Opinions and Judgments – Part 2

So we were talking about Opinions and Judgments. We see a lot of people bash a movie or particular actor once they see a film or even during the promotion of a film. I will not take that into either opinions or judgments. They are too strong words for it. It should be seen as frustration of a fan. How many times we have seen a regional language film and felt “wow”. OK. If going wow is a big thing for your standards, how many times have you found a regional language film’s story and treatment as original. I am not saying that no regional films are fit to be wow-ed by the audience. But they are very few and far between.

Leon Trotsky once said that “Along with Churches and bars, Cinema will compete to get the attention of youngsters”. He was right. I am not sure about the churches though. When there is ultimate demand there is ultimate supply. But do we have enough thinking directors? There is a good word, I learnt few days back. It is called Deindividuation. This thing can happen anywhere. A whole generation of youngsters are joining the herd involuntarily. And the worst part of it is they are willing to do that shelling out the money which they hard earned.

These poor movies can easily make the good movies vanish and it is happening in an alarming pace. Unless or until if people voice out their dissent against such movies and artists, it is not going to stop. Their comments can be sarcastic, opinionated or even pure evil. But to fight a bigger evil, these are necessary.

Everybody knew about the oppression of Stalinist era in Russia. The literature, the movies and even the small magazines were censored and only what the government or collective decision of the politburo reached the people. Here is what Isaiah Berlin, a westerner who was in trip to Russia had to tell about them.

“The rigid censorship, which, so much else, suppressed pornography, trash and low grade thrillers such as fill railway bookstalls in the West, served to make the response of the Soviet Readers and theater audiences purer, more direct and naive than ours; I noticed that at performances of Shakespeare or Sheridan members of the audience, some of them obviously country folk, were apt to react to the action on the stage or to lines spoken by the actors… with loud expressions of approval and disapproval; the excitement generated was, at times very strong, and, to a visitor from the West, both unusual and touching”

If we can get such a quality of viewing and constructive criticism from our audience, then we can say that our censor serves some purpose. But no, we have opinions on everything. When people are ready to throw stones at every step you take and criticize every move you make, will you be able to do anything? That is what is happening in our country and there is no hope of change in near future.