One of Ilayaraja’s pet peeves has been directors not using all the songs they take from him in the film. Well…it can be hard at times for them to accommodate every song they accepted in an impulsive spree, spellbound by the maestro’s genius as he reeled off tune after tune in minutes. Based off Vaidehi Kaathirunthal (Vellikazhama Ramaswamy, enough said!) or even Gautam Menon’s Neethane En Ponvasantham (allegedly anyway, as I haven’t seen it), it would appear that attempting to satisfy the maestro by using all the songs can be a fraught exercise anyway.
But the result is brilliant songs getting lost, submerged beneath songs that received much more acclaim simply because they got picturized. However, as the maestro did include the songs on the audio cassette/vinyl of the album, they were luckily saved from oblivion and the internet has resurrected many of them back into some of the popularity they always deserved.
The first and very obvious one to mention is Putham Puthu Kaalai from Alaigal Oyvathilai. In an album chockfull of classics, director Bharathiraja couldn’t accommodate this one in the film. But it grew in popularity over time anyway and was even redone for the ill-fated 2013 venture Megha. I really don’t need to write much about this song as it’s already a classic.
As is Putham Pudhu Poo, also from a film by a great director with great collaborations with Ilayaraja – Mani Ratnam. Mani Ratnam did include the prelude of the song in the film to placate Raja but rumour has it that it wasn’t enough! S Janaki’s age starts to show here as she struggles to get to the high note in the antara but Dr Yesudas is in his zone here. This is one of the maestro’s rare forays into Pantuvarali.
Another epic number, also a S Janaki solo, and also from a Bharathiraja film full of amazing songs – Dhoorathil Naan from Nizhalgal. It is verily a predecessor to Ponvaanam Panneer Thoovuthu with shades of Kanna Varuvaaya as well.
Less fortunate, in terms of avoiding relegation, has been Thaniyila Nenanja from Keladi Kanmani. Yes! Once again, an album that already has Mannil Intha, Thendral Thaan, Nee Paathi Naan Paathi and Karpoora Bommai (and also Enna Paaduvathu which I don’t really dig) has yet another keeper. The late Uma Ramanan is a little ‘miscast’ here, singing an ostensibly sultry solo rather plainly. But the changes in this song are just…Raja fossible! This is one of those numbers I have to ‘re-figure’ out every time I listen to it after a gap. He clearly had a blast making this as complicated as possible so that the resolution would satisfy him (and us!) more.
Possibly the most brilliant (surely the most interesting imo, anyway) number of Veera too was excluded from the audio. I ignore the irritating exercise-routine inserted in the song as something that must have been asked for per the situation. But the modulations within the antara/charanam are incredible. This is also one of his baby steps towards full fledged jazz songs (while not being one of those itself).
Another jazzy number from 1994 that wasn’t picturized – Day by Day from Honest Raj. Was his best jazz ballad until he did Paavi Nenjae and Kaalai Visa for Modern Love in 2023!
Rounding it off with a number for a film that didn’t even get released! Well, one instance then where the maestro couldn’t blame the filmmaker. Raja’s trusty duet pair SPB and S Janaki ace the vocals while he uses a lot of harmonica in the music:
PS: Not making a full list of all such songs, which would be impossible but…do also check out the unreleased Vidaitha Vidhai and the unpicturized Baby (Oruvar Vaazhum Alayam).
I am writing this so that it may help those of you who are still struggling with long covid. And even if you don’t have long covid, you may still be among the unfortunate few who are dealing with chronic fatigue. OR, if you do, heaven forbid, end up suffering from it at a later point, this may help.
I used to play tennis six days a week pre-pandemic. In March 2020, about a week before India went into a near-total lockdown, I and my tennis mates decided it was no longer safe to keep playing.
I gained weight during the lockdown. This may or may not have affected my complete recovery from covid. I don’t know and I don’t know because the doctors didn’t seem to know. I was also administered a very heavy dose of fabiflu (favipiravir) when in quarantine at a covid care centre.
Whatever, after my first brush with covid in Dec 2020, I recovered fully (or so I thought then) and went right back to work. I was driving myself to work, spending 3.5 – 4 hours in total just on the road. On some days, it took 2.5 – 3 hours just on the return commute. No problem!
And then, in Mar 2021, the problems began. I began to breathe heavily while climbing up stairs. I also felt terribly exhausted without any unusual exertion. On the first day that I felt this and reported it to my parents, they checked with our family doctor and he pretty much asked me to rush back home. I did so and, upon reaching home, fell asleep like a log…at 4:30 PM! It would have been a very busy time at work had I been at office. I was woken up at 6 and I went to see the doctor who then told me this seemed to be a case of post covid/long covid and I had been unaware of such a thing. I am mentioning this because I would later be told by at least one specialist that I was overthinking things (aka maybe believing something was wrong with me when there wasn’t). But I didn’t even know about something like long covid until my family doctor told me.
After this diagnosis began a fruitless search for a cure. I was given some respiratory/cough related medication as well as vitamins. These intermittently alleviated my problems but they never went away and I went through spells when they worsened. I even had to take three months away from work without pay. When I returned at first to a ‘hybrid’ arrangement in Sep 2021 and eventually to full WFO from Oct, I was able to manage the situation but with reduced productivity.
I might have limped along to full recovery but then…I got covid again in Jan 2022 during an omicron wave. The problems returned. This was when I consulted the specialist who thought I was overthinking things because I mentioned to him that I had noticed myself forgetting things. My perspective was that I had never been a forgetful sort before. Episodes when a clear instruction from a higher up seemed to have been wiped clean from my memory (until I was reminded of it) were scary for me. But Indian doctors would simply look at the test reports and say nothing was wrong with me.
I had to eventually give up my job (because WFO was non negotiable for them). I then dieted intensively and also forced myself to do regular jogging. Because I was not without work at home, I could get myself adequate rest after the jog. By Dec 2022, I was able to run 5 km at a stretch. By now, I had an offer for a job in Zimbabwe and was awaiting a police clearance certificate to take the flight.
I took up this job in Jan 2023 and initially was able to give more than 100% every day. Then, a roommate in my bachelor accommodation got a viral infection and I ended up getting it too in March. In April, fatigue returned with a bang. I was now stuck in a demanding job (where I worked – and work – even on Sundays) and very, very far away from home. My wife joined me in May and propped me up but I could feel the exhaustion mounting and mounting.
Eventually, in Aug, I simply collapsed. I came back home early from work (being that it was a public holiday!) and feeling tired, went for a liedown. Two hours later, I felt simply unable to get up. I spent the rest of the day this way. I thought a good, long rest would right things by the morrow.
I was wrong. The next day, this new, ultra-intense bout of fatigue continued. The day after was finally a working day in Zimbabwe and I got to see a doctor. He confirmed that it was chronic fatigue and administered duloxetine. But by now, people were getting anxious and impatient at work and suggested me to try another doctor who was reputedly the cat’s whiskers in Zimbabwe.
And so she was! She directed me to something they called a ‘Jet Fuel Bar’ at the hospital. Here, I was administered NAD+ supplements via IV. I went through four sittings of this and was also given a free session at their hyperbarium (an oxygen chamber, basically). This treatment finally made me feel like how I used to way back before I got covid…yeah! During long covid, I used to feel like somebody had tied up the nerves in my brain in a knot. This treatment made me feel like the knots had finally been untied.
The doctor also administered duloxetine for two more months. This got me through to Jan’24 all intact. By Feb, I felt the fatigue returning, if not quite in the same form as the post-covid nightmare. Fortunately, just at this time, a colleague said he went to a nearby club (actually, the Harare Sports Club which houses the cricket stadium you have seen in many matches played in Zimbabwe if you follow the game) to play tennis and offered that I could join him. I did, hoping I could get through.
To my surprise, I found tennis more manageable than jogging and even a lot more refreshing. Now…I am not a doctor so I have no way to say for sure but my conjecture is that jogging beyond a point may get exhausting because it takes up so much of your breath. While tennis is more vigorous during the intense movements within points, there is a ‘breather’ between points and even while you wait to receive serves. Perhaps, these mini-breaks make the activity easier to manage. And the jumping motion you use in tennis as you move sideways across the baseline (we call it split steps) may help improve the blood circulation and thus invigorate the body and especially the brain. Again, I don’t know and this is not an expert opinion but since expert opinion hasn’t exactly been forthcoming on this subject, I have had to use trial and error methods to cure myself.
Anyhow… when I headed back to India for my annual holiday in March, I purchased NAD+ in capsule form and brought them over. A combination of SOS NAD+ doses and regular tennis has helped me keep going since then.
I don’t know, based on what I have experienced over the last four years, whether I can for sure stop peering over my shoulder to make sure the long covid spectre is at bay. But to the extent that I have been able to get back into the workforce and to a level where I am able to play a sport again, it was NAD+ along with the duloxetine that helped me get over the line. In India, the tranquilizer of choice is Tryptomer for some reason. One of the conditions for which Duloxetine is administered is fibromyalgia which is nothing but a form of chronic fatigue. Not many are likely to believe me when I say this but it was a Zimbabwean doctor who finally cracked the code for me, so to speak, and had a medication framework that worked. Also, none of the Zimbabwean doctors I consulted ever suggested I was ‘making it up’. Perhaps, at least some Indian doctors could learn to accept fewer appointments and spend a little more time listening to patients?
In my write up on the Eera Vizhi Kaviyangal album, I said I wouldn’t review the movie. But I changed my mind! And the reason for that is while the movie isn’t entirely successful in what it attempts, what it attempts is rare (strangely) in popular Indian cinema and rarer still are its moments of uncanny honesty.
Eera Vizhi Kaviyangal (EVK) looks at the life of a struggling artist and just how arduous is that struggle. It is not the first film to do so. Guru Dutt did it all those years back with Pyaasa, no less. Indeed, when Radhika’s wealthy and modern character upbraids Prathap Pothen’s protagonist and asks if he thinks she is a prostitute, I have to wonder if it is a callback to Pyaasa. If it is, it must be one of the cleverer moments of the film!
Aside from such asides, Pyaasa was about a struggling poet. EVK is about a struggling musician. He has written his own songs (complete with lyrics) and can sing and play guitar. He goes from studio to studio asking for a chance to be heard. If I am not mistaken, one of those whom he approaches is a composer played by Gangai Amaran himself! That is, EVK is the rare movie that looks (sort of) at the film industry from within but also from the outside-in perspective of a struggling artist who is unable to get in.
The subject is also clearly close to the heart of all involved. It was director B R Ravishankar’s maiden essay. Prathap Pothen seemed to gravitate to, if not champion, such subjects. And as for Ilayaraja, Amaran and Vairamuthu, the connection is obvious.
I must confess I don’t usually analyse and dissect lyrics from an intellectual or literary perspective – because I am already reacting to the music at a very visceral level. So it’s usually when the lyrics are very poignant for what they say (and not just interesting for how they say it, though something poignant said beautifully is even better) and are in complete consonance with the music that I relate very strongly to them. In rock and rock related music, this happens naturally with songwriters who are good lyricists. In film music, this level of connection is more elusive…and more beautiful for it when it does happen. And it may be a controversial opinion to hold but EVK holds some of the best work of the Ilayaraja-Vairamuthu partnership.
The first song in running order in the movie is Kanavil Mithakkum written by Gangai Amaran who surpasses himself both here and on the finale Kathal Panpaadu. It appears as the protagonist has boarded a bus to get to Chennai, to try his luck as a musician. At this point, he is full of hope and optimism and the song almost seems to be looking a little sadly at his naivete. The lyrics capture this sentiment. Consider, “Un siru idhayam (Your little – fragile ? – heart)/adhu undhan ulagam (Which is your own world)”. It’s beautiful but also gently foreshadows what is about to unfold.
Cut to the second song – Thendralidai Thoranangal penned by M G Vallaban. At this point, a drunk Prathap is languishing in the company of a fraudster who promised to get him a foot in the door of the industry. He starts strumming the guitar and the maestro’s voice rises, overlaid by quite a bit of reverb. This is when Radhika’s rich woman character first hears his voice and she is captivated.
After he nearly scares her off by reacting badly to her attempts to befriend him, their friendship develops and she coaxes him to show off his talent. For an artist who has faced nothing but rejection and indifference up to this point, this is like an oasis in a desert and he duly sings, “En Gaanam Indru Arangerum (My song shall today unfold)/En Sogam Indru Veliyaerum (My sorrow shall today be revealed)”. This song is penned by Vairamuthu and has to be, imo again, one of the high points of his partnership with Ilayaraja. For Ilayaraja, this song is the veritable expression of what he must have gone through himself during his days as a struggling musician. While Vairamuthu’s path to premier lyricist was less arduous, he nevertheless brings out the emotions of an artist going through these struggles so powerfully. The song goes on thus:
Yezhai Sonna Geetham Ketkavillai Yaarum (Nobody Would Hear A Poor Man’s Song)
Indru Endhan Raagam Vaanam Varai Pogum (But Today My Song Shall Soar to the Skies)
The power of the music lends considerably more weight to the movie than it would have otherwise, as the director struggles to avoid falling into rather contrived and manipulative situations. In the midst of this, though, he does also depict the artist’s plight with an authenticity that was particularly rare at the time.
It is not just the harshness of the rejections that is shown but also the impact of this fruitless search on Prathap’s health. He falls extremely sick and has to be rushed to a doctor who duly asks the landlord to feed him at least twice a day! But the landlord isn’t necessarily the problem here. The problem is Prathap is too headstrong and independent to ask for help. He wants to avoid being obligated at any cost, even as he appears to waste away failing to make any headway in his attempts to break through.
The landlord makes efforts to help him exhibit his talent and manages to secure an opportunity for him to perform at an acquaintance’s wedding reception. This may sound like a pitiable platform for the wannabe genius-in-waiting but for Prathap, it’s oxygen. He prepares with gusto for the D-day and then, the landlord informs him that the groom died! At the same time, he was to meet Radhika for a small private party where he would confess his love for her. But she doesn’t turn up either. Broken inside out, he laments via the song Pazhaiya Sogangal (also Vairamuthu). This too is rendered by the maestro and his voice almost appears to break as he sings the words Kanneer Ketkum Dhagangal. Once more, the echo of his own struggles as the promise of an opportunity must have come and gone like a mirage was seemingly irresistible for the maestro as he goes a little beyond his own exalted standards. Even if the movie isn’t quite rising up to what it really should be to do full justice to its subject, Ilayaraja with his baton and Vairamuthu with his pen appear to be willing it on. It is like they have a personal stake in its success and maybe, at least emotionally, they did!
From here, the movie gets both repetitive – as Prathap flits between searching for opportunities and being humiliated by his truck driver-father – and increasingly contrived (Prathap dismisses an alarm call by his mother regarding his father’s health because she had once lied to him only to find that this time his father passed away and he wasn’t there for him). There is, to add to these contrivances, the love triangle element. The person Radhika loves is Sarath Babu who is an army officer. She has a purely platonic relationship with Prathap who, though, has feelings for her. Yeah…basically every other Tamil movie of the decade! At this point, only Ashok Kumar’s cinematography makes it look like a better film than it is.
But wait, there is one last salvo in store for the maestro. At the passing away of his father, Prathap has decided to move all the way to Mumbai – to work any odd job he can find (as if Chennai didn’t have a seaport!) because he is now obligated to support his mother and has to give up his musical dreams. Radhika asks for time until the day of his planned departure to make one last effort to realize his dreams. Sure enough, she secures the first ever concert (kutcheri as we say in Tamil) for him. Here, he triumphantly renders Kadhal Panpaadu. On that note, I have to say this and Kanavil also have some of Yesudas’ most heartfelt singing. I recall him saying on stage during the Endrendrum Raja concert of 2011 that he had seen days when it was a struggle to get one meal for the day. Like Raja, he too seemed to connect deeply to the context of the songs. Appropriately, the song goes, “Sindhadhae Kaneerae Podhum Vidhu (Shed No More O Tears/It’s Enough)”. A sentiment that evokes relief as much as jubiliation.
In the meantime, the director has one last contrived contrivance to kill the last shreds of promise left in the film. Yep, Sharad Babu dies and Radhika is distraught. Just before she learns this news (and therefore doesn’t come to Prathap’s show), Prathap also confesses his love for her. She is puzzled but decides not to upset him and tells him to talk after the show. Prathap searches for her all the while that he’s singing. The moment he is backstage, she calls him urgently. She tells him she had friendzoned him from the get go and was sorry if she had ever led him on and also reveals she has lost her lover. Not just that, she is, of course, headed for suicide point courtesy the lovely Marina Beach (they say it’s the Besant Nagar section). He rushes to save her but she is already drowning in the ocean. He gets her out of the sea but from the way he is weeping profusely as he holds her in his arms, we can make out how that went. And that, folks, is the film!
Like the protagonist, the movie too was roundly rejected by the audience. That was perhaps a harsh cut because in terms of being contrived, it was no worse than many a much more successful film and it also has a modicum of honesty that was rare for the times it was made in. But without a superstar-cast and with a theme that may have been deemed depressing, its commercial prospects were bleak from the get go.
However, as described above, not only does the movie boast an absolute gem of an album but it also does use the songs very well. I remarked in my article on the album on how Radhika listens eagerly to En Gaanam only for her to turn sad as she realizes what he is singing about (En Sogam Indru Veliyaerum). With fairly unostentatious but apt and poignant picturization, the film creates, each time, a very appropriate context for the songs. Rather, the context was already written for the songs rather than the director going “one love song, two sad songs and three bhajji-bondas” and force fitting them wherever he could.
So…is EVK really worth a watch? Well….maybe not, but IF you do watch it, you will (a) find it no worse than the typical cliched 80s tragedy movie of Tamil cinema and (b) the movie does a good job of capturing the songs on screen which is fairly rare for Ilayaraja’s albums. And lastly, needless to say, the movie is punctuated by a beautiful score. The maestro really gave it all, whether or not he knew it would be in vain.
One of my long held pet peeves with most Western music-oriented analysis of Ilayaraja’s work is it attempts to situate him only and only in a Western classical context, mining his music for callbacks to Bach (which of course are plentiful) or Mozart, Beethoven and the many other great composers of the last three centuries or so. At most, such analysis ventures to discuss his music in comparison with the great Hollywood composers (and with whom any similarity his music has is at best fleeting, except Mancini).
I don’t hold this pet peeve because the influence of Western classical music is non existent in his music, hardly. No, my complaint is because such an analysis is inherently incomplete. It can hardly explain why his music is so often so unorthodox, so adventurous in terms of the sheer variety of tones it incorporates, so willing to shock or outrage the audience, so groovy, so kickass. Not because classical music cannot be outrageous, mind you – the inaugural performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring triggered uproar. But that was in 1913 – imbibing even Stravinsky, let alone Bach or Beethoven, in your music in the 1980s would hardly outrage after it’s been done to death.
I also rebel against it because of what my own explorations of Western music have led me to hear that only some of those Raja fans who listen to any Western music (already a minority) seem to have heard. I will come to this in a bit.
The maestro himself eggs on this characterisation of his music in Western classical terms as he most frequently only mentions the classical greats or, sure enough, the great Hollywood composers be it John Williams or Hans Zimmer. Other than them, I have heard him mention Michael Jackson and Nat King Cole and nobody else pretty much.
But the first (and thus far only) validation I got that I had been on the right track all this time was when I heard (read) the late Viji Manuel mention in an interview that he had introduced Ilayaraja to progressive rock like Pink Floyd. Et voila, as Hercule Poirot would say!
It was hardly a surprise to me because I had sort of intuited this long before owing to my own exploration of progressive rock. My attempts to suggest this to other Raja fans had usually met with nothing but disdain as most Raja fans who do listen to Western are already schooled by the media to sneer at progressive rock or at best regard it as rather weird music (to be fair, it often can be that but isn’t always so).
So let me break down the ways in which prog rock possibly influenced the maestro (I can hardly speak about this with certainty until he himself decides to talk about it).
At a very basic and obvious level, there are tonal similarities. Again, if you think most prog rock sounds like Pink Floyd, you would find this a surprising observation. Because while Pink Floyd is the most well known prog rock band, it is probably the one (ok, along with Kansas) that sounds least like archetypal prog rock of the 70s. Here instead is Camel’s Supertwister. Note the tone of the flute, the keyboard and the light but busy drums with lots of syncopation (also found copiously in Raja’s music)
Whilst listening to this track, you may have also noted the very audible bass. And yes, the concept of independent basslines was very widely used in progressive rock, especially because most of it wasn’t driven by powerful and insistent electric guitar riffs. I will get to why this is usually the case in a bit. But in the meantime, here is a famous progressive rock composition with a bassline built into its leitmotif and with plenty of time devoted to bass:
Going beyond the bassline, though, do you notice something about the structure of this composition? It starts with a motif, a hook that is pretty simple, something you could hum without effort but it then snowballs into this monster, ending with a crescendo.
This approach – of taking an idea and exploring it, turning it inside out – is integral to progressive rock and is almost the only quality that binds together bands as different from each other as Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, King Crimson and Emerson Lake & Palmer (to mention just some of the most well known prog rock bands). I am unable to find a link for it, but I came across an attempted definition of prog rock by ELP’s keyboardist the late Keith Emerson and he described it in the exact words I used above (or, rather, borrowed from him!) – taking an idea and turning it inside out to explore it.
And that idea is integral to Ilayaraja’s music as well, with the difference that he co-opts it into the mukda/antara or pallavi/charanam structure of film music. One of the reasons why his melody hooks are simple is because that allows him to take the idea coming out of that hook and explore it as far as it can go.
Radha Azhaikkiral is a great example of this approach:
Raja has already introduced the first line of the pallavi in the prelude where the strings play it (when you think about it, his tendency to often introduce the melody of the pallavi in the prelude makes perfect sense in light of such an exploratory approach). It is a simple and almost unremarkable idea. But everything else around it is anything but. Throughout the song, there is simply fantastic writing for bass that doesn’t so much complement the vocal melody as simultaneously chart out its own course. Whilst the first interlude is along expected lines within Raja-world, he then changes the beat pattern and also switches to tabla for the charanam. The melody too develops further. This isn’t unusual from the point of view of Indian film music. But in the context of Raja’s music, this development also provides fertile ground for the basslines to develop further. Is it an exploration of melody or an exploration of bass? As with most Raja compositions, he blurs the lines so much you can no longer tell.
He has also frequently employs this exploratory approach in his scores (which is why he is so comfortable with writing leitmotifs – because he gets the opportunity to play with them as the movie develops).
A classic example of this is the theme of Moodupani which goes through a plethora of iterations through the movie. He has done this in way too many scores to enumerate – Mouna Raagam, Idhayam, Kadhal Kavithai etc – but Moodupani is also his most moody, most ‘progressive’ score and thus serves to underline the similarities to prog rock even more.
But I mentioned something earlier about why progressive rock bands tended to eschew big, fat riffs for independent basslines. It is because the insistence of the riff also becomes a veritable albatross round the song’s neck, tightly defining its boundaries and thwarting its development (this is a generalization – there are ways to be progressive within compositions written around riffs too – see Larks Tongue In Aspic Pt-2). This is also likely why Raja, for all his prowess on guitar, rarely wrote big, crunchy riffs (and when he did, his writing was hardly remarkable from a Western perspective, as stunning as the intro to Priyathama may have been within film music).
Hand in hand, prog rock bands, especially the more symphonic ones, preferred to use 12-string guitar or classical guitar to go along with the very independent and very audible bass. Not only were these softer tones more unobtrusive, but they were also useful for writing counterpoints on guitar.
With that, let me introduce the posterboy of 12 string guitar writing in prog – Genesis! Yep, Genesis and if you think Genesis are about We Can’t Dance or Illegal Alien, “you’ve been taken for a ride” as Peter Gabriel sang on the song It! What, Peter Gabriel and Genesis? Well, that’s a whole rabbit hole if it’s news to you. But here in the meantime is the lovely, lovely Cinema Show:
And now, here’s Ilayaraja’s Thendralidai Thoranangal:
I wrote about the album as such here – it is full of very Gabriel-Genesis era guitar. It is no wonder that Raja found this kind of writing more interesting to explore than standard blues, rock or country guitar.
The ultimate genius of Raja, then, lies in appropriating so much from progressive rock and yet managing to avoid its sometimes intimidating complexity and in fact making his music not only perfectly digestible but irresistible to the lay listener to whom Bach may have been just as unfamiliar as King Crimson!
I first learned of the very existence of Eera Vizhi Kaviyangal through Ilayaraja Forums. That was in 2013 or so. By which time, I had known of and liked Ilayaraja’s music for at least 22 years (going back to Dhalapathi in 1991) and had been in ‘Raja excavator’ mode for 11-12 years (2001 onwards). After all the mp3s/CDs, all the songs I had stumbled upon on TV, all the songs I had tracked down through wiki and then checked out on raaga.com or tamilsongs.net or learned of through the Raja group Mr Rajendran ran on orkut, I had still not even known about the very existence of such a movie.
In and of itself, that is not surprising. I had likewise stumbled upon Uruginen Uruginen (Anne Anne). There are so many movies to which the maestro bequeathed gems and which sank without a trace at the box office.
But…what’s peculiar about Eera Vizhi Kaviyangal is it isn’t about just one great song lost in a flop movie. It’s about a whole album of exquisite songs…and so exquisite you could easily compare it to, variously, Nizhalgal, Jhonny, Moodu Pani, Tik Tik Tik, Ninaivellam Nithya, Nenjathai Killathe or Kadhal Oviyam. Yup, it would sit head held high right next to the very best of his work in the first half of the 80s, a period that many Ilayaraja fans consider his best (me, I say the distinction between the first and second half of his most productive period is not highly relevant to me). And it is yet, to this day, so little known. Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t remember QFR performing any of the songs from this album either.
There are also aspects of his music for this film that make it distinct to other works of his. As in, not in a radical ‘I can’t believe this is Raja’ way but in terms of delving deeply into a particular aesthetic and a particular emotion.
On the aesthetic side, there is very lovely, mostly acoustic/classical, guitar throughout the album. En Gaanam Indru probably has some of his loveliest writing for guitar. Much more than the intro, I love the flowing, dreamy response to the first line in both charanams. There is in general something dreamy about the album. Not dreamy in a very obviously ‘hippie/trippy’ way but dreamy in the manner of taking you to some long lost place. Maybe a long lost place in your memory, a time you long for?
For there is something intensely nostalgic and melancholic about the album. You can see it in the scene for En Gaanam Indru too. Radhika is smiling as Prathap Pothen starts strumming the guitar and singing. But as he goes on singing and she realizes where this is going, she grows sad (I haven’t yet dared to watch the movie but intend to soon!).
This is the effect the music has on you too. At first, the absolutely gorgeous and (save for the rocker Kadhal Panpaadu) almost entirely pastoral soundscapes sweep you away with their beauty and make you smile. And then, as the undertone of pathos hits you, you almost want to not keep listening to it. But the music is so marvelous you have to…like a drug. Given that Prathap Pothen appears to be playing a musician/singer in the movie, I wonder if something about it evoked for Raja his own days of struggle, the moments when it must have appeared hopeless, when he may have thought himself a fool to have ever nurtured ambitions (listen to the way his voice appears to break as he sings the line Kanneer Ketkum Dhagangal in Pazhaya Sogangal). We don’t know if they will show all of that in the biopic and I hope they do but if ever the maestro had his moments of self doubt on the way to ascending to the throne, this is the album where he has expressed these feelings, making it unusually vulnerable.
The vulnerability, the ache and a dreamy looseness all exist in tandem with typically brilliant musical experimentation. In En Gaanam Indru, a seemingly low key start to the first interlude gives way to bright strings followed by a dreamy flute section which then progressively grows darker before strings reappear, but this time striking a more spine-chilling note. It is all, of course, expertly resolved by the maestro to make way for the charanam. Kadhal Panpaadu has some phenomenal modulations in the second interlude. When I get back home from Harare, I will be getting myself a keyboard just to work out what’s going on there because it’s super fascinating! Kanavil Midhakkum is tonally more even, punctuated by majestic strings but the sheer beauty of the flowing, sweeping section in the second interlude is beyond being described by words, I kid you not.
By most accounts, the movie wasn’t for Raja the canvas that say Gharonda was for Jaidev. What prompted him to unleash so much beauty in just one album we may never know. But if you are a Raja fan and have still not heard this album, you must. Now, immediately, ASAP! This is not to be missed at any cost.
EDIT: I did knock down the movie whilst working on an assignment on a Sunday evening (!). I am not going to write a big-ass review. I will just say that the portions pertaining to the struggle of Prathap’s character to get opportunities to perform are poignant and must have evoked bittersweet memories for the maestro of his own struggles to break through. Unfortunately, the ending is pretty much like any number of tragedies from that era (think Idhaya Kovil ending). If Ilayaraja makes it sound like a better film than it is, Ashok Kumar too makes it look more like a Mahendran film but it was ultimately not quite a vehicle deserving of the maestro’s gifts.
I remember Ennathil Yedho (Kallukkul Eeram) well. It was on an mp3 compilation of 70s and 80s Ilayaraja songs that I used to have in the early 00s (before internet and after the cassette age, the mp3 was the fastest way to explore lots of Raja). One of those compilations which didn’t have an exhaustive song list on its cover.
Thus, I didn’t know that the compilation leaned very heavily in favour of the 70s! For a fan then still in a relatively early stage of ‘Raja excavation’, this was disappointing when I’d have liked nothing more than a compilation chockfull of Mike Mohan songs. And I still wouldn’t rank the late 70s phase as much beloved to me as either the first half of the 80s or the second half. It’s not that there isn’t a lot of brilliant work even in that phase. But there’s also music where you can tell the maestro is still a little furtive, finding his feet, hoping the audience is ready to go on the same journey that he wishes to. Accordingly, you have songs like Ore Naal Unnai Naan (Ilamai Oonjal Aadukirathu) which are quite hard to tell apart from those of his predecessor MSV. At other times, the interludes don’t quite take you to the exhilarating heights the ones from his absolute peak years (1980 onwards) would.
And yet…as I flitted through Aatukutti (16 Vayanthinile) or Ponnaram Poovaram (Pagalil Oru Iravu) with mild disappointment, I stumbled across Ennathil Yetho. At that time too, the greater presence of a Raja signature in the song appealed to me if it felt a touch modest and unassuming compared to his later works.
I heard it again after a long time on the ‘Ilayaraja’ edition of the SaReGaMa Carvaan. And I liked it of course, but not quite for those reasons.
What to me is interesting is how the song sounds Raja enough while still having a looseness that’s unusual in his work. You kind of come across this looseness in Paruvame but not a whole lot of times thereafter.
But even Paruvame still has majestic symphonic interventions. Ennathil Yedho comes from a much more rustic place. But it’s not so hardcore rustic like Aatukutti or, much later, Raasaave Unnai Nambi. I could best describe it as a sort of urbanized rustic mode a la OP Nayyar’s Maang Ke Saath Tumhara or Haule Haule Chalo (or even Shankar Jaikishan’s Paan Khaaye Saiya). There is an understated sophistication about those songs or Ennathil that makes you think of the pastoral rather than the outright rustic. Think of the scene from the animated Beauty and the Beast where Belle bounds across the meadows (far from the madding crowd?) and sings to herself. Sure enough, the scene of Ennathil also involves the heroine lost in her own romantic thoughts/dreams.
The melody, both pallavi and charanam, has an explorative quality. Especially the first couple of lines of the charanam are structured in a sort of question-answer format. But not in the schoolmaster educating us musical ignoramuses manner that one normally associates with Raja (I will be talking about things associated with Raja in a bit!). There is a gently playful quality about these questions and answers and when at the end of the charanam, birdsong answers S Janaki’s vocals (one of her very best – an incredible balance of the vulnerable with the sensual), it’s perfect.
Also unusual in terms of his usual approach is how the music seems to almost come to a stop in the second interlude. Not an abrupt stop or an interruption of silence. More as if the lady was sauntering through the woods and gently came to stop in wonderment at something she saw. Even when the music resumes, it does so through soft birdsong-like flute followed by gentle, quivering violins played so quietly it seems as if they too don’t wish to disturb the beautiful settings.
Yes, the quietness I found a little odd back then is exactly what I find so interesting now. And this is not a contrived or carefully constructed quietness. It’s just so, quiet in a very natural way. So here’s one more blow to the clutter crowd – here’s a song that’s so delicately constructed without appearing to be delicate. I would really love to know if this too necessarily came out of the every note pre-written to perfection approach. It’s possible, of course, this is Ilayaraja we are talking about but man is it hard to construct music that sounds so spontaneous in a manner that is actually very exact and exacting.
So…going through the Carvaan collection, I came across another song after ages which too challenges deeply held myths about Raja. And just as Ennathil is the less popular sibling of Siru Ponmani from the same movie, this one too is not as popular as the one song everyone knows from its film. The song I am talking about is Manathil Yenna Ninaivugalo from the film Poonthalir. The same Poonthalir which has Vaa Ponmayile, which you’ve probably heard a million times by now.
It beats me why Vaa Ponmayile is so much more popular than Manathil. Sure, it’s a great melody sung beautifully by SPB but…you could say all that about Manathil which is also a lot more fun.
For one, unlike Vaa Ponmayile, the melody of the pallavi of Manathil doesn’t rely on repeating the same phrase twice before moving on. Let me explain. When you take say En Iniya Pon Nilave, the melody is the same for the lines En Iniya Pon Nilave/Pon Nilavilin Kanaave. Whereas…Manathil/Yenna Ninaivugalo/Ilamai Kanavo/Adhuvu Edhuvo/Iniya Ragasiyamo the entire stretch has no repetition.
Like Ore Naal, you’d be tempted to say this is almost MSV-like. Except…it isn’t, quite. In Ore Naal, SPB is still singing in the mode you’ve heard him use for MSV songs. Whereas, Manathil has that disarming casualness that the best years of the Raja-SPB partnership brought out.
It is also a gently funky 3/4. The funk isn’t out there in the way it’d be on Netru Indha Neram but it seeps through from time to time, especially the flute-sax portions of the second interlude. But…the sax is immediately followed by very authentic jazz guitar. Folks, this is 1979! Sure, it was almost 20 years past the peak of Wes Montgomery but nobody else in film music was even dreaming of such parts. And while the maestro doesn’t often acknowledge his musicians warmly, I have no doubt whoever played it, whether the late Chandrashekar or Sada master, must have had more than a modicum of facility on the instrument. Not because it’s so technically complex but because in that time, such a very genuinely Western way of playing guitar was itself anathema to our film music.
But let me get back to the part about the melody. Contrary to the popular myth, it is not the case that Ilayaraja always repeats the same melody for lyric lines in the pallavi. And there are a few too many exceptions to perhaps still be calling them that. If anything, he did use this approach quite often in these early years.
Here are a few I have noted:
Naan Pesavanthen
Senthoora Poove (the only repetition of the line Senthoora Poove is at the beginning and again at the end)
Ilamai Ennam Poongatru (the entire Ilamai through to Ore Sugam portion is repeated in the first iteration of the pallavi but the melody by itself doesn’t rely on repetition)
Ore Naal (mentioned above)
Ninaivo Oru Paravai
Manathil (mentioned above)
Solai Kuyile
Radha Radha Nee Enge
There would be more, especially from his early years, but I am stopping here.
The point is, there isn’t a capability issue here. Raja is neither incapable of composing a melody that doesn’t rely on repetition of melodic lines nor incapable of fitting them into his trademark style of orchestration (Manathil, in particular, is a resounding rejoinder to this notion).
What one can say at the most is he was perhaps not particularly fascinated by nor fixated on the notion of not wanting to repeat melodic lines. Being more comfortable (I mean comfort in the sense of an ideology or principle, not technique again) with repetition from the get go than his predecessor, he eventually dispensed with this approach altogether.
This is what makes the 70s phase fascinating. I am never going to find it as satisfying as the 80s (and I also don’t think the debate is worth the time Raja fans spend on it because you have all of his music to enjoy and there is no particular need to discriminate anyway) given the sheer volume of gems he churned out then. But in the 70s, you hear him gradually build up the juggernaut, the reign of terror he would unleash in the 80s. And in the process, you hear him experiment with, explore some approaches that he would eventually dispense to, never again to compose music in that manner.
I don’t begrudge him that. Growth is important and had he never grown his music, he would have got boring very fast and very soon. But do I wish for a few more samples of the looseness of Ennathil Yetho or the elegant melodic construction of Manathil? You bet!
I remember watching Airbud plenty of times back in the day. My aunt living in the US would gift me video cassettes when she visited us. This was the first time she gifted me the tape of a non-animated Disney movie. I didn’t like it then as much as the animated ones (and still don’t like it as much as either of Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin or Lion King) but did find it charming.
Cut to today and dog movie is a whole genre by itself and you would find yourself spoilt for choices if you decided to watch a dog movie on Netflix. While Airbud wasn’t the first dog movie, it was the one that launched dog movie as a separate, successful format, coming as it did when Hollywood was getting more and more interested in such easily repeatable formats. There is a whole series of dog movies made by the producers of the Airbud movie, none of which I have watched.
But the making of Airbud was anything but a sterilized, corporate affair. In fact, contrary to Roger Ebert’s suspicions, the dog (a golden retriever also named Buddy) could in fact shoot baskets, all the time and indeed with accuracy that pros would struggle to match. Buddy could also play American football and guard ice hockey goalposts.
It was the appearances of Buddy on such TV shows that intrigued Robert Vince and William Vince enough to want to make the film. They proceeded to make it on a shoestring budget of USD 3mn and it still nearly didn’t get made or released until the Weinstein brothers (ahem!) stepped in.
That’s right, what was distributed as a shiny new Disney movie was pretty much an indie movie that somehow got the support of the behemoth studio. And it shows, on the rewatch. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.
First of all, the filming of Buddy’s stunts is simply astounding. I know that because the dog could do it all and they didn’t have to use CGI, it was half the battle won. But animals aren’t actors so filming them is always tricky. But if Buddy’s movements had to be carefully edited to bring it to the final form we see today, at least to my untrained eyes, the editing looks seamless and the dog’s movements come across as completely natural.
Elsewhere, there’s a rawness that gives away its indie roots. The cast is not without distinction but also not exactly names that would headline a blockbuster. Wendy Makkena plays the mother of the boy Josh (Kevin Zegers) very well if, at times, her looks of pride and disbelief at Josh’s performance on the basketball court get a bit much. Bill Cobbs as the former basketball player coach Arthur Chaney is adequate if so laconic that you wonder how he managed to inspire these kids when appearing to want to put them to sleep! Michael Jeter as the grumpy clown Norm Snively plays his part to perfection.
Being a dog movie that casts this dog-bashing clown as the villain, Airbud doesn’t really do the life-of-a-clown drill but an early scene where Snively expresses his disgust and anguish at being a clown strikes an unexpected note of pathos and Jeter exploits this to the hilt. This is emblematic of the difference between made-for-kids movies of then and today. These movies often had that one scene that would strike an uncanny note when you rewatched it as an adult (JungleBook has simply brilliant dialogue writing, for instance).
There is another interesting aspect about the courtroom scene, presided over by a judge (Eric Christmas, simply delightful!). Where Snively argues his ownership of the dog on the grounds of documentary evidence (nevermind that he can no longer produce it), Jackie Framm argues that Buddy now belongs to the school and the community. It’s a sly insertion of a liberal argument (whether or not Democratic Party propaganda isn’t for me to say) and is slipped in through the device of love for the dog.
But Air Bud doesn’t only work because of all this surfeit of dog love. It loves basketball as much as it loves dogs. Coach Chaney gives an interesting insight about teamwork in a scene where he makes the team sit and pass around an invisible ball. Predictably, the school bully fails spectacularly at it. When Josh goes for the basket right at the stroke of the bell and misses, Chaney uses the dog to impress on him the importance of loving only the game above all and playing basketball for the sake of it and not to impress his mother, schoolmates and others. How does he do it? Well, he simply throws the ball to Buddy who promptly and unthinkingly shoots the ball right back to him.
In short, Air Bud is an unexpectedly interesting and refreshing dog movie, perhaps because it was made under difficulty and with a dog that really can play basketball!
Margin Call is one of the singularly most fascinating movies produced by Hollywood. If there were a few like it before its time- the corporate cynicism slightly echoes Glengarry Glenross which is still a very different film much more concerned with midlife crisis – I can’t think of any thereafter. And it’s not likely one would get made except as a purely streaming-only affair (and maybe not even that now that the streaming winter is upon us). For, even back in 2011, with the 2008 financial crisis still a hot topic, it made $19 mn on a $3.5 mn. A very profitable venture, sure, but hardly a sensation.
Also, a theme of slight disconnect between critical reception and the moviegoers’ take can be observed in all of J C Chandor’s works (Margin Call, unbelievable, as it sounds, was his first feature film). I haven’t seen his subsequent works but all of them, including this one, only enjoy a rating in the 6.5 to 7 band on imdb, even though critics praised all of his movies. Not an 8 to be found, not one. Perhaps, it is understandable too.
Margin Call was actually one of the first films my father and I watched on Netflix after we got a subscription back in 2014/15 (can no longer remember exactly when). We liked it very much without, perhaps, fully appreciating its quality. It is very easy to see it as just a very good film if you don’t watch it very attentively and pick up on the deeper subtexts. Over the years, I watched the whole thing again once and have also watched my favourite scenes on Youtube including of course the one with “that speech of yours” as Kevin Spacey’s Sam Rogers tells Jeremy Irons’ John Tuld.
In my considered opinion, and as a huge fan of Wall Street, Irons delivers as impactful a performance as Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in the older film and with less screen time. He gets the best lines and he runs with it. More on that in a bit.
Going beyond entertaining performances such as Irons or Paul Bettany’s as Will Emerson, Margin Call is a very deeply interesting film, both for the not in-your-face undercurrents and how it is made. The movie was shot mostly at a single location in just 17 days! Chandor gave a wonderful interview about its making and how roping in one big name actor helped get the rest on the project:
By making it mostly in one location which, for the purpose of the movie, is the office of the unnamed investment bank where it all takes place, Chandor emphasizes the quality of an ensemble drama exuded by the movie (and supports it with superb writing, especially the dialogues). But he also brings forth an inside out perspective in contrast to the ‘global’ scope of both Wall Street and Big Short. There are so many layers, there’s so much to take away from what happens in the space of 24 hours at one investment bank.
I will leave aside the details of how the bank got into the mess here. Simplifying it into a broader corporate narrative makes it even more compelling because it really is a very finely observed portrait of corporate chicanery. Which is why it has to be watched carefully to grasp its full import.
On the first watch, I missed these undercurrents and assumed the risk management head Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) was laid off in a dumb mass layoff mistake (easy to make this mistake as the movie starts with a mass layoff). This, however, is not the case. Listening carefully to what is said between, in different combinations, Dale, head of credit trading Emerson, his boss Rogers, chief risk management officer Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore), division head Jared Cohen (Steve Baker) and CEO Tuld makes it clear that dumping Dale was a conspiracy to stop him from completing what he had working on, an analysis that would have revealed how badly exposed their mortgage backed securities products had left them (so exposed that a 25% drop in the value of those securities would have wiped out the net worth of the firm). However, as Dale is laid off by a cold and emotionless HR executioner (played to perfection in a very short role by Susan Blackwell) and cut off immediately from email and phone access (always a move intended to prevent retaliation by a disgruntled employee), he hands a pen drive to his deputy Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto). Well, if Dale is an engineer who built a miles-saving bridge when he was true to his original calling, Sullivan is, as Cohen sums up, a rocket scientist. The apprentice completes his master’s work in just a few hours. And calls Emerson who in turn calls Rogers. Rogers then involves Cohen and Robertson.
It then turns out that all three know about something Dale told them a year back. Emerson hints early on to Dale that it was Robertson who put the knife in. In the meeting with Cohen and Rogers, she admits that Sullivan by completing the report has picked a hole in the ‘formula’ used by Robertson’s team to evaluate risk. Cohen immediately sees in there the opportunity to make her the ‘head’ to be offered to the trading floor (as Tuld later puts it) in the fallout from what they are about to do – which is to dump all these risk-laden securities in a single day on the stock exchange. Rogers and Emerson are outraged. Emerson cannot take on the big guys but Rogers is a big fish himself and fights the good fight. Tuld buys his assent with an ostensibly attractive payout (and later gets him to commit to stay on for 24 more months). Tuld terminates Robertson and keeps her in office during the duration of this sell-off, right alongside Dale who is brought back (again with a big payout as well as a threat to withhold what he was otherwise due!) for the same purpose – to buy their silence as the firm commits the sin.
Or, as Tuld rephrases it, “we are selling to willing buyers at the current market price so that we may survive.” A classic tactic used by corporate leaders, of reframing the decision in a way that seemingly dispels any misgivings about it.
This scene, where Tuld meets the senior partners and personnel to finalize their strategy to escape from a position where they are, as he puts it, “holding the biggest pile of human excrement assembled in the history of capitalism”, is a brilliant masterclass in capturing corporate dynamics as it really is and not, well, as movie makers with limited to no corporate experience imagine it (to wit, Chandor is the son of an investment banker!). Irons absolutely owns this scene as he captures in exacting detail how the CEO stamps his authority over his team and orchestrates the proceedings, alternating between self-deprecation (“speak to me as you might to a young boy or a golden retriever”) and imposing, intimidating authority (“do you care to know why I make the big bucks so to speak”?”. Notice that when he says this, he stands up and squares his shoulders with a glare. Like a male lion marking his territory.
There is so much conveyed in the scene both in what is said and what isn’t. Like when Sullivan hesitatingly looks at Cohen and Robertson and Tuld tells him, “You’re speaking to me, Mr Sullivan” as he fires a glare at them. Sam confidently addresses Tuld by his first name John and dukes it out with him while Robertson looks very queasy, as if she can clearly see the writing on the wall.
I could go on and on like this about every one of the scenes you find on Youtube and then some that aren’t. Margin Call isn’t merely taut in terms of being to the point and short and sweet. It packs in a lot in every scene and makes every character distinguishable and memorable in at least some respect. It is, for instance, not very surprising that the more laidback Seth (Penn Bagdley) gets the axe while Sullivan doesn’t – Seth is entirely too much interested in learning about the pay packets of the big guys. As others have observed in the many interesting youtube comments about the movie, even Tuld’s Executive Assistant with barely two lines of dialogue is so well observed a character she makes an impression.
Speaking of Seth v/s Sullivan, this is one of the many little arcs, not all fully explained, in the film. In Sullivan, we see how a young corporate star is made. But, like his mentor, he has already sold his soul for money rather than building rockets. Will we see him being laid off 20 years later or will he rise much further, become a chief risk management officer like Robertson? We see that Sam Rogers is still in a very strong position in the firm, to the extent that he is on first name basis with Tuld and that Cohen doesn’t dare try to negotiate the sell-off with him. And yet, Rogers was superseded by Cohen, which Seth (who else) is surprised on. Why? We don’t know the answer to the question but this is one of many fascinating threads.
The other is the much more subtle – and balanced – commentary on the crisis itself. Where pretty much every other movie went evil bankers, Margin Call asks, “Well, what of those individuals who did avail NINJA loans and over-leveraged themselves?” Indeed, is it ok for a reasonably educated person to sign on for an ARM knowing they would likely not be able to make the mortgage payments when the higher rates kicked in? Cohen says this is like a dream and Rogers retorts that it feels like waking up. This is exactly it. I wrote in my piece about the noughties: “In truth, what we wanted from him was the noughties back. But the noughties could never come back. The noughties were built on the back of a phony real estate market and a phony war. Neither in and of themselves were desirable in the least. But it was they in tandem that propelled the best of all times.”
Happily, Margin Call has today gained a cult following and the videos of its scenes that I referenced are well watched. It truly is a masterclass of ‘less is more’ but not via minimalism and long silences but by simply utilizing its resources so efficiently. So efficiently that the best financial analyst would surely approve.
Count me among the small minority of those who didn’t think Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was quite the greatest movie ever or applicable superlative. Rather than dive into criticism of that movie, I will say that of all the things in the film, the attempt to fit in a historical perspective was the least convincing part of it. The Teamster union part was at least a little interesting but a good chunk of the historical portion was simply a re-tread of ‘discredited’ theories about the assassination of John F Kennedy that a lot of people already believe post Oliver Stone’s JFK movie and which Quincy Jones (yes, him, legendary musician and Michael Jackson’s producer!) had already spoken about in an interview.
In sharp contrast, the historical story being discussed in his 2023 magnum opus Killers of the Flower Moon (starring Leonardo Di Caprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Brendan Fraser, John Lithgow) is much more important and arresting. It discusses the Osage Indian murders of the 1910s-1930s, which, like the Tulsa massacre, is not remotely as widely known as it should be. But it happened – a Native American community briefly ascended to the status of one of the world’s richest subsequent to the discovery of oil on their land, only for white people to launch a systematic assault on them and compel them to part with their wealth. Much water’s flowed under the bridge since, but consider that in 2011, the US govt settled with the Osage Nation for an amount of $380mn towards claims of mismanagement of the Osage community’s trust funds and mineral estate. Like I said, a damning story that should be more widely talked about but isn’t and is instead shrouded by layer upon layer of US exceptionalism that has to first be questioned for one to get to stories like those concerning the Osage Nation.
Scorsese’s storyline concerns the schemes hatched by William Hale (De Niro), a deputy sheriff posing as a dear friend of the Osage community and very conversant in their language and rituals, to obtain ‘headrights’ to an Osage family so that he may profit in perpetuity from the oil money. To this end, he deputes his nephew Ernest (Di Caprio) to befriend and marry into the Osage community, post which Hale, Ernest and Ernest’s brother Byron will get rid of all other family claimants to head rights until the rights are finally vested in Ernest’s name. Ernest succeeds in making love to Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and marries her, setting off a chain of events that will culminate in a FBI investigation into the multiple murders of Osage people. Ernest is caught between: (a) his love for Mollie (b) his love/greed for money and (c) his essential stupidity which makes him putty in the hands of the cunning William.
Scorsese narrates this sprawling story via an equally sprawling movie length of 206 minutes. He also chooses a more gradual and slower flow, letting events unfold, rather than the kinetic energy of a Wolf of Wall Street. This tempo is apt for the film – both on account of the era it recreates and because this tempo allows characters to be better etched out and for their traits, their motivations to come through. Right down to bit characters like the bungling Blackie who (inadvertently) whips up trouble by hilariously messing up the staged suicide of Henry or the reluctant John Ramsey who gets enmeshed in trouble that he wants nothing to do with.
The problem (with the film) comes when the long arms of the law start to reach Ernest and William. As the film now moves into a police procedural mode, it becomes rather anti-climactic as we’re talking about open-and-shut-cases. On the one hand, I appreciate the realism in showing the stupid Ernest going back and forth on the decision of whether or not he’ll testify against his uncle in court, rather than a more manipulative and dramatic build up to the moment when he testifies. On the other, this segment of the film is so drawn out it gets flabby. The third act has in general been Scorsese’s weakness and he does seem to have a preference, odd or not, for letting things slowly unravel in the last hour (which might fit in with his religious views and his efforts to show an arc of retribution and of the repercussions of sin within crime stories) – you can see this in Casino as well. The lack of tautness in the final act makes the film less gripping but, as I said, also makes it less manipulative. The last meeting between Mollie and Ernest is another tribute to the unmanipulative nature of Scorsese’s film making. She only wants Ernest to spit out what he was putting in the insulin injections he administered to her. He lies, unconvincingly, and she simply gets up and leaves angrily. That’s it. There’s no gotcha, no heated argument. Mollie knows and now Ernest knows that she knows.
By this point, the film has already been so sumptuous that even the sag in tempo doesn’t hurt so much. It is more a case of what-could-have-been with a better written third act. But Killers is still a roaring return to form for Scorsese and I don’t say this just because a film about the Osage murders is so interesting to me. In an early scene, Will tells Ernest about how lovely the Osage people are. Scorsese immediately cuts to the sordid details of some recent deaths of Osage women that appear suspicious and staged. This is classic Scorsese but accompanied by a sombre starkness rather than the ironic tone of Casino. Another interesting variation on standard procedure is the use of a radio show to do the rundown of how the principal participants of the story fared. The show includes an appearance by Scorsese himself.
Killers joined the long list of Scorsese films that have been snubbed at the Oscars. But this time, I couldn’t complain beyond a point as it lost out to Oppenheimer, a very worthy winner in its own right. But merely for being so strongly in contention at the Oscars, Killers shows us that Marty isn’t going anywhere and is operating as close to the peak of his powers. As unbelievable as that may sound given his ripe young age of 81!
Name’s Madan. I am lazy and get a lot of time to sit idle and think. When I am not quite lazy enough, I post my thoughts here. If you made the effort to read my random ramblings, many thanks to you and it would be great if you could also say something about it. Brickbats and bouquets are welcome. If you think I wasted your time, say that as well. I don’t mind.
You would either be delighted or aghast to know that I have written a book on film music Raga 2 Rock:
I love, absolutely love, music. Favourite genres: rock, metal, jazz, classical with some inordinate obsession with prog rock. Favourite bands and artists: Ilayaraja, Beatles, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, The Who, Steely Dan, Dave Brubeck, Shakti, Genesis, Gentle Giant and many more.
Pictured life 