Great Video from Stage6
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
What looks good in literature but not in movies?
I would start by referring to this passage out of Indian author Munshi Premchand's story डामुल का क़ैदी. The context is that a wealthy businessman (सेठ) goes to prison after confessing a crime when he could have easily avoided jail using his money. When he comes back from prison to meet his wife and son, who have been through much hardships while is away, this is what he says to his wife -
सेठजी ने श्रद्धा-भरी आँखों से देखकर कहा - भगवान् हमारे परम सुह्रद हैं। वह जो कुछ करते हैं, प्राणियों के कल्याण के लिये करते हैं। हम समझते हैं, हमारे साथ विधि ने अन्याय किया; पर यही हमारी मूर्खता है। विधि अबोध बालक नहीं है, जो अपने ही सिरजे हुए खिलौने को तोड़-फोड़ कर आनन्दित होता है। न वह हमारा शत्रु है, जो हमारा अहित करने में सुख मानता है। वह परम दयालु है, मंगल-रूप है। यही अवलम्ब था, जिसने निर्वासन-काल में मुझे सर्वनाश से बचाया। इस आधार के बिना कह नहीं सकता, मेरी नौका कहाँ कहाँ भटकती और उसका अन्त क्या होता।
A very idealistic statement, I must say, where he is preaching that he got what he deserved. This statement comes out beautifully amidst a story based on principles of honesty, truthfulness and belief in god. If the same statement came out in a movie, a soap or a magazine article, it would have looked so horribly cheesy and emotionally overdone. Why is that so?
May be everybody has respect for morals and high principles. Such principles depict what people like to see, not what they want to be. Being so idealistic seems uncool and impractical. Saying something like that could be the last statement of a healthy social life. Therefore, when you listen to such a dialogue in theater with your friends sitting besides you, you take the lead in dismissing it as boring and cheesy and put a stamp onto the stereotype the you prefer to settle in.
When you are sitting alone and reading a popular magazine and come across something like this, you will still not like it. It wouldn't seeming fitting among the Page-3 articles and political propagandas of a commercial magazine. It will seem like a cheap stunt from the magazine to push a false image of itself onto you. But, if this was in magazines, 50 years back, you might have liked it. It would have come from writers who believed in all this. In literature, it comes from the most idealistic characters and you don't feel cheated or being dealt in lies. You believe that such a person would say something like that from the bottom of his heart. You share a moment of joy with the author and appreciate the mutual liking for good characters.
Turn the page and move on in life.
सेठजी ने श्रद्धा-भरी आँखों से देखकर कहा - भगवान् हमारे परम सुह्रद हैं। वह जो कुछ करते हैं, प्राणियों के कल्याण के लिये करते हैं। हम समझते हैं, हमारे साथ विधि ने अन्याय किया; पर यही हमारी मूर्खता है। विधि अबोध बालक नहीं है, जो अपने ही सिरजे हुए खिलौने को तोड़-फोड़ कर आनन्दित होता है। न वह हमारा शत्रु है, जो हमारा अहित करने में सुख मानता है। वह परम दयालु है, मंगल-रूप है। यही अवलम्ब था, जिसने निर्वासन-काल में मुझे सर्वनाश से बचाया। इस आधार के बिना कह नहीं सकता, मेरी नौका कहाँ कहाँ भटकती और उसका अन्त क्या होता।
A very idealistic statement, I must say, where he is preaching that he got what he deserved. This statement comes out beautifully amidst a story based on principles of honesty, truthfulness and belief in god. If the same statement came out in a movie, a soap or a magazine article, it would have looked so horribly cheesy and emotionally overdone. Why is that so?
May be everybody has respect for morals and high principles. Such principles depict what people like to see, not what they want to be. Being so idealistic seems uncool and impractical. Saying something like that could be the last statement of a healthy social life. Therefore, when you listen to such a dialogue in theater with your friends sitting besides you, you take the lead in dismissing it as boring and cheesy and put a stamp onto the stereotype the you prefer to settle in.
When you are sitting alone and reading a popular magazine and come across something like this, you will still not like it. It wouldn't seeming fitting among the Page-3 articles and political propagandas of a commercial magazine. It will seem like a cheap stunt from the magazine to push a false image of itself onto you. But, if this was in magazines, 50 years back, you might have liked it. It would have come from writers who believed in all this. In literature, it comes from the most idealistic characters and you don't feel cheated or being dealt in lies. You believe that such a person would say something like that from the bottom of his heart. You share a moment of joy with the author and appreciate the mutual liking for good characters.
Turn the page and move on in life.
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