Yash’s Leading Ladies!!
So,
One Chopra (VV) does not like Yash Chopra, one Khan (Akhbar) blasts YC in Frames and of course, generally PFC and it’s inhabitants don’t really have ‘chai and samosa” with YC either. Me, I think he is the best think that happened in Indian cinema since maine “hosh sambaley.” My one issue with the new kids on the block is that they rarely do a good job depicting their leading woman. Either she is totally delgam (hey nothing wrong in her appearing presentable), or she is shown as vulgar (one of my major issues with RGV and his bandhu’s) or a bimbo. I mean compare this to KKKKiran (Juhi), Chandni (Sridevi), Zaara (Priety), Pallavi (Sridevi), Suman (Hema), Geeta (Rati), Chandni (Rekha), Channo and Anita (Neetu and Parveen), Geeta (Rakhee), Anjali (Waheeda), Anita (Parveen in a small but powerful Deewar) and they were mesmerizing, powerful, sexy (yes it lies in the eyes of the beholder, a saree or a salwar kameez can be about as appealing as any), charismatic, moody, emotional, graceful, bubbly,silent, talkative…in effect showing all their shades, having the men in their life and their films yet not yielding in their acting or their presence. Only YC comes close to doing that in all his films. Here is analyzing a few (not the obvious one’s they have been analyzed ad nauseum, these are the one’s which were probably overlooked):
Chandni: Everyone, including myself, raves about Sridevi in Lamhe, but Sridevi in Chandani was outstanding…probably the best transformation form the happy go lucky full of life to one who is accepting life as it is rolling out. To transform this South Indian girl into someone who was “Chandani of Defence Colony, Delhi” to a resident of Defence Colony Delhi (me) has got to be one awesome director, who understands the woman inside the actress. Sri had to match wits with one of the finest actors of Indian cinema (Rishi, I think the best Kapoor till date), and she did that scene for scene and then took the game to Vinod in one of his most understated performance, till date. YC’s prowess with depicting the varied emotions of the female species, came to the forefront in the wonderful cameo by Juhi (perhaps a set up for the upcoming Darr)
Kiran: Sure Darr marked the entry of the wonderkid from Defence Colony and St Columba High School, but while Sunny was left sulking, the one whose performance was often overlooked, while not her character’s name in the film, was Juhi Chawla as Kiran. That full of emotion, high energy performance, the chifons in Switzerland and the “embracing life” Jadoo Teri Nazar, was the perfect foil, for the protagonist to take on the antogonist ( no I don’t mean Sunny vs SRK, I mean SRK fighting his inner deamons, credit that to Kiran and her high octane acting). Juhi more than held her own in this film, it was as much about Rahul’s obsession as Kiran’s need to get away from it all and get on with her life.
Anita: And on talking about getting on with her life, most people assumed the late Parveen Babi was all about glamor. Well watch Kalaa Patthar and think again. As the happy go lucky, full of chutzpah journalist covering a very serious issue, Parveen gave one of the finest performances of her career (and no we did not need her to excessively emote a la Mahesh Bhatt syle), yet she stood her ground and some in a movie, which featured stellar performances by AB, Neetu and Shatrughan (probably his best role till date). We got to see the mother of the present day Barkha Dutt, in the form of Anita. Maybe it had something to with the name Anita. The same Parveen, with the same name (Anita), gave a stark reminder that the impact has nothing to do with the length of the role, in the steely and street smart Anita of Deewar. Yes it was AB all the way, but ask most people who have seen Deewar as to whose performance after his, stays in memory most….it has got to be Anita and she was not even in the film for more than a few scenes. The deep anger of AB’s character found just the foil in Anita’s subdued yet steely reaction to his cynicism on meeting her for the first time. For 10-15 mts, the mole, the Mona darling, had overshadowed, LOIN and how!!
Channo: If Basanti of Sholay left a mark on the audience with her “I can take care of myself” attitude than Channo of Kalaa Patthar again was close behind. Neetu Singh may not have acted post marriage, but the one thing she could effortlessly do, was emote. Much like Amrita Singh later on in life and almost similar to the early Priety of Soldier and in Kalaa Patthar, she was matched opposite a person (Shatrughan) who, when handled right, did full justice to his Pune, FTII training. Then here was one who proved that deep inside, acting cannot really be taught. Emotion is a reaction and Neetu reacted well, perhaps better than anytime before in a movie, which had more than it’s share of “reactors”
Zaara: I am putting myself on the line here, but I honestly believe that only a Delhiwalli could have played Zaara of Lahore and Priety did the job to perfection, that perfection of when I compare her to the Pakistani women I have met in London and the US (the only places where I have had interaction with them). To go from that “spoiled in a positive way” baby of the house to that “woman of grace and under fire” could have been done by Priety and enacted by a director who was making his comeback behind the camera. No I did not like Veer Zaara too much, absolutely did not like SRK in fact thought Manoj had him for “breakfast” in that one scene at the Rly Station where they come face to face, but the one saving grace in this film, other than AB’s and Gurdas Mann’s cameo, was Priety’s peformance.
Other Notables: For grace under pressure Chandani (Rekha) and Anjali (Waheeda) in Silisila and Kabhie Kabhie. For steely grace, fortitude, depth of character and inherent strength, Geeta (Rakhee) in Trishul…the list goes on…..
NOBODY GETS THE NUANCES IN FEMALE EMOTION BETTER THAN YASH CHOPRA!!! And I mean Nobody…
Sincerely,
Vivek “say what you have to that is your prerogative, to call Yash Raj Chopra a legend in his lifetime, is mine” Kumar
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
yash chopra the director was, is and always will be a force to reckon with….
he has given us so many gems like Waqt, Daag, Lamhe etc etc
and who can forget Deewar… a classic in every sense..
since last 4-5 years the quality of the movies produced by him has gone down…..
barring a few exceptions like Kabul Express and Chak De
hopefully after Chak De things will get better
fingers crossed…
Reminds me of an essay titled Love and Trembling in Darr, written by great T.G. Vaidyanathan. It
“NOBODY GETS THE NUANCES IN FEMALE EMOTION BETTER THAN YASH CHOPRA!!! And I mean Nobody
…he has given us so many time less classic …hats off to him:)>-
@Vinayak,
do you have any link to that essay ?
A discussion about strong ‘leading ladies’ cannot be complete without the women in ‘Lajja’.
Rajkumar Santoshi achieved the remarkable feat of extracting fabulous performances from his all-female starcast in this much-ignored-classic. Madhuri Dixit and Rekha chewed up their roles like starved-Somalians-presented-with-a-piece-of-tandoori-chicken.
Even Mahima Chaudhary managed to bare her acting fangs. Manisha Koirala was the backbone of the movie.
And Yash Chopra had nothing to do with it. Period.
but the movie was mediocre…..below expectations
I do not agree that the movie was mediocre. It was a very ambitious project, had an interesting and novel storyline, fab acting and some really good cinematic moments ! And then of course, there was Madhuri Dixit in a bravura performance.
Maybe, the weakness was the length and/or the editing, resorting to commercialization such as item songs. Had Santoshi revved up the dialogues a bit, it would have been even more hard-hitting.
I loved it, though. Who can forget “Uth jayein ?”
My o My,
Nikki frm (Neel and Nikki)and that bipasha Basu’s character from Dhoom2. any taker?
regards,
Cubicle Bound Misfit
Exactly the point, neither Neil and Nikki nor Dhoom 2 are DIRECTED by YC, produced by his company. The article here is on YC the filmmaker and director, not YRF the company or the banner
Great article, Vivek!
“To transform this South Indian girl into someone who was
@Hemanth
Sorry no link. It’s an old essay that was first published in The Hindu (I think) after the release of the movie.
I found it in the book
Mr.Naipaul’s Round Trip and Other Essays
Sorry Vivek,
I believe most of the above characters were Unidimensional.. Infact Yashji post Silsila has presented pleasant to eye Poster Girls much more than a solid character (with a few good scenes though).. some of his real good handling of female characters are
Sonia (Sharmila) in Daag
Rekha (Nanda) in Ittefaq
Anjali (Waheeda) in Kabhi Kabhi (on the other hand Naseem in Kabhi Kabhi was his weakest choice.. absolute failure)..
Chandani (Sridevi) to me was more Sridevi than Chandani.. Kiran was a unidimensional character..
hey vivek.. i completely agree wid u.. yashji has a superb sense of potraying ladies on screen ..he blends the beauty & character so well that any actress working wid him has 2 be very very lucky…i feel all his ladies rite from rekha, sridevi, juhi, madhuri, karishma had ther dream roles working with yashji…