When you watch a film, do you really get what the director intended to convey? Or did you interpret it in a different way? The truth is, it doesn’t matter. What works for a friend on-screen might not work for you – and that, really, is the charm of films. Baradwaj Rangan, film critic and Senior Deputy Editor at The Hindu , discussed that very charm in an interactive workshop titled ‘Die, Author, Die’. Starting off by asking participants to observe a piece of music, a painting and a poem, the workshop veered into film clips. Here are a few takeaways from it:
1. As a consumer of art/movies, your mind is always working. Maybe you’ll get what the author meant, maybe you won’t. But it’s your interpretation.
2. Films combine picture, music and word. Try analysing a painting, a piece of music or a poem and see what comes to your mind when going through them.
3. If your interpretation of a scene/film is based on the evidence offered to you on screen, it is valid.
4. Participants watched clips from The Godfather , The Searchers , Yuddham Sei and tried to deconstruct how/why particular scenes were shot.
5. Interactive discussion about filmmaking and cinematography techniques and how they set the tone for any film.
