I’m currently in Pune, Maharastra, India, and the last week has seen riots in the streets twice over Facebook and Whatsapp posts. So the atmosphere is very much that the social media has stepped out into the streets from the computers or phones where it usually resides. I’ve always been a believed that anything on social media is like speaking in public, one needs to be aware of what one says and its possible implications. But how do you explain that to someone who is sitting in comparative isolation and feels that by posting something on social media, he/she is simply ‘expressing their opinion’, which is their birthright in a democracy.
The point came home to me when assessing a student project, on a rather controversial subject. A very well made, mature film. But a film made by a student who typically feels that a student film has no ‘social impact’. The problem was- do you now act like Censor Board and ‘ban’ the work, sort of suppress it from circulation. Or do you help the student arrive at a realisation of his position and work with him to sort of ‘neutralise’ the impact of the work?
As the assessing Jury, my colleagues and I opted to take the latter path.
Which turned out to be trickier than we thought. Without going into details, lets say the student filmmaker now has a chance to do something about the social impact of his film.
Made me wonder if all filmmakers are actually aware of the social implications of their work? A lot of them are aware, in fact they play on the expectations that their carefully worked out images and sounds have. I’m thinking of Lars Von Trier’s work where he is acutely aware of and indeed playing with the way society at large and cinema going audiences perceive of his work.
But in India, with our hugely diverse population with its diverse beliefs, differing levels of tolerance, the role gets very complicated. Its very difficult to predict with the stories that filmmakers tell as to how people will react to them. There are alternatives in terms of filmmaking, to make work like our classical ‘commercial movie’ that is designed to offend no one. But is that the only alternative?
Or do we really need to think about this, we are a democracy, so you can think or write anything.
I wish I knew the answers, if indeed they exist. Seems to me that you need to be constantly defining and re-defining your boundaries. Tricky, very tricky, but the only option to positing a single, monolithic position as the truth.
The point came home to me when assessing a student project, on a rather controversial subject. A very well made, mature film. But a film made by a student who typically feels that a student film has no ‘social impact’. The problem was- do you now act like Censor Board and ‘ban’ the work, sort of suppress it from circulation. Or do you help the student arrive at a realisation of his position and work with him to sort of ‘neutralise’ the impact of the work?
As the assessing Jury, my colleagues and I opted to take the latter path.
Which turned out to be trickier than we thought. Without going into details, lets say the student filmmaker now has a chance to do something about the social impact of his film.
Made me wonder if all filmmakers are actually aware of the social implications of their work? A lot of them are aware, in fact they play on the expectations that their carefully worked out images and sounds have. I’m thinking of Lars Von Trier’s work where he is acutely aware of and indeed playing with the way society at large and cinema going audiences perceive of his work.
But in India, with our hugely diverse population with its diverse beliefs, differing levels of tolerance, the role gets very complicated. Its very difficult to predict with the stories that filmmakers tell as to how people will react to them. There are alternatives in terms of filmmaking, to make work like our classical ‘commercial movie’ that is designed to offend no one. But is that the only alternative?
Or do we really need to think about this, we are a democracy, so you can think or write anything.
I wish I knew the answers, if indeed they exist. Seems to me that you need to be constantly defining and re-defining your boundaries. Tricky, very tricky, but the only option to positing a single, monolithic position as the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment