Mera Naam Joker and the Fellini path not traveled..
this one’s for Rajen and GF..
Perhaps the essential problem with the film is less the tripartite structure and the structural looseness that results from it. Perhaps it is not even the fact that the film is dramatically compromised for these reasons. The core weakness of the film lies elsewhere. Raj Kapoor frames a powerful humanistic tale and then inserts the clown into it. The ‘joker’ then becomes a victim of the social or societal. This serves the director’s didactic purposes of course. It also establishes fine continuity with his earlier work, strengthens the autobiographical ‘reflection’ this film is at another level. In this regard the ‘bioscope’ sequence with moments from Awara and Shree 420 seen through a lens are rather masterful, perhaps even the most ‘auteurist’ set of scenes in the movie. It is a remarkably confident visual trope as well for the ‘history’ one accesses is of course Raj Kapoor’s own ‘canonized’ past. It even enhances the sense of time having elapsed in bitter-sweet fashion.
The Felliniesque notion of the circus as a kind of ‘stage’ stand-in for the world with the clown as Shakespearean fool finds a remarkable analog in Mera Naam Joker. Raj Kapoor of course takes it a step further by functioning both as the director that runs the show here as well as its chief fool-performer. But as Fellini moved from his earlier humanism which was deeply linked to his Italian neo-realism heritage to his later surrealistic phase the humanism was re-coded not as its opposite but as a series of ‘marks’ indexing the anchor-less human in a ‘sea’ (this image is a persistent one in late Fellini) of signification. Framed differently rather than have a division between the circus world and its other the latter merges with the former.
Raj Kapoor though errs in retaining the humanistic frame. The clown’s story is then necessarily a tragic one whereas in Fellini by granting priority to the world of the clown the films become comedies, in turn veering away from the director’s earlier quasi-fabular concerns. Mera Naam Joker is often a moving film, it’s sincerity can scarcely be denied but the ‘joker’ somehow seems trapped in a universe where he is always governed by the existing bourgeois order. In the opposite instance it is the clown’s logic that is adhered to and the essence of the ‘fool’ is therefore better revealed. The world is in a way inverted inside out. This however is not the mode of the ‘great showman’ whose comic impulses were forever balanced out by darker reverberations within the films.
Raj Kapoor perhaps stayed faithful to an Indian cinematic genealogy, not to mention his own, in embarking on this dream project of his career. Perhaps the ‘error’ was intrinsic to his system. But it prevented a far more important film to emerge, one where the ‘agon’ with Fellini might have produced brilliantly Indian inflections. The ‘Joker’ was not ultimately allowed to breathe…
SATYAMSHOT 
April 4, 2010 at 11:50 AM
Hmm, Satyam. Thanks but am not sure why bring Fellini into this.
I doubt if RK set out to make a Felliniesque film as such nor do I concede that Fellini is a yard stick for this kind of films.
One of the things I admire about the film is the complete and total sincerity. This is a product that was delivered as envisioned, sans any compromises. RK stayed true to his vision. No compromises, no gimmicks.
At BO, it was bound to falter given the length and that there was nothing ‘uplifiting’ or ‘blissful’ in the traditional sense that the Indian movie goer wants. Aamir would never make this kind of film. He would make it shorter and have the ‘joker’ somehow triumph against the ‘bourgeois’ world values.
But, RK always intended it to be tragic.
Commercially speaking, he was irresponsible.
But in my books he delivered the most epic, touching, moving and sincere autobiographical in Bollywood history.
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April 4, 2010 at 12:23 PM
One sometimes forgets that Raj Kapoor from Chaplin to Italian neo-realism to (I would argue) Fellini always had some very canonical ‘Western’ informing influences which he then channeled into of course his own brilliant mix of film-making style(s). Raj Kapoor as director and Bachchan as ‘persona’ remain in some ways the principal templates for a non-auteurist ‘third world’ cinema.
I accept completely your characterization of MNJ (with the caveat that autobiographical film-making is not exactly a much visited genre in Indian cinema). The Fellini contrast wasn’t meant to diminish Raj Kapoor whose greatest works (among which I do not include MNJ though; it does not seem to me of the eminence of Awara or Shree 420) I admire more than perhaps any others in Hindi cinema from a directorial perspective. Nor did I mean suggest that Raj Kapoor should have made a film like Fellini. The parallel seemed interesting to me only in terms of highlighting what I consider to be the central problem in MNJ. And yes I think for a film-maker as attuned to certain strands of European film-making (this at the very least) the Fellini model would have been inescapable by the time he made MNJ. Ironically in the very same year that MNJ was released Fellini also made a TV films called the Clowns which in semi-documentary style chronicles his own autobiographical impulses and certainly his own interest in circuses. I said ‘ironically’ because Fellini’s film too is a failure for very similar reasons.
Fellini’s career also offers some other analogies with that of Raj Kapoor. He has his own ‘Chaplin’ in Guilietta Masina (who even had aspects to her persona in some of the films that incorporate I think both Chaplin and Raj Kapoor’s more ‘tragic’ inflection of the Chaplin persona.. in other words a common impulse to both artists), his earlier films are often invested in ‘showtime’ (not just circuses but all manner of performance art) but inasmuch as he engages with the ‘circus world’, explicitly or figuratively, he still relies on a humanistic framework that he like every other Italian film-maker of that period owed to Italian neo-realism. There is there a sort of middle period where in certain great films (La Strada for example) there is a dialogue between two worlds and in any case the circus performer’s perspective is allowed or legitimated. But eventually he abandoned this entire frame of reference. Once he completes this move the whole world in every one of its situations becomes like a circus.
Not surprisingly the ‘grotesque’ as a mode in Fellini gets privileged more and more as this turn comes about. As the whole world becomes more and more like a vaudeville act the ‘grotesque’ becomes entirely appropriate! Raj Kapoor too always had some attraction to this mode and he too moved increasingly towards it in his later films. The supreme difference though involved the same reliance on the humanistic framework. Because Raj Kapoor could never completely shun his former self his ‘grotesque’ became an ever increasing blemish (pun intended..,SSS?!) on his cinema. It could certainly never be integrated neatly into his world.
I understand of course that both directors operated in different industries and so forth. I am not offering box office commentary here. And again like yourself I do admire MNJ. It is of the order of a glorious failure to my mind. But it is nonetheless an essential film of Hindi cinema. And again I recall GF’s fine comment on this film a few days ago which I did then and again now completely endorse as I do your own appreciation for this film. The contrast with Aamir is also well taken. This is certainly the flip side of the Aamir achievement. Because nothing truly risky can be sustained in a box office sense at least at a continual rate.
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April 5, 2010 at 1:43 PM
This is a movie I couldn’t quite figure out. While it had an awesome soundtrack and was made extremely sincerely, somehow it left me admiring at arm’s length, Perhaps because of the extreme pathos unfolding on screen, I was strangely unmoved. The first act was definitely the most involving, and the one with the Russian a close second. At the end of it all, I was left admiring the movie more than enjoying it or being moved by it. For reference, I was far more touched by Awaara, Shree420 and even Jis Desh…
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April 5, 2010 at 1:51 PM
I’m not a fan of Jis Desh.. at all but no argument with respect to the other two. I’d also take Raj Kapoor’s preceding film Sangam over MNJ. Because of the latter’s episodic structure the emotional resonance of the narrative is never cumulative and really dissipates at the end of each section.
The other way I’d rephrase my earlier critique is to suggest that the clown is often a figure of pathos but the ‘pathos’ must not be directly presented to the audience. Raj Kapoor however precisely does this. Rather than the pathos being a ‘byproduct’ of the clown’s situation it becomes here the ‘thing itself’. As a consequence the true coordinates of the joker’s world are lost.
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April 4, 2010 at 9:09 PM
The first “episode” of mera naam joker was perhaps nearly flawless imo.
Got everything right from casting of rishi& simi; dream-like affect, a certain “innocence” and a haunting ambience.
the problem in the later parts was that he probably tried to take on and incorporate too much as he thought of it as hisflagship project ( much like nokias current but flawed N97 which was supposed to be the iphone killer…)
Still, remains one of my favorite RK films ( irrespective of box-office)
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April 4, 2010 at 10:37 PM
yes I do agree that the first episode is the strongest.
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April 5, 2010 at 10:13 AM
Thanks for posting your thoughts on the film, Satyam. Interestingly, the Fellini note you’ve expanded on here was briefly raised (along with a shout-out for Chaplin and Sirk) by an unfortunately short review I came across some time back at the Chicago Reader website:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/my-name-is-joker/Film?oid=1048808
What’s interesting and important to acknowledge here is that the reviewer mentions that each episode is devoted to a different WOMAN – which is certainly something Fellini might have appreciated given the tripartite female love interests (and of course the explicit trope of world-as-quasi-circus)i n 8 1/2.
But I think you capture very nicely the sense of this film’s failed promise with regard to being a unique straddling of cinematic worlds. MNJ comes close to being something more, but ultimately, for me, it works best as a kind of nostalgic, bittersweet nod to Kapoor’s own very profound impact on his cinema-culture.
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April 5, 2010 at 10:51 AM
thanks for pointing out that Chicago Reader piece. Hadn’t seen it before. It’s brief but incisive. And yes I should have mentioned the question of ‘women’ which is common to both directors.
You’re again on the money with your last paragraph here..
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January 22, 2012 at 10:49 AM
Hello,
I was just going to add my contribution to the Fellini reference by saying precisely what GF adds above: Raj Kappor does indeed show as much of a centration on woman in his films as the Italian maestro (I’m indicating this title for your contributor Rocky who doesn’t seem to know this “what the f… film-maker); and I would like to congratulate you on this parallel which is perfectly justified. Fellini’s films, eeven if the setting is elsewhere, indeed evolve in a circus-like world, where monsters and fantasies blend with dreams and love-stories, and he shares with RK the desire to describe cinematographically the power of beauty, its almost metaphysical and at the same time its psychoanalytical dimension. In a certain way, the Fellininian hero has an existential flaw which Raj Kapoor’s hero possesses too. Both heroes have been thrown into the world, where disillusion and absurdity is their lot, and their dream of redemption passes through an attempt to find meaning and solace thanks to Women (well-endowed because these women all go back to the primeval Mother) as the origin and end of all things. This motif is particularly clear in Ram teri ganga maili, I think. But Mera naam joker also carries the structure clearly.
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January 22, 2012 at 1:08 PM
Yves, thanks for a wonderful comment. Will say regarding their treatment of women that Fellini because of his comic and even ‘grotesquely’ comic tone tends to moderate what would otherwise come across as simple male fantasy (even when he’s of course satirizing a certain male thinking in these matters). It’s like a rape scene in a commercial film that secretly titillates the viewer even as it pretends to do otherwise. So Felling shows you the big-breasted women, the whole Dido complex is on display as well, so on and so forth. But the craziness of his world mediates all of this. In Raj Kapoor on the other hand it’s always rather ‘serious’ as a narrative and as a ‘philosophical’ matter. Even as the higher values of beauty are asserted they are done so by way of the very ‘earthy’ body of the woman. The Raj Kapoor dictum seems to be — you will reach that Platonic ideal the more you lust after Zeenat Aman! The voyeurism and/or the sex will be so good it will transport you to that other level! Note how in both SSS and RTGM the consummation moment is always key and is twinned with the overall exposure of the woman. of course there is always that attendant misogyny in late Raj Kapoor so that the woman has to be ‘stained’ in very serious ways. In SSS there is the obvious physical mark though she is nonetheless considered ‘fallen’ in addition to this later on. In RTGM you have of course half the film being about the fallen woman. So the woman cannot reach complete womanhood, cannot accomplish that higher ideal of ‘beauty’ without really going through all of these stages. And here Raj Kapoor adds something to Mother India. It’s the old trope of the suffering Mother(Earth) who is otherwise ‘de-sexualized’. Raj Kapoor adds sexual agency but this otherwise progressive move is taken away with the other hand because he then submits this entire structure to his very much male gaze. The woman’s body becomes his ‘site’ obsessively in his late work. Even in prem Rog the young widow has to be raped. In his older films which are always erotically inclined (and with something like Sangam you get the less sexualized ‘ideal’ of beauty) you never get the misogyny. The progressive moves are genuine in these films. But MNJ is on the cusp and most indebted to Fellini and as his world becomes increasingly dark following this film the ‘woman’ bears the brunt of this.
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January 23, 2012 at 12:41 PM
related piece on ‘late’ Raj Kapoor:
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January 23, 2012 at 3:06 PM
Hi Satyam,
Thanks for your long and detailed answer. I had never much paid attention to Raj Kapoor’s misogyny – in fact, I wouldn’t have used this word for his relationship with women, and it makes me wonder: is it an aspect of his personality which appears in his later movies? Because I don’t see any of it (at first glance) in his former ones? I haven’t yet seen SSS; only MNJ and RTGM. There, I had felt he was more entranced than anything else by the sheer power coming from women, which as you rightly suggest, he deflects a little by indicating how much women have been stained, but more, surely, through the effect of society than of their own doing, no? So I’d say, perhaps his self-indulging of women is given permission to occur because they’re shown – misogynically, so to speak – as bruised and unfulfilled? Yet it is still unclear to me whether the accusation of “lechery” (or voyeurism, as you say) is completely cleansed through the process.
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April 5, 2010 at 10:15 AM
And as I never fail to mention, these original writeups- however brief or exhaustive – are always appreciated. Keep ’em coming.
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April 5, 2010 at 11:22 AM
I second that.
‘these original writeups- however brief or exhaustive ‘ and lately infrequent!
I guess I have a problem with it being called – a failed promise or almost great or something like that. Personally, I wouldnt change one thing about the film. Not even the length.
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April 5, 2010 at 11:31 AM
That is always understandable when it comes to a personal favorite but this is only one reading of the film. In another sense (in terms of being an autobiographical work that endears us to both the subject of its inquiry as well as the context it emerges from) it’s very effective.
And interestingly, my personal favorite Indian “biopic” (though certainly not autobiography) is also my favorite mainstream Indian film, Iruvar, which offers several different readings, some of which might argue (and which I would accept) that the film is an interesting failure.
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April 5, 2010 at 12:02 PM
I am also a big fan of this movie. the songs are just gems.
BTW- who the F is Fellini????? LOL!!
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January 22, 2012 at 1:30 PM
Brilliant comments there–
To add, there were some unmistakable ‘oedipal’ conflict scenarios eg in awaara
And do agree with this ‘urge’ to ‘stain’ women and there always being a ‘rape’ somehow…
The points on voyeurism and the subtle misogyny laced with a convenient (mis) interpretation of tradition and ‘culture’ formed integral parts of raj kapoors repertoire…
A good point there by yves on the ‘well endowed’ woman–wont elabore anymore…
some more releavtn points–The staggering success of these films made Kapoor the biggest superstar of Indian cinema. Inspired by and cannily appropriating the traits of Western models, Kapoor combined the smirk and swagger of Clark Gable, the heightened emotions and showmanship of Gene Kelly, and most importantly, Charlie Chaplin’s underdog heroism and sense of pathos. Chaplin’s Little Tramp is the clear precursor for Kapoor’s most famous screen character: the vagabond in a too-tight suit, observing the bustling world around him with wide-eyed wonder. Unlike Chaplin, however, Kapoor moved his Indianized tramp (variously known as Raj, Raju or Rajan) up and down the social ladder, and into surprisingly unpleasant incarnations: self-obsessed artists, whiny rich guys and, in his maudit masterpiece Meera Nam Joker (My Name Is Joker), a distinctly unfunny clown whose romantic yearnings verge on the pathological.
Kapoor’s early films focus on India’s new, frequently hostile urban environments—which had been swelled to the breaking point by the massive influx of post-Partition refugees—and are infused with a mild but deeply felt Nehruvian socialism that was largely the product of Kapoor’s long association with celebrated left-wing writer K.A. Abbas. (Their collaboration has frequently been compared to that between Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini, who are prominently featured this season in our programme devoted to Italian neorealism; see page 40.) For Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai, authors of Raj Kapoor: Harmony of Discourses, Kapoor helped enable Indian society to embrace the disorienting changes of the twentieth century. Rejecting both the dogma of Communism and xenophobic traditionalism, Kapoor believed that certain Western ideas could be useful tools for bettering the lives of India’s poorest citizens. All of his films contain clearly enunciated statements to this end—including a belief in nurture over nature in defiance of caste-based logic, suggestions for how to increase the self-respect of the poor, and a questioning of punya, the idea of “merit” associated with giving alms to beggars—that are repeated and reinforced through traditional visual symbolism, music, dialogue and (Vedic) religious references. By couching these Western-inspired concepts in traditional forms, Kapoor demystified and normalized them for his domestic audience. In the view of Dissanayake and Sahai, Kapoor’s films have had a discernible effect on Indian mass consciousness and are prime examples of the power of film to not only recount history, but to reshape it.
Kapoor himself saw his impact in more modest terms. He saw his contribution as taking the latent romanticism of pre-war Indian commercial cinema and making it frank, intense and personal, creating a new idiom for the expression of emotion that had little place in traditional Indian literature and drama; his frequent use of the love triangle, for example, proved especially influential for later Indian films. That outsized romanticism found its greatest expression in the legendary song-and-dance sequences that appear in all of his films, and that have since become the stumbling block for many Western viewers in their first encounters with Bollywood. Unlike comparable sequences in Hollywood musicals, which prepare the audience for their segue out of “reality,” the musical numbers in Bollywood films tend to arrive without warning, are unapologetically removed from the narrative and contain music that can be a hurdle for even the most well-intentioned world music enthusiast.
Kapoor’s films not only allow us to see where these sequences originated, but to better understand and appreciate their unique synthesis of the Hollywood musical and Indian folk-musical theatre traditions. Kapoor was himself a talented musician with a strong desire to marry traditional Indian musical forms with new imports from the West. (He adeptly played on the cross-cultural significance of certain instruments such as the tambourine, which symbolizes the onset of love in Indian folklore and signals a kind of wild abandon in American rock ’n’ roll; Kapoor draws on both meanings.) His legendary collaborators Shankar-Jaikishen shared this belief, and between them they created some of the most famous and popular songs ever written—Mao Tse-tung himself was known to hum a few bars of “Awaara Hum” over breakfast!
In many of Kapoor’s films the song-and-dance numbers are set up as dream sequences, and are meant to function as “a psychic cleansing and exploration by the dreamer” (Dissanayake/Sahai) and as a means to give the audience a privileged look at a character’s most private thoughts. First introducing this idea in Barsaat, Kapoor pushed the radical self-containment of these sequences in his subsequent films, freeing them from the formal transitions common in Hollywood musicals. Later on, Kapoor’s song-anddance sequences became a site of experimentation within an increasingly formulaic Bollywood industry: in Satyam Shivam Sundaram (Love Sublime), the musical number “Quicksilver Silver Fresh Pure Tender” is a clever but quite deranged synthesis of religious metaphor, swinging sixties outfits and full-on psychedelia.
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