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Lakhs don’t matter. In the film world, the talk is over crores. The name-dropping is all about Bollywood, being featured in Hollywood movies, interacting with international directors, outfits designed for annual Cannes extravaganza and so on. What is the truth factor in all this? No one knows, but sections of the celebrity media are ready to lap it up.
Talk about Hollywood connections did exist in the past. Film magazines, then, reported that Dilip Kumar turned down a David Lean offer for the lead role in Lawrence of Arabia which finally went to Peter O’ Toole. But Dilip Saab seldom mentioned this in his media interactions. Raj Kapoor was widely popular in the Soviet Union where everyone hummed the "Awaara Hoon" number. Dev Anand, in the illustrious company of Nobel Prize-winning author, Pearl Buck, made an international version of R. K. Narayan’s novel, The Guide. The film was not a boxoffice hit but got talked about in the international film world.`A0Why, even comedian I. S. Johar had minor roles in genuine Hollywood movies like the Agatha Christie mystery Death on the Nile and the Stewart Granger-Barbara Rush movie Harry Black and the Tiger. But today the talk is more about NRI-financed movies with Indian themes, which are quite remote from mainstream Hollywood cinema. These did not really count in the US but over here, the media hype is highly exaggerated. Slumdog Millionaire was an Indian movie, shot in India by foreign producers but it hit the "Oscar’ jackpot and some of its stars were much talked about. Anil Kapoor starred in a US TV serial, which we did not get to see in India. Another Slumdog star, Freida Pinto, who could not get roles in Bollywood films but bagged a role in Trishna (India theme shot in India) was often questioned in the celebrity media about being ‘flooded’ with Hollywood offers! A brief appearance in a Woody Allen film, obviously, made Freida an ‘authority’ on him thanks to liberal doses of name-dropping. The celebrity media also went to town that Freida was the next Bond girl. When that never happened, Freida, who was learning fast, scorned the Bond girl roles and claimed she would do only a female Bond movie. Much of the blame lies with the servile attitude of the celebrity media, which alone can think of questions like the following (to item girl Mallika Sherawat), "Have you repositioned yourself as the global face of Indian cinema in Hollywood?" Mind you, this to a girl who has been trying desperately to get roles even in Bollywood and going to the extent of drastic disrobing! Yet, very often, she name drops at the highest levels, including the White House and its occupant, Barack Obama. Why? Perhaps, she had an itsy-bitsy role in Politics of Love, where she plays a party worker during the presidential campaign and has an affair with a member of the ‘Opposing’ party. What was that, the Republicans? Anil Kapoor, and the more talented Irrfan Khan, were quoted in the media talking about their roles in the Tom Cruise-starrer, Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol and the Amazing Spider Man respectively. But both the Indian stars were absent in the trailers of the films, which were shown in India. The inference is clear, they could not be more than bit players. Hollywood did not see any need to promote its Indian ‘stars’ even in the Indian circuit. How far did our Akshay Kumar go the ‘Hollywood’ way in the film Breakaway. Promised a September 30 release as a true Hollywood film, Breakaway, an Indo-Canadian production, which was called Speedy Singh in India, met with only a lukewarm reception. There is no likelihood of this film ‘opening its doors’ to the likes of Akshay Kumar. It is true that there is now a large Indian audience settled abroad for Indian films. But they want typical Indian films, hero-worshipped Indian stars and accept the usual rubbish which is dished out — loud melodrama, cheap comedy and so on. Of course, technical wizardy and special effects are first class. Whatever the celebrity media may say, the Indian ‘conquest’ of Hollywood is still very much a mirage.
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