Reminiscence: William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" : It Still Delivers The Creeps.

I saw it forty years after it first released. And it's still the scariest movie I've ever seen.

That's the magic of The Exorcist. It never fails to deliver the goods. Never, ever. Even if you watch it for the third or the thirtieth time, it's still spooky. And it's not a lame excuse for an exercise in laughable scares which most horror movies are striving on, as of now.

Now, while I was snooping around for a little titbit on the movie, I came across a few interesting facts. For one, I was intrigued on knowing the theaters in America provided barf bags for any nutjob who dared to watch it in the theater. Really, how many theaters care for you that much? And for a film that shamelessly fucked with my sleep for two days straight, I was gratified to know that the crew didn't have an easy time making it. There were a number of weird incidents while filming, and a priest was called a few times to bless the set. Hey, I'm not saying that that didn't spook me further. Believe me or not, it scared the bejesus of out me more than the possessed girl did.

I know Friedkin because he made The French Connection, a movie I'm ready to watch ten times incessantly, but to see him turn a jeepers-creepers script into a compelling psychological-horror movie was meritorious. The Exorcist isn't your regular horror film. In fact, it's not a horror film at all. There are no ghosts. And a horror movie is not a horror movie if it doesn't have a ghost, right? I don't believe that, no. But that's something I learnt from the fans of the genre, which I'm not, so I'll take their word for it. And I admit, I'm not a big sucker for horror movies. The only other horror movies I've watched and liked are The Omen, for its absurdity, and The Silence Of The Lambs, for its sheer power. The Exorcist is different, it's a strange amalgam of both, you know. It's an absurd piece of cinema but ridiculously powerful in its own way. And it's made with spectacular skill and finesse.

So, what have you got? You've got a possessed girl, a demonic spirit in her and refusing to budge, she's got an atheist for a mother, a disturbed priest who has recently lost his mother and you've got winning special effects. That's The Exorcist in a nutshell. I watched it in a darkened room to encourage the impact but I needn't have bothered. It's like a pizza, you see, in an eldritch way - no matter what's in it, it'll still be delicious and you'll still end up enjoying it.

Of course, The Exorcist, being a Hollywood baby at the time, inspired a few sequels. And it was a stupid, stupid decision to tamper with a masterpiece. Some dumb sod must've thought, "Let's milk the plot more and earn some money while we're at it!". Now, for the record, I haven't seen The Exorcist II or The Exorcist III simply because I haven't dared to. Anyway, the legend goes that the first part was jinxed in more than one way.

Linda Blair, twelve years-old at the time of its release, is incredible in the role of the possessed Regan. I mention her because I did not expect a juvenile to pull off what she has pulled off. It's a brave performance, an honest performance and one that feeds The Exorcist till its end. Take Blair out of it and it's just a movie with some people and a bunch of old film tricks.

The Exorcist is a different kind of horror movie, minus the screams and loud bangs, but it's got enough guts and creeps to give you the chills for a long time after. It's a beautifully-made classic, a rarity in its genre.

Pleasant nightmares!

Is there still hope for an Oscar, folks?

The Academy has a history of denying us an Oscar, a prestigious distinction for our cinema, where deprecatory content is often mistaken for entertainment.

So much so that now, filmmakers have lost all hope. But, no, no, you won't hear them say that. Their replies would be more like, "Our kind of cinema is different. We entertain! We kill boredom, and that's what cinema is all about, ain't it? We don't need an Oscar to prove that we make good films. We make good films." Maybe that's one of the reasons why any kind of meaningful cinema is swiftly plastered the tag of being different, so when people having an IQ of a mashed potato come across it, they know that this film should be given a miss and wait for a movie that has the same level of IQ as them.

I don't want to come off as a gadfly, but I just don't get why we have been declined an Oscar. Or maybe I do. And, hey, before I scrutinize why, I just want to say that A.R. Rahman's win doesn't count. But yes, it was long overdue and he did deserve it.

 When I look at the list of the films we have submitted as a possible Oscar contender - in the category of Best Foreign-Language Film, that is - I find the inconsistency vaguely disturbing. I mean, some of those aren't the best films of that year. For example, Barfi! wasn't what you'd normally call great, is it? I found it to be just good. But the amount of romance sure spewed a lot of sugary haze. Oh, and the imitation of Charlie Chaplin and his movies was too distasteful a tribute; at least that's what I thought. One other thing that I found to be unconventional in Barfi! was that it was more about the characters and less about the plot. That was the impression, but director Anurag Basu thought otherwise and shot it accordingly. Missed the mark by miles, miles! So, there were people, some loving it and the others not so much, you could say, but the Committee, which is responsible for sending the submissions for the Oscars, thought it's better to preach about love and life and how to be likable even if the things you do is criminal, and Barfi! represented India at the Oscars. And it didn't even make it to the top ten. They, meaning the Committee, had a point though - there's something for everyone in Barfi!. But that's not a reason why they should shun better cinema, is it?

Coming to what they should've done instead, I find Anurag Kashyap's Gangs Of Wasseypur as a worthy contender for the big thing. Yes, it was original, and it was Indian in its treatment. Gangs Of Wasseypur is not a great film either but it took balls of steel and incredible craft for it to go in front of a nation of a billion people and receive applause at the sound of a cuss. The characters were glorious, the sound incredible and the performances terrific. That was one hell of a movie, licked to steely perfection. But it was over-indulgent and stuffed with scenes and scenes of nugatory violence. But, what the hell! So are a lot of Oscars winners, right?

I digress. Once, the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, accused legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray of selling poverty to the West. And once you get over the initial incredulity caused by that accusation, you find that the West is indeed fascinated by the squalor of this country. I found this revelation when I looked at the names of the only three Indian films to have been nominated for the Oscar : Mother India, Salaam Bombay! and Lagaan.  And, oh, did I forget to mention Slumdog Millionaire? A film that so undeservedly picked up the Oscar for Best Picture, when there were better movies vying for it? So, needless to say, we cannot guess how the Academy picks out the winners, but there's no argument that a display of poverty may get you noticed on the West side.

Lagaan was shamelessly commercial, a big, feel-good family film that preached the right morals and proved that even men clad in dhotis can play cricket only if their mothers tell them that they remind her of their fathers. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy its absurdity. Lagaan was guilty pleasure compared to the movies that I usually prefer.

Salaam Bombay! was the antithesis of that. A touch of pragmatism, a touch of emotions and a bunch of good characters, there's no doubt that it deserved to be nominated.

So, all in all, the Academy sure loves to watch movies about a world they know so little about. They like their fascination to be aroused but the Committee has a wrong perception about what kind of film to send them. They're scared of the West's panorama of India, which is why they send movies like Barfi!, a film that shows how beautiful the country is and how wrong the West has always been about it. And, Mr. Basu, ripping ideas off Charlie Chaplin films are going to receive a murmur of appreciation here, but to the souls on the other side of the world, it's an insult, plain and simple.

But, hey, we're missing out on an Oscar here, folks! Gangs Of Wasseypur stood a marginally better chance at the Oscars because of its audacity and novelty, not to mention that it was well-received at Cannes. And has nobody seen Timangshu Dhulia's Paan Singh Tomar? We need to send good films and not the ones that pontificate the right morals. They make films like that there too, you know.

How the Indian Censor Board slew David Fincher's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".

Here's a question : what can possibly be the most galling moment you've had to face as a film-lover?

Now, while you're on that thought, I wonder if yours could be worse than mine. A while back, I was at a suburban theater and the trailer of David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo came up on the big screen. The endless days of waiting, the days of finding out how the movie has fared with the audiences around the world, all those days were about to be put to rest. Intriguing as the trailer was, I knew from the melancholic mood that this was not going to be an easy watch. But, ah, what the hell! It's a David Fincher film! And here's one thing about Fincher that discriminates him from his colleagues - he makes only those movies that he'd want to watch. That's how I know David Fincher.

So, the die was cast. I was waiting for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to charm me with its audacity, the obnoxious, unsavory elements of it had already got people talking, something that piqued my curiosity. And I was waiting for it to get a release. The thing is, it never did.

And it was vexatious. The single most denouncing thing that anyone can do to a film-lover. Whatever happened was so hush-hush that I could hardly hear a murmur. So, what happened was that the Indian Censor Board objected to certain scenes in the movie which were sexually explicit, I'm guessing, and the producers dismissed their request to hack them off. The Indian Censor Board take their job quite seriously, which, by the way, is a broadly admired punchline, and the movie was vetoed. No noise, no bother.

I did watch it later on, a less beguiling experience to slouch on a couch and go to war with the damn pests that thrive on the scorching climate, but I couldn't abandon the disappointed feeling. A film of such craft and skill, not to mention the nicely disguised suspense, this movie was truly made for the big screen. Now, some might bitch about its length but to adapt an novel that spans forty years into a movie that's roughly 160 minutes long, that's something worth watching.

And that desire was rebuked by a self-assertive committee that goes, "That's not our culture!" on every damn thing passes before them. Now, for the record, they're a bunch of hardworking, concerned people, but we need some air in here, man. I mean, really, for how long should a filmmaker sweat to get his work to the audiences?

Now, I take it that the Indian Censor Board has had a history of denying us wonderful cinema. I don't know the exact number of such films, but the content of some of these include domestic violence, gruesome violence - Anurag Kashyap's directorial debut Paanch still lies in the cans - and even nuclear testing, if that makes any sense. I know that whatever content can incite any form of violence in the real world should rightfully be banned, but the Censor Board ought to be mature considering the rather petty issues they have with some films. That's plain nefarious, people!

Coming back to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, it wasn't a movie of salacious nature. In it's subject matter, I'd say there's art in its intrepidity if looked closely, which they haven't. And it's a shame to know that that can get in the way of an artist's creative freedom. In a country of precarious people, it's not that difficult to offend some. Paanch has been long forgotten, and if it were to release today, I wouldn't mind paying for a ticket. If a movie's different, it doesn't mean that it should be great. It may not be a great movie, but it'll be a welcome relief, nonetheless. And sometimes, that counts as a memorable cinematic experience.

For those who haven't watched Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I'd suggest that you do so. It's feisty, bold and unnerving but it's so drastically different from the murder-mysteries that are being made now that it's a movie worth noting.

And coming back to the issues I have with the Censor Board, I'm too insignificant a person to make a suggestion. But I'd love to wake up to a day when our filmmakers can make a movie without worrying about any of the subject matter being slashed. I wonder, what kind of movies would we look forward to then?

How impetus is independent cinema in India?

Ain't that just dandy?

So, finally, we have a reason to celebrate. And it comes in the form of a movie called Ship Of Theseus, directed by debutant Anand Gandhi. The proud edict of the week is that we also have a reason to go, "Hey! Cinema in this country is not spiraling downwards! Look! Look at Ship Of Theseus! We can make that kind of cinema, too!" Yes, we can make that kind of cinema, as Gandhi has so clearly showed us. I haven't seen the film but the reaction got me snickering. The trade says that this film is a masterpiece. It gets you thinking about the philosophical questions that life throws at us. And when a film gets you thinking, you know that the experience is worth it.

Now, Ship Of Theseus is undeniably a landmark when we look at the bigger picture. And by that I mean the seemingly non-existent independent cinema of India. A film like that raises all kinds of questions, you know. How would he have ever thought it would work here? Who had the grit to invest in a movie that's far from commercial? But I'll point my finger at the most important question because it'll amuse me : why, when an independent film is released here, should it be declared so widely, so openly as an independent film? I mean, why can't the people just go and have a meaningful cinematic experience for a change? There's no vindication that independent cinema is shivved here.

I can't recall when was the last time an independent film got a release here. If my memory serves, there was one called Delhi In A Day, which went as quietly as it came. And when you think of it, you know that Gandhi's Ship Of Theseus didn't get an easy release here. I first heard of it when it was screened at the Mumbai Film Festival last year, where it won some award. And it took a whole year and a lot of frowns to see it play in a theater. In Mumbai. It made a statement, yes, but it wasn't commercially feasible, the complaints poured in.

Now, here's something that I find truly cackling. When asked why does a film like Ship Of Theseus goes without being noticed, some producers retorted, "The audiences don't need education, they need entertainment." Golden words to abide by! And may I take the considerable pleasure to remind these supposed philosophers that the audience can discriminate between what's good and what's drivel. Really, our minds are not made of fluff, you know.

When I hear the phrase 'independent cinema', my thoughts dawdle back to the glorious '80s, when independent cinema was all the industry had. Saeed Akhtar Mirza, the most significant Indian independent filmmaker at the time, illustrated just how good the experience of watching a movie can be when the pomace of the plot spoke for itself. And who can forget the rebellious Smita Patil in Ketan Mehta's terrific Mirch Masala? It would take a miracle to see those types of films being made now. But, sadly, it already looks like a distant dream.

But it's not as bad as I make it sound. Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap was at one point of time the face of the growing independent cinema movement across the country, but the movement has already lost momentum. We have invested far too much and far too long into the cinematic equivalent of junk, and that junk now represents the face of the industry. There is a dire need for art films to show up soon or what was art in the '80s will soon turn into a flourishing business in a span of a decade or so.

Ship Of Theseus is a mere object of the reincarnated soul of the long-lost Indian independent cinema. It's significant, not only as a film but also as a reminder that there is still hope. And while that flicker of hope burns, we'll have something to look forward to.

"Dog Day Afternoon" : The quintessential New York film.

There's a lot of New York in Sidney Lumet's incredible Dog Day Afternoon. And I don't just mean the locales. I remember reading somewhere that Lumet had decided to do a New York story the New York way. And Dog Day Afternoon is the outcome of his New York vision. For the uninitiated, Lumet made a few of the greatest crime-dramas in the 1970s, most of them starred Al Pacino in the lead role, and he made it better than most filmmakers could with better equipment. With the exception of Martin Scorsese, of course, who is a New Yorker, too, born and bred. But that's another story.

About the film, it is a fine crime-drama that works well as a kind of black comedy because it's got a surprising dose of humor weaved into a hot Hollywood favorite storyline of a perfect robbery gone wrong. Heist drama it is not, contrary to a popular belief. Lumet invests heavily into his characters, and that's what he's famous for, ain't it? Oh, and while I'm on the subject, please do yourself a favor and check out his stunning Network, will you? It's terrific.

Now, I asked myself a question while watching Dog Day Afternoon : how can I differentiate a New York film from a, let's say, Los Angeles film if I've never been to either place? What is the difference between the two? That's a question answered in Dog Day Afternoon, or rather, the movie's the answer. Dog Day Afternoon doesn't go all guns blaring to make it's point heard. And yet, it's like the first breath of pure oxygen to a wilting brain, a movie's that ferocious and funny without ever being jejune. And the little details. Ah, the details! The argot, the words that make it and the characters who say it. That's Dog Day Afternoon for you.

But, you know, Dog Day Afternoon is just a synecdoche. Just a synecdoche. The whole film, the whole 125 minutes of pure bliss, boils down to just one thing : Sonny Wortzik. Animated by the glorious Al Pacino, Sonny is the livid and smutty protagonist. Or is he? That's a mystery I haven't figured out as yet, folks. When he's robbing the bank, he barks out to the sardonic manager, "Hey, you. Manager. Fucker! Don't get ideas. I bark, that guy over there. See him? He bites." And I couldn't help going back again and again just to hear him snap. Sonny's not too bright when it comes to robbing a bank clean. He hangs around even after he has robbed it just not to leave any record. He's likable because not because he's clumsy but because he knows what he's talking about. He's honest, and when a reporter asks him why he's robbing a bank, he quips, "I'm robbing a bank because they've got money here. That's why I'm robbing it." See, that's ingenuous. Sonny Wortzik is a synecdoche in a synecdoche.

Lumet's got a way when he's behind the camera. The mood feels New York-ish, and the atmosphere certainly is. There's mastery in the way he handles the little touches he puts on. At the beginning of the film, when the whole thing turns into a media circus, and when Sonny comes out cussing and bellowing, the crowds emit wild cheers. They like the gawky fellow for his guts, and when he yells, "Attica! Attica!", a mortifying reminder of the infamous Attica prison riots, they know whose side to take. But when they learn that he's bisexual, they catcall his antics, ridicule his guts, the one thing that they liked in him.

Why is Dog Day Afternoon a New York film, with all its touches, mood, characters and slang? Because it defines the city. It's crowded, it's noisy and it's brash. Cheeky too. There's magic in the way Sonny vents his anger out on the hierarchy.

Dog Day Afternoon is a great film, an important film, and a film that pays tribute to an extraordinary city. Look past it's languid pacing and there's enough cinematic wizardry to make it worth your time.  

Barry Levinson's "Diner" : A classic that could never have been.

I ended up catching a movie this weekend, a small movie that's so small, in fact, that even Google couldn't get decent perspectives of it. I remember Barry Levinson's Rain Man for one and one reason only - Dustin Hoffman's magnificent rendition of an autistic man. I admit, I haven't watched any other film of his but I did take a peek at Wag The Dog. Diner is a film he debuted with way back in '82, when most of the films made sense.

I'm the sort of guy who goes for a well-written film than a one which has more star-power. A talky film appeals to me more than a one with boggling special-effects, and Diner made my day, just made my day. Now, before I blather about how wonderful it really is, there is a really interesting story behind its discovery.

In 1982, Levinson, a novice but talented writer-director, presented his effort before the mighty MGM. But the studio felt that the film might be given a cold shoulder commercially, which is why it was stalled from being released into theaters. And they had a good reason for it - a small cast of mostly new faces, an audacious young director who makes his debut with a film that's without any special effects, plot or eye-catching gimmicks. Really, how many of them would go for such a thing? But here's the turnaround - film critic Pauline Kael, writing for The New Yorker, informed the studio that she had decided to give a glowing review to the movie whether they released it or not. It was then that the reluctant studio decided to release it, and the movie went on to gross a substantial profit, just shy of 15 million dollars. In a way, Kael brought Diner into existence.

Diner first caught my attention some time back when I was looking at the list of the Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Original Screenplay. A film that I had never even heard of, I swore to myself that I'll watch it one day. I get faintly irked when I come across a film that I haven't even heard of. Diner was one of those. When I dug deep to find out more about it, there wasn't much to read. It was a forgotten little gem already.

Most of the story takes place in Baltimore in 1959. A group of young lads, to whom the diner is a late-night hangout spot, a symbolic place to bury their problems, have to tackle about the many modifications adulthood brings. A semi-autobiographical film, Diner is actually about nothing at all. There's no plot, no drama and no zeal to achieve anything. It's about its characters, what they talk about, what they face and how they face it. Yet, it manages to be a very funny movie, so incredibly personal that it could well be the story of your life. How could they even think of fucking shelving a classic like this?

Levinson had been plucky and picky with the cast. Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Steve Guttenberg, Tim Daly, Daniel Stern, Paul Reiser and Ellen Barkin compile a first-rate cast with a natural flair for extemporization. Levinson enthusiastically pursues a need for authentic dialogue, and succeeds admirably. But, you know, the weird thing is, what's funnier than the dialogue is how familiar the conversations are. The spasmodic little moments of humor come in the form of sexual pranks, grousing about marriages and which singer is better than the other. And, of course, football.

Now, I'm not a follower of American football, and Levinson is, unfortunately, which gives us a grave problem. Football forms an integral part of Diner but there's nothing to really worry about. Levinson does not delve much into it, and instead decides to focus on the character developments, but his love for the game is pretty discernible.

"Do you ever get the feeling that there's something going on that we don't know about?"

Appalling is what it is. A line that deserves accolades is done and dusted with. I find it distressing that a line that's as shrewd as that, in a film that's shrewd too, is now unrecognized. A line worth quoting a million times. A line that acutely describes adolescence, what our whole life's been revolving around. In the film, when a bemused Bacon quoted it to an equally bemused Rourke, who suspects a girl of lying about her name, it was used as a humor tool. But it spoke to me in a way that's far from funny.

Diner is a cinematic gem that deserves its overdue appreciation three decades later. It's a strikingly honest portrayal of relationships and friendships when life gets serious about you. 

A coruscating experience, no less.

Why Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" still amazes.

My father once said to me, “When the damn music played, I would never find you in the room."

Long ago, I can’t say when exactly, I remember watching Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws for the very first time. Back then, action movies appealed to me for obvious reasons. And when I heard the story idea of Jaws from my father, I thought it was utterly preposterous to make some kind of a suspenseful-horror film in which the antagonist is played by a teeth-baring, beastly shark who attacks people going for a harmless swim in the sea. Why would anyone want to tamper with the good ol’ action flicks which show you a good time by blowing up cars and buildings? But then, action flicks often value your popcorn above your intellect, you know.

I've always had this perception that horror films habitually abandon logic for giving us our money's worth of cheap scares. That often translates into thunderous sound effects, gory visuals and obnoxious monsters, not to mention the plots that are laughably awful.

Jaws had none of those. 

To tell you the truth, I wasn't completely sold to the story when I first watched it. I mean, how many kids would want the protagonist to be middle-aged, scrawny and bespectacled man who almost fits the definition of a wimpish character, really? And then, I was always on the lookout for the shark, who, by the way, disappointed me by not showing up till the end. So, my first reaction to the film was of antipathy. 

Jaws had its moments though. John Williams backed up the suspense beautifully with his emotive score that haunted my nights more than the shark did with its fangs. The build-up to the murder scenes was one for the ages. The music communicated what was about to happen, and just when you wait for the shark to sneak up on a poor sod, the scene would anti-climax by showcasing a gory image of a ripped limb. Maybe one of the reasons I wasn't an instant fan of the film was because another Spielberg film, Jurassic Park, which was also one of the first Hollywood films I had watched, had succeeded in wallowing me in a world that had scared me a fair bit. Needless to say, my first viewing of Jaws had left me more amused than spooked.

Years later, while I was flipping through the channels on television, there was one playing Jaws. Indian television is notorious for being family-friendly, maybe a little too much. And when you end up on a channel which is playing a movie equally notorious for being gory, you can't help but be intrigued. Time had taken its toll though, which is why I couldn't recall much about Jaws. But time had also done me a favor. My choices and likeness in films had gradually matured over the years, and I had a marginally better understanding of what works in a film and what doesn't.

The second viewing of Jaws knocked the wind out of me.

I couldn't figure out why it hadn't clicked on the first go. I began to look at the most obvious points differently. Really, how many antagonists in films have been sharks? Before Jaws worked its magic on the audiences, no one would've even thought that a thing like that could make sense. Not only did I appreciate Jaws for its pulpy plot, intelligently-written script, but I also found myself agreeing that the decision of keeping the shark hidden till the very end was a wise one. Jaws is one of those films that strives purely on palpable tension, a rarity.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat," a deeply shaken Brody says to Quint, at the most crucial point in the film. I couldn't interpret why exactly brief laughter rang out through the room at those words when I first watched Jaws. Could Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, who had adapted the screenplay from the book by Peter Benchley, have envisioned the bludgeoning impact of those words when they wrote them? A line that's truly worth a million bucks but one that sounds like a simple line on paper. When you watch it being quoted on-screen, the feeling of realization of how profound it really is is truly remarkable.

After repeated viewings, I have come to fully appreciate Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Sure, it might have a few niggles, but a film of such prodigious power should be treasured and relished.

You know what? The damn music still keeps me out of the room. And that's the beauty of it.