Big thrill to have The Popcorn Essayists reviewed by Baradwaj Rangan for Tehelka, though I'm greedy enough to wish that the review had been longer. A note about the accompanying photograph - it probably looks a bit cocky (author striking narcissistic pose in front of mirror), but anyone who knows me will know that the thought bubble above my head reads thus:
"What an idiot I'll look like if they use THIS photo along with a negative review of the book! Heck, what an idiot I look like anyway. Oh no, the chair is tipping over. Must maintain balance and grin simultaneously. Grin. Balance. Grin. Keep the kitschy red shirt in the frame. Oh phew, there's the flash. Thud."
P.S. for an even sillier photo, see this.
Advance notice for Delhiites about the Popcorn Essayists book launch: Samit Basu, yours truly and a handful of popcorn essayists will be talking movies and movie-related writing at the India Habitat Centre on March 22. Apart from the conversation, there will be beer and popcorn, though probably not in the same mug. And no, there aren't any World Cup matches happening that day - so mark your calendars/set a reminder on your phones/tattoo the date on your foreheads and be there!
P.S. From the blogs of two of the contributing writers, here's a taster of two pieces in the book: Amitava Kumar's "Writing My Own Satya" and Madhulika Liddle's "Villains and Vamps and All Things Camp". (If you're interested in movies from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, you should also promptly subscribe to Madhulika's blog.) And of course you can read Manil Suri's Helen-dance piece "My Life as a Cabaret Dancer" here.
The Popcorn Essayists: What Movies do to Writers is now available on Flipkart, so get thee forth and order copies for yourselves, your friends, family and pets. More about the book here.
What happens when you gather a line-up of established authors who don't write professionally about cinema and ask them for personal essays about a cherished film or film-related experience?
This happens:
[Click to enlarge]
The anthology will be out in a month or so, but here's a quick summary of what the pieces are about:
- How do you "read" a film, how do actors recapture the immediacy of their feelings when they dub for a scene months after the original shoot ...and other questions that movie buffs ask themselves ("Jellyfish" - Manjula Padmanabhan)
- A tongue-in-cheek analysis of a cult Punjabi film as a Bible for foot-fetishists ("The Foot-Worshipper's Guide to Watching Maula Jatt" - Musharraf Ali Farooqi)
- On dreamlike vistas, from Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr to a surreal chase scene featuring Kader Khan and Vinod Mehra ("Perchance to Dream" - Rajorshi Chakraborti)
- How the Bihari actor Manoj Bajpai passed himself off as a native in an archetypal Mumbai movie ("Writing my own Satya" - Amitava Kumar)
- From watching Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire to reading Michael Cunningham’s ‘White Angel’ - how does the language of film differ from the language of prose? ("Two Languages in Conversation" - Kamila Shamsie)
- On the tumultuous romance between a man and his car in Ritwik Ghatak's Ajantrik ("Gaadi Bula Rahi Hai" - Sumana Roy)
- Why a middle-aged male author performed a Helen dance in drag after a public reading in Brooklyn (Manil Suri's "My Life as a Cabaret Dancer", which you can read here)
- Secret agents, suave detectives, fake ghosts ... on Hindi film noir and thrillers from the 1950s and 60s ("Villains and Vamps and All Things Camp" - Madhulika Liddle)
- What the silences in the Kaurismaki brothers' movies reveal about Finland and its people, and why an Indian writer should be so interested ("Going Kaurismaki" - Anjum Hasan)
- When you're starved for moviegoing experience, a Charlie Sheen thriller can be "the greatest movie ever made by man" ("Terminal Case" - Sidin Vadukut)
- On why being scared is a good thing ("Monsters I Have Known", by yours truly)
- A novelist recalls her time publishing a gossip-driven film magazine in the 1970s, steeped in "a Film Lok parallel to Indra Lok" ("Super Days" - Namita Gokhale)
- A writer who worked for the British Board of Film Classification on the occasional need for - and her ambivalence about - censorship ("The Final Cut" - Jaishree Misra)
And here's the video of the Popcorn Essays session at the Jaipur lit-fest, where four of these writers read from their pieces.
Updates to follow as the release date draws near.
The monthly magazine The Caravan is an excellent forum for long-form feature writing and journalism, and the January issue is special for me on two counts: first, it carries a piece I've written about Jaane bhi do Yaaro - the film and the book. Here's the link.
Second, the issue excerpts this wonderful essay by author Manil Suri about the "Helen dance" he performed in drag after a public reading at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The piece is one of 13 original essays in The Popcorn Essayists: What Movies do to Writers, an anthology of film-related writing that I've edited for Tranquebar. The book should be out in February, and needlesss to say I'll keep feeding you information and updates about it. But for now, do read Manil's piece, and watch his Bollywood dance here.
P.S. It's purely coincidental that the Helen number Manil picked for his dance was from a film titled... Caravan.
