Sholay The Classic Epic that Transformed Indian Cinema - Essay Example

? ‘Sholay’- The ic Epic that Transformed Indian Cinema An Analysis on the Genre and the Reason for it being, Considered a Milestone Student ID: Course: Professor: Word Count: 2,034 Outline Outline 2 References 9 Introduction Sholay means Ember in English; this Indian movie is acknowledged for its extraordinary ensemble casts, outstanding cinematography, music and powerful dialogues which made this movie a legend in the history of Indian cinema. The movie brought a new trend by offering a masterpiece of mixed genre. It was made on the lines of American movies; Sholay as the name goes ignited the hearts and minds of every Indian with spectacular experience that they had never experienced before. The proposed methodology is to study the significant and remarkable history that this movie was able to create. Highlighting the reasons why it is considered the biggest success of all time and how it contributed to the growth of Indian Cinema. To fulfill this rigorous task, the analysis is segregated in to sections; it will be initiated by an introduction of the Indian cinema, followed by an analysis on the movie. A discussion will be presented, on the kind of fashion; the movie forwarded which eventually transformed the Hindi Film Industry. The transnational perspective along with the will be presented in the methodology. The Indian Cinema The Indian Film industry or 'Bollywood' is often surmised as the temples of modern India. They lure the public with their magical colors, hues and light, gods and goddesses are admired, followed and even worshipped. Writer, Vijay Mishra goes on to elaborate that the movie madness among Indians is similar to a devotee visiting a shrine and religiously following his idol. According to a research, 800 films are released each year more than 11 million people visit cinema halls every day; these are also exported to more than 100 countries worldwide (Mishra, 2002). 1931 was an important year in the history of the visual world in India when the first sound film 'Alam Ara' was released. The Indian Cinema grew by leaps and bounds during these eight decades. Initiated with black and white movies until 60’s, followed by Eastman Colors during the 70s and graduating to the unbelievable virtual world of 3d today (Nihalani G. et al, 2003). The movies are generally 3 hours long and a typical bollywood movie is packed with a complete doze of entertainment, a hero who is an ideal son, and a boyfriend who possesses multitalented genes, he is the knight in shinning armor, he dances, he sings, he knocks down the villain, takes revenge and concludes the movie in a happy ending (Grant, 2011). The Various Genres The Indian audiences today have accepted all genres of movies, including some based on very dark and serious subjects known as ‘experimented movies’. The term is however, referred to a movie which belongs to a completely unique genre and is not considered under the category of the most popular genres like romantic, romantic comedy, family drama, or action movie (Carty, 2006). This trend of experimenting is not new, in fact there is an Indian movie from the 70’s which brought a storm of transformations and offered a spectacular experience to the audience, breaking the moulds of the popular 'family drama or romantic' genre which dominated the industry for many decades ( Chopra, 2000). The movie was 'Sholay' and it brought along a revolution within the Indian Film Industry, its success is recorded in golden words. Movie World Pre-'Sholay' Until 1960, the film industry was under the domination of production companies, artists and technicians were employees and worked under contracts. In the late 60's gradually, artists took the freelancing method which resulted in a huge 'star system' which was centered on distributors. The studio system ended as the artists chose to work beyond any contractual obligations, as freelancers they started demanding the remuneration proportionate to the success of their recent movie. The superstardom was being associated with many male and female artists thus increasing the production costs like never before (Nihalani G. et al, 2003). The early 70’s was the era of political and social unrest in India. An actor, Amitabh Bachan emerged on the silver screen to become the voice of the victimized working class; He embodied the character of an angry young man to which the younger India related quite religiously. Family drama had taken a back seat and the Indian audience was ready to witness an era of visual art which was massive, enormous and it literally changed the very face of the Indian cinema (Nihalani G. et al, 2003). The Epic Classic- ‘Sholay’ Sholay starring, Amitabh Bachan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar and Amjad Khan as main actors, was an exceptional movie. It released in the year 1975 with a Luke warm response but later from the word of mouth, its popularity expanded. It ran for about 5 years, successfully completed 60 golden jubilees all over India. India was going through a staggering economy at that time; there were wars; emergency and social issues that caused turbulence and conflicts in the nation. As far as inflation is considered, Sholay is considered to be the highest grossing movie of all time. It was released with a length of 188 minutes and had two short. The music, the back ground score and dialogues became an instant success and the characters were immortalized (filmydeewane, 2013) (Chopra, 2000). The Plot and the genre: Sholay is known as the ‘curry western’ which was an inspired version of western movies. The movie is about revenge, friendship, love, romance, violence and loyalty, this was the first mega block buster movie which had all the elements of almost every genre. It had comedy, romantic moments, adventure, family drama and action (Chopra, 2000). The story is about an ex-cop known as 'Thakur', who hires two small time thieves Jai and Veeru on a contract mission to save a town and its people from the tyranny and menace of a dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh. The narration is in two flash backs while the climax scene shows the final fight between good and evil, resulting in the defeat of the dacoit. Cultural Aspects The movie projected various technological innovations, and the cinematography was magnificent. The Rocky Mountains and the spectacular scenes of the barren canyon with clouds hovering over are brilliantly shot. The opening scene is an inspired shot from the movie ‘Stagecoach’ (1939) which shows the cops defending a train robbery from the dacoits, whose leader is Gabbar Singh. Sholay's Gabbar Singh is quite cunning, and one of a kind. The character played by Amjad Khan is an immortal character, and the actor will always be remembered for the heights he provided to the Indian villains. It is an interesting fact to note that the tyranny of Indian dacoits as depicted in the movie was actually lifted from an original dacoit’s life story whose name was Gabbar Singh. His cruelty had no ends and he terrified the poor villagers of a town called Gwalior around 50's. He wasn’t afraid of the laws and used to punish those policemen who dared catch him, by cutting off their ears and noses. He used to release them as an object for other policemen to take lesson and not mess with Gabbar Singh (Sholay, 2012). The movie highlights male bonding and the friendship between the two thieves Jai and Veeru, who prefer to die for each other and are immensely close, they are friends and partners in crime. They are both mischievous as well as good at heart. It is the reason why Thakur observes them as the best choice to capture the bandits, and end his domination in the village. It also projects the visibly poor rural India and the fact they are cut off from the mainstream of the country. The villagers are shown as helpless and poor farmers with no support or protection from the Indian government against the menace of some handful dacoits. It strongly portrays the character of Thakur, who has been punished by Gabbar Singh for his daring act of capturing Gabbar Singh and putting him in jail. Gabbar flees from jail to take revenge from the cop, and ruthlessly kills Thakur’s family and even slashes out both arms of Thakur leaving him physically disabled. It is however; culturally quite relevant to rural areas where enmity results in massacre of innocent family members even today and the loop of revenge goes on for years. Even after three decades, the film’s portrayal of criminals and their rejection of the laws is prevalent in the 21st century of Indian society, cops are afraid of these immoral elements rather than the judicial system of the country (Singh, 2012). 'Sholay'- The Trend Setter Following are the points mentioning the trend and fashion the movie brought along in the industry (Nihalani G. et al, 2003) (Chopra, 2000). First Indian film with a stereophonic soundtrack First movie to be shown in the format of 70 mm widescreen First movie to release the music and the dialogue soundtrack together First big budgeted multi starrer movie Foreign technicians were involved to shoot the opening scene of the train robbery The first movie to have a mixture of many genres and yet becoming a huge success. It generated about US $ 2.73 million with its first run, the earning was a record for 19 years. Later, it also earned millions when re-released. Apart from these points, the movie inspired many film makers to produce movie on the similar subject but no movie could possibly match the standard set by the classic. According to Chopra, the movie was such a success that it eventually benefitted even the person who sold the tickets. It is reported that the man was able to buy a brand new house within just five months. There were small autorikshaw in small and big cities that had acquired the name of ‘Dhanno’, the beautiful mare belonging to one of the female protagonist ‘Basanti’. The place where the movie was shot was named after the director of the name ‘Sippynagar’. The Transnational Perspective The movie was the ‘curry western’ and one of the finest examples of incorporating inspirations from various international movies and merging it with the cultural diversity of India. It had scenes and storylines copied from ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, Seven Samurai, and Magnificent Seven. The use of same sided coin by the two thieves was adopted from Garden of Evil (1954). The physical appearance of the jailor in the movies was inspired by Hitler however his laughing mannerism was copied from Jack Lemmon from the 1965 movie The Great Race (Sholay, 2012). Most of the action sequences were compiled by western technicians with their advanced gadgets. Its post production was executed in London and even interrupted by the Indian High Commission in London. Once the officials even came to seize the prints because of that the special screening of the movie prior to its release was cancelled. As the 70mm reels were held in London, the producer had to release the film in 35mm; interestingly the director had shot each and every scene in both mediums 70mm as well as 35mm (Kaur and Sinha, 2005). Conclusion Movie, Sholay or Ember is considered to be a phenomenal success in the history of Indian cinema; it not only brought a revolution in the industry but also influenced Indians in lot many ways. The dialogues, songs and the characters have become a part of the Indian culture. As the director Shekhar Kapoor suggests that the history of Indian Cinema should be recorded with Sholay BC and Sholay AD. Director Dharmesh Darshan says that it is a part of our heritage (Chopra, 2000). The dedication of the crew members is commendable when they used to shoot a single scene almost 20-30 times just to get that perfection; they even constructed a road in the town where the actual shooting was going on. So much was the passion of the director and actors for this movie is evident from the fact that even the one-liners actor used to travel 27 times to reach the shooting spot from another city. The film transcends its technological aspects when it comes to transnational perspective. The movie transformed not only the standard of the Indian industry but also elevated the tastes and expectations of the Indian audiences. References Kaur, R. and Sinha, A. (2005) Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema Through A Transnational Lens. New Delhi: SAGE,, p.180-182. Nihalani, G. et al. (2003) Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema 26. New Delhi: Popular Prakashan, p.43-117. Carty, S. (2006) Free Hindi Movies to Download. [online] Available at: http://movies.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Free_Hindi_Movies_to_Download [Accessed: 26 Feb 2013]. Chopra, A. (2000) Sholay: The Making of a Classic. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, p.1-194. filmydeewane (2013) Sholay. [online] Available at: http://www.filmydeewane.com/movie-of-the-week-sholay/ [Accessed: 26 Feb 2013]. Grant, A. (2011) What is Bollywood?. [online] Available at: http://worldfilm.about.com/od/bollywood/a/historyofbollywood.htm [Accessed: 26 Feb 2013]. Mishra, V. (2002) Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire. New York: Routledge, p.1-10. Sholay (2012) Sholay : The Bollywood Hit Film - Inspirations. [online] Available at: http://sholay.movies.deepthi.com/sholay-inspirations.html [Accessed: 26 Feb 2013]. Singh, M. (2012) Of Dacoits, Sultana Daku, Man Singh and India. [online] Available at: http://mg-singh.hubpages.com/hub/Of-Dacoits-Sultana-Daku-Man-Singh-and-India [Accessed: 26 Feb 2013]. Sscnet.ucla.edu (1994) Manas: Culture, Indian Cinema: Sholay. [online] Available at: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Cinema/Sholay.html [Accessed: 26 Feb 2013]. Read More