Myths, Epics and Cinema must have good script, director, locations, hero, heroine, villain, and other cast of characters - including animals.
In a Myth or Epic, the script writer doubled as the director. Cinema cannot get away just like that for this simple reason – huge money has to be invested and earned. Cinema is not forever as the likes of Myths or Epics.
Cinema is sustained by a large audience support. For the other two, one single devoted soul is sufficient. The same story of a particular cinema cannot be used in another production, in the same language - it will bomb at the box office. Myths and Epics do not suffer but get embellished when retold.
Myths & Epics are like free downloads as far as cinema is concerned. A paragraph from one of them can be scripted in to a 3hr movie. Heroes can be shown as villains or the virtues of villains can be extolled and the movie will pass as a satire. Only Cinema can enjoy this fruit of others’ labours.
The Myths and Epics have to be read or performed in real time. Unlike this, a cinema script is read attentively by many. At the time of screening, if the script itself happens to see the filmy version, it will faint. Changing with wont is Cinema.
Myths and Epics did not have song and dance sequences but Cinema must have it, filmed in exotic locales, even if it is foreign to the plot itself.
Conch shell sounded-fights will not wash with today’s peace-loving cinema viewers. Blood should flow thick and fast; heroes should fly in the air and fight; for all the blood curling dialogues and muscle twisting facial expressions, the villain should be stupid enough and unable to shoot straight even with a self-aiming and firing gun.
Heroes definitely don’t need Kevlar vests for protection from flying bullets. Their frenzied fan following will not permit such an appendage.
Myths and Epics extolled valour and briefly hinted at glamour. The Cinema has rewritten the meaning of glamour and valour as a formula for box office success. The directors and producers proclaim that the trash they dish out is what the fans want! A good script, at times, might become a liability in such a Cinema.
Myths and Epics waited for an audio release - in front of a King and his court. Then they were taken to the larger population. Cinema is an emperor in this respect. People waited for its audience – audio and video release. They even e eagerly wait to witness a poster release of their favourite hero’s film!
Myths and Epics are written only once – no editing and deleting by its author, afterwards. A movie can be filmed, edited, and objectionable portions can be re-shot or deleted before & after release. Activists with moral censoring license coming to light now and then!
In Myths & Epics, the authors could only describe that on so and so occasion such and such a musical instrument was playing. Later when drama became popular, lead actors started singing on stage supported by a pit orchestra. This pit orchestra also attempted its hands in providing back ground music (BGM) to enliven the narrative.
Cinema has a definite edge over Myths & Epics in this respect. A dedicated music director and his orchestra score music for songs and the BGM. Many films have gone on to become huge hits solely on the strength of soul stirring songs.
The hero of a Myth or an Epic is a character or an avatar, right from the beginning and gets to portray only as such. A hero in a movie starts as a mere portrayer of a character and riding on the strength of his fan following, becomes an avatar. He has the choice of acting in multiple roles in a single movie. He dictates and the story & screenplay gets stereotyped. Then movie budgets start climbing to Himalayan heights.
In the hands of an imaginative director, Mythological movies, too, became big money earners. The Good and Evil fought, on the silver screen, with ‘astras’ cadged from willing & susceptible Gods, who were just waiting to off load some boon, indiscriminately. The able director of photography and fight composer captured the dramatic turns of events, vividly.
The Bad man (asuara/villain) shoots an ‘astra’ and it goes sizzling with fire. The Good man (avatar/hero) waits, prays and shoots an appropriate ‘anti-astra’ and it spews a jet of water, after meeting head-on, to douse and shower flower petals.
The Bad man, in his over ambitious reach, did not object to boons with riders. The God cleverly left some loop holes in the boon to wriggle out of the commitment at a later date. The last ‘astra’ the Good man shoots, kills the Bad man.
This trick-shot is repeated a few times and the war ends. Plenty of back ground music heightening the tension in the audience - a short pollution free war to defeat evil.
That mythological simplicity will not do for a present day movie. Stunts must be set on Bullet trains, speeding boats, flying helicopters, taxing jet planes and at space stations. Wars in galactic scale are most welcome – by all concerned.
Cinema has no time to propitiate a god on behalf of its heroes & villains. The simple ‘astras’ have given way to portable missiles, grenade launchers, Uzi guns and if possible humvees. Depending on the budget, even WBD (weapons of Biological Destruction) are also used to good effect.
The stunt directors and WWF participants have perfected gravity defying techniques, rewriting the effects mass and impact more or less at the same time. For theorizing on the existence of boson particle, almost simultaneously, a Nobel Prize for Physics has been announced.
Then why not honour the stunt directors and WWF participants? May be the Nobel and the Oscar committees could come up with an idea for honouring the stunt directors and WWF participants, who were evolving simultaneously – an annual ‘NobOscar’ award may be!
The Myths & Epics have the last laugh at the creativity of cinema. After all, they only showed the Cinemas that humanoids can have transplanted animal bodies or vice versa. Think of the possibilities it had opened up for the 2D and the 3D animated, now-cinemas. Now the story & screenplay writer enjoys abundant freedom to conjure up characters with out fear of copy right infringements. Shiva adorned by Snakes, Vishnu reposing on a - multi hooded, snake tiered-bed, 4 headed Brahma, 6 headed karthigeya and 10 headed Ravanasur – the Godly, good, bad and deadly.
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