ENGAGING 'POETICS': WITH SANTANU BOSE

Can the principles of ‘Poetics’ apply to Indian Cinema?

More specifically, commercial Hindi cinema? Is it possible to deconstruct a blockbuster hit Hindi ‘tragedy’ on the basis of Aristotle’s rules and principles of storytelling?

Ever since I spent time with NSD Professor Santanu Bose, discussing the essence of ‘Poetics’, I had been thinking.

APPLYING ‘POETICS’ TO HINDI CINEMA NARRATIVE

A number of ‘tragedies’ from bygone years come into mind.

‘Devdas’ sure did have a significant tragic flaw, and he sure does raise ‘pity’ and ‘fear’. Amar’s infatuation with Megha in ‘Dil Se’ also feels the same. It’s the ‘recognition’ factor of Radha that makes her side with Ramu rather than Birju in ‘Mother India’ – I suppose.

I would rather contend that the Aristotelian ‘reversal of intention’ principle fits so well with the character of Thakur in Sholay. Himself a man of law, he sure needed a big reason to hire mercenaries to salvage his own pride and safeguard his village.

Slaughter of his family and Gabbar chopping his hands off is the ‘tragic incident’ that becomes the central plot point of Sholay.

And when it comes to ‘tragic incident’, which is a ‘destructive or painful action’ a.k.a ‘Poetics’ – there’s no dearth of that in Hindi Cinema. From ‘Pyasa’ to ‘Waqt’ to ‘Agneepath’ , from ‘Mughle Azam’ to ‘Mother India’ to ‘Sharaabi’ to ‘Karma’ to ‘Satya’ to even ‘Bahubali’ and the latest ‘The Sky is Pink’ – there’s one massive ‘tragic incident’ that takes the plot forward.

Am I stretching things a bit too much? Maybe!! That’s for you to judge!

For me, this is my own blog. I should have a say here.

By no means I would deem myself to be a ‘critic’ of anything at all. But I sure am a student of film-making. If looking at a film from a ‘plot structure’ perspective can be called a ‘critical’ appreciation of the same, I am all for it.

If this helps us learn how to better view a film, why not?

I think I will take up one of my favorite Hindi film of all times and place it against the storytelling principles of ‘Poetics’ – which I discussed with Santanu Bose. This one is a sacrosanct tragedy, with numerous remakes. There’s even a Hong Kong version, and Danny Boyle accepted being influenced by it in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.

Its Yash Chopra’s ‘Deewar’ I am talking of; by Salim Javed; who else!!!

And this might be my opportunity to celebrate the 50 years anniversary of Amitabh Bachchan in Hindi Cinema. It was from ‘Deewar’ that his persona of ‘Angry Young Man’ started reaching crazy heights – redefining all existing norms of Indian cinema forever.

Before I get to the film, let me set the premise.

THE ‘POETICS’ SIXER

From what I understood from Santanu, there are six core elements of storytelling as per Aristotle’s Poetics. Their importance is in descending order.

PLOT, which is action – or arrangement of incidents.
CHARACTER, as a subsidiary to the plot. Without compelling action, there can’t be a reaction – hence no character.
THOUGHT, which might be loosely defined as the ‘theme’, in modern context
DICTION, or dialogue, or ‘the expression of the meaning in words’
MUSIC, well this one we perhaps know better than anybody else in the planet, when it comes to songs…
SPECTACLE, according to Aristotle, this is the least important element of storytelling; but that might be because he didn’t get to see ‘Avengers Endgame’…

Now, to apply these thoughts to the screenwriting of ‘Deewar’, the Yash Chopra 1975 classic; hope you have seen it, for if you haven’t, I would recommend go watch it first on you tube and then come back here; it won’t make sense otherwise.

*Just to refresh your memories, it’s the 1975 Yash Chopra ‘Deewar’*

THE PLOT

Aristotle referred to the plot as the life and soul of storytelling – as the first essential and most critical element. Plot, or action, shapes character.

Deewar ranks quite high in that domain. In a nutshell, the ‘plot’ here tells the story of two brothers, both wronged by society, but they take different directions to handle their pain. Vijay becomes a smuggler and Ravi a police officer – and it’s their conflict that takes the story forward.

Aristotle says that the character should be enforced to take some form of action for the story to come alive. It’s the job of the writer to conjure that ‘action’, and weave it within the plot – in the form of conflict thrown at the character.

In the case of Vijay, I think this ‘action’ is his decision to say ‘no’ to the ‘hafta’ coerced by local goons. That’s where his journey to the underworld starts – and the divergence from the path taken by his brother begins.

Aristotle also says that all plots must have a beginning, middle and end.

That’s probably where our contemporary three-act structure came from. We have discussed this about Hollywood Films – in a post where we talked about Syd Field’s Screenwriting principles. You might consider reading it again.

THE SYD FIELD ‘DOCUMENTARY’ RESPONSE

In the case of Deewar, however, there’s a very linear beginning, middle and end. It’s this ‘arrow’ like progression of the structure that stays with us for a very long time.

THE THREE ACTS OF ‘DEEWAR’

The beginning starts at the beginning – with the back story of Vijay and Ravi.

How their father, a trade union leader, was wrongfully accused by his own workmates; how an over enthusiastic worker tattooed ‘my father is a thief’ onto the hands of Vijay, therefore permanently creating an anti-society angst in his mind, in contrast to Ravi; how they had to leave their small town home and come in search of work to Mumbai, the mother’s struggles, the jagged childhood of the brothers – all lead to that one eventual decision – where a grown up dockyard worker Vijay decides to say ‘no’ to injustice.

The middle portion shows the simultaneous growth of the two brothers, in their chosen fields. The rift also widens – and intensifies with the classic scene where Ravi finds out about his brother’s illegal activities, asks him to surrender but Vijay refuses. This story moves forward with the mother deciding to move out with Ravi, and Vijay starting to date Anita, a woman with (arguably) loose morals. I feel the mid-section ends with the popular ‘flyover’ scene. This time Vijay is asking Ravi to leave town since his life is in danger – and Ravi refuses. The conflict has now reached a full circle.

From here on, the end begins. Ominous hints are thrown in.

Vijay, despite being angry with God, goes to visit a temple anyways to make a point to the almighty. He even decides to get married to Anita, which is somewhat against his character trait, hence the viewers suspect that this might lead to something bad. And they are right!! Anita gets murdered by his rival smuggler Samant and Vijay takes his revenge by killing Samant – to be branded a criminal – forever.

At the end, while running away from Ravi in hot pursuit, Vijay even loses his lucky ‘786’ workers badge, a reminder of his first brush with the law at the dockyard. And then, the final blow, Vijay gets shot by Ravi, crashes his car against a wall and dies in his mother’s arms – seeking her forgiveness.

Justice is served, and Ravi gets a medal for it.

Aristotle maintains that bad ‘plotting’ means the writer has stretched the plot or story beyond capacity, breaking the natural continuity. That is definitely not the case in Deewar. Every sequence has a role to play in the progression of the story-line; even the songs do not sound out of place. We will come to that later.

Aristotle also offers three possible plot-tools that the writers can use.

PLOT TOOL ONE: REVERSAL OF INTENTION

The first, ‘Reversal of Intention’ is essentially a turning point in a story.

In the case of Vijay – the ‘dockyard fight scene’ is definitely a major ‘reversal of intention’. He has been happy paying the ‘hafta’ earlier, but after a new Coolie refuses to pay and dies as a result, his anger surges out, and he decides to say no to the goons next week.

That’s ‘electric’ in terms of plotting … the key turning point.

“Agle hafte ek aur coolie in mavalion ko paisa dene se inkaar karne waala hai”

PLOT TOOL TWO: RECOGNITION

Next is ‘Recognition’ (a change from ignorance to knowledge) – a ploy quite effectively used by Salim Javed multiple times, in many screenplays.

In Deewar, I think this should be the ‘Roti’ scene with Ravi – when he shoots a boy for stealing two rotis, but the father of the boy justified Ravi’s actions, by saying – ‘All acts of stealing is the same. Be it roti or lakhs of rupees.’

That’s where Ravi ‘recognized’ his innate conviction to go all out against Vijay.

PLOT TOOL THREE: TRAGIC INCIDENT

For Aristotle, the ‘Tragic Incident’ could be another major plotting device.

In ‘Kala Patthar’ this was the ship drowning, which was revealed later; in ‘Sholay’, the murder of Thakur’s family also happened midway into the film; in ‘Deewar’, however, the tragic incident happens right at the beginning – much like Mother India, Ganga Yamuna, Agneepath or even Nayakan.

Yes, it’s the branding of Vijay as the son-of-a-thief that’s the tragic incident here.

Without that incident – there’s no Deewar.

CHARACTER

According to Aristotle, character comes in as subsidiary to the actions or plot. They are defined by the choices they make, or avoid. For a ‘tragedy’ screenwriter, characterization is critical. If the viewers do not sympathize with the character (pity) and lament their fatal mistakes (fear) – the plot won’t really help.

Let’s pit the characters in ‘Deewar’ against the four ‘aspects’ that Aristotle listed as essential to characterization.

TAKE FOUR OF CHARACTERIZATION

THE CHARACTER MUST BE ‘GOOD’

Both Vijay and Ravi stand true to this.

While Ravi is unquestionable good and moral, even Vijay is presented as a person wronged by society, who is out to fight injustice, much like a vigilante. So even while, he is a smuggler, he garners sympathy as a ‘good’ man, but a victim of circumstances.

PROPRIETY

This essentially means ‘stick to the character type’. The characters should follow their rules of behavior consistently.

Vijay can’t suddenly decide to become a demure family-man that starts accepting injustice. It goes against his character, hence any attempts in that direction leads to his fall. Both the mother and Ravi are pretty consistent to their own rules of behavior too, throughout the film.

In a nutshell – writers should be true to the character types.

TRUE TO LIFE

That’s where Deewar scores really well.

A large number of viewers sided with the jaded, vigilante-like portrayal of Vijay. Let’s remember, it was 1975, and the subdued angst of an emergency-bitten, corruption-ridden, politically disillusioned mass got a conducive purgatory outlet in Vijay.

That’s ‘true to life’ – in every sense.

CONSISTENCY

Even if there are character ‘flaws’, they should be consistent throughout the story arc.

If a screenwriter decides to give certain ‘traits’ to the character – even they should be consistent. The ‘flaw’ of Vijay here is his love for his brother and mother – that’s what stopped him from going all out in the world of crime.

Across the film, right till the end, this ‘flaw’ stays.

THOUGHT

Loosely defined, that’s the theme. In Deewar, the theme is obviously ‘right vs wrong’ – but with huge grey areas. What seems to be right is not always so in the perception of the audience – and that’s where they side with the ‘wrong’.

To a large extent, the ‘angry young man’ is a wish fulfillment for the masses – but they can’t go all out either in the same route. Since if they do, like Santanu said, they will fall, like Vijay. So you can love Vijay, but should not attempt to ‘follow’ in his footsteps.

DICTION

Diction is dialogue. It’s “The expression of the meaning in words”

Who can forget the dialogues of Deewar?

From “Agle hafte ek aur coolie…inkaar karne wala hai” to “main aaj bhi pheke hue paise nahin uthaata” to “Jaao pehle us aadmi ka sign lekar aao..” to “mere paas maa hain” to “Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum”…

Sorry, I won’t translate those; won’t dare to. Shouldn’t be vandalizing public property.

MUSIC

Music is a key storytelling tool – as depicted in Poetics.

For me, I really think Deewar would be incomplete without its songs and background score. From the peppy naughtiness of ‘keh do toomhein’ to the surging romance of ‘Maine Tujhe manga tujhe paaya hai’ …each song is placed aptly to give the required breathing space, and sometimes add to the characters and take the story forward.

My personal favorite is that husky and melancholy – ‘I am falling in love with a stranger…’ track, when Anita meets Vijay at the hotel bar – sung by the by the relatively unheralded Ursula Vaz.

I suggest, take a look at the ‘flyover’ scene again, but this time, do not listen to the dialogues. Rather, listen to the background score. And then go a bit forward and listen to the score of Vijay’s temple visit scene. Music speaks there, but doesn’t overbear.

That’s the R D Burman magic I am talking about.

SPECTACLE

Spectacle comes last for Aristotle; that stands true for ‘Deewar’ as well.

The most spectacular scene in the film is probably the dockyard fight scene. We might also consider Vijay’s death scene, when he supports himself using temple bells as moderately spectacular, but that’s all.

If we are talking spectacles, maybe we should talk ‘Sholay’.

But let’s keep that for another day.

I can just go on and on about ‘Deewar’, but I can’t possibly write a research paper on this here in this space; this is still a not-for-profit blog.

But yes, I would request every potential screenwriter to watch and analyze ‘Deewar’ intensely – like a text-book. After all, if someone of the stature of Amitabh Bachchan calls it the ‘Perfect Script’ – who am I to say anything otherwise.

It’s now time for the second part of the Santanu Bose interview.

Here, we talk about narrative structure, mainly; going off to unexpected but interesting tangents, much in the tradition of coffee-house ‘adda’ – if you know what I mean.

I think you will enjoy it.

“Greek plays are like an arrow. It’s neither three nor four acts, but travels straight to a pre-determined conclusion.
Much like some Hindi films, where you often know what the end would be right at the beginning …”

I did mention Sarnath Banerjee in that interview.

Quite by accident, but that was a hint of what’s coming next.

Yes, in a few days, I get you a chat with India’s most well known graphic novelist who strongly believes that the western world has somewhat jeopardized the true spirit of picture book style storytelling…

Come back for that. See you soon.

Santanu is also an excellent film maker. He has recently started an initiative where he intends to make short films regularly, and this one is my favorite.

I think in this film my friend Santanu is the master of understatements.
Watch it. It’s just about 5 minutes. You will understand.

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ENGAGING ‘POETICS’: WITH SANTANU BOSE

PLOT TOOL ONE: REVERSAL OF INTENTION

PLOT TOOL TWO: RECOGNITION

PLOT TOOL THREE: TRAGIC INCIDENT

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