Where is the story?
I am a very happy man, and the reason is the just announced 54th National Awards. My favourite movies for the year 2006 makes it to the list and importantly in the right category it deservers.
Lage Raho Munna Bhai
Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment,
Best Supporting Actor: Dilip Prabhavalkar
Best Screenplay: Abhijat Joshi, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Lyrics: Swananad Kirkire
Khosla Ka Ghosla
Best Feature Film in Hindi
If you guys remember my first blog on PFC was also on Khosla Ka Ghosla, I just fell in love with this movie the first time I saw it and feeling is still intact even after a million viewing. Characters are so full of flesh and blood, situations so real, how I wish Indian cinema could produce movies of this calibre every year so that movie fanatics like me can quench our hunger. However, the reality is Khosla Ka Ghosla and Lage Raho Munna Bhai does not and cannot happen often. This brings us to a very intriguing question, why not? The reason is simple we do not have enough screenplay writers in the country, period.
Screenplay is more often than not credited to the Director and I am very critical of this aspect. Screenplay is a very lonely and tiresome process and it requires its own time and space. I am not disputing the fact that a Director can also be an excellent screenplay writer but the fact remains the Director does not have the right to be recluse and screenplay writer lives on it. This dichotomy has its direct effect on the way the movie turns out. Even the veteran actors like Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah have fallen flat in many movies due to non transformation of a story on paper to celluloid.
Manoj Night Shyamalan in not the highest paid screenplay writer in Hollywood for nothing. Remember Sixth Sense and I guess you would understand the power of screenplay. Unfortunately, Indian cinema even after 60+ years of existence is yet to realise the importance of screenplay in movies which Hollywood and most parts of world cinema has understood it very early. One classic example is Stanley Kubrick. He always had the right screenplay writer for his movies, be it Arthur C Clarke for 2001 A Space Odyssey, Vladimir Nabokov for Lolita (incidentally both were the novelist of the book by the same name as well). Even for directors of the calibre of Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese always have a set of people who work on the screenplay.
Now back to our Hindi cinema, I am very keenly following the work for three screenplay writers Abbas Tyrewala, Jaideep Sahni, Abhijat Joshi-Rajkumar Hirani-Vidhu Vinod Chopra combo. Just to reiterate the point I was making; Maqbool, Main Hoon Na, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S had one person in common Abbas Tyrewala. If I say I am waiting for his movie Jaane Tu … ya jaane na it would be stating the obvious. Chak De! India, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Company does it ring a bell yes I am referring to Jaideep Sahni. Also though the Lage Raho Munna Bhai team is only one movie old (referring to Abhijat Joshi) the above mentioned guys are the most promising lot in our Hindi cinema right now.
Whether you are a movie critic, a fanatic or just a guy watching movie for entertainment, all have the same question after watching a regular pot boiler movie “Where is the story?” So all you producers and directors pull up socks and start allocating at least 5% of your ever increasing movie budget to screenplay writers and Indian cinema would have many more Lage Raho Munna Bhai’s, Khosla Ka Ghosla’s and not an aberration once every five years (if lucky!!!).
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gud post…but dont count paresh rawal in the league of nasirudin shah nd om puri…
he was never their match…
main hun na ..is gud story?????
it was bogus…
@Krishn
Watch Sardaar you will get to know the power of Paresh Rawal. He is a gem of an actor taken wrong.
3…
ve seen sardar… i like him…
but will not call him better sardar than said jafrey’s sardar in gandhi…
nd i repeat…he is not in the league of nasirudin shah nd …om puri
he is few degree less in ny role…
except few roles… tamanna…herapheri…v always recall paresh rawal nd not people he played in films…
Agreed boss, agreed. Good write-up with some great points
Krishn, Main Hoon Naa was a tough film to pull off. It was supposed to be a balance between 1970’s style of true masala films - with drama, romance, action, comedy, thrills and social/family elements all in appropriate doses but mixed in smoothly so that it all is part of the same, continuous narrative (meaning no subplots for the comedy, romance, etc) - with the new millenium style of filmmaking with focus on style, sfx, popular music, item songs, etc. The common thread being telling an full-on entertaining story.
I think, as a writer, Abbas Tyrewala brought a lot of different elements together very well and most impressively, made it all gel together. For that matter Farah Khan did a fantastic job as director, having it all translate to screen with the right pitch and just the right pacing and narrative flow.
I for one wouldn’t mind see more “Main Hoon Naa’s” along with the Khosla Ka Ghosla’s and the Munnabhai’s.
Very good post. And very valid points… We just don’t give importance our screen-writers. Long time back I read a writing by none other than the great Ray himself on script writing in a childrens’ magazine Sandesh (for who doesn’t know, Satyajit Ray was a prolific writer and creator of some unforgettable characters in Bengali literature… just mention the name Feluda to any Bengali..) and I came to know what screenplay is all about, where it differs from a story and how much effort goes into converting a short story or a novel or just an idea into a film… I think in Chak De is Sahni’s film more than Amin’s. More power to their pens (or keyboards)…
5…
i dont know wht term …1970’s style of true masala films… means…
i ve seen many films of 70s decade…ananad…mere apne…bawarchi…guddi…mili…namak haram…chupke chupke…golmal…gharonda…rajnigandha…diwar…sholay…abhiman…andhi…mausam…amarprem…kati patang…zanzir…herapheri…parvarish…mr natwarlal…bobby…julie…khel khel men…nd many more…
nd i dont c any formula there…except gud story…gud films…
i w’d nt care for 70s feelings in a 2005 film…i need 2 c a gud film which main hun na was nt from any angle…
nothing was gud in the film…
i found …story..acting …everything… irritatingly bad…
Hi guys,
Thanks for all your comments. The reference to Main Hoon Na was to convey that more or less at the same point in time Abbas Tyrewala wrote Maqbool, Main Hoon Na, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S which according to me is a phenomenal achievement. All three movies were diametrically different from each other and thus stress the point of how beneficial having a full time screenplay writer would be in our movies. No offence, but to write a movie like Main Hoon Na is also not easy, just read the rediff review for the movie and you would understand.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2004/apr/30main1.htm
Few excerts from the rediff review
“army, politics, india, pakistan, assassination, saviour, extramarital affair, good father, bad father, paratha-feeding mother, ideal son, stepson, distant daughter, tomboy, funny friends, oddball teachers, sexy teachers, countless clichés, makeovers, love, couples, school, college, superman, classrooms, romance, colours, prom nights, violins, saxophones, dream songs, midriffs, cleavage, dream girls, deewar, sholay, mard, gabbar, rickshaws named dhanno, r d burman, grease, kuch kuch hota hai, action, jerry bruckheimer, matrix, mission, impossible, electric guitar, blue-eyed villain, terrorist, bullets, guns, bombs, helicopter, ram, laxman, ramayan, rona dhona, hasna khelna, grease, happy ending, main, hoon, na”
Try and write a screenplay with the above ingredients
Why would Bollywood need screeplay writers when DVDs of foreign movies are so cheap and the audience couldn’t care less if the movie they are watching is a straight lift…Unless the bollywood producers get sued, things will not change.
The most basic criteria of a good movie is that you should not feel like taking your eyes off the screen in between and all the movies mentioned above match that……ideological content or no ideological content……my foot…..a movie has to be watchable first and foremost…..great post…