“ The Mona Lisa Curse, ” replies Riyas Komu, artist and sculptor, when asked which film on art or an artist appeals to him most. “With all the depth of cinema, it dissected what the art world is all about, how the image dictated and determined the power of the commercial art market,” he explains. The 2008 documentary by art critic Robert Hughes explores the influence — disproportionate, as some would argue — that this >Leonardo Da Vinci painting has on the art world, and the rise of an exploitative art market. Komu says he misses such films in India, the ones that lay bare the world of art. The reason why they remain few and far between is because art is viewed as elitist in this country, he says, appealing to connoisseurs rather than permeating the lives of the ordinary.
Subgenres in art films The art film genre can be divided into several subgenres, says cultural commentator Sadanand Menon. There are >descriptive films, like Satyajit Ray ’s The Inner Eye , that provide historical context to an artist and his or her creations. Ray’s 1972 documentary on a blind artist and teacher, Benode Behari Mukherjee, from Visva-Bharati University comes with the filmmaker’s own sonorous, weighty commentary. Arun Khopkar’s Figures of Thought on Bhupen Khakar, Nalini Malani and Vivan Sundaram, and Colours of Absence on Jehangir Sabavala are the most celebrated and cerebral documentaries on Indian artists.
Then there is Chetan Shah’s The Open Frame, about the personal and artistic journey of S.G. Vasudev. As Shah says, the thrust for him was not to be evaluative of Vasudev, but document “how he works, his contribution to the world of art, how he brought art to the forefront in schools, the setting up of Cholamandal Artists’ Village, how he has been promoting young artists.” Shah, when he sets out to make a personality-based film, has one rule: neither vilify nor eulogise; just let the subjects reveal their mind, heart, and soul. “It’s about exploring life, art, and the striking nature of their work,” he says. “It’s the journey of the artist — its phases, the different series of paintings, the maturing — which is most fascinating.”
Another subgenre tries to provide the viewer the experience of producing the work of art herself. A Far Afternoon — A Painted Saga , a recent national award-winning documentary on Krishen Khanna by Sruti Harihara Subramanian, is one such film. It attempts to “memorialise the artistic process” by documenting and archiving the process of creation of one of Khanna’s largest canvases, from the start to the finish. Khanna’s influences are also shown in the film. While it took Khanna six months to make the painting, the film came together in ten.
Most art films, according to Menon, are those that romanticise the artist. They talk about struggles, about being marginalised and misunderstood. “In Hindi cinema of the 1940s and ‘50s, you would often have the hero say ‘ Main kalakaar hoon. ’ He was this highly idealised figure with a clean heart and clear vision. He spoke on behalf of the underdog, and the proletariat influenced by the socialist ideals of the day and the Left-oriented artist movements,” he says. Menon’s grudge is that most films on art only “objectify” the art or the artist without cinematically exploring the subversive potential there. So you have Salma Hayek ‘ >portraying’ Frida Kahlo , or Randeep Hooda pulling off a >Raja Ravi Varma in Rang Rasiya , but “these are merely representational,” says Menon. “They are unable to unpack the almost radical potential of the subjects they have gone close to,” he rues.
Entering a painting A good film on art, according to him, is one that will pull the average smug self-satisfied viewer out of their comfort zone and show an aspect of resistance and a world view that they have never been exposed to before. In other words, this would mean sensually entering the work of art, unpacking its structure, and reassembling it within the durational framework of cinema. This is something that takes place in the magic realism segment of Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990). An art student enters a >Vincent van Gogh painting and finds himself inside his world. There he meets the artist (Martin Scorsese). With the student enters the viewer, literally touching the yellow corn fields and the crows. Art has never been more tangible on screen.
In other words, like any other good film, a film on art has to be as much about form as about content. “Ultimately a relevant film on art is one which is in itself an artistic form,” says Menon.
This underlines the importance of Amit Dutta. The 2004 graduate of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India has been the most consistent in engaging with art in films. He is known to read, see, and internalise an enormous amount of information on the subjects of his films and has even tried his hand at painting. One of his earliest works, Film 1 , was on the success and untimely demise of the pioneering young Gond artist, Jangarh Singh Shyam. Ramkhind was about a day in the life of Warli painters of a village. Saatvin Sair was on the celebrated Indian landscape painter, Paramjit Singh.
However, his most significant film is > Nainsukh, on the life of the 18th century painter of the Kangra region. The film is not just about the art and the artist; it is also about how the film chooses to capture all this on screen. Dutta draws from the artist’s own work, gets inside his world, and renders the film in the style of the painter. In Nainsukh he recreates what he sees in the paintings. The details and the background make for the frames of the film itself. The entire film feels like a series of miniature paintings.
namrata.joshi@thehindu.co.in
