A review by isscnls
Diary of a Film by Niven Govinden
4.0
I love anything that centers on an artist's ruminations, especially when the art they make is something as close to me as film. Admittedly though, ventures into portraying the artist's mind can feel a little pretentious, privileged, or maudlin to the point of navel-gazing, so it's a genre (?) that is difficult to get right. All methods can be exhausted and we still would not know how to write about it.
I think what this book gets right is the tenderness it looks upon art, mixed with a worldliness taken from its gentle film auteur protagonist. Art is a passion, but it is also the experience of our personal inner lives. The narrator has been in it enough to recognize the vices it breeds alongside the freedoms it creates — knowing they are part and parcel of the endeavor to a masterpiece. There is a softness with which the book looks upon the difficult task of storytelling, the ideas we cultivate to do it, and the connections we make and lose because of it. The art of creating and the art beyond — that is what this is about.
I think what this book gets right is the tenderness it looks upon art, mixed with a worldliness taken from its gentle film auteur protagonist. Art is a passion, but it is also the experience of our personal inner lives. The narrator has been in it enough to recognize the vices it breeds alongside the freedoms it creates — knowing they are part and parcel of the endeavor to a masterpiece. There is a softness with which the book looks upon the difficult task of storytelling, the ideas we cultivate to do it, and the connections we make and lose because of it. The art of creating and the art beyond — that is what this is about.