Sell Out Film – Some musings…
This is my first post as an official member of the PCF Authors’ Klub. Dunno how much weight it holds, but being who I am, it makes me feel like some friggin descendent of the Chopra clan. I am elated would be an understatement, but I will save those sentiments for my beer buddy. OK, now getting to the point, I spent most of my working day trying to hear the nuggets of wisdom from Dibakar B., on the gawdsent post by Manjeet. Thank you oye!
Somwhere late in the conversation thay had, Dibakar B. said those 3 magik words – SELL OUT FILM. It created a hulchul in my filmi khopdi ki jhopdi. Wow. I was sold out. Then began the internal debate. What exactly could qualify as a ’sell out film’? (Now on referred to as – SOF) Was Jab We Met Imtiaz Ali’s SOF. No yaar… dil-o-jaan lagi thi aur dikh bhi raha tha. May be he got lucky… Hey wait, it was a Shahid-Kareena film. SO, does that make it a SOF? No yaar, may be I picked up the wrong film for a SOF. Or may be not… (opinions invited)
Kya concept hai yaar – SELL OUT FILM. I have been reading this book ‘King of Bawlywood SRK’ and there I read a few pages which connected with this concept. There was a chapter where the author says that Aditya Chopra, while in school, used to maintain a diary about his predictions on how films would fare on the BO. He was right most of the time, of course. So is DDLJ also a SOF? Damn, that chapter robbed Adi of all the reverence I had for him all these years. A movie that is a part of Indian cinema legend made on a balance sheet. Yikes! The book also has many other revelations that further prove this, but you can read it for yourself.
Coming back to SOF. How does one decide on making a SOF? The answer lies maybe with Vishesh Films who only make SOF (or so I think). That seems to be their single minded purpose (Not that its wrong, but whatever.) This SOF stuck to my brain, cuz I (initially) wanted to make a SOF (then unknowingly). I had thought “Saala, marketing chahiye na… will make a movie that becomes a case study in film marketing.” Sounds vain & foolish, but then I still very clearly have a full-blown marketing plan for my SOF. (Now the damn Hummer & fuel is so effing expensive so hence full-out jaana hi padega na!)
Anyways, one thing that bothered me was that Dibakar B. mentioned it as akin to a sin (it came out like that). Something that borders on prostitution… If you have heard the conversation, you just might agree. He also says that may be he would not be able to make something like OLLO. I didn’t like that (my humble opinion, doesn’t matter to anyone). But what interested me most in the concept of SOF that it covered the entire gamut of commercial (if i may dare call ‘em dat) film makers. The line is so damn thin that only people who’s films didin’t work at the BO are the ‘not sold out’ film makers.
A huge reason this thing came up in my mind is that there are some films which were incidental hits (so qualifying to be SOF) but were made with a soul more virgin than what the word actually means. Some instances I think I can mention here – most of rajat kapoor’s, few of RGV’s, few of Mira Nair’s, (feel free to add more to the list). I think a film qualifying as SOF is just incidental. Just imagine if No Smoking would have taken the BO by a storm cuz of Bip’s item number (I so hoped) that wouldn’t have been a SOF. Definitely not. The same holds true for Dev D. Will Anurag Kashyap ever make a SOF? And if he does, will he agree?
Damn, too many questions in my mind. Too much dirt. Just 3 effing words & I have been flooded with thoughts, counter thoughts & its cousins & aunts & of course then the damn beer swims back into my over-occupied mindspace! I am so friggin pepped up about being at the ISC 08 & personally conveying my regards to Javed Akhtar saab & other favs that my colleagues think that I have lost it completely. Well ‘lost’ for them, but I have ‘found’ a place where I can belong. A place which is invaluable to be in. Hummer or fiat, I like the buzz, the vibe of being a filmi. That too in such promising times that the Industry is in.
For now, I will find some calm in my mug of beer. Till the next time guys, stay FILMI!
Tags: Dibakar Bannerjee, Films, magik
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
wow, Magik. I was working on the same concept today!
Anyways, more on that later, let me extend you a HEARTY WELCOME first!
Jadoo Bhai, welcome to PFC, hope we see more of ur Jadoo now. And cheers, hoping to have a beer with u when i am in Namma Bengalooru.
here’s what i think –
a sellout film can be made by meeting the following requirements:
1. in the past the filmmaker should have made films which he truly believed in.
2. the filmaker consciously makes a flim for which he trades his morals, ethics, and vision for a better commercial prospect.
this would mean that dhoom 2, or golmaal (the new one) are not sellout films. they would have been sellout films had a respectable director like anurag kashyap made it. (which is a hilarious btw). or if sanjay gadhvi or rohit shetty had made sincere movies they believed in before.
none of the bhansali films are SOFs either because good or bad his artistic integrity is visible in his works.
so vishesh films are indeed, the best examples in the regard. mahesh bhatt was a respectable director/writer long long time ago. and then he sold out. kind of like priyadarshan.
Hey Magnik, welcome to PFC man!
Welcome to PFC!! Let the magic begin
SOF…a nice write-up on a debut…Welcome..
Welcome to PFC Maa-Jee-K…
Nice article..
Thanks to all filmi brethren for this warm welcome. Am feelin’ so much at home. anand aa gaya yaar!
@ papaji: i owe u a beer!
@ RS: Insha Allah sirjee, these days u r sooooo much on PFC, i m really very keen to meet u. Over beer or otherwise. Do lemme know whenever u r here… Cheers!
A official warm welcome on PFC dude…and it reminds me of the Sachin Tendulkar’s Debut match against pakistan..don get me wrong, neither u r sachin nor the viewers / Readers are pakis.
Whats true is tht u have to treat this new challenge as a match against pakistan and turn out to be a Sachin of PFC (with OZ bhai remaining the Gavaskar & Srikanth & Kapil Dev & Azhar & Ganguly & so on…SAD BUT TRUE).
So gear up, grit your teeth and wait for the next ball..
My wishes are always with you..
Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale
Oye ashu… kya yaar baat baat pe oz bhai ke saamne khada kar deta hai bhaincho… ‘meri kachchi ghodi kachcha daam’LOL. u made my day bhai. Cheers! don’t miss rab ne…
An SOF could be termed such because of the intention of the film maker… now which film maker doesn’t want his film to make money or in other words doesn’t want his film to be sold out… Its different thing that films made with sole purpose of an SOF seldom sells.
@GSS: sirjee, wahi to i was trying to say…
Yeah Magik… I agree with you… point I’m trying to make is that one should make an earnest attempt to make a film, without considering whether its an SOF or the one he believes in… because what really sells, no one knows the formula
@ GSS: yeah. true. karm kar, phal ki ichcha mat kar! so profound!
@majik – allof barjataya movies wud def be SOFs
@ shreyans: yaar how much ever i wanna convince myself that the badjatyas are masters of SOF, still somewhere I feel very strongly that it is all they know & they are being consistently & sincerely creating stuff which is close to their heart. No matter how regressive & soppy.
@ magik- well put, but it just struck me that even RGV does the same, but no one targets the barjatya’s the way RGV is targetted, ridiculed, blogged, stripped and AAGed :-).
Y?
@ Shreyansh
To answer your query let me tell you what I feel.
The Barjatya’s only make movies on one formula-
family oriented stories- with Bharatiya kalachar etc ( as Magik says no matter how regressive) & they dont go to town talking anything about their movies.Have you heard Rajshri hyping any of their movies? No way buddy.
Whereas our man Ramu goes about making brilliant movies like Shiva,Satya,Company,Rangeela,Sarkar etc & then goes overboard goes into the “factory” mode and makes movies like Mr ya Miss, Go & the biggest ever disaster RGV Ki Aag.So do you expect the people to keep quiet?And have you ever read his blog?If you have then you’ll realise Ramu actually relishes all the negative criticism & enjoys giving it back to the people.Dont you remember Ramu praising Phoonk to the skies before its release?
So dont worry Ramu is least bothered about all this.And can you visualise Sooraj Barjatya doing something like this?
@ Sethu: Thanks for coming to the rescue. Wut u say is so effing right. RGV is on a trip. he is on a roll. nothing can put him down. he is loaded and got nothing to lose. he is living life the way he wants to. Its just incidental that he is making films. He wud be this cocky or perhaps more, in any other profession / business that cud afford him this kinda liberty. I can sometimes visualize RGV as the mentor / chief strategist of some Bhai. ;-)
@ Magik the way RGV doles out movies from his factory, like an assembly line product, and the way he makes initial money even before the movie is released, like territory rights, music rights… u get the drift, he is not in a position to “lose” money, if we consider the economies of our bollywood…and its ways of sycophancy, ass-licking.
RGV has a name, and he gets some names to appear in his movies… he makes a movie with the sole purpose of making some quick-buck and move on to the next project.
I am sure many of you know abt the telugu “sort of remake” of phoonk, which he made and openly declared it to be diferent because the animal used in the telugu was not a crow (like in phoonk) but a house lizard. that was the only value-addition he did to tht telugu movie.
I think RGV is the biggest example of how he compromises with his own intellect and sophistication to make some money by dishing out a mediocre product “made in factory”. and many gullible ppl buy it in the hope of catching some ofthe old vintage RGV.
Thts for me the real SOF, as u hv coined it…
cheers
@ Magik-sahi bola yaar.RGV is certainly living life the way he wants to & there are very few people who can be like that.So its probably time that people stopped analysing him since he’s difficult to categorise anyways.Look at him- he makes an Aag then redeems himself slightly with Sarkar Raaj and what does he do next?Comes up with Contract.And he ensures that a non entity like Phoonk ends up generating curiosity and generates money uff! this man is exceptional
Hmm interesting discussion, have some work in hand, will wrap it up and be back, keep shooting in the meanwhile.
@ magik, Satya & Sethu
I dont think the industry or movie goers(atleast the type like me) have gained anything from the HAHK,HSSH,MPK, Vivaah or Main Prem ki….
It just created many dud clones and bored us, tortured us to death.
While RGV may be on his ego trip, may be making movies that totally suck , but atleast tries a different unknown path.
Didnt Satya, Bhoot, Shiva all start a trend? Even if he is psychopath, lets judge him by the movie he makes. Barjatya may be even a bigger insecure person, but doesnt show it openly the way RGV does.
I am ready to forgive 10 aags to get 1 satya… and barjatya will never even get close to it
Whoa. RGV is one name that evokes such strong voices & opinions in any filmi conversation. But I think that guy shouldnt have been a part of this very nice & healthy exchange of thoughts we are having here. As Sethu very rightly put – HE IS AN EXCEPTION. A filmi buddy just called up & said “Bhai ye to off tangent ho gaya. Now we’ll end up Ramu bashing which wasn’t the thought behind this post.” Anyways, its interseting that Dibakarji ka Sell Out Film concept is a hit on PFC. Cheers to dat!
@ Shreyansh
Dude nowhere am I saying we gained from any of the Rajshri films.And I’m not anti RGV either.Inspite of an Aag I’m sure I’ll definitely watch Agyat & Rann.I was just responding to your question of why RGV is targeted & why the Barjatya’s are not thats all.I wasnt trying to malign RGV- in fact I’ve admitted that he’s different & there arent too many like him!!!
@ Magik – you are right lets now stick to the topic.I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about RGV later on
So whats the take on Chandni Chowk to China?SOF or not?
@magik- Sorry for the Emosional Atyachar….
@Sethu- u echo my sentiments
Ok i am back, and my do take ki opinion, from a do take ki aukaath waala insaan.
RGV can never ever be classified as a Sell Out, because whatever his movies are, he believes in them. He will never disown a movie of his.
And so do the Barjatyas, their movies may suck off late, but cant be taken as Sell Outs.
The only Rajshri movie which i can say is a total Sell Out is Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon. Sooraj tried to mix a KJo-Yashraj sensibility, to a Rajshri story, and it did not work.
Vivaah was a movie that put me to sleep, but it was something right up the Rajshri’s lane.
Prakash Jha’s Dil Kya Kare is a perfect example of a sell out, that was a movie which was more at home in Yash Raj or Dharma, it was not Prakash Jha’s kind. Not surprisingly the movie was a major dud.
Also Abbas Mustaan’s Chori Chori Chupke Chupke and Mehul Kumar’s Kitne Door Kitne Paas, where they attempted a Yashraj kinda flick, but it just did not work out.
For me the biggest sellout was Kundan Shah’s Kya Kehna, not because of the story, but because of the treatment. JBDY and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa were my favorites, and it was a shocker for me to see Kundan Shah giving an Indra Kumar type of treatment to a sensitive subject, and Saif’s mom character played by Navneet Nishan was hammy to the core. I felt totally let down by Kya Kehna, and when i saw Dil Hai Tumhara, i was wondering if this was really Kundan Shah, or some other alias.
Great achievement Bro. Congratulations.
Debate of art versus commerce is never ending.
Lemme, share with you great words said by, sir rajkapoor.
Cinema’ it’s selling your dreams…
First of all let us portray our dreams and then segregate them…
Long live the cinema…
@ Sethu: CC2C is a Nikhil Advani film. So prima facie that dude is following his heart. But when elements like akshay kumar get into it, the whole attempt is to make a SOF. I remember during Singh is Kinng also AK had a lot of value additions to make it a SOF. So he won’t spare CC2C especially cuz it is his own real story and he wudnt want it to tank for anything on earth.
@ Shreyans: koi ni yaar… when u r passionate u like to be heard out. By gawd ki kasam we are all ears as long as u r not talking like those who post messages on rediff message boards! LOL!
@ RS: Sirjee, wut u said is true. may be if i had really done major research on SOF i wud have stumbled upon these facts for sure. yaar another guy I think who is trying to make SOF under the garb of senti romantik flicks is that guy Dharmesh Darshan (he started wid raja hindustani). What say?
Actually we r getting into somewhat Grey Area.
If u take Kamalhassan, for every serious movie, he will do 1 or 2 pakka masala flicks.
So its like for every Virumandi, there is Panchatantiram. And for every Hey Ram, there wud be a Tenali, for every Anbe Sivam, there is a Vasool Raja.
But i am not sure if Kamal wud consider it as Sell Out, nor do his fans( including Yours Truly), because he feels the need to balance both artistic and commercial success.
Again if you take George Clooney or Brad Pitt, they act in totally masala ventures like Oceans Eleven series or Mr & Mrs Smith, but they also actively promote indie movies like A River Runs through it or Goodnight and Good Luck.
Al Pacino will do a totally arthouse flick like Glen Garry Glen Ross, with a Carlito’s Way.
For most of these actors, they dont see it as a sell out, coz they need to earn their bread and butter.
@ deepu: thanks bro. long live good cinema.
@Magik-30
Dharmesh Dharshan is one overrated movie maker. Uski naseeb accha tha ki Raja Hindustani jaisi faalto pikture hit ho gaya. Honestly i am not sure whether he has any sensibility in first place, to even consider Sell Out.
@ RS: LOL. Initially, I always was confused between Dharmesh Darshan & Sooraj Badjatya. I guess he was trying to replicate the Barjatya success model with a kahani mein twist…
But kismat likhwa ke laya hai yaar!
@ RS: may be irrelevant here, but the first film that i saw which made me seriously cry out of utter sadness was Sadma. I wept & wept when KH was trying to remind sridevi abt him. I still feel sad when those visuals re-surface. I was almost a kid and had no reason to behave like that. The power of cinema struck me then.
@ Magik: the magic of “moondaram pirai” / sadma was such tht whn u just mentioned tht climatic sequence, i hd goosebumps just thinking abt the helplessness on KH’s face whn he realises he cant ever get her back.
I fell in love with Sridevi, and thats how i started corrupting my mind watching himmatwala, tohfa, justice chaudhary, mawali etc.
totally irrelevnt here, as u said, but pretty nostalgic, nonetheless…
@ magik-35
Yaar dont get me started on the Sadma climax, to date i still feel depressed whenever i see it.
Kamal’s movies have these kinda emotional moments, that just hit you straight, u cant escape it.
how true yaar… its so strange but i also felt sorry for the dwarf kamal hassan in appu raja i think i cried then too… KH is an actor who is really balancing it out. the money, the craft… he has it all… he is blessed yaar.
According to me, all those films which are created only with the purpose to fight for Oscars, are Sell-Out-Films.
What all they do for that! My god! First you market in way to anger few fanatics(and get publicity as a bonus), when it blows out of proportion, you scream for emancipation and seek refuge from a “first world” country, get actors from there(or even remotely connected to that place) to make them endorse your movie. Sigh!
I know, the subject is real, actors and the crew were/are immensely talented but still the basic goal is not to entertain/make aware, but to get awards.
OTOH, I don’t consider film-makers like Adoor or Kasarvalli, to be classified under this category. The main difference is the budget of their movies, they don’t spend tens of crores making and marketing the movie. If not for multiplexes(May be not for Adoor, Kerala respects its cinema) perhaps they would not recover even the budget.
Well Ratnakar Kamal wouldnt really be SOF as he’s only doing a balancing act like you mentioned for every Virumaandi there’s a Panchatantiram, for every Hey Ram there’s a Tenali etc.I mean look at him- even for a commercial flick like Dasavatharam see the extent of detailing he went into- simply amazing.Ah! Sadma/Moondram Pirai gives me the goosebumps too.And even I cried when the dwarf Kamal sang “unnai ninaichen, paatu padichen,thangame nyana thangame” in Apoorva Sagodharargal ( tujhe saathi maana humne in appu raja).
@ Ratnakar
I agree with you about Kundan Shah.Even I wondered what happened to him with Kya Kehna.Dharmesh Dharshan’s Bewafaa was a desperate attempt to break into the YRF/Dharma mould.Raja Hindustani was a bucketload of bullshit.
Guys, just a food for thought… do u think madhur bhandarkar has also started treading the path of SOF? i mean, i didnt like his “in-your-face” realissm, and taking the audience’s intelligence for granted / underestimated, by spelling out everything, rather than doing it subtely. (in all his movies, from chandni bar to fashion, except for, i think, trishakti…)
i think in the name of ‘realistic cinema / topic’, he has started encashing the trend.
@ Jhaji-
I wont consider Madhur Bhandarkar to be on the SOF path now- since this is what he believes in doing.Trishakti was his first venture & thus can be excused.But all the movies otherwise are made in a certain way as thats what he believes in- of course I personally he feels he does go overboard @ times.
but yes he did take the SOF route with Aan-man @ work- it was completely unlike him & was more of a poor man’s Khakee kind of movie!!!
Sorry it should be Aan-Men @ work & not man @ work
@ sethu, point taken.. some more food for thought.. harmesh malhotra (nagina, anyone..?) and KC Bokadia (typical 90’s movies with amitabh/jayaprada/rekha/shatrughan sinha/jackie/sadashiv amrapurkar etc etc)
u wud consider them making SOF? and of the present lot.. Sanjay Gupta, maybe?
awesome debut article hai bhai.. keep up the good work !!
ps: rnbdj is a must watch.. only for srk !! anand a gaya yaar !!
@ Jha
Well again in case of K.C.Bokadia I wont consider it SOF, he had a specific formula- the old 80’s style larger than life caricatures with menacing villains,hero’s with a heart of gold etc.He stuck to the formula right till the end.In fact Lal Baadshah was a classic example-released in 1999- the movie was as good an 80’s flick & so the movie sank.But with Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam he turned SOF
Hmm the earlier Sanjay Gupta wouldnt be SOF material.he had a specific agenda- rip off a decent hollywood/asian action flic & do a neat job of it.But nowadays with production of movies liek Dus kahaniyan, Woodstock Villa etc he’s certainly SOF
Are we taking Sooraj Barjatya as representative of all Barjatyas and Rajshri films as a whole?
As a production company Rajshri has produced films like “Saraansh”, “Ek Baar Kaho”, “Chitchor”, “Ankhiyon ke Jharokhon Se” and so on. Do these films look remotely regressive to you?
And even Maine Pyar Kiya, for all its sappy syrupy storyline is hardly a regressive film.