1. Apur Sansar/The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray, 1959): The concluding part of Ray’s famed Apu trilogy. An ode to married life and the heartbreak inherent in having literary ambition. Made instant stars out of a flute-playing Soumitra Chatterjee and a 15-year-old Sharmila Tagore.
2.The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005): A memorable portrait of a novelist and a marriage in decline, and the ascent of the wife as a writer. Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are wonderful.
3. Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda/The Seventh Horse of the Sun (Shyam Benegal, 1993): Based on Dharamvir Bharti’s groundbreaking short novel, this movie is a celebration of storytelling and storytellers. As fledgling writer and seasoned raconteur Manik Mulla narrates about the three women who shaped his childhood and adolescence in a small north Indian town, we get a crash course in the art of tonality and pacing. Pallavi Joshi, Neena Gupta and Rajeshwari Sachdev are all excellent muses. As is Rajit Kapur as Manik. The movie has the cult song ‘Yeh Shamein, Sab ki Sab Shamein’. Listen to it.
4. Chinese Coffee (Al Pacino, 2000): Pacino is memorable as an uncompromising novelist, leading a hand-to-mouth existence as he struggles to finish his third novel. Reduced to working as a liveried doorman in an upscale New York restaurant, he gallantly carries on, putting pen to paper every day in a Chinese café too polite to throw him out. Jerry Orbach is also very good as his writer/photographer friend.
5. The Words (Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal, 2012): A young struggling novelist finds an old leather satchel, which has a manuscript in it. The novelist claims it as his own and finds literary success. Complications ensue. Both Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Irons are striking as novelists.6. La Notte/The Night (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1961): A young novelist coming up the ranks. The sudden fame, the adulation, and the compromises one makes to sustain it. Literary Rome, Marcello Mastroianni, rumpled-yet-elegant in a black suit, and Monica Vitti on her knees, all captured in dazzling black and white. An inspiration for Govind Nihalani and Mahesh Elkunchwar’s 1985 Party.7. Can You Ever Forgive Me (Marielle Heller, 2018): A chilling and heartbreaking portrait of a writer in terminal destitution and a slow descent to criminality. Melissa McCarthy as the writer/biographer Lee Israel is lyrical and unforgettable.
8. Wonderboys (Curtis Hanson, 2000): Michael Douglas – clad in a rani-coloured woebegone bathrobe – is pitch perfect as a onetime literary lion and creative writing teacher, with a disintegrating marriage and a pregnant mistress, unable to complete the novel he has been working on for over a decade. His performance is a definite study for David Duchovny’s delicious turn as Hank Moody in the 2007-2014 series Californication. Bob Dylan’s Oscar-winning ‘Things Have Changed’ is the theme song in abrilliant soundtrack.
9. Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others (Dorian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006): Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, ‘Lives’ is about how to be human when a totalitarian regime is hell-bent on making a country inhuman. A movie about courage and defiance, I watch this whenever I feel disheartened and start to question the efficacy of fiction in today’s India. Works like a tonic every time. Ulrich Muhe as Stasi officer Gerd Weisler is brilliant.
10. Pyaasa/Thirst (Guru Dutt, 1957): A young poet, Vijay, poor but arrogant with talent and idealism, loses everything in a world suffused with materialism. But then, he has a second coming. Dutt’s finest hour as an auteur, the song visualisations and choreography are unparalleled. But this is a Sahir Ludhianvi masterclass. For over half a century, this keeps reminding generation after generation of Indians, ‘Jinhe naaz hai Hind par, woh kahan hain?’.
As I finish this column, 20 more movies come knocking at the door. I’ll keep those for a rainy day.
