Repetition and circularity in The Crown

[I have written about the web series The Crown in a few earlier contexts - here are some posts: 1, 2, 3]

 

Mix and match time again. One thing that strikes me about The Crown, having followed the series over four seasons covering more than four decades, is the circularity and repetitiveness of the narrative (I don’t mean this negatively). To some degree, this is built into the show’s DNA: however dramatized and embellished The Crown is, in essence it is about a woman whose life and reign are founded on the very boring adages “duty over personality” and “don’t express an opinion” – and about the people orbiting around her who try to be messily human once in a while, or just to express themselves, but have to conform to varying degrees (or break away from The Firm with often-tragic results, like Diana does).

A story like this obviously decrees some repetition in conversations (the frequent and prim use of lines like “It is my duty” can get tedious even when spoken by excellent actors like Claire Foy or Olivia Colman), or some echoes between events, character arcs and relationships over the decades. (Just one instance: the similarity between Prince Charles’s romantic life in the 1970s – vis-à-vis the married Camilla – and that of his great uncle Edward, an earlier Prince of Wales, in the 1930s, has been commented on even in dry histories and documentaries.) But the writer-showrunner Peter Morgan has also consistently tried to emphasise these echoes by providing visual links between episodes across seasons. For example:

1) With a roomful of people looking at him, Philip asks for “help” – first as a teenager in the 1930s, studying at Gordonstoun under Kurt Hahn (season 2, episode 9); and then as a middle-aged man in the early 1970s, opening up about his lack of faith to the Dean of Windsor (season 3, episode 7).

2) On a plane, heading home after learning of a loved one’s death, a monarch-in-waiting reads a letter from a grandparent (or honorary grandparent), reminding them of their duties: Elizabeth in season 1, episode 2; Charles in season 4, episode 1.

3) George wakes his son-in-law Philip early in the morning to take him on a duck hunt and give him a pep talk about being compliant husband to a future queen (season 1, episode 1); Philip takes his future daughter-in-law Diana on a similar early-morning hunt and a sort of reconnaissance, to assess her suitability as wife of a king-in-waiting (season 4, episode 2). A line used here, ostensibly about the hunt – “We only get one shot at this” – also becomes a comment on two outsiders (Philip and Diana) working their way into the Windsor universe 35 years apart. 

4) A king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar… Along with the opulent sets and extravagant lifestyles, there are moments like this: two kings, coughing blood into first a sink, then a toilet bowl, before flushing away this unwelcome evidence that the clock is ticking for them. In season 1, episode 1, George VI discovers signs of the lung cancer that will kill him a few years later. (It’s a terrific irony that the opening image of THIS show is so dingy and unglamorous, with the third shot being the inside of a blood-streaked commode.) And in season 3, episode 8, former king Edward VIII  finds a similar fate awaiting him.

There are many other such instances through the show (this is not counting cases where parallels or contrasts are very overtly made within an episode, as is done in the excellent “Paterfamilias”). But in using these linking devices often, Morgan also pointedly shows how people, even when their basic characters remain unchanged, come to occupy different roles – and invite new types of judgements – with the passage of time and with the emergence of new contexts. Thus: in the 40s and 50s, Elizabeth and Philip might be a dynamic young couple, in love, letting their hair down with friends (until circumstances lead her to the throne earlier than expected); but by the 70s these same people have become distant, conservative, authoritarian figures, controlling their children’s lives. The Elizabeth and Philip of 1954, having a furious spat during a demanding Australia tour, yield to a dour elderly couple watching a video of that same tour three decades later and lecturing their son and daughter-in-law about how the trip had brought them closer together.

Or look at the young Charles of season 3, shy and awkward, in love and out of sync with his responsibilities, one of the most sympathetic figures the show has had (you want to hand him a cookie or a security blanket every time you see him); and then look at the same character midway through season 4, only a decade or so older and played by the same actor, as a stuffy and resentful husband who can’t be bothered about Diana’s feelings beyond a point.

Since most of these royals have lived such long lives, and since most of them have lived these long lives inside an aquarium, they provide a good laboratory study (especially when filtered through the hyper-dramatic lenses provided by Morgan) of how our perceptions of people change – and a reminder of the truism that everyone becomes a villain if they stick around long enough.

On the Khandaan podcast: No Entry, Scam 1992, Soumitra Chatterjee, Ludo etc

I was invited recently to participate in the Khandaan podcast run by Amrita Rajan, Asim Burney and Sujoy Singha. Asked to pick a specific "Khan film" for discussion, I chose Anees Bazmee's No Entry, which is (in bits and pieces, especially in the midsection) one of my favourite Hindi films of the last decade and a half. I went into the podcast all set to give defensive-sounding speeches about the value of “tasteless” or “offensive” humour and how it stimulates those parts of our reptile brains that have nothing to do with the moral/ethical codes we have constructed for ourselves over the last few millennia – but as it turned out I didn’t really have to worry about all that because at least two of the other members of the podcast (Asim and Sujoy) had even more lowbrow tastes. What I did provide instead was an important insight into the usefulness of Fardeen Khan. Here's the link.

We also discussed a few general subjects such as the excellent new series Scam 1992 and Anurag Bansal's new film Ludo, and paid a small tribute to the late Soumitra Chatterjee. Here is the link for that conversation. (See the Timeline for the list of discussion points and when they begin.)

From children’s theatre to chai cocktails: on Sai Paranjpye’s new memoir

[I did this review-cum-interview with Sai Paranjpye for the latest issue of India Today]

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“I am skilled in plagiarising – from life,” Sai Paranjpye writes at one point in her candid, wide-ranging memoir A Patchwork Quilt: A Collage of My Creative Life. The immediate context is a millworker’s remark that Paranjpye incorporated into her screenplay for the 1990 film Disha, but reading this book one realises that such skilful “plagiarism” applies to much of her output over a long, versatile career. It also requires the ability to absorb and store experiences and use them discerningly – a quality Paranjpye has shown in good measure, notwithstanding her admission that she doesn’t quite have a head for dates or chronology while remembering incidents.

During a phone interview, she elucidates by recalling a scene in her short film Angootha Chaap, about a village grandpa who learns to read and write. He is sitting in a bullock cart with his grandson, slate in hand, and stumbles when he sees the Devanagari symbol for ‘M’. Is this the ‘Bh’ sound, he wonders – and at just that moment, a goat nearby bleats ‘Maa’ and he gets it. “That’s how I have worked too,” Paranjpye says, “finding inspiration in what is around me.”

A Patchwork Quilt – her English translation of her bestselling Marathi memoir Saya: Maza Kalapravas – depicts a life that has been colourful and, importantly, multi-cultural from the beginning, with many positive influences and experiences to draw on. She was brought up – in Poona, and for a few years, in Australia – by her unconventional, multi-faceted single mother Shakuntala Paranjpye and her maternal grandfather or Appa, the mathematician RP Paranjpye; the book begins with a portrait of Shakuntala as writer, actress (she featured in V Shantaram’s Duniya na Maane), social worker (who campaigned for family planning at a time when “birth control was never mentioned in polite society”) and later Member of Parliament. “My mother was the biggest influence on my life and creativity, and my sense of humour is a reflection of hers,” Paranjpye says during our interview, though she also hints that Shakuntala’s domineering personality had another effect on her: “As a parent myself, I may have veered in the other direction as a result – being afraid of interfering with my own children.”

Still, the upshot was that she had a very well-rounded education, in Indian and Western culture: reading everything from Walter Scott to Jane Austen to Doctor Dolittle, while also learning Sanskrit verses by heart as a child – these recitations, she notes, aided her later in life when she learnt other languages such as French, or worked in radio and theatre.

“Who could have been lucky enough to have a mother or a grandfather like mine?” she says, “Appa came to terms with my being bad at Maths, and was very proud of whatever little creative things I did.” A collection of her fairy-tales was published when she was just eight. “I was roly-poly and unathletic as a child,” she tells me, “and other children didn’t want to include me in their games. I used my imagination to invent games, about stolen treasure and so on. My script-writing talent comes from a similar place.”

Readers who are familiar mainly with Paranjpye’s film work might well open this “quilt” in a rush to get to the later chapters about the conceptualisation and making of the breezy, perennially popular Chashme Buddoor and Katha, or the more serious-themed Saaz or Sparsh. And the book’s structure does allow for selective, dip-into-it-anywhere reading. There are many behind-the-scenes stories that fans of her movies will enjoy, such as a guerrilla shoot that had to be hurriedly executed in the Delhi Golf Club – for a gentle, romantic scene between Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi – because they couldn’t afford the charges for shooting there.

However, more patient readers will find that some of the most illuminating passages are the ones where she discusses her work in other fields: from radio to children’s theatre, from stints at the National School of Drama (NSD) and the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) to shooting teleplays, and even working on a campaign for the Tea Board of India in France, inventing tea cocktails on the spot for a guest who preferred his tea “strong”. Among her documentaries is one about painters of film hoardings and banners (one of whom poignantly tells her “Ours is real folk art. You don’t have to buy tickets to go to art galleries to see it”) and another about the pioneering music director Pankaj Mullick (“unfortunately, the film was not preserved or cared for, and not a single frame can be traced in the Doordarshan archives today”).

There are many insightful stories here about the special challenges of translating a play from one language (and culture) to another, or about Paranjpye’s approach to set design when mounting a production for children or adults. Such passages read like a necessary record of cultural documents that are always in danger of being unchronicled and forgotten. There are also recollections of seeking inspiration in sources as varied as Jean-Paul Sartre (with a play that offered a riposte to his observation, in No Exit, about hell being other people) and Neil Simon (a comedy about extramarital relationships that some viewers felt “betrayed” by), as well as accounts of steering her own stories across mediums. She writes with affection about the Maharashtrian folk-theatre form Tamasha – avant-garde yet simple at the same time – and in one evocative passage, likens it to the French revue. “The same unshackled energy. The same joie de vivre. Two twins separated at birth and brought up under contrasting circumstances. I got to nurse both these twins. How lucky can one get?”

Elsewhere, there are amusing echoes between the personal experience and the creative one: early on, Paranjpye describes reading aloud as a child to her Appa while he shaved; decades later, in less propitious circumstances, she found herself reading out the Sparsh script to another man who was lathering his face (an initially indifferent Sanjeev Kumar, whom Paranjpye hoped to cast in the role of the blind school principal).

Having worked in so many capacities – writer, theatre and film director, actor, set designer – is there a particular role she finds most satisfying? Or a form she enjoys more than others? “I have dreams galore where I see myself in the midst of some mammoth extravaganza or activity,” she says, “and sometimes it is a film, sometimes TV, sometimes a particular form of theatre. I think of myself as a screenplay writer foremost, and I also enjoy editing – it’s stimulating to find the exact frame where one has to cut – but I’m not too good in other technical fields. Once I have selected a cameraman or music director who suits my purpose, I wouldn’t presume to give them detailed instructions on lighting or scoring.”

Given how much Paranjpye has done, across mediums, it is a bit humbling when she mentions the many things she didn’t get to do, the regrets, the projects left uncompleted. “We will need a whole day to recount everything I haven’t done.” But this may also be a side-effect of her restless, curious spirit; as she puts it, “I have a flighty temperament. When I’m doing Tamasha, I yearn to change gears and do something like Shakespeare instead. When I’m working on something very serious, I feel like shifting to something simpler.”

“On the whole, though, I have always looked for the silver lining of humour in whatever I write or direct – even in serious works like Disha, there is a quirky sense of fun somewhere. I strongly believe in entertainment, if it can be done in a wholesome way – and hang the message. “

Though she had often toyed with the idea of writing her reminiscences, this book might never have happened if she hadn’t been asked by the Marathi daily Loksatta to do a series of articles about her journey – “The damn thing got written only because I got that push, I would have been lazy about it otherwise.” This last bit is the one part of our conversation that feels off – it’s hard to imagine Paranjpye, still working, still curious at 82, being lazy about anything.

[An earlier tribute to Paranjpye -- centred around Katha and Chashme Buddoor -- is here]

From Chandni to Titli: six of my YRF favourites

There are many small, snippet-ish things I have done in recent weeks which I haven't been sharing in this space (while I sulk about not getting much long-form writing done). Here is one: a short video for The Hindustan Times, in which I say a few quick things about six of my favourite Yash Raj Films productions. (Kaala Patthar, Chandni, Lamhe, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Titli, Fan.) The video was included with an HT feature about 50 years of YRF. 

Unfortunately I can't figure out how to embed the video with this post. But the link is here.

[And here is a longer piece about Fan]

A performance of Manjula Padmanabhan's "The Wish"

Something that has been on my to-do list for a while: reading the recently published collections of Manjula Padmanabhan's plays and performance pieces (I have read two of the longer plays so far, “Lights Out” and “The Mating Game Show”, and liked them very much) and doing a conversation around them with Manjula. Hoping to make this happen in the near future. (Volume 1, btw, also includes Manjula’s marvelous “Harvest”, about organ-selling in a futuristic - or is it? - India.)

Meanwhile, the Prakriti Foundation is doing a series of readings/performances from the two collections. Coming up on November 28: "The Wish", directed by Amrith Jayan and Aasthik Shanbag. The registration link for the performance is here. Please try to come for it, and spread the word to others who might be interested. 

Also, a note: “Lights Out” – about a group of middle-class people in a sixth-floor apartment listening to the sounds of a violent crime being committed in the street below – was written in 1984, the same year as the making of the film Party, directed by Manjula’s friend Govind Nihalani; both works share the theme of the elite discussing the suffering of the underprivileged from a safe distance. (Incidentally Gulan and Jayant Kripalani, who acted in Party, staged “Lights Out” a few years later.)

[I wrote about Party here. And here is a poster that Manjula did for another Nihalani film, Ardh Satya.]

Discussing The Innocents (1961) and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw

Some of you would know about the new Netflix series The Haunting of Bly Manor, loosely adapted from Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw, about a governess employed to look after two young children. My next film-club discussion will be about the 1961 film The Innocents, which was based on the same story (with a screenplay that both Truman Capote and John Mortimer contributed to!). Deborah Kerr plays Miss Giddens here, and the film has a reputation as one of the milestones in psychological (or “suggested”) horror, finding many visual equivalents for the narrative ambiguity of the James story. (It is superbly shot by Freddie Francis.)

 

We’ll have the online discussion sometime on the weekend of Nov 21-22 (if I survive the Delhi air of the next few days), and I’ll be sharing the film with my email group soon. Anyone else who is interested, please mail me (jaiarjun@gmail.com) and I’ll send across the link.

By the way, the full text of The Turn of the Screw is available online, for anyone who cares to make a book-to-film comparison.

 

P.S. we might also discuss the 1963 film The Haunting, based on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (which was also adapted for the earlier season of the Netflix Haunting anthology).