I’m not a film buff. Yet I found myself drawn to finding out the role of the editor in making a film. They are so integral to the process yet rarely in lime light. At least as far as movie promotions go. Of course, once in a while the technicians do get invited but it’s not that anybody is looking out specifically for them. The National Award-winning editor Midhun Murali says some appreciation is coming their way. There are discussions about different ‘styles’ of editing – something unheard of previously.
So, with my heart full of hope and curiosity, I picked up the classic: Walter Murch’s In The Blink Of An Eye. The opening quote in the preface of the book was enough to hook me:
Igor Stravinsky loved expressing himself and wrote a good deal on interpretation. As he bore a volcano within him, he urged restraint. Those without even the vestige of a volcano within them nodded in agreement, raised their baton, and observed restraint, while Stravinsky himself conducted his own Apollon Musagète as if it were Tchaikovsky, We who had read him listened and were astonished.
– The Magic Lantern by Ingmar Bergman
I saw an editor on a cinema forum say that the principles often applied to editing a written piece is eerily similar to those used in editing film. One of them recommended Stephen King’s On Writing as a good place to start. It should be next on my reading list this month. I’m halfway through Murch’s magnum opus. The impression I got was that the key to making a cut is to preserve and transmit the emotion. Alignment, frame and the like do matter, but emotion and story arc trumps everything else.
This last week I learnt a bit about textile art. Turns out I was wrong about it all along. In short, I understood it’s about using thread/cloth to create art. I was absolutely enraptured by Faith Ringgold’s quilt art. Unlike the bundles of fibres and other odd things Judith Scott wrapped around in a tight squiggle-like coil, I can’t wrap my head around her’art’ works. Maybe I’m not built for this sort of thing. Modern art is not my forte (so chimed in everybody else too).
The latest pet peeve of art critics sitting inside the happy confines of online mags like It’s Nice That seems to be that celebrities keep failing in their attempts to create art. Their paradigmatic examples are Adrian Brody, Ed Sheeran and Jack White. While I agree with characterisation of the former two as art ‘novices’ (to use a milder term than outrightly calling them ‘failures’), Jack White has been creating unique pieces — like hiding poetry in cushions, writing invoices in crayons and the captivating Red Tree at his debut exhibition in London.
A commenter pointed out that in the age of AI literally anybody creating art in its raw form is a welcome development. I agree, and I believe unnecessarily picking on it reflects poorly on the critic than the art/artist. The internet is now flooded with AI art — part of what makes it so boring and even irritating to the eye is the lack of genuineness. I prefer to point out its insincerity rather than lack of originality as I believe no art is truly original. Art is, according to me, an imitation — an imitation of things that inspire us, be it the nature or something illusory on our minds. There’s something about the human emotion that shapes art which AI simply cannot simulate despite the endless prompts humans supply it in a bid to create on screen what’s on their mind. AI extrapolates based on the existing dataset and reflects the biases inherent in the sample it was fed. Moreover creating art using AI requires that one come up with a neat prompt that affirms exactly what the artist wants. And that’s the hard part. Because creating art is a non-linear process where one might start off with one idea, only end up at its polar opposite midway through the process. It is amid these ‘twists and turns’ — in the words of Christoph Niemann — that art is born.
The latest controversy that has engulfed the football world is FIFA’s decision to sell 20% stake in its subsidiary company — FIFA Forward Enterprise — to private investors. This would involve partly privatising the World Cup, with elements of dynamic pricing, expensive tickets, in a bid to reach American-football level revenues. But the fierce backlash to the proposed plan, led by the UEFA (with which it is always at loggerheads) and CONCACAF, prompted FIFA to scrap the plan.
Menswear couture has long been a niche club and only recently with the explosion of Derek Guy (the menswear dude on Twitter) that it has become a hot topic in public discourse. One writer in the NYTimes says that, taken in by the latest fad they too plunged into the world of menswear and found themselves marvelling at the delicate fabrics and fine stitches of bespoke pieces. After flirting with several options on display, they finally bought a $700 jacket. It had no glaring labels or logos, so they didn’t expect it to draw attention. However, to their embarrassment, strangers at the supermarket and on the streets would compliment their jacket as they walked by. They concluded that sophisticated menswear is not meant for overly self-conscious fellas like the writer. They may have a point there. I’ve been there myself, but this is not the takeaway I’d come with. The delight and comfort of wearing such clothes regularly over time quietly wipes away the heightened self-awareness of the first-timer as one’s personality quietly gels in with their chosen attire. And the sense of confidence that comes with it is quite something. It’s a phenomenon that cannot be stated plainly in words, but experienced.
Conscious choice of clothes and intentional dressing sow the seeds of that which sets one apart from fashion trends and other commercial obsessions — taste. And ultimately, sartorial tastes reflect one’s personality and values more than any social media virtue-signalling.
The Unsaturated Reader 
Leave a comment