Of Titles or: Daakiya Zaroor Bajaye Ghanti Do Baar!!
iView Author:
Subrat
(Bangalore, India)
EMAIL:
Withheld
On innumerable occasions while holding my side of the debate on how Hindi
cinema scores over the rest (an admittedly difficult task when you have just
finished watching a creative masterpiece from the Darshan stable), there is
but one area where I grudgingly concede ground to Hollywood. Hindi film
titles display a surprising lack of creativity or quirkiness betraying
possibly the film-maker’s indifference to them. When I first watched
Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, I was suitably impressed but what left me
perplexed was the title. The reservoir and the dogs were conspicuous by
their absence in the movie and all my flights of imagination to make the
connects in the plot with the title would invariably be grounded. Years
later, I learnt of the story of Tarantino’s lack of regard for high-brow
European film-makers, further compounded by his inability to pronounce
titles of French/European movies like Au Revoir les Enfants. He just called
such movies as Oh, Reservoir Dogs (with a few choicest expletives thrown in
between). The gall and the cheekiness of it! Your first movie, an
unconventional narrative and a complete non-sequitur of a title; Tarantino
had earned a fan for life.
Hindi cinema, unfortunately, affords no such pleasure. Despite having the
luxury of choosing from three different languages (Hindi, Urdu and English),
our film titles are rarely layered. This is a pity since titles indeed have
the ability to make the right first impression. And I can safely say that
this is a hoary seventy-five year old tradition with a few honorable
exceptions. This has often made me wonder how our film-makers choose their
titles. Do writers come up with the titles and discuss them with the
director (seems unlikely since directors seem to have reserved names of
movies sometimes years in advance) or do directors retro-fit the script with
the title? Is the director involved at all or do the producers and the
distributors force a title on the creative team? I had a glimpse of this
with Omkara last year when commercial considerations almost forced Vishal
Bharadwaj to change the name to O Saathi Re. This was apparently on grounds
that Omkara seemed too martial and harsh a title to work for our audience.
Clearly, these forces, purportedly representing the audience tastes, were
the same who subjected us to audience-friendly titles like Hum Aap ke Dil
Mein Rahte Hain or Hamara Dil Aap Ke Paas Hai. Thankfully, Vishal prevailed
and the original title was retained.
Over the years I have maintained a list of titles in Hindi cinema which have
held my interest. The first of these come as late as 1959 which is not
surprising if you see the names of successful movies of Hindi cinema’s
leading triumvirate during those years – Raj Kapoor with Barsaat, Awara,
Shree 420, Dev Anand with CID, Funtoosh, Munimji and Dilip Kumar (a slightly
more creative record) with Daag, Naya Daur and Azad. The movie I refer to is
Kagaz ke Phool. Here was a title that was a metaphor for hollowness of
Suresh Sinha’s (Guru Dutt) life and the ultimate betrayal of success. The
other movie which deserves an honorable mention in the same decade is Dekh
Kabira Roya where the title ran completely tangent to the story of three
mismatched pairs. The 60s, in my view, were the most pedestrian years in
terms of movie titles. Run your eye down the list of Shammi, Rajinder Kumar
and Manoj Kumar starrers and you will know what I mean (Junglee, Prince,
Andaz, Dil Ek Mandir et al). The next decade made up for the inanity of the
previous one. The emergence of angry young man meant some powerful movie
names relevant to the storyline but not of the obvious variety. Sholay,
Deewar and Zanjeer are but three examples. The parallel cinema and the
middle-of-the-road movement threw up some really good titles in the 70s and
80s. The lyricism of Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin, the irony of Jaane Bhi Do
Yaaro, the brevity of Trikaal or the starkness of Ek Doctor ki Maut. The
last two decades have been a mixed bag. Titles like DDLJ or JJWS brought
fresh variations to familiar storylines while we witnessed the birth of the
title franchise (No. 1, khiladi et al). The last few years have seen a minor
revival of interesting titles; what dreams have come to in Hazaaron
Khwaishen Aisi, an unfettered slice of life view with Dil Chahta Hai or the
nod to street lingo with Bheja Fry.
But for sheer artistry of movie titles, I still go back to Hollywood. What
explains the inspired choice of The Postman Always Rings Twice? On one hand
it sums up the plot, that of Frank missing the first ‘ring’ and getting away
with a murder but being nailed on the second ‘ring’ albeit for a crime he
didn’t commit. On the other hand, it is a self-reference, of writer Cain’s
interminable wait for a mail from producer accepting his script and the fact
that the postman always rang twice in those days signaling their arrival. Or
the more recent drug movie Trainspotting. Salman Rushdie has a simple take
on Trainspotting – “It has many admirers, perhaps because they are unable
even to understand its title, let alone the fashionable indecipherable argot
of the dialogue”. “…..something metaphorical is being reached for here,
though it’s not clear exactly what”. The popular theory, of course, traces
the origin of ‘trainspotting’ to the act of trying to find the vein for an
IV inject. But I must admit to having been one among the kind of admirers
Rushdie refers to who were just taken in by the novelty of the title. The
one director who I thought really reveled in his titles was Stanley Kubrick.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
possibly is the most creative of movie titles ever. Or the layered
significance of Full Metal Jacket – the jacket on the bullet gives it a
higher velocity – while the movie follows the lives of fresh marine
recruits, their Sergeant and eventually Joker’s realization that he was
trained to be a killer, nothing else.
While I wait for similar inspiration on titles in our cinema, I see some
hope. Titles like Manorama Six Feet Under and Loins of Punjab do hold your
attention and make you wonder on what the movie could be about. But I am
still looking for someone who will announce his next project as Daakiya
Zaroor Bajaye Ghanti Do Baar!!
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
One example of an innovative title would be “Ghajini” .. which is the Murugadoss film that Aamir is remaking.
The story goes that Ghajini was an invader of India, who failed in his invasion many times, until he finally succeeded. In the movie, the protagonist, (whose brain reboots every 15 minutes) is dead-focussed on catching the person who murdered his lover, and keeps on trying till he succeeds.
Its a great story idea – both the movie and the title, but the movie falls short of conveying this properly – in fact, the Tamil movie waters down the inherent drama and potential of the story. If you believe what Murugadoss says, that he was “inspired” by “Memento”’s storyline, but did not copy it, then credit to him for giving it a try.
Forgot to add … Good writeup.
my fav movie titles(a random recall-though many might be adapted from literary works):
The Shawshank Redemption
Fight Club
Bunty aur Babli
Memento
next stop wonderland
the pursuit of happyness
scarecrow
and justice for all
scent of a woman
pulp fiction
kill bill
maachis
dil se
rangeela
satya
my wife’s murder
darna mana hai
ek chalis ki last local(title justifies/better than film syndrome)
haasil
moksha
shatranj ke khiladi
jaane bhi do yaaro
darling
Subrat, been following your articles. Well written, little offbeat and with an understated sense of humour. Good stuff
Some of my favorites (off the top of my head) :
Main Meri Patni Aur Woh
Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon (incidentally both of these are Chandan Arora films)
Khosla Ka Ghosla
Suraj Ka Saatva Ghoda
‘Hindi film titles display a surprising lack of creativity or quirkiness ‘
Contrary !
http://passionforcinema.com/gumnaam-se-ghajini-tak-the-evolution-of-hindi-movie-titles/
~fe~