Tarantino- Film making – FulMarxx/100

Most of us love watching good movies. How obvious statement is that… but the truth is that its just a form of entertainment for us, and we somehow manage to leave out the “art” aspect of it. Why we do that is a question many will choose to answer differently. I accidentally stumbled upon this question when I had lots of time and I decided to watch everything contained in the DVD which no one is really much concerned about- the special features. I distinctly remember the movie: The Basic Instinct. After watching the special features which had making of the movie, producer notes and such, I realized that what I had seen was not merely a 120 minute collection of scenes and dialogs , but it was an expression of some one that was nicely wrapped up with all the necessary decorations to make it pop into life.

After that, I make it a point to watch all the special features, gathering trivia of all the movies I like, specially Tarantino, from where this piece draws its title. I have come to appreciate many of the movie critics terms like “bad editing” , “good story line”, “directorial indulgence” and such. But one documentary that really added perspective to my vision was “Spielberg on Spielberg”. Here the man himself speaks about his movies, how he has portrayed modern day terrorism and its effects in the War of the Worlds and such social issues in other movies. You really appreciate a director as an artist. Its amazing what a good director can do with an inspiration that might otherwise pass as a trivial event for some one else. Talking about directors, I also enjoyed reading Mahesh Bhatt’s diary entries of the time he spent with the renegade philosopher U.G. Krishnamurthy ( not the G. Krishnamurthy who is the more famous one. Trivia- U.G. gained much of his fame actually bashing the hypocritical discourses of G. Krishnamurthy).

I have always thought that inspiration is a useless thing if it does not transform into action. So I have been well influenced by all these movie makers and I am ready to take it to the next level. What have I done? The most I could do for a start was try and dig out some aesthetic taste within myself using a digital camera. I completely lack in education on photography, but with whatever chance I get, I try and capture some image in the best way I think possible. I have read almost all literature I found out of my google search query “digital photography”. But believe me, in this age and day, if you want to get serious about anything- from a good cuppa to a relationship, you gotta dole out the dough. So my reluctance on funding my new found passion by buying Nikon N40 or something has resulted in the stunted growth of my hobby.

Just at such a cross roads was I, when I heard from my old time friend. He considers me a friend-philosopher-guide so that makes things more interesting, which I will explain later. This friend of mine goes by the name Shiladitya Bora. He was my junior in hostel. I always found him intriguing. Sometimes I thought that he had some creativity in himself but he landed up in an engineering college due to some mishap, and this has rendered him confused and wasted. Sometimes I thought that engineering was something he was using to cover up some diabolical plan he had hatched to take over the world or something…hehe But by the end of our time there, I thought that he had been always been heading in a direction which none of us really understood, hence the various incorrect conclusions. He was set to take on his creativity and out it on visual display- sketches, paintings, still photographs, moving pictures, MOVIES…. now with the advantage of hindsight I know that these come straight out of a director’s work board! And at that time I thought that he was merely flirting with different kinds of arts… naive was not I??

So Shila comes up to me and says I have started this thing to get entries for short films… why dont you make a movie or something? Frankly for some one like just the thought of putting an amateur effort at an unknown art that we are not sure exists, for display and public approval (critical basing?) is intimidating enough to scare me off. But I have started thinking up of ideas and will try and do something. I am sure Shila will help me out and this will be interesting. Now the part about friend-philosopher-guide. I have been playing the pedantic to Shila since I know him… now I will have to learn from him… a role reversal that I am really looking forward to. He is a nice guy and I am sure he will keep the casualties to minimum… hehe

Good luck to me…

Piyush Patra, Minneapolis, US of A .
(re-posted with permission from Piyush Patra)