Emergence of defeatist
iView Author: Akshaya (Mumbai,India)
Email: akshaya(dot)gawarikar(at)gmail(dot)com
Emergence of defeatist
Leaving Las Vegas” Movie released in 1995 was, loosely based on semi autobiographical novel by John O’Brien.
Nicolas Cage was in the role of depressed alcoholic out of binds of family and work, who plans to commit suicide and on the way to his destination falls in love with a prostitute, Role played by Elizabeth Shoe and dies in her arms at the end of the movie.
Throughout the movie, It didn’t reflect what led to, the metamorphosis of its protagonist from a successful Hollywood agent into a self destructive suicidal defeatist and the need wasn’t felt while watching the movie as well, As the character was accepted as he was and no questions were raised why he turns himself into what he was and the movie did not questioned about the way society treats its individuals and vice versa.
There were days in bolliwood as well when the protagonist was much more real, A victim of circumstance, carrying the world around his shouders,fearful of self created demons, sometimes of poverty, morality and otherwise of relationships.
“Uma” played by Sharmila Tagore in the 1966 release-“Anupama” by Hrishikesh Mukherjee was one such character ,She was saved from destruction by “Ashok” played by Dharmendra.
The song was
“Ya dil ki suno dunia walon,
Ya mujhko abhi chup rahane do
Mai gum ko khushi kaise kah doon
Jo kahte hain un ko kahne do.
It was “Pyasa” where Sahir wrote
“Ye dunia agar Mil bhi jaaye to kya hai” or
“ jaane who kaise log the jin ke pyaar ko pyaar mila,
Hum ne to jab kaliyan maangi,Katon ka haar mila”
and “Kagaz ke phool” who again brought in the movie the tragic hero and we can’t forget the immortal Devdas-Played by unforgettable Dilip Kumar, Shahrukh Khan and now by Abhay Deol in DEV D.
The smirk hung on their faces as if they are laughing at the world, at the society who could not understand their behavior or they, as individuals failed to comprehend the world around them and turned themselves into losers instead of becoming worldly wise however they did try to find happiness in their own way.
All this time when I grew up-The hero always was in control -whether it was Amitabh Bacchan who in all his movies in seventies and early eightees, fought with the system to reach somewhere, was the angry young man of Hindi movies to Shahrukh Khan who was so sure of himself, He refused to take NO, laughed away his failures and MOVED ON. They were Gods, They could do whatever they liked and did not care about the way the world thought about them and still, at the end of the movie, they established a phenomenal understanding with everyone around.
Small glimpses of Lost Hero who did give up sometimes could only be seen in the parallel cinema in few characters played by the likes of Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad and others.
And then Dev D got released, Yes, Its Devdas and with it there emerged again, the other side of Hero, The person who has a different understanding or probably no understanding of the world, or he just doesn’t care Who refuses to let go his past, who cherishes the pain and savor the wounded heart and went on his way of self destruction.
I’m not sure if the cinema depicts the society or if it is exactly opposite of it, with recession sniffing down on my neck And when everyone is advising about just to hang around and not take any risks till better days come, It is refreshing to be irresponsible, Impulsive, careless and yet very, very original.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Devdas? Was he careless, impulsive and the passionate guy we all think he is? Or is he simply the guy who took the wrong decision at exactly the most important junctures of his life? I am not talking of DevD who is what all of us hope we wanna be and mostly turn out to be so. Make mistakes in life, and learn from it. Saratchandra’s Devdas was an utter failure though. Failure as a lover and more importantly failure as a person. I understand why he is so very popular, not because of his originality, but because he is that guy who kindda gets everybody’s concern. Everybody cries aah’s and ooh’s for devdas. Similar to Nicolas cage’s character in Leaving Las Vegas. But we (including me), at the end of the day, like these characters even though they fit the definition to perfect losers. And thats irony.
and that’s what i question-The definition of a loser? why define?and why not question his failure?Why not question the responces that he received?One makes a mistake in life and hopes that life gives him another chance so that he can prove that he did learn a lesson,There wasn’t another chance for him(There isn’t another chance),I agree with the sympathy part but i would like to know the reason for his not able to get back and respond.