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It is said and it has been said all over the world in every country and in every civilization that there is no man who does not face sorrows. There have been philosophers who have been investigating existence of God or his role in the life of any human being.

Raju (Dev Anand) says in the Guide, one of the most wonderful films of the hindi cinema.

“Now this question is not important whether I will live or die. Question is this whether god exists or not. If he does not exist then it does not matter whether I live or die because what is the use of living in this world where there is no purpose behind its moving. And if he exists then I have to see how long he does not listen to his devotees. How he can leave his devotees with such a deep trouble.”

People have been …

It will not be suffice to say that Amrish Puri plays only a callous father of Anant Velankar (Om Puri) in the film, Ardha Satya or the film shows him as a cruel father only. It will not do a proper justice to this interesting character. Things are not so simple and straight with this character that we may define his character as a harsh father of AV. Its not possible for Vijay Tendulkar to write a simple character that has been given only one characteristic. His characters have to be completely complex in nature because they belong to real life. His characters are seen in real life. Its not possible for Govind Nihalani to show his characters seized under monotonous behaviour and his characters have to face the volatile conditions and behaviour because life is like that only and prototypes don�t work here. That�s the beauty of films directed …

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 …

In continuation with the post Ardha Satya : Silver Jubilee remembrance�Part 1.
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Two things can easily be said about Ardha Satya or by taking clues from Ardha Satya

(1) Fine characterisation is the most beautiful aspect of Ardha Satya

(2) Good director never needs to use harsh back ground music or chanting of shlokas to
introduce a powerful character. Such gimmick is not needed.

It rarely happens that in a 2 hours film, one gets hardly 5-6 scenes consuming not more than 20 minutes, and still his presence is felt all over the film. Rama Shetty (RS) is that character in Ardha Satya and Sadashiv Amrapurkar has played the character with a great command over his craft of acting. Villain always remains an important part in such a story but rarely such a non dramatic villain was presented in the past, who could leave such a deep …

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 …

Some time ago a famous Director who has earned his reputation as an intellectual director also, said, during a private talk with someone, while asked to give his take on two actresses, that he can not have a conversation with a certain famous actress as she is too dumb for that.

Its immaterial who he was and about whom he had said but important thing is this that a wise director thought in those terms.

Nevertheless his sayings gave push to an interesting topic.

Being a director he needed an intellectual actress on sets, who could talk on any topic under the sun with a good wisdom but who could not bring life and true justice to the character given to her or he needed an actress who might not be thoroughly intellectual in real life but who could make her character alive on screen?

What a director demands and what …

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 …