Yesterday was the last class of my Light & Lens course. I am so very grateful that we had a fantastic professor like Coffeay. In my previous job, I observed my cameramen work effortlessly to get the light right and being a very very very amateur photographer...well someone who loves visuals, colour, light in short, this course was my hands on practical training in setting up lights, understanding the various aspects of key, fill, green screens, shadows, pools ...the works basically.
Which brings me to why I am writing this post. Coffeay showed us a documentary called "Tell Them Who You Are". It was about the eccentric or some would say radical American cinematographer Haskell Wexell and his difficult relationship with his son who happened to be the documentary's director. The film was shot mostly and narrated from the perspective of his son and captured Haskell in his 80s, fit as a stick and still dominating as his reputation in Hollywood testifies. For those of you who are wondering why Haskell is famous, he was judged as one of history's ten most influential cinematographers and has iconic films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, America America, Bound for Glory, Medium Cool (which he directed), The Thomas Crown Affair, American Graffitti amongst many others. Not just this, Haskell was an avid documentary filmmaker and attached himself to causes against the establishment's much criticized activities in developing countries.
The film starts off as a 'talking heads' piece with the likes of Lucas, Jane Fonda amongst many other illustrious Hollywood personalities recalling their memory of Haskell. But upon the latter's suggestion, it evolves into a moving piece (albeit torturous to watch in places because of the arguments and taunts that Haskell subjects his son Mark to repeatedly) of a father's relationship or the lack of it with his son. As I watched Haskell bicker with his son on camera, arguing about creative differences, I was reminded of my father's relationship with his father. Dadu, my grandpa was what would underestimate by referring to him as "persuasive". He was loved and admired for his knowledge and generosity. But to those who had seen his temper and stubbornness, one would perhaps not hesitate from labeling him as a difficult father and a husband.
Needless to say, this attitude must have left a deep impression upon my father. My grandma tells me they never my dadu and baba never got along and come to think of it, I am able to look beyond a lot of my father's unflattering characteristics with this knowledge. I understand my dad's frequent short temper and his impatience with us. How can you grow up without not being affected in some way or the other by the eccentricities of your father. Yet, growing up I saw my father do everything possible that a loving son would do for his father. To the extent that every summer, my father would insist that we all spend the month long vacation with my grandparents. "No sight-seeing, no new states and no summer activities", as my mom remarks to this date.
For many years now, I've also seen my sibling's perspective of my father as very different from mine. And I didn't relate to it until much later when I understood how his attitude to her growing up had led to certain characteristic traits in her personality she wasn't proud of. Of course, we've had open discussions/arguments over how better of a father figure he's been to me than to her. But in the end, she understands that she has always idolized him subconsciously and emulated his values and that as children (not daughters vs sons but children) we couldn't have been more blessed to have him as our father.
I think the men from my grandfather's generation and to some extent my father's, where hardened by the severe disciplining of their parents. You weren't required to be a nurturing parent but more so a taskmaster to a child.
As I see it, men have softened, become more domesticated, nurturing and equal partners in the process of parenting in the last two decades. and as ironic as this sounds with the rising number of divorces I see, families today have more nurturing and compassionate male figures than they did before.
Haskell at one point in the documentary, called his son "a mess". As much as I wanted to dislike him, I also wanted to admire him. I think he came a long way by agreeing to open his life's secrets and allowing his son to go public with the honest truth of the scars, the resentments and finally the forgiveness that his son experienced in their relationship.
Tom Hayden (Jane Fonda's ex husband) summed it up pretty well when he referred to what he and many sons experience from their difficult relationships with their father . I can't recall word by word but it was on the lines of "one has to cut off the toxic transmission that one was at the receiving end of to become a more responsible adult to your children". Couldn't have been better said.
So this is an ode to all the fathers who weren't quite what they were required to be for their sons - ideal role models; to the fathers who found courage to admit their mistakes; to the father who has learnt from his past and changed himself.
To my grandfather in the end who despite all his flaws gave me my father; someone who puts his childrens' need before his, protects them from the worst risking his own life and who has despite all that he may have once not been, has always been a true friend.
Thank you baba
