I have mixed feelings about the anti-smoking ads that precede the main feature in movie halls. Mainly, they annoy me because they add to the already-considerable list of distractions before a movie begins: the line of trailers, Vinay Pathak swanning about in a bright red coat as he extols a bank's interest rates. These things can be exasperating for someone who is both punctual to a fault, and impatient. On the other hand, my sadistic side delights in the sound of pampered brats, insulated from the world beyond their velvety multiplex seats, groaning when the grislier ads play; the thought of people being confronted with such images just before the glossy movie they have come to watch is a pleasing one.
I am clearer, though, about the idiocy of signs scrolling across the bottom of the screen while a film is playing. And as you may have heard, the Indian decision to turn every movie experience into a public-service advertisement hasn't pleased Woody Allen either. The veteran director has had a long association with absurdist comedy, but he doesn't see the funny side of "Cigarette smoking is injurious to health" signs besmirching his creations. And so, Indian viewers won't see his new film, Blue Jasmine, on the big screen.
Allen's stand - and the equally firm one by the censor board to not make an exception for him - has revived the old argument about societal welfare versus the self-centred impulses of the "ivory-tower artist". (The conversation has already headed off into predictable tangents too: on message-boards, people are pointing out that Allen - given the many controversies around his personal life - is not exactly an exemplar of public morality; so why should anyone listen to his whining about such things?) It may also revive discussions about art's "obligations". As Orson Welles (or was it Alfred Hitchcock, or Shah Rukh Khan, or Lassie?) once said, "If I want to send a message, I'll go to the post office."
That line sounds facetious, but the implication isn't that films shouldn't convey anything positive or affirming - it is that a "message" or "idea" can be delicately embedded within a movie rather than ladled out for quick consumption; the viewer might be required to do some thinking of his own. Of course, pedantry can sometimes serve a purpose too - especially in a society where a large number of viewers are under-educated and might need things to occasionally be spelled out. But the thing is, these anti-smoking tickers are context-free and indiscriminate: they apply across the board, showing up with every glimpse of a cigarette (or bidi, or cigar). It doesn't matter, for instance, that the sort of viewer who spends Rs 400 on Blue Jasmine is likely to be someone who already knows about the dangers of smoking.
At times, the ads are not just distracting or superfluous, but farcical. On two recent occasions, I involuntarily snorted out loud when anti-cigarette warnings appeared on the screen. One was during Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, in which slaves undergo vicious torture and pretty much every character is in danger of having his head blown off at any given point. Then there was the recent re-release of Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay, with Raghuvir Yadav superb as the junkie Chillum. This is a story about lives lived on the edge of the abyss, or on the edge of the railway tracks, with Chillum himself constantly on the verge of throwing himself in front of an approaching train. He is an addict (and he is leading the film's protagonist, the young Chaipau, down a similar path) but the real drug here, the thing that is most "injurious" to the characters' health, is poverty and circumstance.
And so, there was something morbidly funny about watching anti-tobacco riders through the duration of Salaam Bombay, in the company of a privileged audience. But then good intentions and common sense don't always go together. If a Marx Brothers film were ever shown in our halls, there would probably be a permanent warning at the bottom of the screen, given the cigar attached to Groucho's lower lip. Perhaps Allen - whose recent films have doubled as tourism guides to the major cities of the world - could make a Delhi film about that, and call it Shadows and Smog.
I am clearer, though, about the idiocy of signs scrolling across the bottom of the screen while a film is playing. And as you may have heard, the Indian decision to turn every movie experience into a public-service advertisement hasn't pleased Woody Allen either. The veteran director has had a long association with absurdist comedy, but he doesn't see the funny side of "Cigarette smoking is injurious to health" signs besmirching his creations. And so, Indian viewers won't see his new film, Blue Jasmine, on the big screen.
Allen's stand - and the equally firm one by the censor board to not make an exception for him - has revived the old argument about societal welfare versus the self-centred impulses of the "ivory-tower artist". (The conversation has already headed off into predictable tangents too: on message-boards, people are pointing out that Allen - given the many controversies around his personal life - is not exactly an exemplar of public morality; so why should anyone listen to his whining about such things?) It may also revive discussions about art's "obligations". As Orson Welles (or was it Alfred Hitchcock, or Shah Rukh Khan, or Lassie?) once said, "If I want to send a message, I'll go to the post office."
That line sounds facetious, but the implication isn't that films shouldn't convey anything positive or affirming - it is that a "message" or "idea" can be delicately embedded within a movie rather than ladled out for quick consumption; the viewer might be required to do some thinking of his own. Of course, pedantry can sometimes serve a purpose too - especially in a society where a large number of viewers are under-educated and might need things to occasionally be spelled out. But the thing is, these anti-smoking tickers are context-free and indiscriminate: they apply across the board, showing up with every glimpse of a cigarette (or bidi, or cigar). It doesn't matter, for instance, that the sort of viewer who spends Rs 400 on Blue Jasmine is likely to be someone who already knows about the dangers of smoking.
At times, the ads are not just distracting or superfluous, but farcical. On two recent occasions, I involuntarily snorted out loud when anti-cigarette warnings appeared on the screen. One was during Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, in which slaves undergo vicious torture and pretty much every character is in danger of having his head blown off at any given point. Then there was the recent re-release of Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay, with Raghuvir Yadav superb as the junkie Chillum. This is a story about lives lived on the edge of the abyss, or on the edge of the railway tracks, with Chillum himself constantly on the verge of throwing himself in front of an approaching train. He is an addict (and he is leading the film's protagonist, the young Chaipau, down a similar path) but the real drug here, the thing that is most "injurious" to the characters' health, is poverty and circumstance.
And so, there was something morbidly funny about watching anti-tobacco riders through the duration of Salaam Bombay, in the company of a privileged audience. But then good intentions and common sense don't always go together. If a Marx Brothers film were ever shown in our halls, there would probably be a permanent warning at the bottom of the screen, given the cigar attached to Groucho's lower lip. Perhaps Allen - whose recent films have doubled as tourism guides to the major cities of the world - could make a Delhi film about that, and call it Shadows and Smog.
Jai Arjun Singh is a Delhi-based writer