India - Cinema /Arts /Culture /Entertainment
Madhusree Chatterjee
Dec 2013
Dec 2013
Bollywood is like a kaleidoscope where box office forunes are like chimeras — building and breaking by the minute. Not all movies make it to the everlasting consciousness - some movies fall off our minds over
the years.
"We
remember only those movies which are successful
at the box-office.Several movies, critically acclaimed, have been forgotten for many reasons— they should have deserved more. It is difficult to guess what clicks,"
says film historian, writer and journalist Avijit Ghosh, who has compiled a
list of "40 good but forgotten movies" to understand one
of Bollywood's most ironic aspects—
"oblivion". What makes the tinsel sink?
Why does it
happen? LIke most works of art, movies are judged
by two barometers - popular success and critical acclaim. Failing to achieve this, they are condemned to oblivion. "The truth remains
that even good — great movies falter — at the box office,
sometime fail the critics' test," Ghosh says. His new anthology, "40 Retakes:
Bollywood Classics You May Have
Missed" is a tribute to the
"meaningful failures" in the last 100 years of Indian cinema.
In 1964, producer director Chandra Shekhar made a movie,
"Cha Cha Cha" -
starring self, Helen, Bela Bose, Aruna Irani,
O.P. Ralhan, Om Prakash and Iftekar. The movie broke through the Bollywood stereotype to follow the
life of a male dancer of Indian Dalit origin — his life from the fringe to fame
and his love for an upper class girl from
a liberal family.
"The movie
has some of the finest western
dancing you will ever see in a Hindi film — from the
Latino- Spanish 'Cha Cha Cha' to the more contemporary genres. And
some unforgettable compositions by Iqbal
Qureshi," Ghosh says.
In Hindi cinema,
producers and directors like to gloss over the
sensitive subjects like caste and untouchability rather than
take them head on. But the movie "blends western dancing with an
inter-caste love story," the writer explains. Director-actor Chandra Shekhar, who wrote the story and the screenplay, says the
movie's "offbeat idea came to him from childhood
observations". "I come from an Arya Samaji family in Hyderabad.
We used to eat together with
all castes. But I was aware about untouchability and felt it should be
addressed in a movie," the director says.
Hero Puran is no
B.R. Ambedkar's Dalit - but a
Gandian. The movie has a strong
social message, but falls short
with the viewers because of its
"low points". It brings
to light a sad reality in Bollywood
that musicals are yet become a
separate and viable genre in
Mumbai unlike on Broadway and in Hollywood (in America) where they have a near cult reckoning.
"The new
generation of viewers have not heard of the movie,
'27 Down', a social reality classic
by A.K. Kaul. It was one of my
favourite movies on the list. The National Film Development
Corporation (the apex government institution to promote Indian
cinema) printed the movie afresh last year," Ghosh says.
Kaul, the filmmaker who studied his craft in United States, was a one-film success. Soon after releasing the film
in 1973, he died in a drowning accident, while trying to save a girl on the Mumbai coast.
Recounting Kaul's making of "27 Down"— the life of a
ticket examiner at the Indian
Railway, his life, frustration
and loves in the confines of
a middle class India — Ghosh says, "Kaul was meticulous in
his choice of the cast comprising theatre heavyweight M.K. Raina and
leading lady Rakhee."
Kaul, who came
to "India with the intention
of making good cinema" met
Raina, a fresh graduate from the
National School of Drama in New
Delhi, for 10 days before handing
him the script. The movie was
based on a short story by HIndi
writer Ramesh Bakshi. Kaul chanced
upon the story at a bookstore in
the Triveni Kala Sangam - a
cultural facility in the national capital.
"The
Triveni had a bookstore in its
basement many decades ago. Kaul went to the bokstore and told the owner to hand
him all the books that have not been read before. He went through the books and
like a short story - 'Atthara Suraj ke Poudhe (Tree of 18 Suns)' - from a
collection by Bakshi - an
existential story influenced by the philosophy of Albert Camus. He sought
out the writer to work on a script," Ghosh recalled.
The movie was
shot largely in Mumbai's Victoria terminus. "27 Down" opened to rave
reviews - but was forgotten because the director
was not around to promote it any more. "Teen
Deviyan" made in 1965 - about
the lives of three women and a man — sunk into onlivion despite many old timers having watched or heard about it", Ghosh said.
Starring Dev
Anand, Nanda, Kalpana, Simi
Garewal and I.S. Johar —
Bollywood stars of yesteryears — the movie
is a satire on modern day relationships. Dev Dutt - Dev Anand, charming dandy of a young man — has to choose between the three divas - whom he dates at the
same time. Each woman is different from the other.
Actress Simi
Garewal says one of the
reasons for the poor box-office showing of "Teen Deviyan" could be the fact
that it was made in black and white. "Colour had been around for years, everyone was
making movies in colour - regressing to black and white was a regression for
the audience," Garewal reaclls. But
Ghosh argues that "Teen Deviyan" has
aged gracefully — "it
was probably ahead of its times in the Sixties".
Director Vidhu
Vinod Chopra describes "Khamosh" — a
thriller shot in Kashmir few years before the Valley was ravaged by cries of "Azadi" in 1985 — as one of his
"favourite movies". "It has been one of the purest cinema, I
have made. It was only when nobody bought it that I went on make 'Parinda' in 1989. If 'Khamosh' had been successful, it would have given me the courage to
go another way," the director says.
"Naseem", directed by Saeed Mirza
was produced by the National Film Development Corporation
and Doordarshan, bagged two
national awards for its
"investigation into the destruction of certain secular notions of
India five years after the Babri Masjid (the disputed Ram Temple/Babri Mosque)
demolition in Uttar Pradesh in
India in a communal backlash.
The movie,
though intelligently made to strike a chord of empathy in the audience, failed at the box office.
"By the time, 'Naseem'
came on the scene, the parallel cinema movement, sadly, was on a low turn,
Ghosh says. It is probably
more relevant to students of secular history in schools and colleges, the
writer says.
Movies like these abound — "Is Raat ki
Subaah Nahin (1996)", "Hari Bhari" — about
a woman's reproductive choices in 2000, "Dacait"- a gangster movie
(1987), "Trishangni" (1988) and several more. The list of
box office crashes is long.
"I had
complied a list of 125 movies initially — which I had
to bring down to 40.
I sifted through film journals, encyclopedias and magazines to
identify the failures — went back and
spoke to the actors, members of
the crew and directors to understand why they had failed," Ghosh
says.
"One of
the primary reasons for Bollywood movies to fail at
the box office in the 1950-1970s was poor publicity. Some movies like 'Hasil' and 'Is Raat ki Subaah
Nahin' and 'Seher' came ahead of their time. Many
of these movies created a
template for directors to follow
later," Ghosh
said,
Remember,
"Foorpath"— a hard-hitting indictment of capitalism
starring Dilip Kumar in 1953. Director Zia Sarhardy - praised as a path-breaking
movie-maker in his time- crashed at the box office.
But the audience did not like the realistic overtone of the movie.
"In the
end, only the audience
can decide — there is no formula for box office success,"
the writer says.
(The book has been published by Tranquebar-Westland Ltd)
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