Aamir’s Momentous Memento
Friends, film-makers, and film-buffs,
it’s indeed an honour to write on PFC. And since this is my first post, just wanted to introduce myself… I write about cinema for The Telegraph newspaper, the largest selling English daily in Calcutta, and I am an aspiring writer-film-maker (hopefully not the “who isn’t?” kind).
I am sure many of you have been following Aamir’s blog on lagaandvd.com. I mean he gets a 1,000 replies on an average even when he is talking about his fondness for Federer. Anyway, in one of his blog posts titled “Ghajini” he writes about why he agreed to do the remake of the Tamil film by A. Murugadoss. For those who didn’t read his post, here are a few chosen lines…
Aamir writes: “When I was offered GHAJINI I didn’t take it very seriously as I’m not usually keen on remakes. But when I saw the film I really loved it…. Murgadoss had heard about a film called MOMENTO and the concept had really fascinated him. Without having seen the film he went ahead and wrote his own version of the script and screenplay. I had not seen MOMENTO myself until then and was very curious to see it. On seeing it I thanked my stars that he had not seen MOMENTO before having written his script. I preferred GHAJINI any day. Momento I just couldn’t understand…”
In his next post titled “It’s Memento not Momento!!!”, Aamir adds: “Why Memento did not work for me is that it left me confused. By the end of the film I had no idea who had killed the hero’s wife?… So while, in theory, I can appreciate the attempt of writing a screenplay which travels backwards in time, at some point I need to know what actually happened in the film… But I have to admit that I failed to understand what was going on, so I didn’t enjoy it.”
Forget Aamir Khan the superstar, the man who has a bigger clout on the opening weekend of a new release than the two other Khans and all the Bachchans bundled together. Let’s talk about Aamir the man. I first met him on the sets of Bournvita Quiz Contest in 1996. I was all of 14 then and while I was starstruck all right, I couldn’t fail to notice that while all other celebrity guests read out questions given by quizmaster Derek O’Brien, Aamir actually made his own questions. Derek told me he was a voracious reader and a brilliant chess player. I lost the all-Asia finals but I didn’t forget Aamir.
Almost a decade later, when I met him at his hotel suite in Calcutta on the day Mangal Pandey released (12 August 2005), thanks to a tie-up between the movie and The Telegraph, I realised even he hadn’t forgotten me. Yes, he (and not me) is that good. Now 23, this time I could hear his brain ticking. The man thinks so fast and knows so much, he should join Sharon Stone in Mensa. And just to set the record straight, I am a big Aamir Khan fan finding his breakdown scene opposite Alice Patten in Rang De Basanti one of the best scenes ever by an Indian actor.
So why should Aamir Khan trash Memento? The same Memento that was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, the only awards show Aamir attends. The same Memento which has earned a whopping 94 per cent critics’ rating at rottentomatoes.com. The same Memento which was ranked at 27 in the Top 250 films of all time at imdb.com thanks to 153,529 votes. The same Memento which Shah Rukh Khan names in his Top 10 all-time favourite films (courtesy Filmfare).
Is it possible Aamir didn’t get the movie? The state of confusion is fine as Roger Ebert in his review of Memento writes: “Confusion is the state we are intended to be in.” But how is it that he “didn’t enjoy it”? Till date I have never come across anybody — and that includes truckloads of moviebuffs — who has not liked Memento. Nine out of 10 people go “WOW” while the odd one out would want to understand it better. But no one, I repeat no one, found Memento unenjoyable.
So is it an Aamir Khan propaganda? Is it a deliberate effort to prove that he is not doing a Guy Pearce and being part of a copied film? Is Ghajini really more enjoyable than Memento? (I haven’t seen the Tamil film yet) Did Aamir really not know it to be Memento and not Momento?
As the tagline of the Christopher Nolan film went, some memories are best forgotten. I would like to believe I never read Aamir ridiculing one of my all-time favourite films.
Tags: Tamil
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Dear PDG,
Once a piece of work is made and put out there, it belongs to whoever it touches. There’s no good why everyone must unanimously appreciate or enjoy any piece of art. At least the man had the integrity to say he didn’t get it. I wonder how many superstars would admit to that on a public forum – he does. That itself sets the man apart. Am not advocating on his behalf, merely stating my opinion on your piece.
Take it easy mate, propoganda or otherwise, it’s only an opinion.
Hey Pratim,warm welcome!! Kemon accho ? Amsterdamer red light area mone acche ki…ke bolo to ?
N aamir’s qoute of the century…”Without having seen the film he(murgadoss)went ahead and wrote his own version of the script and screenplay. Having finished his script he then saw Memento, found it very different from what he had written, and went ahead and made Ghajini.” wow….someone pls tell him to stop taking himself seriously.
N these filmmakers also did something similar…they made the film n then figured out that something similar exist…
Mann
welcome to PFC, PDG!
@Phoenix…don’t forget Akele Hum Akele Tum ripped off from Kramer vs Kramer.
@Vijay…ya ya. thnx. shit..how can i forget that one.
welcome pritam.
i hope you will bring a different perception and POV.
either we worship or kill our makers,stars and other creative persons.we never analyse them in their social and historical context.
staying in kolkata is safe for you.it will take time to be corrupted by mumbai glamour world of self centric and mutual admiration society.
welcome again.
Sala kisko chutiya bana raha hai…
Why cant he accept it the fact and do some thing better than original? I guess murgadoss ko sapna aaya hoga
Hey Pratim… welcome.
I think he is just being politically correct… and anyway maybe he did not understand … hehe… you see after all he has done a MELA and a whole lot of crap too… a good actor is not necessarily a viewer of good cinema… and though I am an Amir fan too…. but not too suprised at his comment
Thanks so much to all of you for such a warm welcome. But I sincerely believe that with Aamir doing this, plagiarism is taking a new high. Earlier it used to be “it’s an original, I have not copied”. Then it became “is there an original with the same story? what a coincidence!” And now it has become “my copy is better than the original.” If any of the Bhatts or Sanjay Gupta would have said it, I wouldn’t have mind but with AK talking like the way he did, things can only get worse…
i think, aamir khan in his blog did mention that Memento is not his kind of film because it had an open ending (although, he liked the open ending of Rang De Basanti), but he appreciated the technicalities of the film. nothing wrong with that, imo.
i would give him a benefit of the doubt.
also in his other blogs he admitted that he does movies like Mela, Fanaa, to keep a balanced fan base i.e both masses and niche audience. you cannot please both group at the same time, so… however, he prefers to do something like RDB, etc.
How many of us actually liked ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander’? I am one of ‘em.
Besides what Aamir said, Ghajini is a masala-full remake of Memento targetted for the layman.
Dear Pratim,
I miss Kolkata, Telegraph, you guys there, remember that day in Inox with Aamir, Toby Stephens and that stifling crowd..was with the Bengal Ambuja ppl in City Center then..
Ghajini is a good movie, period..have seen it…I don’t know about its resemblence to Memento but Aamir has chosen to do a good film remake. I feel it would be right to just take his words at face value and not delve too much into it. Rather, as the original is..I feel AK is going to put through another screamer!!!
I can understand most of you giving Aamir the benefit of the doubt but slip into the shoes of Christopher Nolan for a moment. Your groundbreaking film is being copied by the biggest film industry in the world and helmed by one of the biggest superstars of the country and not only does he disown the inspiration but he badmouths your movie. Not ethical, if you ask me…
He did not bad mouth the movie. He did not like the film does not mean he said the film was crap, does it? :-?
Pratim-ji, what do you have to say about this?
Honhaar Goonda, you are really honhaar, I second you, and I loved Ghajini!!I love the performances and the way the writer has managed to hook the audience through his screenplay. Memento is a typical nonlinear screenplay of christopher, very difficult to write and difficult to understad in a go. You have to have a repeat watch, to grab everything. Similar is what happenned with Prestige, people /audience not used to that kind of screenplay were getting confused, but I loved both the films. But if you write a smilar screenplay in India I don’t think firstly you can make the movie itself.
Suchita, I am totally with you on this but couldn’t Aamir have said the same thing?
Honhaar, I have left a comment on Anurag’s post, the link of which you sent me…
Pritam, thanx, he is the flawless/ perfectionist, Khan. But I love him, I mean his performances.
Also Aamir had mentioned that as an individual everyone can have his own opinion…the thing thats good abt aamir is that he does /says things that he believes in…he is very true to heart…he would not mind what we feel abt his comments…
i think, he clearly states that in this blog no?
oh and, i so no difference between that article and aamir’s view regarding ghajini and ‘Momento’, so just wanted to see if you saw that anurag’s article differently……..
:-w
lol, thank you, erm, Suchita!
i saw….
PDG! Kemon achhen? Asha kori bhalo!
Anyways, loved your article. I believe Aamir is one of the biggest hypocrites besides Bachchans.
Just before a month FANAA releases and after a few days before RDB DVD release he organises a press conference expressing his “sympathy” for the poor people in Gujarat. He said, “I can’t see and spare any injustice” or stuff like that. On the other hand, he said, he would never use media even for promotion of his films. So how much did he really benefit the poor people rather than making Yash Raj Films laughe all the way to the bank. I did support Aamir for that cause. But after the release of FANAA, the poor people grew unhappier, and the case is yet not fully resolved. Where is Aamir NOW? Keep away other loads of “injustice” in the country over 16 months. Maybe we’d see Aamir organising another press conference before Taare Zameen Par releases.
I love AK’s acting. But a self-proclaimed ‘perfectonist’ who does a film only on basis of ’script’ agrees to do the loopiest,silliest film of 2006 – Fanaa. How?
Now, he also joins the Bachchan gang on being a ‘farmer’. Eeven worse, he defends himself as a farmer as his forefathers were. So, ain’t everyone a farmer in this country? Then I would be traditionally a landlord Or “zameenddar”. Where does the “sympathy” go when he himself deprives hundreds of people of their bread!
‘Nuff said!
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PDG! I kicked of my day with your fantastic interview of SRK in t2. I’d like to know your take on SRK. How will you describe him as an actor or human being? How polite is he when you
interview him? Really looking forward to CDI. It ’seems’ really different.Gimme a break from YRFs like TRRP, JBJ.
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I have also left a comment here:http://passionforcinema.com/random-thoughts-after-watching-metro/#comment-32572 Tell me how’s it.
Keep up good work!
Thanks for the kind words Citizen Kane… Yes my experiences with Shah Rukh have been really memorable and maybe I should post something about it. Meanwhile keep reading t2 and, of course, PFC!
Thanks Pratim! It’s an awkward kinda question. But, tell me your thoughts about Subhash K Jha. Please be honest. You must know everything happened here on PFC about SKJ.
Last Saturday I read in Patrika that two leading English newspapers have fired him after the Sonu Nigam controversy. Is it true? Is t2 one of them?
These are the two events:
http://passionforcinema.com/shame-on-you-mr-subhash-k-jha-share-the-whisky-with-me/
http://passionforcinema.com/subhash-k-jha-replies-to-the-open-letter/
Read the comment 1 in the 2nd link by a certain “Badmash K Jha”. That was excellent.
t2 was not one of the two leading English newspapers have fired him after the Sonu Nigam controversy. We stopped taking his articles owing to an issue of exclusivity and thankfully it happened a couple of months before the Sonu letter.
How do I feel? Let’s just say Subhash K. Jha didn’t write a single word about the Abhishek-Aishwarya marriage when the whole media world was going completely crazy. As I stood outside Pratiksha and saw food being hurled at me like they do at the zoo, I was sure mad at the Bachchans but I couldn’t forget the man who writes in every second article how Amitabh calls him and says: “Subhash, everything is because of you.” Hope you got what I am saying.
I am glad to hear that you have also joined the PFC/ Anurag Kashyap gang along with me! You were talikng about Bachchans. I found out a fantastic article on the Bachchans here at :
http://bollywood-unlimited.blogspot.com/2007/05/real-superrrrr-star-part-1.html
You may like that. The writer promised a sequel but there isn’t anything as yet.
But, I am shocked. “As I stood outside Pratiksha and saw food being hurled at me like they do at the zoo”. People literally “worship” THIS man?
I don’t whether I should write in detail about what happened outside Prateeksha between 18th and 20th April 2007…
You HAVE TO, HAVE TO, HAVE TO write. This is PFC! A blog! A medium for everyone to speak out. Thankfully you are here. DO WRITE. You can write here what you can never write in Telegraph.
So, go on! We are with you! We are eager to know.
oH Pratim… come on… Please… need to hear the true events that happened… for once would like to see the camera on the ones with the camera…
will try Oz… it was a horror tale… will try to conjure up that hatred one more time…
Pratim, any idea when THE DARJEELING LIMITED releases in Kolkata/ India? Looking forward to it.
And, on a different note, every celebrity or political person uses media for his/ her purpose and later bashes them.
Bachchans used media when they needed GURU to pull it from drowning like Titanic. Just two days after the release, gives a press release that A-A have decided to get married.
Everyone is this!
Not to go far, in our own Bengal, our own DIDI of Bengal. She calls press conference every now and then and regularly lashes out at the journalists. She is as strong on the 25th day of her ‘hunger strike’ as before. Her partymen ‘attack’ female journalist, who was ‘allegedly’ not running stories against her opposition. She even curses journalists in the open. Her workers attack OB vans of STAR ANANDA even when they are not ‘against’ her.
But for me, she’s the most hilarious person in Bengal now. ‘Hanging’ herself in the open with saree, huh? I am still in splits whenever I remember “we are not the hungry, we are not the beggar”. MA in English, right?
I’d like know what’s your take on her.
This kinda people dominate India! Misery!
P.S. What were you cooking in the picture? {guess how I saw it)
Man Citizen Kane, you have done some research on me bro! I can tell you a 1000 things the Bachchans have done which are so not right… But that’s in my next post… Mamatadi is entertainment for me… She was surely a threat 10 years back. Today she is the Great Indian Laughter Challenge Shahenshah!
Aamir Khan should see the “straight” version of Memento available in the DVD, maybe he could get a clue ;)
As for Ghajini, I love the movie! It’s full on masala dhadadad!! Especially the sequence where the heroine mistakes the AirCel MD for a struggling actor and their romance! haha! I fell in love with Asin immediately. I rued the day when I did not become an actor inspite of my family’s advice….Well, I never know…I could have been running around the trees with Asin today…”sigh”…
One thing I really don’t understand is why everyone is trying to distance themselves from Memento!! haha! Just agree it is inspired by it and get on dammit!! You take Memento out of Ghajini, it is just a shithole story..ok ok…It had a nice romantic track and would have atleast found favor with the masses but it’s USP was Memento…
Ghajini is a story about a guy who wants to take revenge on the people who killed his girl friend…but one small problem..He has short term memory problem and keeps forgetting everything…So to overcome that, he takes polaroid shots of everyone and marks on the photo whether they are friends or enemies etc…So whenever he sees a new face, he compares it with his photo library…Plus, he has got tattooed all important information on his body like phone numbers and reminders to kill!!
Coming to Memento, it is exactly the same…but here the woman is his wife, not girl friend…So you guys might ask what’s the difference…well…Mera Bharat Mahan is the difference….
As Indian mass audience need a before and after and have to be spoonfed….AR Murugadoss came out with the love story that happened before Surya became Ghajini….
It’s akin to showing Guy Pearce with his family, happy moments etc etc….well, they thought it was not important but for us…it is!!
That’s all…apart from a new character of a medical student in our Ghajini to bring the add on masala and some Indian screenplay!!
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!This is all I can say about Indian Cinema!! Yaar, copy karo…shaan sey copy karo…I atleast respect Sanjay Gupta or Apoorva Lakhia in this regard…they got the guts to admit its a copy…
machchar – sanjay gupta?? admitting shaan sey ????
Did u read this ???
http://in.rediff.com/movies/2006/jan/20raja.htm
Machchar you got my sentiments spot on! Sanjay Gupta is another thing altogether. I am sure there is another guy like him in Hollywood and he is just a copy-paste!
Well, I guess I got it wrong with Sanjay Gupta then..I thought he admitted he makes ditto copies!!
What is with these guys…Why bother? Your opening’s won’t suffer anyway if you admit copying as most of the mindless B&C audience never have seen the originals and only come for the super stars you guys have! Your collections will not take a shit of a dent even if you made a frame to frame copy of an english movie? Why bother? People go to watch Sanjay Dutt’s and Abhishek Bachchans…
One thing that makes me wonder is when a writer meets them with a original story, they find so many fucking loopholes and they actually give the writer a inferiority complex and the writers wonder that these film makers must be truly brilliant and have the pulse of the box office with them!! HAHA!!
Everyone has an opinion and you can’t opine that his opinion is wrong dear…:)
@Pratim
Did you ever do those posts on SRK and your time outside the Bacchan’s residence. Please send in links, if possible.
Thanks.