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To continue the series “Initial Steps”, excerpts from an interview of Director Prakash Jha,
taken by Ajay Brahmatmaj , are presented here.

Ajay writes

I had started my interview series with the interview of Prakash Jha. He is my elder and to some extent my guide also. Perhaps it is difficult, at present, to evaluate the contribution of Prakash Jha to Hindi cinema but he has brought a new language to the Hindi cinema.

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[Following is the translation of the Hindi Interview and may not do full justice to the original interview so to read the exact sayings of Prakash Jha, one should go through the original interview. This is simply a trial to expose the interview to those readers who can not read Hindi at all]
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From now onwards Ajay Bramatmaj will be represented by AB and Prakash Jha …

3.5 scenes in the film and he still deserves to be called as The Naseeruddin Shah!

Simply because of his brilliant portrayal of Inspector Mike Lobo. “Short role can still be great” is proved by Naseeruddin Shah in Ardha Satya.

Mike Lobo is often discussed among policemen before he actually appears on screen. In the present time, he is a broken man, a drunkard who was suspended from the police department because he could not do compromises with the usual functioning of the department and tried to work in his own manners. He was too rebellious. Its told by other policemen that he used to say that whoever would come between he and his duty he would have to face his wrath. Whoever was found against his opinion of law and order, he fought with him. Vested interests could not bear his presence in the police force and he …

iView Author:
Amanda Sodhi
(Washington DC, USA)

Email :
amandasodhi [at] gmail [dot] com

Maqbool—Taking Macbeth to Bollywood

I was going through some old college assignments and came across a film review of Maqbool I wrote for a Theatre History course I took. Below follows the write-up for those interested in reading it:

Vishal Bharadwaj is a name which has almost become synonymous with excellence—whether it be his music score for critically acclaimed films such as Maachis, Satya and No Smoking or his direction of films such as Makdee, Chatri Chor and Omkara, Bharadwaj continuously proves his versatility and dedication to deliver the very best. He has created a niche for himself as the king of Bollywood film adaptations—after all, three out of his four films are adaptations, and successful ones for that …

Great and powerful and impressive writers possess one thing for sure and that is the art to present some stories in their own words/ways/manners and though its very much possible that they are taking inspirations from mythology or stories, already told in the past, but they will weave the plot in such a way that theme of their plots will be successful in presenting issues prevalent in the contemporary times.

Great writers have their strong control over observation of the three phases of the time, the past, the present and the future. They have ability to use their own mother tongue, no matter its not recognised world wide, to tell their stories and these stories will have global impact and in some manner will cover human being all over the world. They have deep observation of what has been going on and what may happen in future and they weave …

Dearest Geeta,

Have started becoming more and more like a protagonist of a ‘feel good’ film. Have mellowed down a little.

Cigarettes ? I know that will be your first question. They have gone down from 20@day to 15@day. You, the censor board of India and honorable Mr. Anbumani Ramadoss will be very happy to hear this.

It doesn’t look as good as we wanted it to be back then. May be I too am trying for a naxalite-parallel-cinematic-revolution. “That the audiences will rise up one day and grab all the ‘different’ and ‘well made’ films.”

I can hear you snigger.

One thing I’ve noticed is that CHANGE is very uncomfy. Any new idea is not discovered on its way, but only recognized when it’s gone. People want great ideas like Lagaan, Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par.

Ideas that everyone can relate to and say “Hey Ishaan …

How do you create division among people? Etch a line with the tip of your shoe in the dust between them and give them opposite sides to belong to. The rift may not be immediate but gradually across time there will be category and classification. There will be further division, conflicting systems of belief and later, fanaticism and dogma. Before long the dust line you drew will be blown away by winds but it doesn’t matter, they will probably have barbed wire walls up by then. All history and past will begin at the moment the line was etched. What existed before that is to be disregarded or is in the context of science. Few will talk of unity and a past where all was one. The tragedy of it will be that there will be no one to hear …

SARFAROSH (1999) - ORIGINAL AND AWESOME

Perhaps all of PFC guys have shown this superb film but I want to discuss this film as this film has impressed me lot with respect to story telling, griping script, dialogues, characters, performances and music.

Sarfarosh was John Mathew Mathan’s first film after making ads and in his first film he seems to be prominent director of hindi cinema. Let’s discuss this film by its qualities

Story: The first rule of cinema is it should be entertaining. The good message attached with it is secondary thing. Sarfarosh is entertaining as well it conveys the message of patriotism which writer and director want to say. The story has superb balance of qualities of commercial cinema as well as off beat cinema.

Story deals with exposure of weapons racket supported by ISI and our in-house terrorists. Film starts with mass killing and loot of passengers by some south …

Encounter-The killing was released in 2002 and forgotten. And most of people still don’t know that there is a film like this.
By the name people may think that this is B or C grade film containing usual police- gangsters’ saga. It had no big stars but had powerful performances, good script and story, dialogues and above all well defined characters and direction.

The story is like this: Inspector Bharucha (Naseeruddin Shah) ek encounter me 3-4 jawaan logo ko icccha na hote huye bhi circumstances ki wajah se maar daalte hai. Mare huye logi me se ek ki dead body ko lene ke loye koi aata nahi. Uska koi identification nahi hota hai. As per court rules the dead body has to be disposed after some specified time limit. As a good officer bharucha aur unki friend jo ek journalist hai (Tara Deshpande) time limit ko badhane ki koshish karte …