Sholay (*ing Amitabh, Dharmendra, Hema, Sanjeev, Jaya,Amjad)
Dec 30, 2014 14:45:32 GMT
dancelover likes this
Post by odadune on Dec 30, 2014 14:45:32 GMT
This movie had a long, difficult production history and fairly negative reviews, but turned into a long-running hit, and, much more so than Amitabh's previous "Angry Young Man" hit Zanjeer, shifted the direction of popular Hindi cinema away from the character dramas that had been popular for most of its history, and towards the action-masalas that would remain popular for about fifteen or twenty years, until the romances ushered in by the 3 Khans took center stage. It was the Star Wars of Hindi cinema, for lack of a better comparison, quoted and parodied everywhere.
This was the first Bollywood oldie I ever saw and one of the first Hindi-language films I saw (most of my early viewings were of English language or Tamil films). I gave it a try because I heard it described as the quintessential "curry western" and had seen comparisons made between Amitabh Bachchan and Clint Eastwood. It was a messy, traumatic experience, that put me off of Bollywood oldies for a couple of years and the More Casual Fan off of Indian films for even longer. I found it overly long, and the violence grotesque and upsetting-the average "spaghetti western" made in Italy in the 1960s had its share of ugly violence, but following Sergio Leone's lead, the Italian directors usually deployed the violence with a certain style and precision. There's something graceless about the way Ramesh Sippy uses violence in this film, like slathering a wall carelessly in red paint, but he is trying to make a point. He is trying to make you understand that the dacoit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) must be stopped, no matter the cost, and then, in the poorly choreographed climax, he is trying to make you understand that it is unseemly and degrading for the sad, dignified Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) to stoop to Gabbar's level in revenge.
What struck me as unique about Sholay is the way the characters and subplots interlock. There is time enough for anything and everything: for small-time criminals Jai (Amitabh) and Veeru (Dharmendra) to to deal with kooky comic relief characters (including Asrani unsuccessfully channeling Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator), proclaim their brotherly love for each other from the top of a motorcycle, have a flashback to how they befriended tough cop Thakur after he arrested them by helping him fight off train-robbing dacoits. For both of them to fall in love: Jai with the Thakur's widowed daughter-in-law Radha (Amitabh's real life wife Jaya Badhuri, then pregnant with one of their two children); Dharmendra with Basanti, the quintessential plucky, nitwitted, funny-annoying village belle, played by Hema Malini (his future second wife; supposedly, he fell in love with her during this shoot, although she seems to have had a thing for him since before she entered the film business). There's time enough for us to meet some of the other villagers, time enough to show the Thakur trying to coax his ever-pessismistic daughter-in-law into coming to terms with the fact that yes, she loves Jai and can marry him if she wants to, time enough for Thakur to check in with Radha's biological father and make sure he's not going to kick up a fuss about Radha remarrying. Time enough for Veeru and Basanti to troll each other constantly.
But the characters exist not only to carry the plot forward, or to supply the audience with the required amount of humor or romance or angst, but to regulate the mood of the film. Gabbar gives the film horror, while his surviving victims-Thakur, (indirectly) Radha, and the old man who loses his grandson-give the story weight and urgency. Veeru/Basanti give the story lowbrow humor, while Jai's sarcasm gives it wit, and his exasperation with Veeru/Basanti (at one point he puts cotton in his ears so he won't have to listen to her squawk away) tames the audience's growing frustration when their nonsense becomes too much. Jai's romance with Radha and friendship with Veeru give warmth to what would otherwise be perhaps be a character who is too cool and too self-centered (compare with Zanjeer, where Amitabh's character comes off as painfully self-absorbed and uninterested in other people's problems). Veeru's respect for Thakur and loyalty to Jai gives depth to a character who can come off as childish and a bit pointless to people like me and the MCF, who did not understand that this was GARAM DHARAM, major screen idol and macho man who would of course survive the picture and live happily ever after with the prettiest woman in it because that is what he did in movies of this period. (If I sound a bit sarcastic, it's because I don't find 70s-vintage Dharam all that photogenic compared to 60s-vintage Dharam, and although I like Veeru, I have mixed feelings about his other characters).
The film's been reviewed extensively by most of the major Bollybloggers: like I said, it's an important influential but fairly accessible movie, and also Dharmendra, Amitabh and Hema were three of the "canonical" actors that seemingly everyone in the western Bollywood fandon was "supposed" to like, at the time I got interested in Indian films. I will try to post links to some more coherent reviews than mine, when I get a chance.
Random trivia: when I got interested in Bollywood oldies again, and solidified my interest in Bollywood in general, it involved watching several movies Sanjeev and Jaya had made as each other's love interests, including Anamika, Koshish, and Nauker, and becoming a fan of Sanjeev.
This was the first Bollywood oldie I ever saw and one of the first Hindi-language films I saw (most of my early viewings were of English language or Tamil films). I gave it a try because I heard it described as the quintessential "curry western" and had seen comparisons made between Amitabh Bachchan and Clint Eastwood. It was a messy, traumatic experience, that put me off of Bollywood oldies for a couple of years and the More Casual Fan off of Indian films for even longer. I found it overly long, and the violence grotesque and upsetting-the average "spaghetti western" made in Italy in the 1960s had its share of ugly violence, but following Sergio Leone's lead, the Italian directors usually deployed the violence with a certain style and precision. There's something graceless about the way Ramesh Sippy uses violence in this film, like slathering a wall carelessly in red paint, but he is trying to make a point. He is trying to make you understand that the dacoit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) must be stopped, no matter the cost, and then, in the poorly choreographed climax, he is trying to make you understand that it is unseemly and degrading for the sad, dignified Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) to stoop to Gabbar's level in revenge.
What struck me as unique about Sholay is the way the characters and subplots interlock. There is time enough for anything and everything: for small-time criminals Jai (Amitabh) and Veeru (Dharmendra) to to deal with kooky comic relief characters (including Asrani unsuccessfully channeling Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator), proclaim their brotherly love for each other from the top of a motorcycle, have a flashback to how they befriended tough cop Thakur after he arrested them by helping him fight off train-robbing dacoits. For both of them to fall in love: Jai with the Thakur's widowed daughter-in-law Radha (Amitabh's real life wife Jaya Badhuri, then pregnant with one of their two children); Dharmendra with Basanti, the quintessential plucky, nitwitted, funny-annoying village belle, played by Hema Malini (his future second wife; supposedly, he fell in love with her during this shoot, although she seems to have had a thing for him since before she entered the film business). There's time enough for us to meet some of the other villagers, time enough to show the Thakur trying to coax his ever-pessismistic daughter-in-law into coming to terms with the fact that yes, she loves Jai and can marry him if she wants to, time enough for Thakur to check in with Radha's biological father and make sure he's not going to kick up a fuss about Radha remarrying. Time enough for Veeru and Basanti to troll each other constantly.
But the characters exist not only to carry the plot forward, or to supply the audience with the required amount of humor or romance or angst, but to regulate the mood of the film. Gabbar gives the film horror, while his surviving victims-Thakur, (indirectly) Radha, and the old man who loses his grandson-give the story weight and urgency. Veeru/Basanti give the story lowbrow humor, while Jai's sarcasm gives it wit, and his exasperation with Veeru/Basanti (at one point he puts cotton in his ears so he won't have to listen to her squawk away) tames the audience's growing frustration when their nonsense becomes too much. Jai's romance with Radha and friendship with Veeru give warmth to what would otherwise be perhaps be a character who is too cool and too self-centered (compare with Zanjeer, where Amitabh's character comes off as painfully self-absorbed and uninterested in other people's problems). Veeru's respect for Thakur and loyalty to Jai gives depth to a character who can come off as childish and a bit pointless to people like me and the MCF, who did not understand that this was GARAM DHARAM, major screen idol and macho man who would of course survive the picture and live happily ever after with the prettiest woman in it because that is what he did in movies of this period. (If I sound a bit sarcastic, it's because I don't find 70s-vintage Dharam all that photogenic compared to 60s-vintage Dharam, and although I like Veeru, I have mixed feelings about his other characters).
The film's been reviewed extensively by most of the major Bollybloggers: like I said, it's an important influential but fairly accessible movie, and also Dharmendra, Amitabh and Hema were three of the "canonical" actors that seemingly everyone in the western Bollywood fandon was "supposed" to like, at the time I got interested in Indian films. I will try to post links to some more coherent reviews than mine, when I get a chance.
Random trivia: when I got interested in Bollywood oldies again, and solidified my interest in Bollywood in general, it involved watching several movies Sanjeev and Jaya had made as each other's love interests, including Anamika, Koshish, and Nauker, and becoming a fan of Sanjeev.