New colours of Indian cinema
[TheSkeptic and Charles]
Saawariya was bathed in a blue light; Omkara flashed reds and oranges. Filmmakers today are experimenting with colour and cinematic imagery to lend a definite tone and tenor to their narratives on screen, writes Derek Bose
Shiney Ahuja & Soha Khan in Khoya Khoya Chand. The sepia tone to the film evoked the 1960s’ look
Kareena and Ajay Devgan in Omkara
YEARS ago, when one was much too young to understand cinema, the only way a film could be remembered was by its setting — whether it was located in an urban milieu or rural. Many kids one grew up with admitted to relying upon such a reference point for ready recall. Later, as we were exposed to the cinemas of other lands, it was again this “look” in films that we found ourselves connecting with first. The star cast, storyline, even the music and songs sunk into our consciousness only afterwards.
Today, as Hindi cinema appears increasingly targeted at a young, upwardly mobile, so-called multiplex audience in metropolitan centres, it is the importance of a “rich look” everybody is talking about. The look has actually come to define the complexion of our movies and, in turn, their popularity everywhere. Accordingly, films with urban themes, with a good deal of glitz and glamour are gaining prominence, whereas narratives set against a rural backdrop with issues like feudal atrocity, landless labour, unemployment and deprivation have lost ground.
In effect, you do not expect a mainline actor like Shahrukh Khan or John Abraham to play a hapless, poverty-stricken farmer, the way yesteryear heroes like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna and even Amitabh Bachchan did in their time. Likewise, leading women like Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasha Basu and others are forever being featured as flighty, westernised bimbettes in roles that are clones of one another. In fact, if it were not for the look, there would be little to distinguish one film from another.
So what exactly makes for the look of a film?
It is actually the result of different inputs or elements that get into visual composition such as set design, location, backdrop, camerawork, make-up, costumes, special effects and so on, which together contribute to the mood and allure of a film. The elements could be as varied as Shahrukh’s stubble in Chak De! India or Aamir Khan’s Mohawk hairstyle in Taare Zameen Par, Farah Khan’s outrageous wardrobe of the 1970s in Om Shanti Om or the extravagant sets, costumes and period jewellery in Jodhaa Akbar and so on. Every shot and scene is meticulously designed around these elements so as to determine the tone and tenor of the film in question.
Vipul Shah’s Namastey London best explains how the look of a film can make a difference to public perception. Audiences suspected it to be an adaptation of either Manoj Kumar’s Purab Aur Paschim or Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, but could never be very sure which, so cleverly had the director disguised the remake. Despite a common plotline and theme, with better camerawork, improved story-telling and sleek production values, it was almost like watching a new film come alive for the viewers`85 and yet, keeping them on familiar terrain.
The same can, of course, be said of every other film — be it Deewar or Sholay, Umrao Jaan or Kaante, Cheeni Kum or Om Shanti Om — which has a forerunner in some form. Our filmmakers doing repeat shows are experts at re-packaging old wine in new bottles. But what has come as a definitive change and, in many ways, a revolutionary development in creating different looks for films is the colour palette employed. An easily identifiable example would be Saawariya in which virtually every frame was bathed in varying shades of blue. Effectively, the film was almost entirely a study in blue. Viewers, who could not relate to the chromatic language the director (see box) was experimenting with (while interpreting Fydor Dostoevsky’s White Nights), dismissed the exercise as a “blue film”. It was not an altogether uncharitable comment because Bhansali had clearly gone overboard in applying a technique that is rather new to Indian cinema. Sadly, he had taken it to the point of pop art, lending a completely unnatural aura to his film.
Earlier, when the director explored the dramatic function of colour in Black, the effort was much more realistic and justified. The grades of grey and black that dominated the images went perfectly with the story of a blind girl (Rani Mukherji) wrapped in her world of darkness. The tonal values served in lending poignancy to the film in much the same manner music helps in raising the emotional temperature of a narrative on screen. In fact, this is the very purpose of working around specific colour schemes. But then, it is also a device, which if not judiciously applied, can distract rather than aid viewer interest. While being overindulgent with his blues in Saawariya, Bhansali betrayed a surprising disregard for audience sensibilities, thereby reducing the effort to plain gimmickry.
Flirting with form on film (at the cost of content) can appear attractive at times, but it is always fraught with danger. Colour is particularly dicey, as it is defined by cultural overtones and works at a subliminal level with a logic of its own not many filmmakers understand.
Foreign masters like the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni (L’Avventura) and Polish guru Krzysztof Kieslowski (Three Colours: Red`85) had taken this up as a challenge. In their bid to explore the tonal possibilities, they could produce some haunting visuals. Andrei Tarkovsky (Sacrifice) was another great master of this technique. In India, we have had a few art house filmmakers like Kumar Shahani (he played around with the three primary colours in Tarang) who have also been experimenting with different palettes, though with limited success.
For these experiments to be now taken forward by mainstream Hindi filmmakers is what bodes well for Bollywood cinema. Apart from Bhansali, there is Ram Gopal Varma who could successfully use a bluish-green tone to underscore the melancholy surrounding the doomed Lolitaesque affair in Nishabd. Likewise, Vishal Bharadwaj could very evocatively play up the undercurrent of distrust and vengeance with fiery reds and yellows in Omkara. And who could have missed the sepia tones Sudhir Mishra used to capture the period feel in Khoya Khoya Chand? Feroze Khan’s Gandhi, My Father was yet another period film which employed the same palette with remarkable effect.
Whether or not these films could qualify to be box-office hits is inconsequential. What matters is that there are filmmakers within the commercial space today, who are applying themselves at raising the bar and exploring dimensions of cinematic imagery beyond the demands of straightforward entertainment. Right now, these initiatives fall within a very grey area of specialisation that Bollywood crudely describes as “film design”. It is distinct from art direction or camerawork; or for that matter, what filmmakers in the past did by way of trying to establish a distinct signature style. (Remember, the dramatic interplay of light and shade in the films of Guru Dutt, Yash Chopra’s early obsession with zooming in and zooming out, Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s rapid cuts, Karan Johar’s fixation for swirling ghagra-cholis in mandatory group dances…) Present-day filmmakers have mercifully outgrown all those superficial attention-grabbers.
Today, they are all intent on matching their skills to the best in the West. Access to modern technology and exposure to latest filmmaking trends worldwide have made this possible. So do not be surprised when you see a profusion of well-toned bodies, streaked hair and tanned make-up in 2008, particularly in films like Woodstock Villa, Alibaug and Drona. For the remake of Ghajini, Aamir Khan will be showing up all sculpted and six-packed like Hrithik and Shahrukh. Then there is Mallika Sherawat working on her leather-and-lash number in an urban comedy, Ugly Aur Pagli. And underlying all these moves, we would see some very bold and imaginative experimentation in colour schemes by a new generation of enterprising filmmakers. Indeed, we are in for more exciting times in Hindi cinema.
Blue-green stands for love
— SANJAY LEELA BHANSALI on Saawariya
“It is not blue in Saawariya, as people talk about. It is bluish-green I have used — the colour of Krishna’s peacock feathers. Blue-green has always symbolised love for me. It is a cooling, calming colour. But then, this fascination with colour is not something new with me. It began with Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. I was very angry at the failure of Khamoshi – A Musical. I was so angry that after being on sleeping pills for three months, I decided that if audiences don’t want silence, if they want noise and loudness and colour, they would have it. That’s why Hum Dil`85is a riot of colour — pink carpets, green curtains and the heroine wearing a magenta dress. I carried it a notch higher in Devdas. Then I made Black and suddenly people said I am a dark person. No, I am not a dark person. There’s none of that intense rubbish in me. I am a loner, yes. But I laugh a lot, I enjoy jokes.”
Sepia tone imparts nostalgia
— SUDHIR MISHRA on Khoya Khoya Chand
“Khoya Khoya Chand is a deliberately nuanced sepia-toned picture postcard of the 1950s and 1960s. The sepia tone gives the film a nostalgic feel, so essential for a period piece. After all, it is a film about two young people caught in the wild world of cinema of a bygone era. It’s about being creative, it’s about problems, it’s about sexual politics, it’s about being young and ambitious and it’s about making mistakes. It’s about getting together when the fires and sexual passions of youth mellow a bit and how you get together again, may be later in more peace and serenity. It is about dying and about a girl who says to her man in the end, ‘Take me away and kill me. I don’t care if I die but I have to work.’ That is the whole idea of the film which I have tried to highlight with the interplay of colours.”
Soft hues are for sensitive story
— RAMGOPAL VARMA on Nishabd
Amit Roy was the cinematographer in Nishabd. He had worked with me earlier in Sarkar. When I told him that there would be no songs this time, he suggested we set a lyrical tone to the film at a visual level. The misty green palette was one of the devices we adopted in keeping with the theme and mood of the film. This was an area I hadnvisited before. I wouldn’t like to sound pompous by calling it ‘soul-searching’. I am not equipped for that sort of an exercise. I just wanted to capture feelings. For all my cynical talk, I have been portraying feelings and emotions in a way that is entirely mine. In Nishabd, I was basically interested in capturing a conflict within a man between his feelings and responsibilities. The girl is only a device to trigger off that conflict. No love story can be complete without an undercurrent of sexuality. Because of the nature of the subject and its requirements, we had to limit our palette to a soft, melancholic hue.”
Reds go with violence
— VISHAL BHARADWAJ on Omkara
“More than a Shakespearean drama (Othello), I wanted to make a violent film with Omkara. That is why I used angry reds and burning yellows`85 And to support that I needed a violent backdrop. To me Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the states of abject lawlessness. Moreover, I am from that place. I belong there. I know that culture. Those people have not been shown in our mainstream cinema — the characters of small towns, little mafias, the street fights over girls`85 it is that crazy. It is a Wild West kind of place.”
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Comment by Qalandar on 10 May 2008:
Re: “Likewise, leading women like Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasha Basu and others are forever being featured as flighty, westernised bimbettes in roles that are clones of one another.”
This is untrue of Aishwariya Rai: Dhoom 2 was the only such role: her other recent films have been Jodha-Akbar, Guru, Umraojaan, and going a bit further back, the likes of Shabd, Raincoat, Kuch Na Kaho, Devdas. It was the role of Sunehri that was the exception for her.
Bipasha’s roles are also often NOT interchangeable with those of other heroines: she is more likely to play a character with negative shades, a sexually aggressive persona, etc.
Bharadwaj’s comments on Omkara are quite disappointing: it’s obvious that U.P. and Bihar exist for him not as real places with real and interesting stories that could be told, but as mere abstractions (and hearts of darkness at that): “To me Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the states of abject lawlessness” — there is a lot more that could be said. This sentiment pervades his comments: immediately after raising my hopes with “Those people have not been shown in our mainstream cinema — the characters of small towns, little mafias, the street fights over girls” Bhardwaj brought me down to earth with a thud: “…it is that crazy. It is a Wild West kind of place.”
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
I don’t care much for this piece for many different reasons. But on the Hindi film examples provided I found Saawariya visually enchanting in the theater. The same could not be said about too much else in the film but I did find some moves interesting including the reliance on the ‘female’ narrator here which is not a part of the Dostoyevsky story. Of course the other fascinating aspect of the film involved coverting the ‘white nights’ of St Petersburg (when summer nights are ‘white’ because the sun sets very late and there is a long twilight and then barely has it got dark that there is the pre-dawn light) into a true ‘night-time’ dreamscape in Saawariya (a move paralleled by Visconti who in his film also hardly had St Petersburg though his is not an expressionistic world). And of course Bhansali’s film is operatic, this being a tradition for him in his last few films. In any case this was a film meant to be seen on the big screen. It’s just released on DVD by Sony and I am eager to revisit it and see how I find it months later.
I actually revisited Nishabd last night. I’ve seen it three times including the trip to the theater and I must say this film surprises me each time. It really holds up very well on reviewing and I find myself having less problems with it each time around. Since the palette of the film has been mentioned here I should add that I find it one of the more appealing features of the film. Truly there is a ‘melancholy’ that dominates the film with that bluish haze (and of course many of the shots as they’re driving through the tea estates of Munnar also induce a sense of vertigo..). This symbolizes the fading sexuality (or drive) of life’s twilight (bachchan). This is almost a late Roth story (with far less energy of course) or even reminiscent of a late Marquez novella like Dreams of my Melancholy whores. At any rate Lolita for all the superficial similarities is not the right model here. Also the last half hour of the film is fairly enigmatic in some ways.
Khoya Khoya Chand I found pretty mediocre in every sense. I did like Omkara’s earthy palette with a splash of those primary colors Bharadwaj refers to from time to time. But I didn’t find anything extraordinary here.
I would say that in the context of the present discussion Saawariya and Nishabd are the most impressive films I’ve seen in recent times.
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
Qalandar: Quite agree. But as I noted before with Maqbool as well Bharadwaj always exhibits certain ‘anthropologizing’ tendencies..
Comment by rks on 10 May 2008:
Q: Bhardwaj is not far from reality when he talks in term of lawlessness. Any village/small town (in UP and Bihar) is far from any kind of law authority. “usi ki chalti hai jiske paas lathi hoti hai”
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
I don’t know if places like UP or Bihar are necessarily as ‘lawless’ as they are ‘anarchic’. Again we can’t generalize. I don’t think one feels such ‘lawlessness’ in Lucknow! But this is the Sholay universe where India is defined by the ‘anarchic’. More recently Rathnam did the same in Dil Se, here the strength of his vision lies in the fact that the ‘anarchic’ Northeast (really an amalgam of this and Kashmir) is ‘leveled out’ by the depiction of an oppressive’ claustrophobic Delhi. In the world of Dil Se it is not easy to choose an environment from among these two.
But remember that the ‘lawless’ is an attribute that is constantly attached to the ‘heartland’ more often than not in recent times. And cinema is no exception. But if you look at 70s masala you would find a UP appear as normal as Bombay in those films much as the ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ were never divided by categories of progress and ‘civilization’. This does not mean that there isn’t ‘lawlessness’ in a UP. Just that these ought not to be our principal references when it comes to this region. It’s become a whole ‘complex’ of idea where the ‘lawless’, the ‘backward’, ‘Laloo & Mulayam’, so on and so forth all go together. There isn’t one UP or one Bihar.
But leaving this aside when we define prosperous states like Maharashtra or Gujarat we must also be as willing to twin their recent histories with the atrocities that were inflicted on minorities in both cities, we must also be ready to think ‘fascism’ when we consider a Bombay or an Ahmedabad, names like ‘Modi’ and ‘Thackeray’ must be darker in our vocabulary than ‘Mulayam’ and ‘Mayawati’.
To repeat myself on another point we must learn not to think of words like ‘progress’ and ‘economic growth’ and ‘law’ as neutral terms.
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
matrix: Satyam, you said: “Being anti-Abhishek is usually a way of being anti-Bachchan”. Do you further generalize it to “Being indifferent to Abhishek is usually a way of being anti-Bachchan”? If you do, I’ll take strong exception to it. Because I belong to the ones who are indifferent to Abhishek (as well as Aishwarya though I certainly am not anti-either of them), but I’m a fan of Amitabh. I use the word fan here not as some derivative of fanaticism, which I don’t subscribe to but as it has come to signify in general. Today itself I expressed my dismay over some of the things in Amitabh’s blog. Does that make me anti-Bachchan? I think not.
matrix: contd……I resist this seemingly authoritarian approach that asks you to pass some litmus tests to have the privilege of not being labelled anti-Bachchan. This is somehow similar to the “Either you are with us or against” approach or labeling anyone who protested the Iraq invasion as anti-American. Amitabh is an artist and our (at least I hope so) admiring him is also based on his art, nothing less nothing more. There is no need to add other clauses for one to be called his fan. Having said that, I’m well aware of the hyper-partisan nature of NG, and would like to attribute your statement to it.
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
Not at all Matrix. Whatever gave you that impression. I am suggesting one be anti-Abhishek in ways that are not contaminated by an anti-Bachchan move at the same time. Nothing ‘authoritarian’ about this. In fact I have been chiding Bachchan fans in these last few comments.
One can be anti-Amitabh too if one wishes. My polemics are directed towards those who follow a ‘Trojan’ logic in this regard. Saying one thing while really meaning another. I am referring to a specific kind of anti-Abhishek attitudes that really mask larger anxieties about Bachchan. Even these I wouldn’t have a problem with if there were some minimal honesty to the debate.
No one has to be a fan of any star. I have actually written some of the most critical comments about Bachchan’s public statements on Bachchan’s very blog. I have on NG in the past also offered real criticism of Bachchan. Or read some comments in this very thread where I suggest that the contemporary Bachchan must be rejected to be faithful to the older (in this case younger!) one. So on and so forth.
You can be anti-Amitabh and anti-Abhishek! I am however addressing a certain politics which often manifests itself in the guise of the anti-Bachchan. It’s much like certain Hrithik fans who hate the Sarkar posters and offer all kinds of strange comments. One can dislike these posters or the film. But in some cases the ‘dislike’ is insincere to the extent that it’s only about ’star wars’.
Your last statement here is the answer to your objection.
Comment by Qalandar on 10 May 2008:
RKS: I do not necessarily disagree; what I resist is the REDUCTION of the many worlds of U.P. and Bihar, of the many U.P.s and Bihars, to the ONE “world”, the one “reality”, of “lawlessness.” i.e., I disagree not with the characterization (i.e. that this can be a valid characterization), but with the ONENESS, the MONOLITHIC nature of Bhardwaj’s characterization (even as I concede the force and power of Bhardwaj’s “Wild West” morality play in Omkara)…
Comment by rudresh on 10 May 2008:
Fan:a person who admires or is enthusiastic about a pop star, actor, sport, or hobby.
Fanatic: a person whose enthusiasm for something is extreme.
I disagree that one does not like abhishek cannot be fan of Amitabh.Although he is not fanatic for sure .
A fanatic of Amitabh will surely find a way to be fan of Abhishek
Comment by Simply Som on 10 May 2008:
A FANATIC…
Spends every day (yes, 24/7) thinking about his/her fav star.
Has friends that talk to other people about what a FANATIC he/she is. Those friends then can (and begin to) list reasons why.
Is faithful. good or bad, he/she is true to the star (and can’t stand the “fair weather”).
Is so contagious that people who have never even heard of his/her star begin to follow so they have something to talk about. :/
Carries on the “family tradition” of star loyalty.
Considers other to be good, but just not “as good” (even if the others are better).
Believes that there is no bad phase or off season for the star he/she loves.
Has his/her entire room decorated, furnished, and devoted to his/her fav.star.
takes his/her fav. star as an embodiment of perfection, who can’t do anything wrong on and off screen, in short a “Godly” figure.
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
Rudresh: If you’re referring to my comment you have it the other way round. what I was alluding to was the fact that at least one member here has insinuated that I am really a fan of Abhishek and not a fan of Amitabh. My rejoinder is that I doubt there’s anyone on the planet who loves Abhishek but is indifferent to Amitabh. The reverse is of course true in many many instances.
Comment by satyam on 10 May 2008:
In terms of who’s a fan or fanatic we should also be careful to distinguish a coherent set of thoughts, often theoretically grounded, from pronouncements in the abstract. It’s like saying a Shakespeare scholar is a fanatic because he’s mostly thought about one author all his life! The Bachchan signature warrants a great deal of study. SRK for example doesn’t! Much as people study Brando, no one studies Tom Cruise!