Sunday, February 13, 2000		Article

Winds of change blow over Bollywood
By M. L. Dhawan

FILM-MAKERS like Asif, Mehboob Khan, V. Shantaram, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor and B.R. Chopra provided wholesome entertainment through neat, clean and decent films. With their departure from the scene, the film industry fell into disarray.

The new film-makers who invaded the industry were interested in making a quick buck. Good cinema was not their concern, since economics dictated creativity. No fresh insights were offered and no new vistas explored. One out of five films produced during those days was either a remake of another language or based on old, repetitive themes. Gone were the days when huge crowds of cinegoers thronged cinema halls. Theatres that once teemed with jostling cinegoers looked like haunted houses.

Of course, films were technically excellent and visually pleasing. Watching a film one felt it had all frills but lacked a soul.

To bring back the audience to theatres, the film-makers started using heroines as mere decoration pieces. Heroines were told that gyrations and pelvic thrusts could be equated with acting. Obviously, the films reached the bottom of the barrel of quality. Making such films was nothing short of an exercise in vulgarity. Such film-makers could not flourish in the industry unless audience supported them. A major chunk of audience had equally short themselves of all moral values for the sake of titillations and gyrations.

Gulzar, a sensitive and sentimental film-maker, correctly summed up the situation "The people who are major clientele of film-makers have been drugged by sex, sleaze, violence and vulgarity into a state when only trash intoxicates them more than anything else of real quality. The end result — dominance of masala films as a large number of audience seems quite rigid in wanting to see something of everything in a film.

B.R. Chopra warned to wean away the audience and to de-addict them from the diet of sex, sleaze, titillation and violence. But this needs courage, conviction and determination.

Hats off to the courage of conviction of the young film-makers like Mansoor Khan, Sooraj Barjatya, Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar, Sanjay Bhansali, Ramgopal Varma, John Mathan, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Prakash Jha, Vikram Bhatt and Tanuja Chandra. They felt the pulse of the people and realised that the Indian audience is receptive and intelligent enough. Only the film-makers have to provide them with food for thought. The film-makers have to think afresh and rise to the expectations of the audience.

Unless Hindi film-makers give something stimulating in terms of content, form and expression, the audience will continue to give Hindi films a miss. The formula of success is to startle the audience with realistic themes. The film-makers have to beat the ennui of predictability. They need dare to follow the untrodden path. They genuinely felt that the Indian cine-goers are deeply emotional people with a strong attachment to their traditions, customs, conventions, and culture. They do not ask for the cold and reductive practicality of the western culture. They eulogise the benefits and blessings of the traditional family, the emotional attachment it gave rise to and the loss of which the people lament.

The audience and people needed to be reminded of this, the importance of family, culture, customs, conventions and traditions and the sanctity of institution of marriage.

Mansoor Khan — a computer wizard — was the first to break the mould of violence and vulgarity. With a new cast — Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla — he imported Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into the land of Thakurs in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak in 1988. The film played up family bonds and played down the lure of materialism. It was remarkable film as it depicted a hero who was less than heroic at times. The success of film infused new hope in the jaded industry looking for a new box office formula.

Sooraj Barjatya — went against the tide of action films and made a mushy love story Maine Pyar Kiya in 1989. The film was clean and had positive things to say about life and family. Its hero Prem — a US-educated — toils like a commoner to get the aashirvaad of sweetheart’s stern father. The film was superhit and its success at the box office sent correct signals in the industry. Sooraj followed up the success of Maine Pyar Kiya with Hum Aap Ke Hain Koun. In this film, the docile heroine Madhuri Dixit meekly gives up her lover, and agrees to marry her brother-in-law (Mohnish), when her sister dies suddenly — without even a word of protest — all because her parents thought it best for her in the given circumstances.

The film had no villains. Even the hero and the heroine did not indulge in any extraordinary heroics. The film which had devars and bhabhis and devranis had about 12 songs to sustain the mood of festivity. The utopian dream that the film held forth took the audience into a new world that looked distant but not impossible to create on this earth.

At a time when films that exude basic values and glorify Indian culture, customs, conventions etc., were being patronised by the audience, Aditya Chopra came with an other simple youthful film Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayengey. The presentation was different but the film did not digress from basic social ethos which are dear to every Indian. The impact of Aditya’s style could be seen in his father’s (Yash Chopra) next film Dil To Pagal Hai.

A trendy South Bombay boy Karan Johar in his debut film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai managed to make farmers in Ludhiana and the NRIs in London laugh and cry. In Karan’s world, the beautiful people had the angrezi looks though their sentiments were purely Hindustani. His characters made no bones about their desi leanings as his hero sneaks to the temple once a week and marries his sweetheart with an exchange of garlands.

In spite of their modern packaging, KKHA, DDLJ, Dil To Pagal Hai, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Maine Pyar Kiya, etc. were rooted in traditional Indian values.

Karan’s Anjali is not very different from Yash Chopra’s Pooja in Dil To Pagal Hai. She would rather please her family than herself by opting for a man of their choice. Aditya’s Raj wooes his sweetheart on the Eurorail but he does not steal her away from her family. The protagonists of the most successful recent films like Maine Pyar Kiya, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayengey, Hum Aap Ke Hain Koun, Pardes, Taal, Hum Tum Pey Marte Hain, Hum Dil De Chuke Hain Sanam, Dil Kya Kare, etc. have spent a lot of time upholding Indian values/ maryada.

The subtext of these blockbusters is that the traditional Indian values, customs, conventions and culture are superior to the western ones. The main reason for the unqualified success of these films is the glorification and aggrandisatin of Indian customs, conventions and culture. What these films have done is that these have put Indianness back into the Hindi films and it is this reflection of the Indian sense and pride/values that has touched an emphatic chord in the hordes of the people who are thronging the cinema halls screening them.

It is hoped that the other film-makers will follow the example of these successful and most popular films in their quest for providing the cinegoers that elusive piece of pure and wholesome entertainment which the audience needs most now.

One positive effect of emphasising family values in the films is vulgarity’s demise. Heroines are more sedate. The libidinous voice of Ila Arun is no more heard.

The heroines are of course happy about the exit of vulgarity from Hindi films. Juhi Chawla heaves a sigh of relief and says at one stage I would be apprehensive before going to shoot a song sequence because I would be worried about what the film-maker may ask me to do. The other day even the newcomer Twinkle Khanna put her foot down when she was asked to do a breast movement which thought was vulgar. This is the kind of change we needed — that which the mind does not mind.

The contribution of Sooraj Barjatya, Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar, Sanjay Bhansali and Ramgopal Varma, etc may or may not snowball into a wave but undoubtedly their films have brought in a whiff of fresh air to Hindi films which were in the throes of suffocation and gasping for breath smothered by a plethora of mindless films.

These young film-makers have established unequivocally that the filmgoers that see Hindi films have better taste than they are credited with and if they had been suffering the mindlessness of the average Hindi films, it was only because they did not have choice. It has been borne out by the fact that the biggest blockbusters of the last five to six years were all simple, sane and family entertainers which did not resort to the staple ingredients of the popular Hindi cinema — sex, sleaze, and titillation. A great deal of credit forth his metamorphosis of the Hindi cinema goes to the new breed of young film-makers who dared to defy successfully conventions held sacrosanct for ages by the film-makers who were wary of treading the untrodden path and continued to suffer setbacks by following the path of least resistance in their quest for the mega-bucks.

One can see a new era unfolding as we drift towards the new millennium an era when neat and clean family entertainers will be made in the Bollywood for the niche audience.... films which will trigger off new trends to usher in the new millennium.