Light, Sound, Magic

What is it about the movies that make them so magical? I am not the first one to ask. And I won't be the last.
Maybe it's the heady mix of image and sound, light and colour, music and drama, emotion and action and intelligence, that does the trick.
Maybe it's the endless variety. So many kinds of films to choose from. A rich feast for even the most gluttonous appetite. Fiction, documentary, docu-drama mixing a bit of both. Classics. Cult films. Low brow, high art. The independent film, the pop corn movie, the blockbuster. The multiplex film, phenomenon of our times. Animation, short film, digital films.
Films have been made on every imaginable (and many unimaginable) themes. Boy meets girl. Boy meets boy. Girl meets girl. Love, hate, and the thin line in between, are all fodder for the filmmaker's imagination.
The agony of people trapped in the wrong body, most recently, Felicity Hoffman in TransAmerica. Extraterrestrials stranded on earth, ET who 'wants to go home.' Pregnant teenager with razor sharp wit, named after none other than the goddess, Juno. Many films have no qualms in training the spotlight on characters the world calls off-kilter.
Genres try to pigeonhole films. The swashbuckling Western. Brooding film noir. The musical. The road movie, the revenge drama, the coming of age film. Blast from the past – the period film. Romance, comedy, drama, action, thriller. Film as spectacle. Regaling us with exploits of Roman gladiators and larger than life mafia dons, making you 'an offer you can't refuse!'
Film as catharsis. Anger, passion, ecstasy – all our suppressed desires evoked, then purged in the cocoon of the theatre's darkness. Cries and whispers. Secrets and lies. As the frames run, 24 per second, our hearts beat in sync to their rhythm.
Tomes have been written about the magic of the movies. Film studies departments analyse it semester after academic semester. Reams of news print are spent on dissecting our evergreen love affair with cinema. Lists are compiled like an annual ritual, rating our love (in ascending or descending order?) for films which have been made through the ages. "Hundred films we love." "55 classics we love the most." "The best 100 films ever made, voted for by our readers." "Our critics pick 25 best films of the year."
Sometimes dire warnings which also serve as notices of our mortality are issued in place of lists. "1000 films to watch before you die." "If you haven't watched these, you are as good as dead!"
Lists may come and lists may go. But movies always have, and always will, continue to consume our curiosity.
Many filmmakers who are passionately in love with cinema have felt compelled to make films that lay bare the mysteries of the cinematic universe. So we have films on the rise and fall of movie makers, the loves and lives of actors, extras, singers, scriptwriters and song writers – the flesh and blood humans who inhabit the celluloid world. Films that track the cruel roads of tinsel town where survival of the fittest is the norm. Films that take a hard look at the faces behind the masks. Films that venture behind the scenes, while onscreen, the show goes on. Films about heartbreak in Hollywood. About aspiring actors, shayars and starlets, stalking the streets of Mumbai, 'ready for their close-ups.'
Kagaz Ke Phool – portraying the world of Hindi cinema at its cynical best. Who can forget the lyricism of Guru Dutt's black and white intensity? The shot of the once feted director's corpse being clinically moved out of the studio summed it all up in one take. Behind the magic lies a whole world of heartbreak. Kaifi Azmi's lyrics for the film said it best: "Dekhi zamane ki yaari/Bichde sabhi baari baari."
One of the most innovative films on movie making ever made is Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera (1929). With this documentary, the Russian filmmaker wrote an intense love song to the power of film. One of the pioneers to use real life footage (as opposed to staged versions shot in studios), Vertov simply lets the camera soak in real life in all its horror and glory. Then he edits them to fashion meaningful segments. The film pulsates with the raw energy of life. Dancers dance, athletes swim and race, workers build roads under a blazing summer sky, cyclists pedal along the roads, birds fly…Life goes on as the camera records its flow with a lyrical fluidity. The eye of the camera can make even the most mundane moment count, Vertov declares with every shot. If anyone was in doubt about the magic of cinema, I'd recommend a viewing of Vertov's classic.
Film is a visual medium, but part of its allure for us lies in words. Dialogue mouthed by actors ring in our ears when we step out of the movie hall. Many lines have become part of our collective vocabulary.
"Here's looking at you kid" (Casablanca). The flame between Bogart and Bergman would have burnt several notches lower without the line. And left us a lot less wiser about the angst of unfulfilled love.
"I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" (Apocalypse Now). What line can convey the horror of war better than this?
"The dude abides" (The Big Lebowski). Life wouldn't be the same without the dude's philosophical pronouncement to see us through the ride.
"Show me the money" (Jerry Maguire). I bet corporate boardrooms still ring out with the cry.
"Why don't you shut your goddamn mouth and play some music?" (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Didn't McMurphy gift us with the best line to deal with a world gone crazy?
" Hum ne hamesha ek doosre ko samjha hai" (Kagaz ke Phool). That line summing up the essence of a relationship, lingers on in the air.
"Kya chahte hai aap zindagi se?" asks the poet.
"Ke pehle se behtar ho" replies the aspiring actress.
The conversation from Sudhir Mishra's lyrical Khoya Khoya Chand continues to haunt us, as we chase our dreams.
There is a character in a Woody Allen film who decides to commit suicide (as characters in Allen's films are prone to do). So the terminally depressed man walks down the street planning the finer details of his suicide. As he saunters along, he passes by a movie hall. There is a long line outside the box office, huge posters of the star cast are pasted at the entrance. The potential candidate for suicide takes a long look at the movie hall. Then he joins the line outside the box office, buys a ticket and steps into the darkness of the hall.
Next shot. Man's outside the hall, looking less morose than before. Then he speaks directly to the viewer (as characters in Allen's movies do) and tells us that "he won't be committing suicide after all."
May be it was a damn good movie. May be not.
The point is, cinema has the power to move us in ways beyond our control.
What makes its attraction so irresistible? Why does it hold us spellbound? What makes the spell it casts on our hearts and minds so potent?
May be its best left a mystery. Why look for logic in magic?
Surrender. Let the show go on.