THE number of foreign films that have won Academy Awards over the last 67 years from the time it was constituted is myriad. India does not feature in that long list as a finalist. Is that purely coincidental or is it that Indian cinema has never worked with a Western audience?
The Oscar remained a distant dream for the country's top award-winning filmmaker, till he was conferred with the"Lifetime Achievement Award" on his deathbed. Satyajit Ray died without regretting that he had not received an Oscar though the Lifetime Achievement awards are customarily thought to be some sort of consolation. The paradox is that the same category of award becomes more meaningful if the filmmaker has won film-specific awards earlier. "Pather Panchali" won 11 international awards, but not an Oscar.
Dynamics of the award
The first film to win an Academy Award in the foreign film category was Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion" in 1938. Ten years later De Sica went on to win an Oscar for "Shoeshine". De Sica, who had an impact on Ray's filmmaking, won another Oscar in 1949 with his classic "The Bicycle Thief".
Understanding the dynamics behind this category of award bestowed by a body that represents American Cinema is both complicated and simple. To simplify things, Indian cinema never fitted their bill, not even Ray's movies. The sense and sensibilities portrayed in our cinema never worked for them though the criterion of "universal" cinematic language that appeals to an international jury and audience was found in abundance in Ray's films.
But why are we so gung ho about the Oscars at all? Is it because it's sponsored by the most glamorous film industry in the world, which incidentally also one of the biggest revenue generators? Is it money that makes Hollywood so important, so coveted? Is the Hollywood seal so crucial for global recognition?
Over the years, many filmmakers and an endless number of films have missed a chance at the Oscars but have gone on to join the repertoire of the finest cinema of the world. An Oscar award evaded both Jean Luc Godard and Francoise Truffaut, masters of the French New Wave, for their timeless maiden films — "Breathless" and "400 Blows" — but they went on to win two prestigious awards — the Silver Bear at the Berlin film festival and Best Director at the Cannes. "400 Blows" was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards but never made it to the final. Though Truffaut's "Day for Night" later bagged the best Foreign Film award, "400 Blows", "Jules et Jim" are considered as high watermarks of world cinema. Both "Breathless" and "400 Blows" had the universal human appeal that would make international audiences and critics sit up.
Close misses
The list of close misses is long and that too from directors whose films continue to enthral audiences across the world — Ozu, Antonioni, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Claude Chabrol, Alain Rene, Kristov Zanussi, Bresson and many more.
It is the perception of " popular", which makes Hollywood so irresistible. But the worldwide history of cinema records contemporary beginning in several countries like France, India, theU.S., the Netherlands and England. Just like a bunch of colourful balloons let loose in a clear sky, the American balloon flew faster and scored better in the test of popularity. Popularity and its notion take into account the immediate environment. Things one grows up with are usually closer to one's senses and perceptions.
"Citizen Kane", "A Streetcar named Desire", "Singin' in The Rain", "Ben Hur", "Ten Commandments", "Sound Of Music", "Cancan", "My Fair Lady", "On the Waterfront", "Gone with The Wind", "Roman Holiday", Godfather", "Psycho"... the list is unending. You name it and Hollywood has it — Hollywood has a screen replica of all the human emotions one encounters. Thus not being a part of the world that rules the motion picture empire (at least it pretends too!) is a prestige issue for Indian filmmakers. Likewise the national media is also sad and aggrieved at the repeated miss at the Oscar.
With a tally of 1,000 films a year, India is the world's second largest movie making country. Yet the Indian film industry is not a film superpower. One award at the Oscars will help India get a lead in consolidating its power and challenge the Hollywood's self-proclaimed supremacy. It's all about power! Popular is equivalent to mainstream, mainstream equivalent to volume, volume equal to revenue, revenue equal to power. It's a calculated and meticulous strategy; a desperate drive to rule the movie world of which Hollywood has been numero uno. Aesthetics, human emotions, cinematic finesse comes later. India has been eyeing the crown jewel and every time it misses, obviously more hearts are broken.
Aishwarya Rai, Gulshan Grover, Om Puri, Sushmita Sen... many may have made a dent in the arena of international cinema but they haven't earned accolades like Tshiro Mifune, Marcello Mastroini, Catherine Denevue or the more contemporary Penelope Cruz or Zhang Ziyi. The same is true of directors. Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, Gurindar Chaddha have tremendous recall value only among the diaspora. The notion of a global market is questionable as long as it begins and ends with the U.S. and the Indian diaspora.
"Lagaan", "Swades", "Rang De Basanti", "Black", "Munnabhai... " were made for this global market with the preconception that Hollywood's priority is market and revenue. However, the Academy Awards are projected as a forum that prioritises cinematic aesthetics. Our films lost not only because of the technical quality but may be because of the lack of universal human appeal that the award committee would consider politically correct. Thus every time there's a film that deals with a conflict-ridden country or traumas of individual human existence, it is an easy choice as opposed to the magnum opus that India tends to churn out.
India at the Oscars
"Lagaan" lost to "No Man's Land", a film based on the Balkan issue; "Black" lost to "Tsotsi", which was about a member of the underworld and his desperate attempts to come back to mainstream life; and "Swades" lost to "The Sea Inside", a poignant story of a terminally ill patient's fight for a dignified death. The closest miss was, of course, "Salaam Bombay" (1988), a film that probably had the right measure of human spirit, less of kitsch and more of soul.
So, as of now, India is at the semi-final stage in the high drama of the Oscar race. Many factors will finally shape India's fate — of which one may be as spontaneous or "arbitrary", as Mumbai rates as the best holiday destination for some jury members. How can one forget that even the name `Oscar' was coined out of somebody's fondness for her uncle?
Source: The Hindu
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