paper which can be distributed to school going kids.
I am also questioning how we as citizens of this society have accepted freedom i think we have abused it. You may call me a moral policeman but then it is really disgusting.
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