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The Godard of small things

Updated on: 05 September,2010 10:38 AM IST  | 
Paromita Vohra | paromita.vohra@mid-day.com

I've been laughing out loud every now and then at the plaintive tone in the American Academy of Motion Pictures' statement that it is "unable to contact" Jean-Luc Godard, to tell him he is getting an honorary Oscar

The Godard of small things

I've been laughing out loud every now and then at the plaintive tone in the American Academy of Motion Pictures' statement that it is "unable to contact" Jean-Luc Godard, to tell him he is getting an honorary Oscar.

Poor things are calling and faxing but cannot raise a response. Godard opposes the Internet, but he probably reads the papers, or talks to people who do, so it would appear he's doing it, let's see, on purpose?

I'm not dissing the Academy despite its preference for maudlin spectacles of the indomitable human spirit. I have no snobbery about Hollywood's well-crafted genre films and often find something to look forward to there. After all Coppola, the other honoree this year, made The Godfather in Hollywood. But I like knowing that being acknowledged by the mainstream isn't the centre or the boundary of the universe for everyone. That there is room for other greatness.

It's hard to imagine turning down recognition ufffd even from the very institutions we've deplored. Supposedly radical Indian indie directors slobber over Filmfare awards. The government lauds a film about farmer suicides that criticizes the government ufffd and the producers are chuffed. Maybe it's na ve to ask, er, was that the goal? Such a question is seen as outdated idealism.

The world no longer sees non-conformity as glamorous. People are outraged if someone does not want mainstream recognition ufffd their first response being ufffd who does s/he think s/he is? It's like being a terrorist, not standing up for the national anthem. If Satyajit Ray makes a beautiful film, they are not proud, but annoyed ufffd they insist it's an anti national plot to show Indian poverty (and then what ufffd get a World Bank loan?). Perhaps they feel it makes their choices look mediocre.

Godard made the pathbreaking Breathless, a film of exhilarating cinematic energy and intellectual charm, in 1960, and went on to direct numerous landmark films including Le Petit Soldat and Weekend. Now 80, the filmmaker's latest film premiered at Cannes this year. He didn't attend. He has made 70 films, all with small budgets. Instead of becoming more accessible with success, his films have gotten increasingly esoteric.

It's easier to stay small and stick to your beliefs, if you haven't tasted success. But to choose to stay on the margins when success has danced before you with its various veils of money, sexiness, power and ease, is another thing. Such people are considered curmudgeons or nutcases. But only people on the margins produce work of steady quality and freshness that questions convention ufffd and redefines convention. In 1960, the jump cuts Godard (and others in the Nouvelle Vague) used, seemed outrageous and provocatively 'bad' filmmaking. Today, it's a normal part of the filmmaking vocabulary seen in ads, music videos and features.

Three years after I was blown away by Breathless, I was sent off to a tiny place called Bhim, to deliver
something to a farmer's union called MKSS. There I met Aruna Roy, who'd been one of the first women in the IAS but had quit the civil service to work with the union. Today, thanks to them, RTI does not first call to mind Ratan Tata Institute, but the Right to Information Act; one of the most widely-used democratic instruments. But back then in 1993, who knew? I'm sure many thought them nutcases.

These are people who define success as strengthening the small margin to grow big ideas in. Without them, there'd be no artistic innovation, no political breakthroughs, none of the change that makes society grow. That is to say, if Godard did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Here's to the nutcases.


Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. She runs Devi Pictures production company. Reach her at www.parodevi.com



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