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MeenaKumari
This message was updated on 8/8/2003 3:15:36 AM by MeenaKumari |
further comments
replied on: 8/8/2003 2:19:46 AM By the way, has anyone read his subsequent Bollywood related article yet? Is it available for reading on line yet? I'm most curious to find out if anyone actually corrected his errors/if he's acknowledged any corrections. I just went to the time.com website and looked at Mr. Corliss' recent columns. His next BW column has not yet been posted. I *am* sort of tempted to write a letter pointing out the jism error and the unprofessionalism regarding the loose translation of the Urdu saying. Has anybody on the forum sent him any type of letter (whether it be a positive or negative letter)? I don't want to know what you wrote, just if you wrote. |
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MeenaKumari
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further comments
replied on: 8/8/2003 2:12:59 AM jfung, I forgot that I had said that I would continue our conversation later. I still haven't read that second article by Corliss in its entirety, so I'm not yet ready to continue our discussion. I'll read it and comment on it ASAP. |
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MeenaKumari
This message was updated on 8/8/2003 3:10:30 AM by MeenaKumari |
further comments
replied on: 8/8/2003 2:04:25 AM Okay, I think that this is now point number 25 in my criticism of Mr. Corliss' article if we combine my initial post and my "further comments" post. However, I am going to write about something that I've mentioned before--Mehboob's logo--so I see no reason to nit-pick as to whether this is actually point number 25 or part of another point that I've previously made. (Also, I may not have counted right; I didn't do a careful counting of all the points that I have previously made.) Here is a part of what Mr. Corliss said in FAQ 7: What's with those kooky credits? quote: Well, when I saw Mother India--the more correct title for Mother Earth, in my opinion--I knew that I had seen that saying SUBTITLED!!!! So, if it was subtitled, why on earth did Mr. Corliss translate it loosely?? However, at the time that I made my initial posts, I did not have any Mehboob's films on hand to justify my rant. Well, now I do. And here's what is SUBTITLED while the Urdu saying is being spoken. "Even if someone wants you to suffer It's God who will make happen, what He wants to." I copied this exactly as it appears, word for word, in the movie Amar. The first part, "Even if someone wants you to suffer" appears on screen first and then the next shot has "It's God who will make happen, what He wants to." There is absolutely NO NEED for Mr. Corliss to translate this Urdu saying loosely--it's written for him right there in black and white. And, I'm sorry, but to me Mr. Corliss' translation comes across as a crass and disrespectful statement to me, something that the subtitled statment does not convey. The subtitled statement comes across as somewhat mysterious to me, actually, especially when coupled with the speaker's deep and profound voice. I don't speak Urdu, but the saying is said slowly enough and dramatically enough for me to understand some words, and I'd say that the subtitled version is much, much closer to what's being said than Mr. Corliss' loose translation. <--another sign of his unprofessionalism in this FAQ piece, in my opinion. P.S. If people feel that I'm beating a dead topic to death, I'm sorry but this loose translation has bugged me ever since I first read it because I KNEW that the words "bastards" and "grind" and "God will do that for you" were NOT in the subtitles that I read when I saw Mother India in the theatre. P.S.S. Mehboob's logo doesn't have a star, but rather has the letter M in the middle. The hammer runs through the M and underneath the sickle, it says "Mehboob Productions." I've tried to find a picture of the logo on line, but so far I haven't found one. |
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MeenaKumari
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further comments
replied on: 8/3/2003 11:27:16 AM Brian, For the time being, I am afraid that that will be the case.  Don't worry, I am getting a used HD put in my dead computer, so that I have a computer to use at home while I shop for my new computer. |
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BrianBkyn
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further comments
replied on: 8/3/2003 12:09:51 AM "Now that I must pay for my computer use" I hope that doesn't mean we will be getting less of your informative and always interesting posts? |
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MeenaKumari
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further comments
replied on: 8/2/2003 11:46:08 PM Now that I must pay for my computer use, I have no desire to utilize my time and money writing a letter to Mr. Corliss. If anyone actually does, please let us know that you did so, and let us know if you get a response! Brian, don't worry; if I were actually writing a letter to him, I would be very polite and courteous, and I'd most likely only mention the Jism thing. |
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James.
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further comments
replied on: 8/2/2003 9:47:53 PM I just wanted to mention that the words 'jism' in Hindi and English are pronounced *differently*!!! In English, the 's' in jism has a 'z' sound. In Hindi that is *not* the case. In Hindi, the 's' is an 's' sound. The words written in English *appear* the same, but in fact are pronounced differently.  (Maybe you'd like to add that to your letter to Mr. Corliss, Meena? Feel free! )
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bollywood501
This message was updated on 8/1/2003 11:17:53 PM by bollywood501 |
further comments
replied on: 8/1/2003 11:14:53 PM BrianBkyn in his above comments does bring up some good points . Like he suggests, " ...99% of his [Richard Corliss'] readers have never seen a BW film..." and "...very few of them are going to remember the fine details [of the article].." I really believe that 85% of the regular readers of Richard Corliss at Time.com only read the first page of the article anyway and never even made it to the actual FAQ. This article was written as a one page magazine piece meant to grab the casual reader who has never seen a BW movie into possibly actually taking home that copy of "Lagaan" or "Ashoka" that is on the rack in the near by Blockbuster video store, or putting a couple BW films onto their NetFlix queue. Then primeing them for the shock of their lives after they have stuck it into their DVD player and watched dumbstruck for 3 1/2 hours the wonderland that is BW. Still I totally think WE at BollyWhat forum really should rip this article to shreds :p The great popular BW article has still yet to be written, and this one by Corliss is far off the mark. . |
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BrianBkyn
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further comments
replied on: 8/1/2003 10:51:20 PM "critic/journalist who has not done his homework." Admittedly he should have done some more fact checking on his piece - maybe BollyWhat can become his official fact checker in the future! - but I still opine that these errors are insignificant compared to the good he is doing for BW by simply publicizing its existence and saying its his favorite of late. My guess is 99% of his readers have never seen a BW film and would never have likely ever done so - and very few of them are going to remember the fine details. What they will come away with is that these movies are long, are great fun and have bad male dancers (actually quite true imo - I totally disagree with someones assertion that he only likes macho male behavior since he cites Astaire and Gene Kelly as his models and they were far from macho males - just fabulous dancers - Hrithik could not even hold their dancing shoes). Also I disagree with the assertion that he is putting himself up as an authority on BW films - I think it was quite the opposite - I felt the whole gist of the piece was "I am new to all this but I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the world". Maybe a film critic should not write a newby fanboy article as opposed to a finely researched authoritative academic snorefest but I found his piece refreshingly breezy and readable with his delight plainly showing on his sleeve. I think if you do write him you should first preposition it with I appreciate your bringing the spotlight on BW and BollyWhat but you asked for some feedback and so I wanted to correct a few errors in your article and just list them in a factual manner - begin a dialogue as opposed to a verbal thrashing! Ok - back to my vacation! |
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MeenaKumari
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Satyajit Ray's comments on Western Critics
replied on: 8/1/2003 10:35:56 PM Today, I watched a 55 minute videotape on Satyajit Ray titled Satyajit Ray: Introspections. It's a really nice "interview" with Mr. Ray, and in it among the things that he talks about are his childhood, the difficulties of putting literary work on film, the Bengali influence in his work, and Western film critics. In light of our discussion here, it was really neat to hear what he had to say about Western film critics, and I copied all his words down so that I could write them here. However, my computer got a virus before I could write my post, and I don't know when I'll next be using a computer. So, hang tight, because I do want you all to know what he said. I don't want to talk about what he said now, because I want his words to be read with the correct context, which means reading what he said about film critics from beginning to end. By the way, in case you don't know who Satyajit Ray is, he is a Bengali filmmaker that is internationally known and reknown. International critics were writing about his movies long before this current trend of writing about Bollywood films. He won a special Oscar for his work, which he received from his hospital bed. (He suffered a massive heart attack less than 2 hours after the filming of the Introspections interview was recorded.) Some of his films are * Pather Panchali (The Song of the Road); * The World of Apu; * Sonar Kella (the Golden Fortress); * Shantraj Ke Khiladi (Chess Players); * Teen Kanya (Three Daughters) aka Two Daughters; * Devi * Charulata * Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (Goopy and Bagha)--a wonderful children's movie that was his most successful movie to date at the time of the 1983 interview * Hirok Rajar Desh --the sequel to Goopy and Bhagha * Joi Babu Felunath and others that either I can't remember the full title or the correct spellings, so I'm not going to put them there. By the way, I would recommend viewing of this video. I rented the tape from my local library. This interview is part of the Museum of Modern Art's (MOMA) collection of interviews. The video was distributed by kulture videos, and I think that its website is www.kulture.com |
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MeenaKumari
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for jfung
replied on: 8/1/2003 1:50:24 PM jfung, I will continue our discussion, but first I need to re-read what we've written, and I need to read the entire second article from its original source. (For right now, I'll call that second article by Corliss "the Hong Kong article." ) I do think that a lot of the confusion arose by the fact that you were commenting on both Corliss' FAQ article and Corliss' Hong Kong article, while I was only commenting on his FAQ article. I did comment on his Hong Kong article, but only in one post. Therefore, in my mind, I am only referring to the FAQ article in the bulk of my posts here, especially considering the fact that I've only read the FAQs article from beginning to end. I haven't read the whole Hong Kong article yet, something that I would need to do before I could bring that article into the main discussion. Also, I'd need to read the whole article before I can tie together things from the Hong Kong article with the FAQ article and the discussion here. I hope this is making sense.
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MeenaKumari
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BollyWHAT mentioned :-)
replied on: 8/1/2003 1:45:23 PM Hmmm. I wrote my previous post before jk's second post went up and before rahel's post went up. (The last post that I saw when I started writing my post was kat's.) Considering what JK writes in her second post, maybe I should tone down what I said? I'll think about that and consider how I can change that post... Yeah, JK, I agree-what we've written here can be overwhelming, especially if all four pages are read in one sitting. Also, your point that his tone in other articles is different is helpful. For example, the article that jfung posts that compares Hong Kong cinema with Bollywood cinema has a significantly different tone that his FAQs article, in my opinion. |
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MeenaKumari
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further comments
replied on: 8/1/2003 1:04:17 PM There are additional reasons why I am criticizing Robert Corliss' FAQ article. (I am making a new post instead of editing the old post because the other post is rather long.) I am not criticizing Mr. Corliss because he writes for a nationally seen publication but because he is an established film critic/journalist who has not done his homework. Brian says, "he is a very respected and well-known film critic and he is listened to by many." Correct. And as such, I shouldn't have found so many things to criticize. I have criticized other articles about Bollywood and Indian movies before, both here and with friends, but never have I found *one* article with so many problems. Generally speaking, if I find a fault with what a movie critic has written about Bollywood, Indian cinema, or India in general in their article, usually there aren't very many things to criticize. Usually, I might find one or two things to pick on, things that might be factual errors or the general overall tone of the article or whatever. The fact that I found over 20 things to criticize in Mr. Corliss' FAQs is astounding. I didn't set out to find a set number of things to criticize. I just started at the top of FAQ article and worked my way to the end, making my observations as I went along. I didn't expect to find so many things to write about. I wasn't trying to hammer him on every point. But why was I able to find so many things to criticize? This shouldn't be the case with a movie critic with his credentials and CV. Oh, some of these article that I have read are as long or longer than Mr. Corliss' FAQs; just thought that I'd better mention that, in case someone thinks that the length of his article might be a reason/excuse for having so many errors. Earlier, I said that I wasn't going to send him an e-mail. Well, there *is* one thing in his article that bugs me enough to e-mail him a correction--I want him to know that jism in Hindi means body, not semen. I really resent the tone of his "gotcha!" comment about Jism at the end of his FAQ article, especially considering the fact that he's got the wrong definition of jism and the fact that he is spreading this wrong definition to countless of other people. Let me extend that by saying that all his errors are compounded by the fact that these errors are being accepted and internalized by countless readers, readers who may not realize that he doesn't take the time to get to know the cultures that he critiques in his movie reviews. Remember, I have read Mr. Corliss' work for almost 20 years, so I'm thinking of several different cultures when I make that criticism of his journalistic style (the criticism that he doesn't take the time to get to know cultures other than his own). Mr. Corliss *is* an established and credentialed film critic and journalist. As such, one should not be surprised if people take issue with his (error filled) FAQs article. |
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rahel
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BollyWHAT mentioned :-) - Shadeism
replied on: 8/1/2003 12:34:28 PM Meredith - I agree with the theory in general (re: fairer skin being associated with less work etc.) but I think you should layer on to that analysis the whole issue of caste which is related but goes deeper. Lighter skinned people are on first blush thought to be higher caste. I've heard this expressed many times, very bluntly by Indians. Although probably based on an inaccurate translation there is the perception out there that varna=colour as in skin colour... I know that James Nigh went to some length to explain why this is inaccurate - but perception counts for a great deal. Also wanted to note that while not derived from colonialism, I think the colonial period did not help and probably exacerbated the Shadeism that already existed (not to mention the caste-ism) |
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JKMerengue
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BollyWHAT mentioned :-)
replied on: 8/1/2003 12:25:47 PM quote: Oh, of course I don't think that, Kat... I have found this forum and all its members very thought-provoking and tolerant of all kinds of diverse opinions. That's why I was so unsettled when I read the compiled 4 pages of posts last night (at 1 am! maybe that was coloring my reaction). I was completely floored at the wave of negative opinion engulfing his article, when I had read it completely the opposite way. You have obviously read many more of his articles than I have, and formed your opinion on a wider number of exposures. I've read some, but am not a regular reader. I won't contradict or even try to change your opinion of his intent, and I do find that this "Top 10" column was a bit more "flip" in tone than the earlier article that had so caught me up and impressed me. I just wanted it to be seen that there WAS another way the articles could be perceived, so that this forum remains as "equal opportunity" as it always has. I'm sure we'll be getting a lot more new readers!!! PS. Meena, your posts are always thourough and well thought out. I always enjoy reading them. They always teach me a lot. Keep them coming! I wouldn't want you to think they go unappreciated even when we see things in a different way. :-) |
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