A Second Week of Teaching

Finally a long and exhausting week of teaching at the local film school came to an end.

I was teaching  an introduction to television, tracing it from history to future prospects to the present day forms and how they have evolved. Its not a terribly tough job. The problem came up because of the usual issues of the level of the students knowledge.

I may have written this before, but it’s a surprising issue for me- the poor level of teaching is something I understand, but the sheer lack of curiosity and a drive for learning is the one troubling me.  I seem to think I spend more time than these guys on learning each day.

OK, all of the students did not enjoy internet access or indeed access to personal computers. Which in itself is a big handicap, but when you don’t have an adequate library with books and magazines at your institution the problems get compounded. I sort of felt sad for the students- they were almost doomed before they began.

But you learn in life that learning and knowledge can become pretty useless in real life when faced with people of sheer talent and an ability to tell stories with visuals that’s instinctive. So maybe some of these guys will have the ability and instincts to create interesting movies and television programming.

I guess that’s their hope too, because on the level of learning they know that the race is already lost.

I tried my level best to help, throwing aside the prepared class notes and just teaching whatever the students needed to learn at that moment. Of course the teaching is in Hindi, with a mix of a few English terminology. Not as bad as my sister teaching Shakespeare in Hindi, but still bad enough for someone like me who has done all his education in English.

At a film school, final learning is making movies- telling stories with visuals. So somehow a shooting was rustled up, but the equipment let us down. Still, the students got a hands-on feel of a shooting, which was a good thing.

I couldn’t help but feel more sad for the students, I think they sensed that and started feeling sad for themselves. It was not a situation I wanted them to be in, but I couldn’t avoid it.

 

The Masters of Cinema

Re-looked at Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low, with my old teacher, specifically with reference to an adaptation of the story that I’m trying to do (more on that separately).

The point of interest, and the point to learn was how the masters did things with elegance and simplicity. When I’m writing the same story (OK I did lose focus somewhere down the line), I’m worrying more about the logic of the story than the story itself! Looking at the masters again helps to focus you back to the story, to the human beings and their emotions as they unfold. Because eventually that is all that matters in a story. As the script writing teachers put it ‘Character=Plot’.

As Kurosawa’s film is now fifty years old, it should look a bit dated with this or that detail, especially as its not a ‘period’ film but a contemporary film from its day. But really speaking, nothing dates in the story, even if you were to remake it today as a period film set in 1963, you’ll do the same.

Then I guess that’s what makes it ‘classic’ and timeless.

My teacher remembered the details of character- his getting in touch with the elements, the wind from the window and water on his face. I remembered the character’s arrogance and bullish confidence in the beginning and gradual humanisation. That transformation of the main character is the story and the plot of Kurosawa’s story.

Looking at Kurosawa’s film, I realised that was the missing link in my story, its more or less where I was stumbling in the story.

That’s the tough part of re-telling classic stories- they force you into plumbing depths of storytelling and filmmaking that you  never knew existed inside you! OK, its tough work reaching there, but you can try.

I had always imagined that even if one were to make mistakes re-telling a classic story, you’d get somewhere- as the depth of humanism in these stories is immense. But when you start thinking in terms of actually re-telling the stories doing justice to them, the possibility exists that you can come damn near to them. Is that scary or exciting?