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HISTORICAL HEROES

HISTORICAL HEROES…WAITING TO BE ADOPTED ON SCREEN.

While watching Jodha Akbar; a thought came into mind- why all the time Indian film makers focuses on love story while adopting history characters. E.g. Ashoka- Santosh Shivan focused on love story between Ashoka and kaurvki. Sanjay leela bhansali planned to make historical film on love story of Baajirao and Mastani.

Latest Jodha Akbar also focused on love story. Many of us found that there was not enough masala/content in the film. There was thin storyline in the film.

India has produced lots of heroes in the history. Their personality and life can be great source for film. But nobody plans to adopt these big historical characters which are symbols of courage, spirit and patriotism. We can make our own Brave heart, or Gladiator. I think our past film makers were more ready to take challange to portray histroy on silver screen. I still remember visuals of “sikandar-e-azam” starring Prithviraj Kapoor & Dara Singh and popular song “jahan daal daal par soneki chidiya karti hai basera, woh bharat desh hai mera”.

So here are some characters which are waiting to be adopted on silver screen from long time.

1. Prithviraj Chauhan- Rajkumar Santoshi and Dr. Chandraparakash Dwivedi announced films on this epic character. What happened to their project? As we know prithviraj chauhan’s life was full of incidents from which a full length great picture can be made. His love with Samyukta, Her kidnapping, his war with Mohd. Ghori, revenge with Ghori. There is tale that when Prithviraj Chauhan was defeated by Ghori in a war (before it Prithviraj Chauhan defeated Ghori many times), ghori made prithviraj chauhan blind. In Darbar of Ghori, blind prithviraj chauhan killed ghori by his arrow by following the poem recited by his asst. Chand Bardai. The poem described exact location of Ghori. At the end, Prithviraj and Chand bardai killed each other instead of death by enemy. Wow, great content.

2. Chhatrapati Shivaji- Most of us knows about this great warrior. Throughout his life he fought against mughals and britishers. There is great content in his whole life like his relation with mother Jijibai, his wars against mughals, his conflicts with Aurangzeb…..I doubt there was black & white film made on this Shivaji starring Prithviraj Kapoor????

3. Maharana Pratap- He was reluctant to accept Akbar as emperor of India. He fought against Akbar throughout his life. His life was also full of struggles like deceit of his brother Shakti Singh, battle of Haldighati, tales of his horse chetak, Chittorgarh etc. It is also told that Maharana Pratap and his fellowmen passed their days in jungle by eating leaves while fighting against Akbar.

Above are just ready to serve examples of our great history. There are lot many names which can be included in this list. Each and every region of India has produced epic characters. Current industry is shouting that there is lack of source for stories for movies. They should just look at our history and lots of literature available. As i am from Gujarat; i can definitely recommend books of Shri Kanaiylal Munshi (From “Patan Ni Prabhuta” to “Jai Somnath”) to know glorious history containing stories and characters of Gujarat. For each region there is sea of stories and characters which can be adopted or inspired characters can be developed for modern age. But our filmmakers are reluctant to these heroes because they do not find song / dance sequences in their life.

But mind please…as we know making a film on histrorical characters is not as easy as to write this post. There should be great care taken for details of history. There might be chances of controversy while adopting these characters on silver screen. Also it needs huge budget, lots of hard work and time. Perhaps our filmmakers are not ready for that.
-Shailesh Limbachiya

16 Responses to “HISTORICAL HEROES”

  1. Honhaar Goonda on March 1st, 2008 6:19 am

    Has any of you seen “The Living Moghuls”?

    Anyway, how about Battle of Deorai - the fight between two Moghul Brothers - Aurganzeb and Dara?

  2. arun prakash on March 1st, 2008 7:36 am

    What about historical heroines ?
    Jhansi Ki Rani - We’ve been reading about Sushmita sens movie project for a while now….is it on ?

  3. Mithun Gangopadhyay on March 1st, 2008 10:07 am

    The problem about making films about historical characters in India is that you just cannot show them as morally conflicted or go against the public perception.

    If the ridiculous furor over JA and Aaja Nachle is anything to go by, any film which shows someone like Shivaji or Prithviraj as less than demi-gods will have people gheraoing and riots on the street.

    Who needs that?

  4. vishrant on March 1st, 2008 12:01 pm

    an artist is a daredevil

    one ‘Nirala’ is enough to show what the metal an artist is made of.

    in art form of cinema, daredevils are outnumbered by businessmen with a huge margin.

    and i am not complaining,just pointing out a fact.

    it is the daredevils that make cinema art.

    b-)

  5. Pavan Jha on March 1st, 2008 12:12 pm

    Shailesh,

    They are not waiting for their turns but have appeared so many times between 40s to 60s and probably retired…

    All of them Prithviraj Chauan, Chhatrapati Sivaji and Maharana Pratap have been filmed quite a number of times in Pre 70 era.. Check out films like Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan, Prithviraj.Samyogita, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, Jay Chittod..

    Some prominent names associated with Historicals are Sohrab Modi, Jairaj, Nirupa Roy, Trilok Kapoor, Mahipal, Shahu Modak, Anita Guha, and SN Tripathi (Who made a lot of historicals/mythologicals, acted in, and provided music ) .. Even Bharat Bhushan played a lot of historical roles post Baiju Bawra..

    Somewhere it did went in to a wrong direction when many of such films were prominently created to display super human characters or to cash on special effects (of those times)…

    The biggest problem is since 70s, Indian Literature failed to produce good “Fictional” charaters and stories of Past.. Either we rewrote the characters we already knew since ages, or repeated the same stories.. without weaving new fictional account of Past.. Also film makers have courage to adapt “fiction” for “futuristic” stories but not for the past..

  6. doremi on March 1st, 2008 2:03 pm

    Harshvardhan, Chandragupta Maurya, Mahavira, etc, etc.,

    Also possibly the greatest Indian ever born, ie, the Buddha.

  7. cdrakenc on March 1st, 2008 2:54 pm

    I have always wanted to see a film about mahabaleshwar(whose stone statue must have the biggest danglers in the world.)

  8. rxtreme on March 2nd, 2008 1:17 am

    You mean Bahubali (Gomateshwar) - Mahabaleshwar is a town in Maharashtra.

  9. cdrakenc on March 2nd, 2008 4:07 am

    yes I did sorry about the confusion in names..

    you must admit that the danglers were a dead giveaway, though..

  10. morph on March 2nd, 2008 10:56 am

    William Dalrymple’s The last moghul will make a excellent movie , the book is already written like a movie script . i wont be surprised if some international producers pick it up and make it in to an major epic.

  11. Pavan Jha on March 2nd, 2008 11:22 am

    @morph,

    is this the one that JP Dutta announced for Abhishek Bachchan as launch pad?

  12. Aditya Pant on March 2nd, 2008 10:33 pm

    @ Pavan: No, it’s just the title that’s the same (what can one call Bahadur Shah Zafar, if not The Last Mughal). The book by William Dalrymple was written (and possibly conceived as well) much after J P Dutta had shelved his film. I agree with Morph that Dalrymple writes his history books in a very dramatic, film friendly style. bothe “The White Moghals” and “The Last Mughal” can be adapted on film very well.

  13. dwaipayan on March 3rd, 2008 2:50 am

    I know, filmmakers go for love coz that sells. but now, the taste is changing. people are ready to see films provided the film is good.

    and, I think we can have one on nurjahan also. she’s the only queen from the mughal harem who is famous… we don’t even know the name of any other queens..(exception:Jodhaa thanks to mughal e azam)
    and it must have been tough making a name in this age…

  14. RK on March 3rd, 2008 4:51 am

    @Shailesh,
    There was a time when Historical films were made in Hindi cinema. People watched films as films. Now politics has entered in this area also.
    and given prevailing circumstances it can be said that a peaceful present time is better than to have stubborn artistic desire to make film on any subject.
    An artistic mind also has to have capacity to identify the present days conditions.
    It does not harm any of the living being if a film is not made on Maharana Pratap but moment someone tries to make a film on him, many controversial questions will come in to existence and historians ( unbiased, biased and those who has vested interests) will be behaving as per their groups interests. One sector of historians will say he ultimately defeated Akbar as Akbar never could win Chitaur. Other wing will say no he actually surrendered before the difficulties and Raja Man Singh etc convinced him to rule his kingdom under the banner of Moghul empire and he died peacefully later.
    We should let them lie somewhere in the print media only till time again shows its suitable face.
    Same is true with Shivaji etc.

    Though commercial factor also might have affected zeal to make a historical film. Sohrab Modi’s ambitious project Jhansi Ki Rani got big disappointment and that blow affected Historical films also. Sohrab Modi himself could not recover from the failure of his biggest film and he was the biggest name in historical films.
    Till time is suitable people may enjoy films on historical and mythological characters who are acceptable in their totallity.
    Like Mujjafar Ali was planning a film on Jalaluddin Rumi. and he is one such sensitive director who will do wonders with such sufis.
    Pray he gets sources to make the film and its completed and released unlike his Anjuman and shelved Juni.
    :(

  15. Neeraja on March 3rd, 2008 3:18 pm

    Agree with Mithun. Sad state of affairs :(
    but if stories are kings are so controversial why not make a movie on say Kabir?

    I heard That Shyaam Benegal was planning a movie on Buddha with Hrithik, is it true?

    @RK
    wow a movie on Jalaluddin Rumi. That would be something to watch out for…hopefully it will get made some day.

    @dwaipayan
    “she

  16. pligg.com on July 6th, 2008 9:15 pm

    HISTORICAL HEROES?WAITING TO BE ADOPTED ON SCREEN | PassionForCinema…

    While watching Jodha Akbar; a thought came into mind- why all the time Indian film makers focuses on love story while adopting history characters. E.g. Ashoka- Santosh Shivan focused on love story between Ashoka and kaurvki. Sanjay leela bhansali plann…

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