The Friday Figment of Filmmaking Quiz

Q1) Tough nut to begin with. I hadn't heard of this movie but it thought that it made some interesting reading. This movie had Columbia Pictures as its producer with Peter Sellers and Marlon Brando acting in lead roles. However, for various reasons the movie could never be completed. The plot of this movie involved a UFO that lands in a village. The villagers begin worshiping the UFO as a temple risen from the depths of the earth. An alien establishes contact with a young village boy through dreams and also plays a number of pranks on the village community during the course of its stay on Earth. Question is, who were the director and script writer for this movie, which, needless to say, was well ahead of its times having been written in the 60s?



Q2) Refer to the picture. An enduring image from Indian cinema. Produced on a shoestring budget of $3000 using an amateur cast and crew, this is the story that won 3 National Film Awards, 4 BAFTA awards and 7 awards from the Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film Festivals. Tracking the journey of a man through childhood, maturity, marriage and fatherhood, this story has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been rated by various critics as one of the greatest movies ever made. The name and/or name of the director.





Q3) Refer to the picture. Identify this all-time classic Indian movie that is widely believed to have inspired the Hollywood movie (picture 1). The plot revolves around a righteous jail warden who seeks to rectify a band of convicts by employing them on a farm. Easy clues.


Q4) Slightly lateral. The Closepet granite, in South India, is a large (400 km long but only 30 km wide), elongate, Late Archaean granitic body. The Archaean Closepet Granite is a polyphase body intruding the Peninsular Gneiss Complex and the associated supracrustal rocks. The granite out-crop runs for nearly 500 km with an approximate width of 20 to 25 km and cut across the regional metamorphic structure passing from granulite facies in the South and green schist facies in the north. The Closepet granite was emplaced syntectonically. In the porphyritic root and transfer zones, magmas cooled slowly, thus developing strong fabrics during large-scale dextral shearing. Connect this description and the movie scene (refer to the picture). Put fundae.

Q5) One of the rarest forms of cinema, this film from India was made
in the mid 60s. The director of the movie also starred as a lead
actor. However, the uniqueness of the movie lied in its concept. It
was a soliloquy i.e. a mono-act. Just one actor features in this
entire movie from start to end. This got the film an entry into the
Guinness Book of World Records for having the fewest actors in a film (1).
Name the film and/or the actor-director.

Q6) This film traced a small set of poor farmers of Kheda, Gujarat. Led by
local social worker Tribhovandas Patel who took up the cause of
farmer, the villagers had the vision and foresight to act for the
larger good of society and not for the self alone. This film went on
to win the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi and National
Award for Best Screenplay (the great Vijay Tendulkar) and was also an
Indian submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
in the late-70s. The script for this film was jointly written by Shyam
Benegal and one other person. Name the film and the other script
writer. Also, the significance of the film.

Q7) Legend has it that this movie made innumerable references to Jesus
Christ. Hint: This character X (also forming the name of the movie)
rose to almost iconic proportions during the counter-culture movement
of the 1960s.

The following events in the plotline are stated as reasons.:
X is looked upon as a leader and inspiration for the underdogs of
society like Jesus.
After an egg eating contest scene , X is shown lying in a crucified
position on the table. When X learns about his mother's death, he
mourns by reminiscently playing his banjo and singing a song called
"Plastic Jesus".
When X returns from his escape the other men are infatuated with his
adventures outside their world. X tells them, "Stop feeding off me!"
which is an allusion to the Last Supper. Later, a worn-out X is served
a big helping of rice and is told by the trustee that he has to finish
all of it or sleep in the box. The other men then help themselves to
X's serving alluding to the Last Supper.
In another scene, X digging what was essentially his own grave mirrors
Christ having to bear the weight and carry his cross. X tries to
escape three times, and fails each time, before he is shot and killed.
That parallels how Jesus fell three times before he was crucified and
died. X's friend acts as an unwitting Judas when he brings the police
to the church. His subsequent fight with the authorities who shoot X
is reminiscent of Peter's altercation with those who arrest Jesus in
the Garden of Gethsemane.

Q8) Slightly academic question. Give a funda that connects the
following 3 sets of persons:
Directors: Frank Capra, Nest Miloš and Jonathan Demme
Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Clark Gable, Jack Nicholson
Actresses: Claudette Colbert, Jodie Foster, Louise Fletcher