Camera Buff and Breathless
The Reshmi Kbabs of KNags Karim's Mezbaan were terrible. First they didn't look like Reshmi Kababs, they look like Seekh Kababs and I doubt if they had even 10 gms of chicken in them. Four such Seekhs for Rs 110 (plus tax) is way too much, I should have gone to Darya Ganj Motimahal as originally planned. By the time I ate dinner, the Rumalis had also become hard. Anyhow, watched Camera Buff after dinner till about 5 AM. This was probably Kieslowski's second major film after No End, and in which, Zanussi has a major role. It's a meditation on documentary film making and about the darker sides of the invasiveness of the probing eye of the camera. The main actor is Jerzy Stuhr, who acted in Three Colours: White, which we didn't like but many others do. Stuhr acts a bot like Sadhu Mehr (or the other way round), that inherent hesitant goodness. There is a Zanussi interview among special features too where he laments the late recognition of K in what he called "the rich Europe". One of the criticisms levelled against K, according to Z, was that he was too local, I guess that would be a general western critic of works of art or even academics that they don;t understand by their conventions, it's a Catholic mindset, I feel. It'd be true even in a scientific field of enquiry such as Syntax, let's say, what Probal does (= writes) would be considered too local and individualistic. And there's no place for that in Science, in fact, that was one my most damning criticism of Probal and his style, this with the knowledge that he was challenging a set of predominantly western conventions. That was all fine, I had suggested (in writing), but the question remained about the final goal of academic writing, is to simply challenge a certain set of conventions or is to further the body of knowledge? There, Probal's style of writing failed, I'd reasoned. He didn't take it mildly at all, and our relation over the years suffered. IN a way, he was right to challenge a set of conventions merely because Syntax is not such a hard science, in fact that is why a criticism such as a piece of writing being too local/ individualistic can be levelled against such style. And this is more pronounced in fields that are not even soft science, e.g., the Arts. Poststructuralism has made a lot of the local, and found any flavour of the universal in the the local as positively problematic. So in fact, a critique of K based on the local that was presumably made in France of the 60s, sounds unrealistic. Again, however, I remember Misi's comments on one of my DP papers, he'd said: it's well done, if only you had some more discussion of how to connect this to other findings on DPs. Unfortunately, the so-called rigour of scientific enquiry or rather writing, is 50% labour rather than any originality. Plus the western mindset which refuses to do any extra work, the connections, the relevance has to made explicit. It's like the little booklet produced by the UCL placement office on how to produce an effective resume -- there should be a section in any CV, according to the booklet, which will specify (have 3-4 lines of prose) the skills one has; in short, everything must be presented in a form where the reader doesn't have to do any extra work, i.e., won;t have to figure out the skills from the experience of the candidate. There are two reasons for this "overspecification" mania; one, it would save time to scan the documents and two, the recruiting company/ institute can't afford to find skilled workers to figure out the skills of the candidate from their experience. Both reasons actually point to the inevitable belief in the motto "everything must fit into an acceptable pattern" in the running of the western society. Zanussi's point in fact was the indubitable universality to be found in K's themes and treatment, and certainly that is the case not only for K but also most of the acclaimed directors, certainly Ray, but why should that be the case always. Z's critique of the of the rich European's critique of K, is also problematic in the same sense as viewing a work of art from a conventional, acceptable set of rules. Why should the universal must always be present in the local for something to be great? Isn't the whole point of the postmodern critique of the unifying (and therefore the obliteration of differences) effect of the universal? Look, given our ways of looking and summarising, we are going to some way or the other relate to the theme, but is the treatment of the theme screaming to orient our gaze in that direction? I don't think K's films or Ghatak's films do that in any way. And Ray's surely do, he seems to in fact labour the point of universality in his themes through his treatment, and that's where I think Zanussi is wrong about Kieslowski.
Cooked Baigan subzi for lunch, the rest was made up of leftovers. Watched Breathless with lunch, Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in the ground breaking first film of Godard (1959). This was the year of Pather Panchali as well and in fact, it seems, Truffaut's 400 Blows won him the best director award in 1959 at Cannes. JPB is brilliant in this rather breathless film and JS is delectably beautiful. The commentary by some American film critic called David Steritt is stupid and I couldn't listen to it beyond 15 minutes. In fact, I can see a pattern in my critique of Z and roughness of the this film. Ghatak's films (and certainly Godard's) were rough in that sense, a lot of the film making was in the process, not that they were not planned but they were not planned to the extent that the planning becomes sickening. This is a treatment where the art is taken beyond concerns of universality or locality (BTW, a great theme in Syntax, i.e., in the realms of Minimalism, the ugly face of globality is brought home in a debate that may not directly connect to my concerns here but one which is not fat off) and is defined from the momentousness of the process of making that art. However, the theme finds more of an interest in Ghatak compared to Godard perhaps, but the concern with the process as the defining moment of the making of the art is echoed in both. I find this supremely important, even when it's taken to an extreme, like so many popular moves of the 20s onwards. And I really think that this is where formalism scores a big point, perhaps even Russian formalism, but formalism in field in general. Otherwise it remains an empirical endeavour if it only responds to the senses and touches your heart, so to speak. One can, I believe, have the same effect, by pure formalism. The rationalistic project in its current form therefore highlights the structural definition of an art, the debate about local versus global is misplaced in this context. I make this point very clearly since many of us still haven't got it that there's nothing if there's isn't any formalism. My only problem with Sociolinguistics is exactly this, doing something for the society (since many sociolinguists genuinely believe they do "good" to the society by practising Sociolinguistics) and therefore 'worthwhile', is cannot be Sociolinguistics but activism; they can co-exist (like Sociology and Social Work) but are not the same in the same way that making Science popular is not Science itself and cannot be. One is concerned with improving upon the current existent situation, and the other is an attempt to improve upon, and therefore, further, the body of knowledge. Oil and water as Boas and Sapir don't mix as I said in my Emeneau paper.
Anyway, somehow felt sad and extremely lonely by the evening and cursed the few left around me who could have understood this current situation. Spoke to father, his condition improving, the extra amount paid at the hospital before discharge has now been sanctioned by the Insurance company. He plans to visit the doc on Wednesday to sort out the alleged botch up in the surgery. He is not a powerful man but he isn't a scared man either. We don't tolerate cowards in our family. Sometime I wonder how all four of us got this extreme courage in our individual fight against the system. Each of us did and won in their own ways. He continues to do so in his current frail manner at 73.
Went out to but some essentials first (soap, allout, oil, potatoes) and then took an aimless walk. The dearth of a decent place to walk or to sit quietly for 15 minutes around this area in the North makes me mad, everyday. Walked up to Samrat, no ice cream today, and suddenly bought off 3 class XII NCERT textbooks from one those shops there, Pol Sci, History, Sociology! I had read about the PolSci book in the newspaper while in Calcutta. Walked ahead further, even participated briefly in an altercation between a passenger and the Auto driver, supporting the driver since the accusation was that the passenger was using the tu form. On the way back, chanced upon a tea stall opposite the stretch between Nulife and the Sikkim restaurant (which got a review from Rahul Verma in today's The Hindu) run by two young healthy boys. The tea was good, they even have a couple of benches, had a smoke and thought of coming again, a good place to sit and watch people go by. Walked back by 9:45 and had nice and long shower. The sadness disappearing, also cos of texts from C helped. Talked with C, had a boiled egg and boiled some corn and groundnut to go with drinks. Corn is a tough nut to cook!
Cooked Baigan subzi for lunch, the rest was made up of leftovers. Watched Breathless with lunch, Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in the ground breaking first film of Godard (1959). This was the year of Pather Panchali as well and in fact, it seems, Truffaut's 400 Blows won him the best director award in 1959 at Cannes. JPB is brilliant in this rather breathless film and JS is delectably beautiful. The commentary by some American film critic called David Steritt is stupid and I couldn't listen to it beyond 15 minutes. In fact, I can see a pattern in my critique of Z and roughness of the this film. Ghatak's films (and certainly Godard's) were rough in that sense, a lot of the film making was in the process, not that they were not planned but they were not planned to the extent that the planning becomes sickening. This is a treatment where the art is taken beyond concerns of universality or locality (BTW, a great theme in Syntax, i.e., in the realms of Minimalism, the ugly face of globality is brought home in a debate that may not directly connect to my concerns here but one which is not fat off) and is defined from the momentousness of the process of making that art. However, the theme finds more of an interest in Ghatak compared to Godard perhaps, but the concern with the process as the defining moment of the making of the art is echoed in both. I find this supremely important, even when it's taken to an extreme, like so many popular moves of the 20s onwards. And I really think that this is where formalism scores a big point, perhaps even Russian formalism, but formalism in field in general. Otherwise it remains an empirical endeavour if it only responds to the senses and touches your heart, so to speak. One can, I believe, have the same effect, by pure formalism. The rationalistic project in its current form therefore highlights the structural definition of an art, the debate about local versus global is misplaced in this context. I make this point very clearly since many of us still haven't got it that there's nothing if there's isn't any formalism. My only problem with Sociolinguistics is exactly this, doing something for the society (since many sociolinguists genuinely believe they do "good" to the society by practising Sociolinguistics) and therefore 'worthwhile', is cannot be Sociolinguistics but activism; they can co-exist (like Sociology and Social Work) but are not the same in the same way that making Science popular is not Science itself and cannot be. One is concerned with improving upon the current existent situation, and the other is an attempt to improve upon, and therefore, further, the body of knowledge. Oil and water as Boas and Sapir don't mix as I said in my Emeneau paper.
Anyway, somehow felt sad and extremely lonely by the evening and cursed the few left around me who could have understood this current situation. Spoke to father, his condition improving, the extra amount paid at the hospital before discharge has now been sanctioned by the Insurance company. He plans to visit the doc on Wednesday to sort out the alleged botch up in the surgery. He is not a powerful man but he isn't a scared man either. We don't tolerate cowards in our family. Sometime I wonder how all four of us got this extreme courage in our individual fight against the system. Each of us did and won in their own ways. He continues to do so in his current frail manner at 73.
Went out to but some essentials first (soap, allout, oil, potatoes) and then took an aimless walk. The dearth of a decent place to walk or to sit quietly for 15 minutes around this area in the North makes me mad, everyday. Walked up to Samrat, no ice cream today, and suddenly bought off 3 class XII NCERT textbooks from one those shops there, Pol Sci, History, Sociology! I had read about the PolSci book in the newspaper while in Calcutta. Walked ahead further, even participated briefly in an altercation between a passenger and the Auto driver, supporting the driver since the accusation was that the passenger was using the tu form. On the way back, chanced upon a tea stall opposite the stretch between Nulife and the Sikkim restaurant (which got a review from Rahul Verma in today's The Hindu) run by two young healthy boys. The tea was good, they even have a couple of benches, had a smoke and thought of coming again, a good place to sit and watch people go by. Walked back by 9:45 and had nice and long shower. The sadness disappearing, also cos of texts from C helped. Talked with C, had a boiled egg and boiled some corn and groundnut to go with drinks. Corn is a tough nut to cook!