Film critic, writer
2003–present
Baradwaj Rangan is an Indian film critic, writer, and formerly the deputy editor of The Hindu. He later became a senior editor of Film Companion. Rangan won the National Film Award for Best Film Critic in 2006. Before joining The Hindu, Rangan wrote for The New Indian Express. He has also authored two books, worked as a screenwriter, and is a teacher at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
Career
Baradwaj Rangan had no formal training in filmmaking or cinema writing.[1] He is a chemical engineering graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.[2] According to him, it was a time when "parents considered only medicine or engineering" to be "serious professions", that he did not have interest but continued with it anyway.[1] Rangan claims that he was fascinated with writing and liked reading critical analyses on world cinema, especially those by American critics.[1] He was selected for a workshop by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), Mumbai which led to him having a stint as a copywriter with J. Walter Thompson in Chennai.[1][2] After that, Rangan received a full scholarship from the Marquette University, Milwaukee for a Master's degree in Advertising and Public relations, focusing on Internet advertising. Later, Rangan worked as an IT Consultant in the United States for about five years. He still had the urge to write and started reviewing films for the website sitagita.com.[2] That was when he was noticed by Sushila Ravindranath, then the editor of The New Sunday Express, the Sunday edition of The New Indian Express. Rangan worked there for two years,[1] before shifting to The Hindu, which he became the deputy editor of.[3] Rangan also wrote for the magazine Tehelka, while still working at The New Indian Express.[4] His first review was of the Hindi film Dum, published on 30 January 2003 in the Madras Plus supplement of The Economic Times.[5]
Rangan has authored two books: Conversations with Mani Ratnam (2012), wherein he interviews film director Mani Ratnam on the perspectives of his films,[6][7] and Dispatches From The Wall Corner: A Journey through Indian Cinema (2014),[8] which he describes as a "panoramic view of Indian cinema".[9] He also wrote an essay in Subramaniyapuram: The Tamil Film in English Translation (2014).[10] Rangan made his debut as a dialogue writer with Kadhal 2 Kalyanam,[11] which never saw a theatrical release.[12] He later wrote the screenplay for Kalki, a 2017 release.[13] He also teaches a course on cinema at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai,[14] and has interviewed notable personalities like producer/writer G. Dhananjayan,[15] and director Gautham Vasudev Menon.[16] Rangan wrote the English narrative for the 2014 play Meghadootam: The Cloud Messenger.[17] A short story written by him, The Call, was published in The Indian Quarterly magazine.[18] As of 2017, Rangan was the editor of Film Companion South,[19] and left in 2022.[20] He is also a member of the Film Critics Circle of India.[21]
In October 2018, Rangan was a guest speaker at India Film Project where he discussed about a critic's job and the role of criticism in the 'Insta Generation' along with critics Rajeev Masand and Vikramaditya Motwane.[22][23]
Awards
At the 53rd National Film Awards which took place in 2006, Rangan won in the Best Film Critic category. The citation given to him by the jury of the 53rd National Film Awards reads, "The Award is presented for intelligent and reader-friendly reviews of popular cinema with a depth of understanding of the form, a discernible passion for the medium bulwarked consistently by a knowledge of the trends and touchstones of global cinema."[2] In 2013, Arul Mani of Tehelka described Rangan as "far and away the most intelligent writer we have in India when it comes to cinema".[7]
Works
- Conversations with Mani Ratnam (2012) Penguin UK, Template:ISBN
- Dispatches from the Wall Corner: A Journey through Indian Cinema (2014) Westland, Template:ISBN
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedMagnaMags - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ Southern Lights: Fifteen years, and Counting..., Rangan, Baradwaj. Film Companion(1 February 2018). Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- ↑ 30 years, 22 films, 1 book: 'Conversations With Mani Ratnam'. Daily News and Analysis(9 December 2012). Retrieved 30 November 2015.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedtehelkaMani - ↑ Book review: Dispatches from the Wall Corner — A book for movie lovers. Deccan Chronicle(7 December 2014). Retrieved 1 December 2015.
- ↑ South's Most Wanted. Indulge Express(24 October 2014). Retrieved 30 November 2015.
- ↑ Subramaniapuram in English. The Hindu(20 January 2014). Retrieved 19 December 2015.
- ↑ 'Kadhal 2 Kalyanam' to release finally. The Times of India(29 March 2013). Retrieved 30 November 2015.
- ↑ No country for new films. The Hindu(19 April 2014). Retrieved 30 November 2015.
- ↑ Kalki movie review: A low-key yet intriguing story about love and time. India Today(17 May 2017). Retrieved 24 July 2017.
- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ Romancing the screen. The Hindu(17 March 2011). Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ↑ Interview: Gautham Menon, Rangan, Baradwaj. Baradwaj Rangan(17 December 2006). Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ↑ This love missive was magical. The Hindu(31 July 2014). Retrieved 28 April 2020.
- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ The Mani Ratnam formula: 'Be entertaining, but remain honest to your original thought'. The Hindu(7 April 2017). Retrieved 10 May 2017.
- ↑ Template:Cite tweet
- ↑ Members. Film Critics Circle of India. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
- ↑ Ali Fazal, Mallika Dua to attend India Film Project. Outlook(1 October 2018). Retrieved 9 April 2019.
- ↑ The Critic's job: Role of criticism in the Insta generation, Rangan, Baradwaj. India Film Project(13 October 2018). Retrieved 9 April 2019.Template:Cbignore