Deterioating cinema

Last year, Indian film industry celebrated its 100 years. A 100 years is a really long time. A long journey, to improve and become the best. Unfortunately this hasn't been the case.

I am not a film lover, but i do occasionally watch a good movie(Sometimes horrible ones). The film industry is the most powerful force in today's time. Last night i watched a movie HUGO, quoting from the movie

"if you wonder where your dreams come from, look around. This is where they are made."

How true!, unfortunately the dreams we are made to have are quite ridiculous at times.

Well look at the standard of our movies today, there is hardly any meaning. Most of the movies have a standard flow, with some minor tweaks here and there. The only reason they are watched is cause of the publicity done, and money spent on the marketing.

Talking of film, I cannot go without talking about the brilliance of Guru Dutt and his work. 2 of his most notable works are PYAASA and KAAGAZ KE PHOOL. Though the story flow is more or less similar to those today, these movies are capable of conveying emotions, the stories have a strong meaning behind them. The camera work is at its best for a black and white film, anyone interested in photography will tell you how difficult and brilliant his work was.

Another closly knit feature of our films is the music industry. The songs these days lack meaning(Again). well i cannot comment on the music since tastes vary, but personally music is attrocious-excluding maybe a A.R Rehman and a few other artists. but on the whole the ugly out weighs the beauty. In the gone by days, music coming from a movie would have been like a trade mark, you would find people humming it all the time. Even to this day i find people attached to old songs more than the new.(Damn-we have more re-mixes than originals i guess:P )

Staying on the topic of film industry, I happened to watch a TED video here. Something we all must think before letting our kids watch the movies of today.

Another point which i would like to add which was not covered in the talk, is the fact that movies revolve around love & sex like a cycle. Now a young mind is incapable of understanding the meaning of such heavy emotions, they tend to lose their childhood very soon, and also fail to understand emotions and bonds, life becomes like another movie for them.

I think you can tell why Dil chahta hai and zindagi na milegi dobara were such great movies.(just talking about the famous ones, I'm sure loads of small budget films are better than the commercial ones)

Our films must focus more on sharing, and leading like Luke and Dorothy, to teach kids and people humanity, to teach them human bonds. Films like books shape us into who we become, they shape our character. I'm sure each one of us wants to leave behind a world better than the one left for us. I am also sure that there are films, which are better than what we see today, but they just don't see the light of the day. The only way to spread such films is by sharing, no theatre would put up films which don't make money and don't have good marketing, let us maybe start a open film movement here. I have heard of a country where you can borrow a camera make a small movie and share it with everyone. Many of us want to make a movie, we want to tell a story something closer to life than what we see in Films.