logo

iView Author: A. Singh

(Fremont, CA, USA)

Email: Witheld

TZP and JTYJN: Overhyped ‘yes’,great movies ‘No’

Bollywood hype machine has got smarter and slicker in last 3-4 years. The quality of the movies hasn’t improved a whole lot but the ability to market and hype average fares to present them classics has certainly gone up.

Otherwise, how else you explain the great commercial and critical success of 2 Amir Khan movies – Tare Zameen Par and Jane Tu Ya Jane Na or whatever, the second produced by him. Let me concede up front that both were well presented and were better than the run of the mill stuff thrown at us every week. But that doesn’t make them classics and Amir Khan the genious. Come on people, what’s wrong with you?

First TZP, it has a wafer thin plot, a very …

Recently I have revelled in the close encounters with the forgotten art of close-ups in couple of movies.

Before I talk of these movies up close let me just share some masala and trivia with you on these close-ups..

The old cameramen who have gone to seed or become inactive don’t leave an opportunity to narrate how they used to relish lighting up for a close-up especially the heroine’s..And how they used to take hours together to light it up..And few of them brag that heroines literally used to lagao maska to them to light up their faces in close-ups..Have you ever heard of close-up couch..Well few of the cameramen boasted of laying the heroines for giving them a close-up that lighted up the marquee..It was like fulfilling their wish to be a diva or a Cleopetra whose face is supposed to have launched thousand ships!

The modern technology is …

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 …

at least one of the parties….

After quite a few months solemn silence from both Aamir and Amol, the latter lets it rip in an interview posted on
AllBollywood

Thus spoketh Amol

It’s misreported that I didn’t like the edited version of TZP. There was no question of not liking the edited version because my wife Deepa was editing the material in Panchgani as we were shooting. We were all very proud of the film. Then we had a wrap-up party. And that’s when Aamir announced he was the director of the film. That’s when I got to know of his intentions.

I’m trying to put it behind me… Let me just say, right from choosing all the kids for the parts to the final editing, I was right there on board… I wanted to preserve the kids’ natural innocence. So I never auditioned them. I used to engage them in discussions and …