29 July 2009

1.What is your opinion on suicide?
Ans: I love life too much to have an opinion on it. No matter what the compulsion is I cannot relate to that emotion mostly because by nature I have got a streak in me to challenge any kind of adversity.

2. Can you give me an example to differentiate between knowledge, intelligence, genius and wisdom?
Ans: Knowledge is to know that a snake contains poison; intelligence is to figure out what the poison contains and how it can kill you. Genius is to create an anti venom. Wisdom is to know all this but yet not to fuck around with the snake just in case the first three go wrong.

3. How do you think promos help a film?
Ans: They can both help and damage depending on individual cases. They create an awareness and prepare the audience to watch the movie in a certain programmed mindset. The problem with this is even the makers many times do not realize what mind set they are preparing out there with the audience.

For instance King Kong’s campaign in its promos and hoardings had a single point agenda that of exciting the people to come and watch a giant gorilla. As this is drilled into all concerned for months by the time the movie releases we all rush in and can’t wait to see the gorilla but instead we are subjected to nearly 45 minutes story without Kong making an appearance.

Why people would be restless in those 45minutes is because the promos prepared us to see Kong and not a story.

In my college days me and my friends went to see a Malayalam film starring Sridevi. The poster had Sridevi with her saree riding up half her thighs and that was the reason we were first in line. The theatre was packed and the film started and it turned out to be a very emotional and tragic and extremely well made film. But the point is we didn’t come to see that. One hour into the film when a scene came where Sridevi was finally wearing the same saree as that of in the poster there was a rustle in the theatre as everybody became high alert. In the scene her legs were shown for exactly one and half seconds in the situation before the film becomes super serious once again till the end. All of us almost wept at the betrayal of that poster.

Now the interesting point is if the distributors put a poster of a close-up of a teary eyed Sridevi instead of her legs we would have been in a mindset of watching an emotional story and then her leg could have come as a bonus if at all or maybe not even noticed as we would be immersed in the story. But looking at the poster of her legs from the still photograph taken at the time of that one and half second shot can create a hurricane in the minds of a particular audience. Anyway this is just one instance I wanted to give in the context of how a campaign can damage. Will write an article on this soon.

4. Why do guys at PFC hate you so much?
Ans: I don’t know who PFC guys are. But I have realized that pretty much most hate me because they feel that I am the most careless and dispassionate filmmaker ever and inspite of my failures I seemingly continue to do whatever I please and they themselves don’t seem to get anywhere.

In short when people hate anyone who they are not directly connected to, they hate them for being what they dream to become but can’t become.

P.S: You should check out an earlier article of mine on this blog “I love the hate”.

5. What did you think of “The Dark Knight”?
Ans: I prefer the Jack Nicholson’s version.

6. How do you balance between your ego and pride?
Ans: I have neither. All I have is determination. I know that I have come in alone and I will go alone so whatever I do I have to do it alone. Ego, pride, arrogance etc are words given by other’s to describe their view of this aspect of mine. For myself I am just living my own life because it’s my own life.

7. How were you commuting between Panjagutta and St.Mary’s School in Secunderabad?
Ans: By Bus no.36A

8. Does a background score play continuously in your head?
Ans: Most of the time yes.

9. What is best piece of advice you ever received?
Ans: I never take advice. Since no two human beings can ever be on the same physical, intellectual or emotional planes and also on top of that in life everything is pretty much so unpredictable and works at random it is stupid for one person to listen to another person’s advice.

10. How do you measure your intelligence?
Ans: By looking at the degree of success of the end result after its application.

11. What was your favourite subject in school/college?
Ans: None… except for a few chapters in History, that too for their dramatic story value.

12. My professor used to say that while writing an article on a research paper you should maintain “One para, one idea”. I see that happening in your writings too.
Ans: That’s perfectly said and I think it’s true for scenes in a film too. But I never thought about this consciously till you mentioned it now.

13. What is the difference between struggling and suffering?
Ans: In the course of an attempt to achieve something, struggling at most will incur physical effort and maybe sometimes physical pain which cannot be controlled by you. Suffering is a mental pain you yourself will put yourself through while doing the same.

14. How much were you influenced by “Mad Magazine”?
Ans: Most of the lessons of life, I learnt from “Mad Magazine”. Not only that but if you look at the content of most jokes very seriously there is more philosophy and psychological inputs hidden in there than all of Ayn Rand’s and Nietzsche’s books put together.

15. What is your opinion on the gay legislation?
Ans: I love women way too much to think about gays.

16. Chill budd… Don’t take our nasty comments seriously. Just like you we also make some humour to spice things up.
Ans. :)

17. If we were as also high level pundits as you why would we be wasting our time here?
Ans: Point taken and I thank you for this extraordinarily high level understanding and I swear on Steven Spielberg that I mean it.

18. Finally after all the comments, fights, pokes, choos, something got bottled up and you had to let it go in Answer to Question 21. Am I right?
Ans: I am choked.

16. If you don’t like me bashing your work I will walk out. But some day you will realize that I was on your side.
Ans: My eyes are filled with tears.

17. Do you think only some people are born special?
Ans: NO. All living beings are born with very individualistic and special attributes. But then the surroundings and surrounding factors stop them from realizing that for themselves or worse makes them realize it wrongly. A deer might have a running power, a lion its roar, an eagle can fly, somebody might have intelligence, someone else beauty or sexuality, someone else nothing but even nothing can be very special. The secret of succeeding with life and not necessarily in life as they both are very different as in the former is from your point of view and the latter from the others point of view is to discover, understand and put your very own individual attributes to a very best and judicious use without guilt but with a very proper understanding.

Also if you look at it the only true assets you ever really have are time and feelings and both of them are perishable. So while they are still there you should not make a mistake of wasting a single second or an iota of them and this purely depends upon your own understanding in discovering what is special in you which obviously will predominantly come from a mindset which is uncorrupted by religion, social programming and more dangerously by your own escapist thoughts of blaming it on destiny and other’s actions.

Am just posting here a mail sent to me by Mohan Krishna, my college friend, on his very interesting observations on some points in my blog.

Hi Ramgopal,

Sculpting emotions is an apt description, but it is the intensity of thought that makes the process truthful and leads to a great outcome. When I say truthful, it is truthful to emotion rather than to perceived reality (as they call in alternative reality cinema). Knowing you at the time, I can see the scene in Shiva had that intensity behind and the result had to be good whether real or fake. I imagine it is the same for the kid scene in CUJO, the guy would have gone through that in mind several times and had that intensity before embarking on creating it. This intensity of thought helps to pick details required to be truthful to emotion in cinema. The idea of being Imaginative to the Whole and Truthful to Detail works in most professions. (including your abandoned profession of designing structures). Now knowing your interest in forests, AGYAAT should be a good one and after a long time waiting for a film release.

The background music item is spot on. Before the music to be seen as an art form, the sensing of sound is very much real and the impression it makes on any one is also real. Just to give you an example, when I moved to Sydney, first few days I listened this whistling noise from the hot water tap in the shower (subtle but whistling). That was the time when I was trying to settle in a new place. But whenever, I listen the similar sound anywhere else later in life, I am reminded distinctly my first few days in Sydney and all the tribulations of migration. Probably if the original sounds of water hammer were to be annoying, that would not have recorded on my brain as I would have brushed it away. It was neither loud nor irritating, instead at the time; I felt it as a sign of developed city where water pressures are good enough to cause water hammer and that impression remained.

The point is sound is very much an active communication, before languages were to be developed in time, I am sure sound played an important role in communication. Over period of time, many a variety of sounds have symbolized different feelings. This has been used over generations and carried on by the exponents of music to convey the same. The beauty of music is that the listener does not need to have that understanding especially when combined with visuals. As Ilayaraja mentioned, that the choice for Shiva background was made to portray something very topical to the scene. Even though none of the guys listening need to know the very meaning he implied, most would have felt it in the sense that there is unease in the fight as people involved are very fresh and unwilling but spontaneous participants in the act. It is this description that is required is superfluous as communication through sound is more primitive. (I am told even animals produce more milk while listening to music and this has been studied in some research, probably different kind may react differently to different sounds) It is funny with communication, any of medium will have limitation in conveying the intended meaning.

It is a wonder that sounds do convey any subject and it is because they had such longstanding common impressions on mankind. This brings me to the subject of your bloggers’ understanding of the topics you raise and irritations you have now and then with it. Here again, I feel it is the medium ie language that is the culprit. I am surprised we continue to communicate without inventing many more words than we do. I will give an example, when you say copy from this or that on any subject; I am not sure how it is understood. The impression or true meaning of copying to most in India is more like copying to overcome an hurdle, say pass an exam or whatever, so it is always understood subjectively with a judgment, which is not your meaning of copying. In the West, people use the phrase all the time that we are not to reinvent the wheel (which is very much absent in work culture in India). Knowing you, when you pick pieces here and there to use in your work, I understand how much you liked the subject and that is the inspiration for you to create in your films. Probably an apt word will be CRINSPIRED (creatively inspired) rather than COPIED.

Regards

Mohan Kishna

Other articles by Ram Gopal Varma:
The Psychological aspect of BGM

Note: Thanks to Ram Gopal Varma for giving us special permission to republish his blogs in idlebrain.com (visit rgvzoomin.com to visit Ram Gopal Varma's blog)