It’s all about commerce

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">On March 24, more than a billion people in a hundred countries worldwide will sit mesmerised in front of their television sets and watch their favourite stars weep their way to the holy altar in order to grab the Holy Grail of Hollywood called the Oscar. Even here, among the sections of affluent India, thousands will take a break from their daily rituals to watch the Academy Awards ceremony.For the Oscars has become the measure by which the world’s movies are judged... But get this and get this straight, the Oscars symbolise Hollywood in every way. These awards have less to do with performance than with fame, much to do with hard sell and political correctness. There are two things that bother me about the Academy Awards, said Woody Allen. They are political and bought and negotiated for. The Oscars night is about power, intrigue, the fickleness of fame and above all money. It has nothing to do with art and everything to do with commerce. For an actor or a director the Academy Award adds instant digits to the price they command, as well as bestows a distinct delusion of immortality. The movies honoured by the academy tend to echo the celluloid American dream. The Oscars are usually given to those who read life as the academy members would like to see it — not as we Indians see it. In 1992 Richard Schickel, the American critic, was assigned a task to produce a film tribute to the greatest Indian director Satyajit Ray, who was to receive an honorary Oscar. Richard discovered that nobody had any sense of the size and strength of Ray’s work. In fact, young Americans had never heard of Ray. Americans do not give a tinker’s damn for India least of all our movies. Why do we continue to wag our tails in front of the academy and seek to find legitimacy through their verdict? We have a nation of one billion people who love our movies. It is the gut level response of my Indian people and not the verdict of those 6,000 academy members which provides me my bread and the money to make movies. <span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">(Mahesh Bhatt is a filmmaker)</span> </div> </div>