MAKING OF ‘AAG’

BAHUT LAMBI KAHANI HAI YEH

The idea of wanting to do something with Sholay came approximately around five to six years ago. One day I got a call from Sasha Sippy saying that his grandfather Mr. G. P. Sippy wants to meet me. As he is a respected man by all, as well as the producer of Sholay and a senior in the fraternity, I went all the way to town to meet him.

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Found the following piece somewhere on net and found it very funny. Hope NGites will like it.

* With all due respects to Rajanikanth and sincere apologies to his fans if they find it insulting.

§ Rajanikanth makes onions cry.

§ Rajanikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.

§ Bill Gates lives in constant fear that Rajanikanth’ PC will crash.

Link

Congratulations for the selection of Eklavya - The Royal Guard as India’s nomination for Oscars.

I saw your comments about films made by you and others in the recent past and what may/may not be worthy enough for recognition at the heartland of India and at the highest level. I am quite sure that you have made some highly respected films in the past and I am also certain that you have the greatest knowledge of films made across the globe.

I am also absolutely fine if you comment on films made by lesser mortals like me or others who may have had an accomplished body of work behind them. Even if you have deep rooted statements to make about my knowledge of cinema, technique, intelligence, calibre and personality in general - I take all of that in good spirit (and humour). After all it’s a free country (and may I add, democratic too?) and we all have a right to speak out!

But doesn’t that hold that for me too?

Got the following interview from PFC. It is big but worth reading.
Damn entertaining for even those who do not know who the ‘Kishore Kumar’ is.
MUST READ

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Illustrated Weekly.
April 28, 1985 Issue
Story title: “GENIUS” (Cover Story)

PN=Pritish Nandy
KK=Kishore Kumar

PN: I understand you are quitting Bombay and going away to Khandwa…
KK: Who can live in this stupid, friendless city where everyone seeks to
exploit you every moment of the day? Can you trust anyone out here?
Is anyone trustworthy? Is anyone a friend you can count on?
I am determined to get out of this futile rat race and live as I’ve
always wanted to. In my native Khandwa, the land of my forefathers.
Who wants to die in this ugly city?
PN: Why did you come here in the first place?
KK: I would come to visit my brother Ashok Kumar. He was such a big
star in those days. I thought he could introduce me to KL Saigal
who was my greatest idol. People say he used to sing through his
nose. But so what? He was a great singer. Greater than anyone else.
PN: I believe you are planning to record an album of famous Saigal
songs….
KK: They asked me to. I refused. Why should I try to outsing him?
Let him remain enshrined in our memory. Let his songs remain
just HIS songs. Let not even one person say that Kishore Kumar
sang them better.
PN: If you didn’t like Bombay, why did you stay back? For fame?
For money?
KK: I was conned into it. I only wanted to sing. Never to act. But
somehow, thanks to peculiar circumstances, I was persuaded to
act in the movies. I hated every moment of it and tried virtually
every trick to get out of it. I muffed my lines, pretended to be
crazy, shaved my head off, played difficult, began yodelling in
the midst of tragic scenes, told Meena Kumari what I was supposed
to tell Bina Rai in some other film - but they still wouldn’t let
me go. I screamed, ranted, went cuckoo. But who cared? They were
just determined to make me a star.
PN: Why?
KK: Because I was Dadamoni’s brother. And he was a great hero.
PN: But you succeeded, after your fashion….
KK: Of course I did. I was the biggest draw after Dilip Kumar. There
were so many films I was doing in those days that I had to run
from one set to the other, changing on the way. Imagine me. My
shirts flying off, my trousers falling off, my wig coming off
while I’m running from one set to the other. Very often I would
mix up my lines and look angry in a romantic scene or romantic
in the midst of a fierce battle. It was terrible and I hated it.
It evoked nightmares of school. Directors were like schoolteachers.
Do this. Do that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. I dreaded it. That’s
why I would often escape.
PN: Well, you are notorious for the trouble you give your directors
and producers. Why is that?
KK: Nonsense. They give me trouble. You think they give a damn for
me? I matter to them only because I sell. Who cared for me during
my bad days? Who cares for anyone in this profession?
PN: Is that why you prefer to be a loner?
KK: Look, I don’t smoke, drink or socialise. I never go to parties.
If that makes me a loner, fine. I am happy this way. I go to work
and I come back straight home. To watch my horror movies, play
with my spooks, talk to my trees, sing. In this avaricious
world, every creative person is bound to be lonely. How can you
deny me that right?
PN: You don’t have many friends?
KK: None.
PN: That’s rather sweeping.
KK: People bore me. Film people particularly bore me. I prefer talking
to my trees.
PN: So you like nature?
KK: That’s why I want to get away to Khandwa. I have lost all touch
with nature out here. I tried to did a canal all around my
bungalow out here, so that we could sail gondolas there. The
municipality chap would sit and watch and nod his head
disapprovingly, while my men would dig and dig. But it didn’t work.
One day someone found a hand - a skeletal hand- and some toes.
After that no one wanted to dig anymore. Anoop, my second brother,
came charging with Ganga water and started chanting mantras. He
thought this house was built on a graveyard. Perhaps it is. But
I lost the chance of making my home like Venice.
PN: People would have thought you crazy. In fact they already do.
KK: Who said I’m crazy. The world is crazy; not me.
PN: Why do you have this reputation for doing strange things?
KK: It all began with this girl who came to interview me. In those
days I used to live alone. So she said: You must be very lonely.
I said: No, let me introduce you to some of my friends. So I
took her to the garden and introduced her to some of the friendlier
trees. Janardhan; Raghunandan; Gangadhar; Jagannath; Buddhuram;
Jhatpatajhatpatpat. I said they were my closest friends in this
cruel world. She went and wrote this bizarre piece, saying that
I spent long evenings with my arms entwined around them. What’s
wrong with that, you tell me? What’s wrong making friends with
trees?
PN: Nothing.
KK: Then, there was this interior decorator-a suited, booted fellow
who came to see me in a three-piece woollen, Saville Row suit
in the thick of summer- and began to lecture me about aesthetics,
design, visual sense and all that. After listening to him for about
half an hour and trying to figure out what he was saying through
his peculiar American accent, I told him that I wanted something
very simple for my living room. Just water-several feet deep- and
little boats floating around, instead of large sofas. I told him
that the centre-piece should be anchored down so that the tea
service could be placed on it and all of us could row up to it
in our boats and take sips from our cups. But the boats should
be properly balanced, I said, otherwise we might whizz past each
other and conversation would be difficult.
He looked a bit alarmed but that alarm gave way to sheer horror
when I began to describe the wall decor. I told him that I wanted
live crows hanging from the walls instead of paintings-since I
liked nature so much. And, instead of fans, we could have monkeys
farting from the ceiling. That’s when he slowly backed out from
the room with a strange look in his eyes. The last I saw of him
was him running out of the front gate, at a pace that would have
put an electric train to shame. What’s crazy about having a living
room like that, you tell me? If he can wear a woollen, three-piece
suit in the height of summer, why can’t I hang live crows on my
walls?
PN: Your ideas are quite original, but why do your films fare so badly?
KK: Because I tell my distributors to avoid them. I warn them at the
very outset that the film might run for a week at the most.
Naturally, they go away and never come back. Where will you find
a producer-director who warns you not to touch his film because
even he can’t understand what he has made?
PN: Then why do you make films?
KK: Because the spirit moves me. I feel I have something to say and
the films eventually do well at times.
I remember this film of mine - Door Gagan ki Chhaon mein - which
started to an audience of 10 people in Alankar. I know because I
was in the hall myself. There were only ten people who had come to
watch the first show!
Even its release was peculiar. Subhodh Mukherjee, the brother of
my brother-in-law, had booked Alankar(the hall) for 8 weeks for
his film April Fool- which everyone knew was going to be a block-
buster. My film, everyone was sure, was going to be a thundering
flop. So he offered to give me a week of his booking. Take the
first week, he said flamboyantly, and I’ll manage within seven. After
all, the movie can’t run beyond a week. It can’t run beyond two
days, I reassured him.
When 10 people came for the first show, he tried to console me.
Don’t worry, he said, it happens at times. But who was worried?
Then, the word spread. Like wildfire. And within a few days the
hall began to fill. It ran for all 8 weeks at Alankar, house full!
Subodh Mukherjee kept screaming at me but how could I let go the
hall? After 8 weeks when the booking ran out, the movie shifted
to Super, where it ran for another 21 weeks! That’s the anatomy
of a hit of mine. How does one explain it? Can anyone explain
it? Can Subodh Mukherjee, whose April Fool went on to become a
thundering flop?
PN: But you, as the director should have known?
KK: Directors know nothing. I never had the privilege of working with
any good director. Except Satyen Bose and Bimal Roy, no one even
knew the ABC of film making. How can you expect me to give good
performances under such directors?
Directors like S.D. Narang didn’t even know where to place the
camera. He would take long, pensive drags from his cigarette,
mumble ‘Quiet, quiet, quiet’ to everyone, walk a couple of furlongs
absentmindedly, mutter to himself and then tell the camera man to
place the camera wherever he wanted. His standard line to me was:
Do something. What something? Come on, some thing! So I would go
off on my antics. Is this the way to act? Is this the way to direct
a movie? And yet Narangsaab made so many hits!
PN: Why didn’t you ever offer to work with a good director?
KK: Offer! I was far too scared. Satyajit Ray came to me and wanted me
to act in Parash Pathar - his famous comedy - and I was so scared
that I ran away. Later, Tulsi Chakravarti did the role. It was a
great role and I ran away from it, so scared I was of these great
directors.
PN: But you knew Ray.
KK: Of course I did. I loaned him five thousand rupees at the time of
Pather Panchali-when he was in great financial difficulty- and even
though he paid back the entire loan, I never gave him an opportunity
to forget the fact that I had contributed to the making of the
classic. I still rib him about it. I never forget the money I
loan out!
PN: Well, some people think you are crazy about money. Others describe
you as a clown, pretending to be kinky but sane as hell. Still
others find you cunning and manipulative. Which is the real you?
KK: I play different roles at different times. For different people.
In this crazy world, only the truly sane man appears to be mad.
Look at me. Do you think I’m mad? Do you think I can be mani-
pulative?
PN: How would I know?
KK: Of course you would know. It’s so easy to judge a man by just
looking at him. You look at these film people and you instantly
know they’re rogues.
PN: I believe so.
KK: I don’t believe so. I know so. You can’t trust them an inch.
I have been in this rat race for so long that I can smell trouble
from miles afar. I smelt trouble the day I came to Bombay in the
hope of becoming a playback singer and got conned into acting. I
should have just turned my back and run.
PN: Why didn’t you?
KK: Well, I’ve regretted it ever since. Boom Boom. Boompitty boom boom.
Chikachikachik chik chik. Yadlehe eeee yadlehe ooooo (Goes on
yodelling till the tea comes. Someone emerges from behind the
upturned sofa in the living room, looking rather mournful with
a bunch of rat-eaten files and holds them up for KK to see)
PN: What are those files?
KK: My income tax records.
PN: Rat-eaten?
KK: We use them as pesticides. They are very effective. The rats die
quite easily after biting into them.
PN: What do you show the tax people when they ask for the papers?
KK: The dead rats.
PN: I see.
KK: You like dead rats?
PN: Not particularly.
KK: Lots of people eat them in other parts of the world.
PN: I guess so.
KK: Haute cuisine. Expensive too. Costs a lot of money.
PN: Yes?
KK: Good business, rats. One can make money from them if one is
enterprising.
PN: I believe you are very fussy about money. Once, I’m told. a
producer paid you only half your dues and you came to the sets
with half your head and half your moustache shaved off. And you
told him that when he paid the rest, you would shoot with your face
intact…
KK: Why should they take me for granted? These people never pay unless
you teach them a lesson. I was shooting in the South once. I think
the film was Miss Mary and these chaps kept me waiting in the hotel
room for five days without shooting. So I got fed up and started
cutting my hair. First I chopped off some hair from the right side
of my head and then, to balance it, I chopped off some from the
left. By mistake I overdid it. So I cut off some more from the
right. Again I overdid it. So I had to cut from the left again.
This went on till I had virtually no hair left- and that’s when
the call came from the sets. When I turned up the way I was, they
all collapsed. That’s how rumours reached Bombay. They said I had
gone cuckoo. I didn’t know. I returned and found everyone wishing
me from long distance and keeping a safe distance of 10 feet while
talking. Even those chaps who would come and embrace me waved out
from a distance and said Hi. Then, someone asked me a little
hesitantly how I was feeling. I said: Fine. I spoke a little
abruptly perhaps. Suddenly I found him turning around and running.
Far, far away from me.
PN: But are you actually so stingy about money?
KK: I have to pay my taxes.
PN: You have income tax problems I am told….
KK: Who doesn’t? My actual dues are not much but the interest has
piled up. I’m planning to sell off a lot of things before I go
to Khandwa and settle this entire business once and for all.
PN: You refused to sing for Sanjay Gandhi during the emergency and,
it is said, that’s why the tax hounds were set on you. Is this true?
KK: Who knows why they come. But no one can make me do what I don’t
want to do. I don’t sing at anyone’s will or command. But I sing
for charities, causes all the time.

Source: IBN
New Delhi: Singer Daler Mehendi sent a legal notice to film producer Yash Chopra seeking damages of Rs 1 crore for criminal breach of trust on Tuesday.

According to Mehndi, his voice was replaced by Shankar Mahadevan in the title song of Yash Raj Films yet to be released film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

The Punjabi pop singer has also sent notices to film’s director Shaad Ali, lyricist Gulzar and singer Shanker Mahadevan, seeking an unconditional apology within 15 days.

However as per the official statement issued by Yash Raj Films, Mehndi’s secretary who requested them to remove his voice from the song since the terms and conditions did not work out between the two parties.

Link

New Delhi: The infamous kiss between Hollywood star Richard Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty at a public function in Delhi earlier this month has landed the two in legal trouble.

A Jaipur court on Thursday issued arrest warrants against the duo for their public kiss, which had evoked strong protests in several cities.

Jaipur city Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants on the basis of a PIL filed by Jaipur resident Poonam Chand Bhandari.

Source: http://reelviews.net/movies/n/namesake.html

Namesake, The
A Film Review by James Berardinelli

DRAMA
India/United States, 2006
U.S. Release Date: 3/9/07 (limited)
Running Length: 2:02
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Sexual situations, nudity, profanity)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Cast: Kal Penn, Tabu, Irfan Khan, Jacinda Barrett, Sahira Nair
Director: Mira Nair
Screenplay: Sooni Taraporevala, based on the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri
Cinematography: Frederick Elmes
Music: Nitin Sawhney
U.S. Distributor: Fox Searchlight

Link

Never judge a book by its cover. That holds true for films as well. A stylish promo or a fascinating billboard could raise your expectations and compel you to rush to a nearby movieplex to watch the film. But, alas! All that glitters is not gold.

RED – THE DARK SIDE has generated tremendous hype over the weeks due to its eye-catching promotional teasers. Unfortunately, watching the film is akin to flying in an aircraft that’s run out of fuel midway. It starts off well, you are hooked to the goings-on, the game begins… But the fizz settles down sooner than expected.

What’s wrong with RED – THE DARK SIDE? Plenty of things! Most importantly, the writing [story-screenplay: Manoj Tyagi] is outright tacky. It vacillates between komsi-komsa to amateurish to confused.

But the reason why RED – THE DARK SIDE falls like a pack of cards is because you know that the lady is playing games. You know that she has a hidden agenda. You know that she’s out to use Mr. Millionaire. You realize all this because you’ve witnessed similar themes in the past.

Link

Post L.O.C., LAKSHYA, DEEWAAR and AB TUMHARE HAWALE WATAN SATHIYO, Indo-Pak themes, especially those that abound in jingoism and indulge in Pak-bashing, are shunned by moviegoers in India and the Asian community abroad.

But 1971 is different…

It narrates the story of Indian war prisoners across the border who break free and set out on a perilous journey to their motherland. The film succeeds in highlighting the plight of P.O.W.s who have been languishing in Pakistani jails/camps, leading a life of anonymity.

Sure, 1971 is about India and Pakistan. But the film is not about war per se. It begins in 1977 in Multan [Pakistan], six years after India and Pakistan had fought a war and throws light on Indian defense personnel who long to be free, pine to return to their motherland, to their families.

Source: IndiaFM

The irrepressible Ram Gopal Varma on women, love and matters philosophical and anatomical. You can call his films sexy, but is he sexist? Make of me what you will, the director tells Harneet Singh

What prompted Nishabd?
The idea was sparked by a conversation between Mr. Bachchan and me. Mentioning one of his forthcoming films, Cheeni Kum, he told me it’s a story of an older man and younger woman. Since he didn’t mention the age of the woman, my immediate thought went to Lolita. I thought of making an opposite of the feel good romcom that Cheeni Kum is. I was excited to see an actor of his caliber and dignity in a setting where he has to justify his attraction for a teenager. I was excited to see what a young girl can generate in him.

How did you zero in on Jiah Khan as the teenager?
In order to make the story more believable I needed somebody new. The idea was that the audience discovers her with Mr. Bachchan in the film. As far as Jiah is concerned, I had met her a year back. When I was casting for Nishabd, her image just came in my mind. She is much like the part. She comes from abroad, has an accent and comes from a broken house also. So it all fell in place.

Is there a difference in the way you direct male characters and women characters?
I don’t consciously see or feel a difference. As long as sexuality is not predominant in the film’s theme, I handle men and women in the same manner.

Why is it that except an Urmila in Rangeela and Antara Mali in Naach, most of your other women characters are not so strong?
Maybe because women don’t run underworld gangs.

But how do you feel about women?
I feel a woman is a beautiful creation and makes life worthwhile. I feel it’s wrong to look at them as a different species. I like women. I like using words like girl and women.

In one of your interviews you said that you like women as long as they keep their mouth shut. Are you serious?
See, for me, sharing a conversation with woman is different from her sexual aspect. I live in a dream world. When I see a woman I like her for something and I don’t want the effect to be spoilt. When they start talking, they bring some baggage and the image gets spoilt. My problem is that I like to edit my world. I can do that in films but not in the real world.