Well, Martin Scorsese finally won his Oscar. Should have been for The Departed? Maybe not, but he damned well deserved it.

In honor of his win, I read a brilliant review in the New York Times for the most un-Scorsese of Scorsese’s movies, Age of Innocence. But maybe it wasn’t so far from his realm. After all, Scorsese called it his “most violent film”…

Passion, especially repressed passion, has often been Mr. Scorsese’s subject. And the organized suppression of unruly desire is the villain blighting “The Age of Innocence.” Its hero, Newland Archer (played in the film by Daniel Day-Lewis), is engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder), the angelic blank slate of a girl his society wants him to marry. Inconveniently, Newland falls in love with Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), an interesting, independent woman with a complicated romantic past and a shaky position in Newland’s rigidly codified tribe — a tribe that smoothly closes ranks to keep the lovers apart. (What first draws Newland to the Countess is her irreverent honesty about the local and imported aristocracy — an irreverence that, as Ms. Pfeiffer points out, “comes out of innocence on her part. Ellen has no idea how provocative she’s being.”)

What attracted Martin Scorsese to the novel, which he was first given by the film critic and co-screenwriter Jay Cocks, was, he said, “that element of repressed emotion, forced restraint and obsession.”

“I was most interested in how people in a situation like that would be happy just to be together in the same room at a dinner party. Just one look would keep them alive for another year. It’s very different from today, when rational adults can talk things over and try to change their lives. For Newland to have changed his life would have destroyed part of a culture.”

It is such a sad and depressing film. A story of “what could have been” and “if only”… I still remember the last scene of the film with Daniel Day-Lewis on the street in Paris… loss, resignation, and a feeling of helplessness. Based on a book by Edith Wharton (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921), the film won an Oscar for Costume Design and Winona Ryder was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The film was clearly overlooked and under-appreciated. It deserved much more – maybe it was just too different from what one had come to expect from Scorsese?

I’ll leave you with the closing paragraph of the review, which so aptly captures why the book and the film are classics –

One measure of Edith Wharton’s greatness is that — as in all great fiction — so little of her work seems dated. But the more accurate gauge is our discovery that “The Age of Innocence” has changed our sense of the world. Putting down the novel, leaving the film, we’re newly sensitized to the tribal rituals beneath the social forms we’d taken for granted. And our vision of people and of the roles they play has been permanently altered. We look around a dinner party and just for a moment glimpse them — May Welland, Ellen Olenska, the unfortunate Newland Archer — hauntedly staring out at us from the flushed, happy faces of our friends.

I love Fandango’s core service. Buying tickets is simple, elegant and most importantly it works.

But Fandango probably realized recently that it has all this wonderful data that it could use. For example, it shows me all the films I’ve ever watched. Great — that plus Netflix would be a good encapsulation of most everything I watch.

More recently though, Fandango has discovered “community”. Why shouldn’t Fandango have ratings and reviews? It’s all the rage and everyone is doing it. No reason at all. Except they have no clue how to do it.

Recently I watched Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday. I bought the tickets on Fandango and watched the movie on February 12th. I got this email on the 13th from Fandango asking me to review the film.

Great, I thought. How prompt. Let me go review it. I click on the link and log in. This is what I get:

Hmm. Fine then, I won’t review it, but why waste my time guys? Oh, but it gets worse.

I get another email on February 15th telling me it is my “Last Chance”. I ignore it. Last chance? I wish. I get yet another email on February 17th with a different title (asking me to tell the community about myself), but with the same request to review Black Friday. Okay, I will give it one last try. Alas, I get the same message again.

Don’t you think if you send me THREE emails asking me to do something that I should be able to actually perform the action? Getting the basics right is important if you want to build community. Either fix the issue or stop emailing me. I’d have been equally fine with either option.

Fandango, please get the basics right.

I am very interested in how culture evolves, how technology and art are inspired, and how prevailing laws enable or choke that innovation. I read Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture when it came out and was fascinated with the history of innovation and his hypotheses on where we were headed.

I’ve been meaning to find Lessig’s blog and today, someone emailed me a link to his blog that talks about an exciting new development in the documentary film world. The Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices outlines all the ways documentary filmmakers can follow the rules on Fair use and protect themselves. Those filmmakers who are certified to have followed those guidelines be able to get insured and therefore, their films will be able to get released. Earlier, the risk of getting sued was so high that some of these films never saw the light of day.

What a great step. Setting out the rules of Fair Use, easing the process of getting clearances, reducing the risk of being sued and therefore, increasing the capability to innovate. Excellent. (Thanks for the email, Evan!)

On a similar vein, watch this informative video on Net Neutrality which will have a big impact on how we innovate, communicate and create (although the video gets a little preachy/angry towards the end).

_{Video via: Lessig’s blog}

An artist can do so much with an image. Some of the visuals in the video have really interesting messages…

For me, writing the first draft is the hardest thing.

I think of an idea and just twirl it in my head for a few days. I think about it any time I am free… images running through my head. I’ll hit an issue. Some issues are deal breakers – if it destroys the premise or makes the whole story seem silly, poof, the idea is banished. I’ll start the same process with another idea. I usually try to work around deal breakers if I can. It might need a dramatic shift in some of the original hypotheses/characters, but I’m not attached to them yet.

Then, I write it all down in a treatment. Usually somewhere between 3 and 7 pages of prose. At this stage, I find it useful to share. I remember for one of my treatments that I shared with my workshop, the group felt that the ending seemed odd – the character was too strong to pick the option I had picked for her. I felt part of it was not understanding the cultural mileu of India, but I could also see their point. That ending… well, I am still torn on which direction to go on that.

Once I feel I have an idea that can work and outline that seems interesting, I write. Since I’ve spent so much time thinking, the writing usually goes pretty quickly. For the first section of the screenplay anyway…

The middle section is icky. Conflict arises, conflict gets worse, all the character motivations need to be ironed out. This is where I stall. Procrastination, pontification, loathing of the script, scoffing at the idea. Every tool is used to delay addressing the prickly issues.

The resolution has probably been in my head for a while. I may have a couple of alternate endings. I try to pick the less obvious/convenient one. Once I get done, I can’t look at it any more. I need time away before I can come back to it.

How does this compare to how you write? Any suggestions?

The Hand is part of a compilation DVD called Eros. It includes three movies/shorts by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Antonioni.

I’m just going to focus on Wong Kar Wai’s “The Hand”, which kicks off the trio. The Hand is like a lot of Wong Kar Wai movies – it is a sad, sad love story. The Hand is about a prostitute (another favorite WKW theme), Miss Hua, played by the fabulous Gong Li and her tailor, Zhang (Chen Chang). It traces the life and the decline of Hua and the enduring love and loyalty of Zhang. That’s the story. That’s all there is to it — well, there are some details like her getting heartbroken over and over again, supporting a gigolo lover and finally falling ill and being destitute, but at the core, it is a sad, sad love story.

But it is so much more when you are watching it!

What I love about watching a Wong Kar Wai movie is that it is like watching thousands of frames of art. Every shot, no, every minute, no, every second, no, every single frame is unbelievable. WKW worked with cinematographer Christopher Doyle again and again, they are phenomenal together. The colors are amazing, the framing is phenomenal, the camera only moves when it absolutely should, the shot is held and held and held (no fast action cutting here), the details of production design ares stunning. I could go on and on, but the visual package is just mind blowing.

There is a scene where Zhang comes to Hua’s apartment for the first time. It is shot from inside the stairwell and the camera is static. We see Zhang through a distorting green glass, outside the building. The stairwell has very striking railing and the whole image is stunning.

There are so many of these. Like the shot when Zhang is waiting to meet Hua for the first time. He’s in the living room while she entertains a customer (the gigolo). We see a shot of the living room and the back of Zhang’s head. The customer leaves in the foreground and Zhang just sits there motionless, unsure of what to do. The shot is beautiful – red living room, dark suits, the sounds around Zhang, people talking, Hua calling him in, but he’s rooted and the camera is rooted to him.

And like the scene where Zhang visits Hua in a rundown motel. She’s trying to give it one last try to make her lifestyle work and she needs a new dress. Zhang takes her measurements with this hands. He runs his hands slowly over her shoulders and then around her waist. The moment is drawn out, Hua is crying, the cinematography is fabulous and I am crying with them. The acting is very good. The sheer emotion when Hua realizes that Zheng loves her. Loves her the way she deserves to be loved. But there’s too much of her life that has gone by, too many bad decisions made that she can’t change. That everything is just too late… too inevitable… None of this is said. It is the acting and the visuals.

Why is it called The Hand? Because the first time Hua meets Zhang, she gives him something to make him understand why she’s important, why the clothes he will make for her are important, a feeling he can carry with him every time he makes her a dress. She gives him a hand job. I know what you are thinking, but it is done with class. Hua is in control – she is showing Zhang who’s in charge. And there is a final hand job at the end, when that is all Hua can give. She’s not in control. She’s open, giving, finally when it is too late. That one is emotional and sad. A sense of desperation, of finality. And beautifully shot and cut together.

The Hand like any WKW/Doyle collaboration is a visual feast. The images evoke the emotion. The images can make me cry. While it is only 43 minutes long, this movie like 2046, and Happy Together will stay with me. The visuals are burned into my brain.

Being a filmmaker is one of the most amazing jobs – you have the opportunity to make a movie, communicate a message, share a passion, move people, change their lives even.

I love it when filmmakers use these amazing skills to do good. When I was a kid growing up in Madras, Mani Ratnam would often donate a print of his movies to our school (and other non-profit organizations) to enable them raise funds. He’s done that again with Guru – thank you and congratulations!

Another example close to home for me personally, is Mahesh Mathai. Mahesh directed Bhopal Express in 1999 and recently completed work on Broken Thread in London. Mahesh is also on the UK Board of Magic Bus, one of my favorite NGOs based in India.

Magic Bus was started by Matthew Spacie. Matthew lived and worked in Bombay and started to play rugby with a group of street children in 1999. As he spent more time with them, he realized that the ability to play in wide open spaces and learn through playing and having fun had a huge impact on the children – on their attitude and their perspectives. So, Matthew started Magic Bus.

The number of children in need of help in India is staggering –

• 11 million children live in slums or on the street. 2.3 in Bombay alone
• Most will be exposed to crime before they are 8
• 14% of children in India are involved in child labor
• India accounts for 20% of the world’s out of school children
• Over 60% of street children start their day with substance abuse
• About 900,000 prostitutes are under the age of 18

Magic Bus works with these children – street children and at risk children, the poorest of the poor, to help try and change the trajectory of their lives. A lot of organizations in India work on the basic needs – shelter, food, clothing. Magic Bus supplements this and focuses on letting kids have fun and through having fun, teaches them life skills. Magic Bus has worked with over 18,000 children to date!

In addition to Mahesh’s role on the board of Magic Bus, he’s used his filmmaking skills to help the organization as well. He directed an amazing video (below) that encapsulates what Magic Bus does. It is incredibly impactful and is exceptionally well produced.

To me, this is the perfect example of a filmmaker using his skills to do good. I would love to hear about other filmmakers who doing similar things. As an aspiring filmmaker, it is hugely motivational for me to see established filmmakers like Mahesh and Mani Ratnam using their skills to change the world. Thank you both – you are exceptional examples to us all.

Loved the video? Moved by the Magic Bus mission? You can help Magic Bus! Here’s how:

• Donate your time and volunteer (flexible options available)
• Donate to Magic Bus – if you are in India
• Donate to Magic Bus – if you are outside India
  
• You can also give in kind – there’s lots of stuff they need (scroll down a bit)

For most of 2006, I attended a writing workshop in Manhattan.

To be clear, it is a workshop, not a class. A class is one where all the students sit down and listen to a teacher share his wisdom, the dos and don’ts of writing a good script, character motivations, story arcs etc. There are tons of screenwriting classes like these and the most famous are those run by the likes of Syd Field and Robert McKee. While I have nothing against these classes, I was never drawn to them mainly because, despite their protestations, they propose one formula for all scripts. These methods work for thousands of people (many of them very successful), but it is not for me, since this is not how I learn best.

A workshop is where almost every participant is working on a script. So, to start with, you can’t be a passive participant (if you are, you lose a lot). At the beginning of the semester, you pick a date when you will bring your work in. Each week a student brings in their work (for film or theater). Usually it is a set of scenes and not the whole play/screenplay. The author assigns roles and we read the script. Then all of us provide input. There are also a handful of classes set aside where we do hand-on exercises to help improve our writing. Very different from a class. Every workshop has a slightly different structure, but this is the one that I’ve been exposed to.

It was a god send when I found a workshop run by Mick Casale, the head of the writing program at NYU’s film school. It has been one of the best experiences I’ve had despite the fact that I haven’t made the most of it. Mick doesn’t believe that every script needs to follow the same structure, unlike some who believe the first turning point has to happen at the 27th minute(?!) Every script needs to be compelling. Every script needs to hold the audience’s attention. And every script is different. If you are interested in independent cinema and scripts that don’t follow a set path, Mick is your man.

I started attending early in 2006, when I was still commuting from California. That meant that for the first semester, while I had an idea of what I wanted to work on, I was not actually working on a something. This was a bad idea. As I attended week after week of the workshop, I saw the incredible value that Mick was providing to those working on stuff, but I could never apply it to my work and so it didn’t stick with me.

So, by the next semester, I forced myself to sign up to a slot. The week before my work was due, I started to panic. Mad scrambling and several late nights later, I had a six page treatment for my work. I got fabulous input into the story, what they thought of the ending and suggestions to where I could tweak things.

Realizing that these forced deadlines make me write, I continued my practice of signing up to share stuff that I hadn’t written yet. The first thirty pages of my script got written only because of this approach.

Besides the fact that the workshop forced me to be productive, I love it because Mick is one of the most insightful teachers I have ever had. He listens to the script and his comments are just amazing. He will pick out the key issue with a scene and when you hear him articulate it, you want to smack yourself on your head and say “damn, why didn’t I think of that??”. He’ll suggest that you move something around and when you do, the scene is a thousand times more powerful. He makes the most simple statements in such an understated manner that you could just ignore them, but when you analyze them, there are so many layers of wisdom.

That is why I love this workshop. I am going to try and document the key learnings from the sessions. This is going to be hard precisely because it is not a class. There is no set of bullet points that you should write down. When he provides input into someone else’s work, his statements need to be taken, analyzed and applied to your own work, as appropriate. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation and as hard as I try, I know I am not going to do him justice, so apologies in advance.

First I will try to catch up on some of the key takeaways to date and once the workshop starts up again (in late Jan), I will try to post them as the sessions happen.

As we watch the films of today, it is great to take a moment and think about where this medium has evolved from.

In the 1890s, the Lumiere brothers were hard at work to make a motion picture camera. Their father was a photographer and working for him, the men were introduced to the medium and the materials. These are the guys who invented the sprocket hole – the holes on the side of the filmstrip that is used by the camera to advance the film across the lens.

The motion picture camera (cinematographe) was patented on 13 February 1895. On the 19th of March, 1895, the Lumiere brothers shot the first film – people coming out of the Lumiere factory. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but all they were trying to do is capture motion on film and it was this first step that helped establish the medium.

They went on to shoot lots of little clips – the first home movie called “Baby’s Tea Time” was a short segment which featured August Lumiere and his wife, Marguerite, feeding their baby son. Again, a very simple idea, but used to demonstrate the medium. When it was shown, the audience was most impressed the camera actually captured the detail of the wind blowing through the leaves several feet away.

They also made the first comedy of a person watering plants while someone comes up behind him and stands on the pipe, cutting off the water. When the gardener looks at the hose, the comic removes his foot, spraying the gardener on the face.

And they made the famous L’Arrive d’un train la Ciotat. This is a very well framed shot of a train pulling into a station. The train emerges onto the screen at the top right corner and exists the frame at the bottom left corner, providing a great angle. Urban legend has it that the audience was freaked out at the train coming at them and ran out of the theater screaming, although no documentation backs up this claim.

These little movies were the first innovations in the field. Just imagine watching all of these on Dec 28, 1895, (almost a 111 years ago to the day) when the brothers screened 10 little movies publicly for the first time!

Over the past week, I’ve watched just a couple of movies, but I have been steeping myself in other art related activities in New York City.

As someone who comes to film in my thirties, I am a huge believer that to be a good filmmaker you not only need life experiences, but you also need exposure to other forms of art. There is so much to see and so much to learn and watching opera or going to a museum will definitely make you a better filmmaker.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing. Last week was Rigoletto at The Met and this week was the amazing auction at Christies.