Author Mohsin Hamid on the difference between a novelist and a filmmaker

An excerpt from an engrossing book I have just finished reading:

As a novelist, I found it fascinating to watch a film being made. In many ways, Mira does what I do as a novelist — construct and painstakingly craft a story.

But she also does things I don't have to, like marshal 230 people for weeks on end. What I can do in a sentence or a paragraph, she has to build an entire set to do, and she needs carpenters, electricians and painters to do it.

I operate in a pleasant little cocoon, just me and my computer, quietly working away. She has to create this beautiful, impactful thing in complete chaos, with phones ringing, last-minute problems developing, traffic violations, electricity shortages — all kinds of crazy stuff.

I am much more appreciative now of how difficult it is to make a good film.

• Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, in his short essay in Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist: From Book to Film

To read a review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (the book) written by Commits student Rigved Sarkar (Class of 2010) for the college newspaper, visit the Commits website: "Musings of a man changed (http://commits.edu.in/aug/six.html)".

To read a review of the film by New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, click on this link: "Dreams Are Lost in the Melting Pot". The New York Times also has an interview with Mira Nair.

• In addition, you should visit Mohsin Hamid's home page to learn more about the novelist (his latest best-seller is How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia).

Roger Ebert: A film critic like no other

He was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. For more than 40 years he worked at one newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times. He was hailed as the best-known film reviewer of his generation, and one of the most trusted.

So it is no wonder that when Roger Ebert died yesterday at the ago of 70, even President Barack Obama was moved to say that for a generation of Americans ... “Roger was the movies. When he didn’t like a film, he was honest; when he did, he was effusive — capturing the unique power of the movies to take us somewhere magical.”

Read the New York Times tribute to Roger Ebert here.

• ADDITIONAL READING: Cancer surgery cost him his lower jaw and his ability to speak — but not his ability to write. To know more, read this magnificent profile of Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine.

• EXTERNAL READING: Jai Arjun Singh, a New Delhi-based freelance writer and journalist whose writing I admire, has published a post about his brief encounter with Roger Ebert. Read it on his blog, Jabberwock, here. 

• EXTERNAL READING: Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Ebert connection: "Remembering Roger Ebert". (Thanks for the tip-off, Noyon Jyoti Parasara.)

• EXTERNAL READING: Read Roger Ebert's 20 best reviews here. 

DEEP PAL

UPDATE (April 6, 2013): Commits alumnus DEEP PAL (Class of 2003), who is in the U.S. for his master's in International Security Studies at the Elliott School in Washington, D.C., sent this via e-mail:

Here's some more on Roger Ebert — a series of three articles he wrote while in India in 1999, including a delightful account of his first experience of watching a Hindi potboiler [Taal] in a cinema hall.

I was introduced to Ebert by [Cinema Studies professor at Commits] Tummala Sir about 11-12 years ago. Since then every time a new movie arrived in theatres, or I heard of another oh-but-you-must-see-this-classic, I would Google Ebert and the movie's name. And he never lied to me. That was the beauty of his craft. Not only the brutal honesty that he succinctly put in a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on his TV show, but also the poignancy and sincerity that he brought to his writing in print.

Ebert didn't have the trappings that knowledge often brings, which is why his write-up on movie viewing in India is so exquisite. He is childlike in his approach to new experiences, which is why he compares in all seriousness and sincerity the snacks available at a Hyderabad single screen theatre with that in a cinema hall in Michigan.

And in this sincerity and zest he and Tummala Sir lived a very similar life — both refused to accept what life had meted out to them; both decided instead to take life by the horns, turn it around, and make every moment a celebration and a gift. It's surprising how  similar their approach to life was. Is that the power of the spirit? Is it the power of cinema? I'm not sure. But I am glad I had them both in my life for some time. And of course, the gift of movies that they brought for me.

I hope you and your students will enjoy reading these articles:

• CALCUTTA JOURNAL ENTRY: DAY 1

• 1999 CALCUTTA FILM FESTIVAL

• GOING TO THE MOVIES IN INDIA 

UPDATE (April 14, 2013): Maria Popova, my favourite blogger, pays tribute to Roger Ebert (there's also a link to the late film critic's "unforgettable TED talk"): "RIP, Roger Ebert: The Beloved Critic on Writing, Life, and Mortality".

UPDATE (April 19, 2013): Roy Peter Clark, a guru of journalism whose writing I admire deeply, has also paid tribute to Roger Ebert. Read his post here: "Why Roger Ebert was a good writer".

What does a production designer do?

WASIQ KHAN

If he's Wasiq Khan, he pulls off the improbable, writes Sunaina Kumar in the latest Tehelka.

And how does he do that?

In Dabbang, it was Wasiq Khan who was responsible for "the sepia tints, the rustic colours and the stylised yet authentic sets of the film". In Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl in Yellow Boots, for which he had only two days to prepare, Khan set up "a cramped apartment with peeling walls, a crummy massage parlour, and a BEST bus".

He got his start in production design with Kashyap’s short film Last Train to Mahakali and though he has had some stupendous successes in commercial Hindi cinema, his speciality, he says, is in conjuring up the grime and sweat of reality.

“It is certainly the work I find most challenging and rewarding. It is also the toughest to shoot,” he says. He gives examples from Aamir and Black Friday. In Aamir "there was a scene where Rajeev Khandelwal had to enter a filthy slum toilet. He puked on the sets and I had to reassure him that this is only a set and nothing is real. In Black Friday, for the bomb blast sequence, instead of junior artists, I got disfigured beggars from Haji Ali, and got them fitted with artificial limbs for the before-and-after scenes.”

Curiously, Wasiq Khan says he never uses design software for his work, so he sketches every frame by hand. For Dabbang, he says, he created more than a hundred sketches.

•  Read the article in its entirety here: "My fake slum toilet made people puke".

• Also read: "Dabbang — Plenty of bang for your buck".

• Photo: Courtesy Tehelka

Two fabulous movies — but are they for everyone?

Both Black Swan and The King's Speech are so absorbing that you lose yourself in them (that's what happened to me over the weekend).

There's a profound psychological aspect to Natalie Portman's portrayal of the angst-ridden ballerina in Black Swan. And she does such a good job of it that one can have no quarrel with her Oscar for Best Actress.

In The King's Speech, Colin Firth is superb (and a fitting winner of the Best Actor Oscar) as the royal stammerer. This film is based on a true story and that makes it all the more touching — Geoffrey Rush is marvellous as the speech therapist and the scenes featuring the "teacher" and the "student" alone are worth the price of the ticket. In addition, there is a lot of humour and wit in this movie.

TALKING POINT: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech.

I have to say, though, that neither of these films may appeal to the average movie-goer. Both are for thinking people. It helps to know something about ballet and Swan Lake to really appreciate Black Swan. And it helps to know something about British culture and the British public's obsession with the royal family and the story of a king's renunciation of his throne to marry the woman he loved to really appreciate The King's Speech, which also won, deservingly, the Best Picture Oscar.

After you watch both, let me know whether you agree with my views.

Plenty of bang for your buck

Think Jackie Chan on steroids. Imagine him speaking a mixture of Bhojpuri and Hindi. And picture him performing his trademark stunts in one of his many fight scenes.

And you have Salman Khan in Dabangg.

Jackie Chan never takes himself seriously in his movies. Also, we know he is having a great time up there pretending to act.

Ditto Salman Khan. In Dabangg, at least.

That, I think, is one of the reasons I enjoyed watching (most of) Dabbang yesterday.

Dabangg is not a "drama", although there's dramabaazi aplenty; it is not a "thriller", though the movie has its share of thrills (and spills); it is definitely not a "romance", notwithstanding Salman's hook-up with Sonakshi Sinha (pictured left). I see it as a "comedy", really, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments: Salman using a fireman's hosepipe as a weapon in the opening fight scenes, Salman doing a Keanu Reeves in those same fight scenes, Salman making one of his "Besharam se yaad aaya..." cracks, Salman... Salman... Salman....

Salman is such a towering presence in the film that every frame that does not feature him has you wishing he'd be back. Every Salman-less frame, in short, appears tedious by comparison.

Well, okay, not EVERY frame. Certainly not in the opening sequences of Munni badnaam hui, that exuberant, colourful, full-of-life item number by the oomphy Malaika Arora (pictured right) — though Salman sort of steals the scene when he makes his swaggering appearance towards the end of the dance.

To reiterate, I think we love Salman in Dabangg because he does not take himself seriously; in fact, no one in the movie takes themselves seriously (except Dimple Kapadia and Vinod Khanna — both are hopelessly miscast).

And I think both urban and rural audiences in India have given two thumbs up to Dabangg because, as my wife remarked, here's a film made for Indians in India, not for Indians in the West. (KJo and SRK, I wish there was a way to make you read this.)

Finally, people my age and older will be grateful to director Abhinav Singh Kashyap for making a movie that reminds us of the films we used to watch when we were kids, and for keeping in mind that we are not now able to sit in a cinema hall for three hours or more and so keeping the duration of Dabangg down to an acceptable two hours. Shukriya, janaab!

• Tehelka managing editor Shoma Chaudhury analyses Salman Khan, the man and the actor, in the wake of Dabangg: "Is the measure of this man just a moustache?"