Fernando Birri, Argentine Filmmaker

Fernando Birri, one of the earliest movie directors of Argentina, sometimes called ‘Father of Latin American Cinema’, once was invited for a talk along with Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer, by a University in Colombia.

After the talk a question-answer session followed. One of the students asked Fernando, “What purpose does utopia serve?”

Fernando, after a pensive pause responded, “I wake up everyday of my life asking myself the same question. ‘What purpose does Utopia serve?’. Utopia afterall is like the horizon. You can never reach the horizon. You walk towards it and it keeps going away. You walk ten steps and horizon goes away by ten steps, at times twenty, at times five. Utopia is no different. You walk towards it, keep walking towards it and it keeps going away. But then I tell myself, that’s the purpose Utopia serves. To make us keep walking. To make us keep walking towards it. Just like the horizon.”

(As told by Eduardo Galeano on Radio 3 of Spain)

Belgian comic artist Peyo (Pierre Culliford) (1924 – 1992) has been touted as the chief creator of Smurfs (or Les Schtroumpfs in French). The character Smurf appeared in a Belgian comic series ‘Johan et Piroulit’ in the episode La Flûte à six trous, in the magazine Le Journal de Spirou in October, 1958. However the idea was born during a casual lunchtime conversation between Peyo (Pierre Culliford) and Andre Franquin (1927 – 1992), another famous Belgian comic artist.

It was summer of 1958 and Peyo and Franquin were having lunch while enjoying their coastal vacations. Suddenly Peyo asked Fran

Pierre Culliford "Peyo" (1924 - 1992)

quin to pass him something but momentarily forgot the name. So he asked, “Give me…….Smurfs“. According to Peyo he had created the word to mean ‘a thin, anything, any thingy’ – whatever. Franquin replied, “Here you have Smurfs, when you are through smurfing, you resmurf it for me”. It became a common joke for them and they spent a few days ‘Smurfing’. In their free time they recited classic french fables by La Fontaine and Racine in their  ‘Smurfed’ versions. It gave them sentences like, “Master Smurf on a smurfed tree had a smurf in his smurf”. And so on…..

Eventually by autumn Smurf had appeared in their comic series and in a few decades it emerged as one of the most successful comic series franchises of all times. An interesting example of where ideas come from.

Berlanga - El Maestro

Learning a new language can open windows to an entirely new world of arts, culture and literature.  I have been tremendously benefited from learning Spanish. One of the things I have discovered is wonderful classic Spanish cinema. I will always be indebted to my Cinema expert friend Raúl, for introducing me, among many other facets of world cinema, to the wonderful world of Luís García Berlanga.

Last year José Luis López Vázquez passed away. Last month we lost Manuel Alexandre and now the sad demise of Berlanga! Three doyens of the previous generation of Spanish cinema have died recently. Berlanga in his own right is the most important director of Pre-Almodóvar generation in Spanish Cinema and according to some critics, the best Spanish director ever. Today, Pedro Almodóvar is the face of Spanish Cinema internationally. But he could hone his skills and express himself in a democratic, modern and economically growing  Spain. Berlanga didn’t have that luxury. Berlanga had to show his art during an era of Franco’s totalitarian regime, when freedom of expression was probably limited.  Probably that need to voice his ideas and severe limitations thereon, taught Berlanga the art of subtlety. That’s what makes his movies so special. He was not someone who wanted to shout out loud, his anger, frustrations and complaints. He was someone who just wanted to whisper. Yes! He just wanted to whisper.  That was his forté. Subtle messages – stark realities wrapped in the cloak of simplicity and satire. He was a wizard of whispers.

I am just supposing that it was restriction and censorship that brought out the best of his craft. I haven’t seen all his movies. Especially the ones he made in post-Franco era.  Out of those ones, I have seen only ‘La Vaquilla’ and so I cannot make an objective analysis. But at least ‘La Vaquilla’ lacked sharpness of El Vedugo, Placido, Los Jueves Milagro etc. Berlanga tried to find stories hidden in the mundane routine of common people. His actors were not like Bardem, Banderas or Penelope; full of glee and glamour. His protagonists were Pepe Isebert, José Luis López Vazquez, Cassen and Manuel Alexandre. These were not stars with crowd pulling charisma and exotic beauty. These were humble actors, who started their careers doing theatre on streets, moving from village to village, entertaining the middle class of a country slowly healing wounds of a cruel civil war. They were ‘cómicos’. They were precisely what Berlanga needed to tell his stories; funny, humble, simple and very good at their craft.

Berlanga’s movies are also like a visual anthropological encyclopaedia for mid-20th century, Spanish society. His movies reflect a deep love for people around him. His movies frequently featured customs, rituals and festivals of people in Spanish villages. Movies like Plácido, Calabuch, La Vaquilla and Los Jueves Milagro have eloquent and elaborate scenes about festivities and rural lives in old Spain. Maybe he knew that someday his country will change. It will change so much that nobody will remember what it was like just half a century ago. That’s why he passionately captured his times, his people and their routine uninteresting lives on screen.

I wouldn’t write here about his movies in detail. Just because I am not sure I know them well enough. I watched ‘El Verdugo’ – arguably Berlanga’s and Spanish film history’s best movie ever – for the first time in 2007, I watched it again in 2009 and finally I watched it last week. Every time I have discovered something new, something fascinating. Same happened when I watched ‘La Vaquilla’ and ‘Plácido’ for the second time. Berlanga’s subtlety is so fantastic, every time you watch his movie you peel off a new layer and a new meaning, a new message emerges from within. His movies were whispers and whispers can be celebrated through whispers only. In the free and democratic world where we live probably Berlanga’s movies may be lost in the maze of memories. But someday, when some curious mind would like to know, ‘what happens when singing is banned?’, one would discover the music in Berlanga’s whispers.

RIP Maestro Berlanga! The wizard of whispers!

It’s impressive that he, without losing patience and perseverance, worked for more than 10 years to construct an entire stadium, players and spectators. He has shown greater patience in filming these very neatly and meticulously designed animations. He was first discovered by bild.de and then by Guardian. England goalie Robert Green provided him the material for the moment of genius. Look at the video attached below and please wait till the Robert Green howler. It’s truly priceless! (Those who understand German, can listen to Moritz himself in an interview..click here).

Video courtsey – www. guardian.co.uk & www.legofussball.eu

Tipping Point talks about sudden widespread diffusion of ideas. In sociology there have been several attempts to study the phenomenon of diffusion of new ideas across people.

However, I came across something quite interesting while watching an extremely entertaining musical comedy, ‘Love me Tonight‘ (1932), directed by Rouben Mamoulian, one of the most innovative Movie Directors ever. The video embedded below is a wonderful example of ‘Diffusion’. It shows wonderfully how a song that was born in a conversation ends up reaching the army, and eventually the princess.

And the song is great! If you don’t start humming the tune after watching the video, I’ll pay your money back. So enjoy the video, while I go back to envying Gladwell.

Josh Brolin playing George W. Bush in Oliver Stone's 'W.'

Art & Objectivity, kind of, don’t go together always. The eternal contrast between science and art claims that science tries to understand the reality, as it is, while art tries to present reality in form of a subjective interpretation by an artist. Can art be objective? If yes, to what extent?

I thought of this, when I read Oliver Stone‘s own take on his recent movie “W.” on Slate. I couldn’t appreciate all the details that he discusses in the article since, I haven’t watched the movie, as it hasn’t been released in Spain yet, and I really don’t know if it will be released soon. But I found his own take on his function and responsibility as a dramatist, quite interesting. Here he explains what is he supposed to do as a Dramatist and that’s why his movie W, is the way it is. It provides some good insight about how a creator thinks!

Following are some quotes from the article…

“….Our purpose was a dramatization. As you know, these quotes and speeches are strung over years and numerous meetings…… As dramatists we simplify and condense,…….. Drama requires a concrete representation of the abstract “

“…As Dramatist we are shaping the pattern that we see repeating itself in the W.’s presidency. “

Very interesting. Quotes, speeches, body language, mannerisms etc, was studied over years, patterns were identified and the character was created. It’s possible for a biopic that some events, some conversations  are included purely for the sake of narrative. That’s where the movie maker needs to present the abstract, but in a simplified way. “W”, despite being a biopic, is very different from any recent movie in the same genre in one respect, i.e. it depicts important events in life of a sitting president. It’s a huge risk. An overcritical or over-dramatized version could written off as a sheer Gag than a serious movie. Probably it’s this risk that makes Stone say the following…

“But as a dramtist, I consider it professional to remove my feelings, to allow the audience to live through him and see as human”

This is what made me think. What does an artist really do? Is it possible for an artist to remove personal feelings from his/her work? Would an artist ever want to remove his/her feelings from the work? I know, Oliver Stone is a skilled artist. He surely has his own style and he leaves his mark on every movie he does, and this movie would be no exception. It was this thought of bringing this element of objectiveness that he attempts to bring to art, which is interesting and makes me curious. To what extend does he succeed in this? I haven’t seen the movie, but I think he has succeeded in it. Because intelligent reviewers have somehow noticed that.

James Rocchi on Cinematical says, “…..you could argue that what it lacks is a point of view…..”; While Patrick Goldstein in LA times blog says ” …“W.” feels flat and strangely passionless, as if it were directed by someone who makes documentaries…”, While Manohla Dargis in New York Times praises the movie in every way but still puts a remark that, “…because he (Oliver Stone) seems keen to weigh in as more evenhanded than usual…”.

Why so? Maybe they all wanted a scathingly critical depiction of man whose tenure as President has created more problem for the world than any other leader in our memory of recent past. Probably they all knew that Oliver Stone is one of the most eloquent critique of George W. Bush and his policies and they were expecting his movie to reflect his feelings rather than an empathatic account of his life.

What does Oliver Stone himself think of his ‘W.’? In the same article, he says, “.…But our film offers, ironically to me, a strange compassion for W, who is so hard to like…“! Maybe, that’s what the critics didn’t expect! But still an interesting experiment in objectivity by a talented artist!

Paco Moreno (As a policeman) and Me during the shoot

However working in this movie turned out to be a great learning experience. For the first time I was doing something where no text was involved. It played an important role in the character-building. Students of Stanislavsky always advocate actions as the prime mover of character building. However here we had no other option but to rely on actions to build the character. It came as a surprise to me, how little attention we pay to our body in general. More we thought about each shot and its aesthetics, more we started paying attention to all the minute movements of our bodies. Co-actor Paco Moreno was a great help. He has already done some popular comic shows and he came up with some wonderful suggestions. There were lots of scenes where we were supposed to run across the beach and at one point I was conscious of even amount of sand that was being unsettled by my steps. I am sure in a normal talkie, I wouldn’t have thought of all this.

I also realized why during silent era most of the actors were directors too,

During one of the Chase sequences

especially those who relied heavily on action comedy. In this genre of cinema, it is extremely important for the director to know physical limits of the actor and to use it to the fullest. During this short we all were exploring our limits. Fortunately, the director Lluis was open to new ideas and he allowed us to improvise a bit at some stages and I guess that worked well. But the most important aspect was choreographing fight and chase sequences. I wouldn’t reveal much about them but let me tell you, it was tough, demanding and extremely satisfactory.

This short film gave me a chance to meet some extremely talented artists like Paco Moreno, Lluis Hereu, and Rebla who was assistant director of this short. But above everything else it reinforced the idea in my mind that Charlie Chaplin is the greatest Movie-maker of all times.

However, he impresses profoundly, when he says, ” How does one get ideas? By sheer perseverance to the point of madness. One must have a capacity to suffer anguish and sustain enthusiasm over a long period of time.”

Well, most of this, we have heard elsewhere in one form or the other. The only reason, why I wanted to share this is because, it comes from one of the most creative geniuses of the human history. Economics tells us that access to unique information creates an advantage. But advancements in technology have nullified this information advantage. It’s hard to retain unique information about anything. Hence, ideas and ability to generate them have assumed much greater importance as sources of advantage. This is where most of us are struggling. Be it movies, literature or business, being original is the biggest challenge. The fastfood lifestyle has had a detrimental effect on our patience and attention spans. Hence, the reliance on sequels, imitations, copies, and adaptations. The key to victory is,  as Chaplin would say ‘perseverance to the point of madness’.

(Thanks Prof. Lee Hansen for suggestions and precise quotes from the English (original) version of the autobiography)