Watching these films feels weirdly nostalgic for me. Nostalgic for the huge set-pieces and jazz scores in American Dramas, or the wonderfully gritty performances by actors from the Indian Parallel Cinema movement
Derek Jarman once said, “Oh how Shakespeare would have loved cinema!”. Cinema has always caught my fancy, ever since I was little. So much so, that it made me shift gears in terms of career and come to the best media college in the country to study it. Having seen the classics and the cult films before I came here, I felt like I knew everything there is to know about the medium. I have never been more wrong.
As soon as I came to college, and over the course of 3 very interesting, and enriching semesters, we were shown films that have inspired and left me in awe. I was always of the opinion that the modern always trumps the old, and while I still partly stand by that belief, I have come to realize that the classics have inspired today’s works. It reminded me of Woody Allen’s quote, “A great artist doesn’t really create, he just borrows what the old masters have done and makes it his own”. While watching these movies as a part of our programme, nothing felt truer. I started seeing elements of films which were picked up or which inspired modern-day cinema I looked up to.
Right from the Midwest in “The Grapes of Wrath” to Post-War Vienna in “The Third Man”, from “Citizen Kane” to “Sunset Boulevard”, with a dash of Ray and Benegal, the screenings at SCMC made me wonder about the glorious golden age of the movies. Gradually, learning about film grammar came about and thanks to Kuleshov and Eisenstein, I have never felt more enriched.
As we move ahead in our programme, the screenings are getting increasingly diverse. We are shown films from every genre, and those films are dissected for us. Watching these films feels weirdly nostalgic for me. Nostalgic for the huge set-pieces and jazz scores in American Dramas, or the wonderfully gritty performances by actors from the Indian Parallel Cinema movement.
It just feels like there is so much more left to learn, so much more left to see. And all of this is thanks to the screenings held at the Centre as a part of our curriculum and for additional viewing. With every passing semester, I just wait to see what kind of films will be shown to us next. It has only enhanced my love for the movies.
Article By: Prannoy Mehta (Batch of 2018)
Photograph By: Anonymous
