Entries Tagged as ‘Simpleton "The Critic"’

February 19, 2008

Remembering Ryan

 
Ryan Larkin
(b. July 31, 1943, – d. February 14, 2007)
Ryan Larkin died from lung cancer. He was an inspiration to many  animators and creative film-makers. But  how did a man with so much talent end-up being a pan-handler? 

To be honest, Chris Landreth’s animation only covers a portion of Ryan’s career. A more unbiased account of Ryan’s troubles [...]

January 29, 2008

POInt of View Part 5: Truth, Meaning & Metaphor In A Cinematic Poem

KB is a master at combining POETRY OF THE THEATRE (i.e.  the use of vivid prose language to achieve heightned emotional expression that is often the domain of poetry) with THEATRE OF POST-MODERNISM (i.e. experimental or “new-theatre” forms in which nonverbal codes and images take precedence over spoken language requiring the audience to project their own interpretation [...]

January 18, 2008

POInt of View Part 4: Intertextual Cinema

Vividly remember being asked to write a paper on Chris Landreth’s  “The End”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY-TRd9VujA
The most revealing part of this animation was the voice on the phone.  Probably a character familiar with intertextuality as a literary theory.
Bruce Meyer’s explanation: 

Intertextual writing demands that the reader come armed with an extensive knowledge of what literature is, who the main authors are, [...]

January 7, 2008

POInt of View Part 3: Sea, Spark & Fate

An interpretation of Poi  using the film as a montage of poems. The opening scene of Poi ends with the caption: He is trying to empty the sea. Using  two simple couplets from Valluvar’s Thirukural, the objects in this scene can be used as a prop.
Treat the sea as a source of knowledge. The opening song hints about a tune [...]

January 5, 2008

POInt of View Part 2: new WINE in OLD BOTTLE

“It is impossible to legislate taste, and if it were possible, it would be repugnant. There are no commandments in art and no easy axioms for art appreciation. ‘Do I like this?’ is the question anyone should ask themselves at the moment of confrontation with the picture. But if ‘yes’, why ‘yes?’ and if ‘no’, [...]

January 3, 2008

POInt of View Part 1: Poetic Justice For KB?

During the 150th convocation of the University of Madras on 12 November 2007, K.Balachander was honoured with a D.Litt degree (doctorate in Literature). 
Poetic justice?
Yes sir… No sir… I don’t know sir…
Time for Arts & Humanities graduates to find ways to exploit his films. Till then, the simpleton is going to have fun…
Poi is a poem written in [...]

June 25, 2006

Book Review: Godless By Ann Coulter

Oh My God!!! Oops… Being a liberal, I don’t want offend Ann by using the word GOD… Just finished reading Godless and I’m now ready to lower Coulter’s threat to human intelligence from Red to Green (Red = Dangerous, Orange = Annoying…. Green= Amusing)… Loss of credibility by Conservative Think Tanks (i.e. Karl Rove, Rush [...]

May 4, 2006

Mahapurush And The Art Of Farce

Having crowned myself as the King of Patience, it sort of bugs me to think that I have never been able to sit thru any of the Apu Trilogy movies…And this goes back to the campus days, when the Faculty of Arts would host Satyajit Ray Week every year… “Free Refreshments” was all they had [...]

April 26, 2006

ARANGETRAM Part 3: The Movie

“ARANGETRAM” (aka The Debut) sort of came and changed the trend of Tamil Films… This is not a review, but just an interpretation.
IMHO, the main problem was not with the movie, but the goverment’s decision to promote it as a message oriented movie to show the importance of Family-Planning… I doubt that was KB’s intention, but of course,as [...]

April 24, 2006

ARANGETRAM Part 2: The Man

Normally, you could put a movie into one of these three general categories: Art-House, Commercial or Documentary …
But in KB’s case, most of his movies pretty much offered a portion of each category… When only a portion is offered it’s hard to put it into any specific category…
KB often refers to himself as a a [...]