Why Filmfare isn’t the Oscars

Filmfare is often compared to Oscars because they are the oldest awards with years of history and heritage. The truth is far from it though. Filmfare used to be good two decades ago, but during the past 20 years that Filmfare has changed. Before that, it was about celebrating the art of cinema and the famed black lady statuette was hard to get hands on. Curiously, it’s a case of competition making everyone worse rather than the making them better, funnier and edgier. Television combined with celebrity tabloid culture is clearly responsible for this development. The Indian film awards are run by media houses. They have an agenda. They want the maximum eyeballs and TRP’s. But here’s what is puzzling- unlike 6-7 years ago, today, the news of who won a Filmfare are live tweeted by journalists and flashed on news channels. That is one whole week before their actual ‘exclusive telecast’ in the age of instant information flow.

I am convinced that the Filmfare or any other awards ceremony is a boring event sprinkled with a couple of doses of laughter. It is these very select moments and stray smiles that are canned and then edited and packaged to give the audience a ‘sleek product’. That the awards are making a monkey out of the audiences is a point that gone amiss and what’s more, the people still tune in and it doesn’t matter to them. For them it’s the performances and the song and dance routine which makes it more of a nautanki than an award which is revered and holds gravitas.

If Indian films awards are so good, do them live.

But here is why they won’t do it. A live telecast exposes the deficiencies and is very difficult to manipulate .When its live, there is nowhere to hide and edit and polish a dull show , where the presence of an actor or nominee is directly related to whether he/she knows beforehand if he/she is winning or not. And then in a deal of scratching backs, the nominee performs on stage! Voila!Bravo! It should be the awards night, not the emcee night or the superstar night. The audience is again taken for a ride, because some award producer has decided that this what the audiences like.

Granted television audience is required, Even the Oscars need them, so they keep on thinking of ways to be fresh and appeal to the widest possible demographic. And it’s not as if the show is only aired in the US. It’s seen worldwide – from the employees calling in late on Monday in Perth to otherwise late wakers in Mumbai, as also people in United Kingdom, probably after their Sunday mass.Even the Oscar frontrunners are jittery because they have the most secretive voting process. Once the secret ballots are polled, the auditing firm PricewaterHouseCoopers oversees the proceedings and no one knows who won until the envelope is opened on stage in front of a live audience.

In that respect, Filmfare is a long long way off. The novelty, the thrill, the suspense, the excitement ;call what you may is not there. The list of nominees are ridiculous and shows shameless pandering to the stars. It’s like watching a fixed match except we are not the bookies and don’t get money out of the whole scam. More than often, it’s a straight cut deal, you perform on the night and you get a trophy. Sometimes the presenters are a dead give away of the eventual winners. They are either parents, sons, girlfriends, cousins or relatives. All’s well in a nepotistic family. Contrast to the Oscars where the previous years winners are the presenters. Eg . Christian Bale who won for Supporting Actor last year presented for Best Supporting Actress this year and gave the statue to Octavia Spencer today.

The other thing that is usually lamented online by keen cinéastes is the sheer number of awards coming up .In fact the truth is, India has far less awards. In the US, prior to the Oscars, there is long list of awards - Golden Globes, SAG, Actors’ Guild, Producers’ Guild, Directors Guild, Editors Guild, awards from various Critics Circles, Film festivals and many more. What is the key however is that each of these awards have a credibility factor. None of the Indian awards can claim that. On a live chat session earlier today, IBN’s Film Critic Rajeev Masand answering to my question on Oscar’s credibility replied “ Its because the voters are the same professionals of the industry”

What must be added is that the academy is almost 6000 members strong and impossible to influence. Yes, one can try publicity and canvassing in the Oscar season but that doesn’t guarantee anything.. Eg Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Filmfare is an award where public voting also is taken into account and its concept is similar to MTV Awards where invariably the best films never win in any case. And those Indian awards which have a holier than thou attitude of being co-judged by the jury, the jury comprises of a select dozen people which not a suitable number by any stretch. India still awaits a democratic credible film award .I will close this up by pointing to the difference in quality between The Oscars and awards in India. In the Best Actor category this year, Ranbir Kapoor is sweeping the circuit clean with not a single upset as there is no other option. However, today if anyone among Demian Bechir, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt or George Clooney had won instead of Jean Dujardin for Leading Actor, it would still have been well deserved. The nominations truly mean something, they are not vacuous. And speaking of quality and class, the announcement is not preceded by parroting the names of sponsors but a simple line

The Oscar goes to….

Democratic and fair Indian film awards

On Friday, CNN–IBN had conducted a live chat with their Entertainment editor Rajeev Masand where the topic of discussion was need for fair and democratic Bollywood awards.Yours truly was also a part of the chat.During the one hour chat Masand was queried by cinéastes about the problem and his thoughts on it . Some have also begun a initiative of Twi-fi awards based out of Twitter dismayed by the hopeless proceedings.

There are a lot of things going wrong right now. Filmmakers whose film are in contention are part of the jury, people with no credibility are the judges, sponsors and channels appease stars by creating award categories for all and sundry.

One chatter even suggested sarcastically that why not we have categories like ‘Best actor having weight above 80 kilos’ or ‘Best actress with first name starting from A’ ?

Filmfare, the oldest and seemingly the most prestigious of all awards holds no credibility. There are a host of supporting reasons for this. Among other things, primarily, how can Filmfare be credible if they hold it YashRaj studios? We don’t have indoor studios in India?

What is the deal with best couple and power awards? The number of awards being handed out is insane and is unashamedly sycophancy. The glory and the importance of an award is lost, if everyone goes home with one.

I agree to an extent that equal weightage should be given to public opinion and critics' opinion. But sometimes the public doesn’t know how good a film is until actually told by someone of its ingenuity. I didn’t appreciate Citizen Kane before I came to realise the multiple layers in that film. I didn’t fully appreciate Jean-Luc-Godard’s Breathless in one viewing either. It’s the job of a learned critic to give critical insights so that the audience knows and appreciates better. Ultimately opinions are subjective, but an opinion has to given its voice too.

Look at the nominations in Filmfare for Best Director.

The question to be considered should be what new has the director offered directorially? A new cinematic vision maybe? That way, ideally Dibakar Banerjee for LSD, Vikramaditya Motwane for Udaan and Habib Faisal for Do Dooni Chaar should be the strongest contenders. Sadly,only Motwane had been nominated.

That is a problem; the award is given to director and not direction. Some directors like Sanjay Bhansali are considered auteurs even after they make bad films and term it as a secret remake. What the heck is a secret remake? Take a Spanish film, and set it up in Indulgent Street, Over-rated Corner, Bhansali Land?

His nomination has discouraged some new director who had made a better film .

Masand answering to a question said ‘I am just saying - are Salman, Shahrukh, Hrithik, Ajay Devgan, Ranbir the only best performances in the year? Why hasn't anyone nominated Rajat Barmecha and Ronit Roy for Udaan, or Arshad Warsi for Ishqiya, or Manu Rishi for Phas Gaye Re Obama, or Rishi Kapoor for Do Dooni Chaar? Why the shameless pandering to stars?’

And why Neetu Kapoor is not nominated for best actor female for Do Dooni Chaar is beyond me. Why, because she has crossed 50? Why is Neha Chauhan, who played the night-shift girl at the supermarket in LSD is not nominated ?

India has a host of award shows, but each has their own pressures and compulsions. We need an award that isn’t determined by a star's presence or by sponsor's demands. India needs a credible film academy awards and Bollywood needs website like www.rottentomatoes.com, where reviews are from authors that are certified members of various writing guilds or film critic associations. No 3-4-5 stars for films, let the review on the film be aggregated and made a percentage of, like rotten tomatoes. It gives better range and idea of how good or bad the film is.

This will take a couple of years to digest for a star crazy fan base, but the art of cinema needs to be respected with credible people voting. Sorry to say but the industry doesn’t have many. Winning an BAFTA/Academy Award means something, even being nominated should be a challenge and an honour. The new Film Academy awards should

• Respect performance not name
• Don’t stretch the list be, fearless.
• Reduce the number of nominees, five at maximum.
• If there are only 3 performances worth mentioning, then there should be only 3 nominees.
• Reduce all these ridiculous categories like best villain, comedian etc.
• No shared awards.Someone will lose that doesn’t make the film/person that lost any poorer
• Lifetime achievement awards should not be restricted to actors. Why not give them to film-makers, technicians, music composers, etc?
• Two categories for music – best original song, best original album
• Two categories for story – original, adapted (from literature, not Hollywood)
• Best short film, best documentary
• Like OSCAR/BAFTA keep sponsor's away and let awards be fair and neutral and hence it will become reputed

I am optimistic, that if enough people get together, there maybe a visible change and a free democratic award set by a Film Academy would take place. January 29 Filmfare awards would suggest otherwise though.