Film Impressions

NOSTALGIA: Gautam Rajadhyaksha

HIS PICTURES TELL THEIR OWN STORY

In memory of ace photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha who passed away on the 13th of September, we reproduce an interview from 2004 (featured on Rediff) when he complete 25 years of his photographic career and looked back on the journey and the glamorous and colourful people he captured in his lens along the way...

“Every person has his character written on his face,” says ace lens man Gautam Rajadhyaksha. If that is true, then what you read on the face of the man who has made the most beautiful faces of the silver screen look even more ravishing, is that he is simple, honest and nice. He may have spent the last 25 years making a living off glamour photography, but behind the glitter of the diffused portraits that have become his signature style, is a man who has his head and heart firmly in place.

He attributes it to his solid middle-class upbringing. 

PHOTO ESSAY: The Women of Trikal

A GENERATIONAL SAGA

Trikal, an ambitious (but ultimately unsuccessful) period drama helmed by Shyam Benegal in 1985, serves up a delectable slice of Goa in the 60s, when it was still under Portuguese rule. The late Leela Naidu starred as the doyenne of a crumbling Goan Christian clan. It remains one of the few films in which women took centre-stage with its ensemble cast including many fine talents. Here we remember the film's wonderful cast of women.

(left to right) Neena Gupta, Leela Naidu (seated), Sushma Prakash and Aneeta Kanwar in Trikal

NOSTALGIA: Shammi Kapoor

THE REBEL ARRIVES

In memory of the great star, an excerpt from Deepa Gahlot's Shammi Kapoor—Legends of Indian Cinema published by Wisdom Tree.

James Dean’s hit Rebel Without a Cause was the inspiration behind the label of Rebel Star given to Shammi Kapoor. "The rebel star label was created by Mr LP Rao and Mr Bunny Reuben. One fine day we were drinking at my house in Chembur. In those days we used to have a very fine rapport with the newspaper people. There weren't any PROs, it was on a one-to-one level. This was during the shooting of Tumsa Nahin Dekha. We were discussing as to how I could get through the barrier of the top three—Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. They had all made images for themselves and it was very difficult to penetrate through that and make your image. Everyone did their own kind of roles, so either you had to come out and create your own style or get someone very influential to get through. I couldn't get a picture with Mr Mehboob Khan, and Dev Anand was working with Filmistan and Subodh Mukherjee all the time and Raj Kapoor had his own team of workers and he was his own producer.

A hand-drawn painting of Shammi Kapoor from a poster for the film Teesri Manzil

PHOTO ESSAY: On Location with Hrishikesh Mukherjee

HRISHI-DA'S LIGHTNESS OF TOUCH

This month marks the 5th death anniversary of the doyen of 70s middle cinema, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, who was also affectionately known as Hrishida. In this specially curated photo essay we catch glimpses of movie-making in the 70s when the semblance of a finer sensibility still existed in our cinema, before the terrible B-movies of the 80s took over.

These photographs have been reproduced using standard fair use policy.

REVIEW: Hum Dono Rangeen (2011)

CHIRPING BIRDS AND PURPLE SHIRTS

There is something very piquant about watching Hum Dono Rangeen at the cinemas. It's been colorized as we know, and the crowd consists mostly of senior citizens who struggle to clamber to their feet when the National Anthem starts playing (in their times such chest-thumping jingoism didn't really crop up on a popcorn outing). While the coloring process has been very vividly accomplished, sometimes the preponderance of purple-colored outfits, whether it is shirts or saris, makes one question the sartorial tastes of the post-production team.

NOSTALGIA: Aandhi (1975)

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE

Very few filmmakers in Hindi cinema have employed the flashback technique as extensively and effectively as Gulzar, and practically in all his films too. This interplay between past and present is used to maximum advantage in one of his best works, Aandhi, where the past continuously informs the present and characters look back on their choices with a mix of wistfulness and dignified acceptance. A film that released around the same time that Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency in the country, it ran into censorship problems thanks to its protagonist's obvious likeness to the then Prime Minister.

NOSTALGIA: Mujhe Jeene Do (1963)

IN THE RAVINES

The dacoit film is a typical Indian genre, with its own conventions-- the cowboy films of Hollywood come closest to it. The Chambal valley in Madhya Pradesh used to be (still is) the breeding ground for bandits. Then dacoits used to be poor farmers rebelling against the injustices of a feudal society. Now of course, they are just young men--and some women-- looking for a quick buck.

But old films about dhoti-clad dakus, riding horses and looting cruel zamindars and moneylenders had a thrill, romance and folkloric appeal of their own. Mujhe Jeene Do, produced by Sunil Dutt and directed by Moni Bhattacrarya was one of the few films that refrained from glamorising the dacoit's life and showed it for what it was-- hardship, suffering, endless displacement and social ostracism of their families. (Rahul Rawail's Dacait was very influenced by this film.) 

NOSTALGIA: Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962)

PATHOS AND POIGNANCY

Ever since the release of Abrar Alvi's Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam in 1962, there has been widespread speculation about the authorship of this film. Abrar Alvi was its director, Guru Dutt, its producer. Legend has it that after the debacle of his dream project Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), Guru Dutt vowed never to direct a film again. But enthusiasts and academics have analysed the film threadbare to sift the individual roles either of the Alvi-Dutt duo may have played in its creation. While it may or may not have been ghost directed by Dutt, it certainly possesses the qualities of subliminal pathos and innate delicacy which distinguished his cinema from that of other filmmakers of the time.

ESSAY: Connie Haham on Ramesh Sippy's Shakti

THE ONGOING MYSTERY OF THE ATTRACTION OF RAMESH SIPPY'S SHAKTI

The attraction of the movies is itself a bit of a mystery. Philosophy professor Colin McGinn explores the issue in his 2005 The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact. His focus is on the visual component of this audiovisual medium. He distinguishes between what we look at and what we look into: space, water, windows, flames, people's eyes, the flickering of light on a cinema screen. This last 'looking into' involves story and offers the possibility for utter absorption, the sort that our minds otherwise devote to our dreams.

But let's just suppose that one has seen a movie, perhaps many times, but one's ongoing connection with the film is not visual but auditory. Outside of a few exceptions, say, Lawrence of Arabia, my criteria for a good film is first and foremost a good soundtrack, and not primarily music and sound effects but rather the strength of the dialogue and the quality of the voices delivering them. I love color, and I love the power of the human face to convey fleeting or profound emotion. Yet in the end, for me, it is visuals which complement sound - our most primordial sense.

Given this basic penchant, what is it about Ramesh Sippy's 1982 Shakti, written by Salim-Javed, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar, Smita Patil, Raakhee, Amrish Puri, and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, that makes me continue to listen (obsessively) to the film's dialogues for years on end?

MUSIC: The Lost Thumris of PAKEEZAH

Kamal Amrohi's Pakeezah represents one of Indian cinema's shimmering musical milestones. It was the composer Ghulam Mohamed's final score. Playback queen Lata Mangeshkar was the voice of the courtesan Sahib Jaan, played by tragedienne Meena Kumari, who incidentally passed away shortly after the film's release, resulting in scores of film-goers flocking to cinema theatres as if to pay obeisance at her mazaar (as recounted by the late actress Nadira). Naushad has provided this film with a background score that is much less feted but includes some exquisite thumri numbers and ghazals by singers like Rajkumari, Vani Jairam, Begum Parveen Sultana and Naseem Bano Chopra.

In some scenes, like when Sahib Jaan visits her childhood friend Bibban (Vijay Laxmi), Kamal Amrohi weaves in some brilliant thumri and ghazal melodies as some kind of intricate ambient sound... some of which can be heard in the video below. Have a look, and listen hard. There are many riffs that seem to waft in from the neighboring kothas, and maybe a more enterprising viewer can help us identify every lost melody.