Golden Silences
iView Author: Anand (Chennai, India)
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Golden Silences
Ram Gopal Varma – a lover of basic instincts – Powerful Men; Sexy
Women – has said that he uses background score to heighten the impact
of his story telling. One of the reasons that Phoonk did not scare was
the loud use of BGM (background music). Remember the scene in Bhoot,
where Urmila wakes up in the middle of the night, goes to the kitchen,
takes out a bottle of water from the fridge and drinks, and returns
back to bed. We see the ghost for the first time in that scene. It was
a truly scary scene and everything including the camera angles,
lighting worked out well in its favor. One of the main reasons why it
worked out so well was the BGM – or the lack of it! The silence was
deafening in that scene making the audience squirm in their seat in
anticipation. How well Salim and Suleiman understood the effect of
silence! And how I wish Amar Mohile understood it…
Anyway, the objective of this post is not RGV bashing…it is about
some of the randomly picked golden moments created in Tamil Cinema due
to (amongst other aspects) Golden Silences.
Mahanadi – Kamal goes to prison and on his return finds out that his
daughter is sold off and is a sex worker in Sonagachi. He goes to
Calcutta, finds her and brings her back. He handles his emotions quite
well during the entire episode but after his return, when his daughter
starts blabbering in her sleep” Vidungada Thevadiya Pasangala…Oru
Naalaiku ethanai Customeruda” (roughly translates to ‘Leave me alone
you bastards…how many customers can I handle in a day’), he is
unable to control his emotions and breaks down…and what a moment it
is. One of the classical scenes in Indian films where everything falls
into place. Kamal Haasan’s acting, the lighting of the scene, the
dialogues…and above all, the absence of music during the entire
scene. After talking about his personal tragedy, Kamal starts talking
about the state-of-affairs of under aged sex-workers in Sonagachi and
then he starts talking about how the world accords respect to the ‘bad
guys’. At this point, Kamal Haasan’s emotions change from being
helpless and to that of anger and it is here Ilayaraja starts the
music. It remains the best scene I have ever seen in my life.
Mozhi – A fabulously conceived scene – When Prithvi falls for a
deaf/dumb girl, he wishes to understand how her world would be. So he
seals his ears with a bandage and tries to spend a day without hearing
anything and speaking anything. The scene occupied about two minutes
of screen time, and Vidayasagar just let the silence be in those two
minutes…What an impact it had. (I do remember a few cat calls when I
watched it for the first time, but in the second viewing – after about
a week of the film’s release – there were none).
Sigaram – After the death of SPB’s wife, he conducts the last rites
and returns home, after which he suffers a stroke. Ananthu, the
Director, showed SPB performing the last rites for about a minute and
again silence was beautifully used (Music Director – SPB).
It is unfortunate that many Music Directors today do not understand
the strength of silences. I do not remember watching any film in the
last year or so, where silence has been used effectively – Of course,
I hope to be proved wrong.
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
I like the scene in Johnny Gaddar when Neel Mukesh confesses of stealing the money in front of Dharmender. Then they both are waiting the camera is placed right behind a table fan and a gun lies on the table. Its hardly a silence of some 10-15 seconds but the anticipation just builds up and finally Mukesh picks up the gun and shoots Dharmender. Pretty neatly done scene
K. Vishwanath’s Swati Mutyam. Kamal Hassan marries Radhika a widow. When he goes to ask his uncle for a share in property, he begins to beat him up. As Kamal is getting beaten up, Radhika steps in. She hands over the stick to Kamala, and just gives a nod of her head. No dialogues, nothing here. Just the expressions on Radhika’s face and the way she conveys the anger in her eyes. Brilliant.
RGV’s Shiva( not the 2006 version). Nag beats up one of Raghuvaran’s goons, and brings him unconcious to his hideout. Till then he had only heard of Shiva, but never seen him at all. As he stares at the hero, the same moment his aide Nanaji whispers in his ears “Shiva”. No dialogues there, the expression of shock and anger on Raghuvaran’s face, conveys it all. One of the best scenes ever.
Also the scene from Oru Kaidhiyin Dairy( the Tamil original of Aakhri Raasta). Honestly i felt it was not one of Bharatiraja’s best movies, way too melodramatic and loud. But one scene does stand out, when the younger Kamal reads his father’s diary, and knows the truth. Not much dialog here, just Kamal reading it, and the fan whirring above.
Ankit: Yes. Great Scene – but I think it was not total silence during those 10 seconds. If I remember right, the director used the sound of the fan and the clock ticking.
I don’t know if Mozhi’s silence was the choice of Vidyasagar. The scene itself was constructed to get us into the head of the guy who wants to experience silence. The scenes were probably written as to heighten the impact of silence.
And the biggest offender of the BG”M” is “A Wednesday”. I wish they had used atleast a slightly toned down approach for some of the scenes.
Ratnakar: Yes – Both the scenes were absolutely great. But again in both the scenes it was not total silence. The moment Nanaji says Shiva, Raja starts using percussion for effect. But there is silence for about 4-5 seconds before that. In Kaidhiyin diary Raja uses the sound of the baby crying in the background.
One of my favourite scenes in Shiva(in terms of BGM) was during a fight scene when a goon opens his knife. He clicks the knife and with the sound of the click the knife opens. The shot shows the knife in the foreground and Nag’s face in the background, with camera focusiing on the knife. The moment knife opens, the focus shifts to Nag’s face. Now in the telugu version, Raja remains silent till the knife opens and starts using the percussion at the sound of the click. In the Hindi version, Raja keeps the percussion on and once the knife opens, the music stops and the scene becomes silent, with the focus on Nag’s face. It was amazing work of BGM, a true genius who intuitively lifted the scenes with his magic touch!!
Gopi: I personally think that Mozhi was Vidyasagar’s choice, but even if it had been at the script level, I think it is an amzing concept done without any gimmickry. I have a different POV on ‘A Wednesday’ though. Thoug music was a bit loud, it will certainly not qualify for the ‘biggest offender’ award. IMO, the team that wins that hands down is RGV-Amar Mohile :-)
one of the rasons a wednesday was a letdown is because of the BGM…though the film works big time, but the impact of silences & pauses is missing…it seems the maker & BGM director was in a hurry…all the scenes where anupam kher is giving instructions, or where jimmy s character is being established…nasser’s monologue or what ever u may cal it…didnt need the loud dhinchak dhinchak…the ehole impact goes for a toss…good idea,film little overly done execution…watsay pepl???
“where Urmila wakes up in the middle of the night, goes to the kitchen,
takes out a bottle of water from the fridge and drinks, and returns
back to bed. We see the ghost for the first time in that scene. It was
a truly scary scene and everything including the camera angles,
lighting worked out well in its favor. One of the main reasons why it
worked out so well was the BGM – or the lack of it! The silence was
deafening in that scene making the audience squirm in their seat in
anticipation. How well Salim and Suleiman understood the effect of
silence! And how I wish Amar Mohile understood it…”
RGV spoke about the silence in this scene in one of his interviews on BBC..I was amazed to understand the power of silence then.
And that reminds me of this scene from Parinda. Nana Patekar in that movie has this phobia for fire. Though a dreaded gangster, he simply quivers at the sight of fire. In one scene, he lights a matchstick while he is about to do puja. Suddenly it catches a flame, and in just a moment, he is scared and puts it off. The whole scene is not more than a minute, but it just establishes Nana’s aversion to fire brilliantly there.
Interesting observations.
Just to add. I loved the lack of background music in No Country for Old Men. Creates a very cold, uncomfortable ‘mahaul’ for the audience which is just perfect for the film!
And then, that scene in Mumbai Meri Jaan where Madhavan feels the ‘numbness’ after the blasts… the sound used… just awesome. Although inspired by Saving Private Ryan to some extent but still, executed perfectly by the director.
On reading your article, the first thing that came to my mind was a scene from Black Friday.
The blast scene from the movie has a huge explosive sound to it followed immediately by a deafeaning silence. The sight of the charred and bloody bodies, people with broken limbs screeming out, all this coupled with the absolute lack of sound aptly signifies the state of shock of the people present there, immediately after the blasts.
Sukhjot: Thanks
Raunak: I think I need to watch Black Friday again. Do not remember the scene in detail. Thanks for pointing out.
A scene from Crash. The shooting in the cops car. We see the car from behind and then a flash of light inside the car. No sound of a bullet being fired.
A forgotten example : Ajay Devgan looking at his sister’s dead body and breaking down in DIVYA SHAKTI. Absolutely no BGM. The film is way too loud to be liked but Ajay Devgan appears to have put his soul in this scene.
The Dark Knight anyone ??
Still remeber the silent vacuum in which The Joker laughs manically, hanging his head like a dog out the window of a speeding police car.
There’s this fight sequence between Jackie and Mazhar Khan outside a chawl building in Angaar (if I recall correctly Mazhar dies at the end of this scene). It’s not silent but it’s one of the most unique fight sequences in that you only hear the grunts and impact of the punches. No background music. Pretty neat and creates an impact.
Sanjeev / Prateek: Have not watched Angaar or Divya Shakti. But talking about fight scenes reminds me the fight scene in Nayakan. When Inspector Kelkar kills Velu’s father, Velu fights and kills him. And it was such a memorable fight. First, when Velu hits him with the bottle, Kelkar is astonished and then gets angry and fights Velu, after which he realises that Velu’s intention is not just to beat the shit out of him but to kill him, so gets scared and starts running. Velu chases him through the slums of Dharavi and kills him with a hammer with the whole crowd watching. Raja’s BGM was brilliant. When the fight starts, it is indoor in a dark warehouse kind of setup: here there is no BGM – followed by the chase scene in the slums(outdoor) and Raja starts having the music in the background. Then Inspector Kelkar takes a hammer and tries to hit Velu, the hammer slips out of his hand and hits a water pump and water gushes out, and the music stos and it is only the sound of water gushing out. The impact was fantastic. It was a great fight, the camera, lighting, editing and the music!! Remember the movie was shot in 1986-87. I always wanted to ask Mani Sir – Was a storyboard in place for the fight?