PART-1: THE FORMULA- IT'S FORM, FUNCTION & FORMULATORS
Hindi films are primarily formula films… everything here is scientific i.e. works best within the variables of its formula. Which scientific approach is followed to concoct this formula? To know the answer we must have to know the scientists behind the formula first.
Let me explain this by quoting my own experience of the city (Mumbai) when I first arrived here some six years ago. I came here with, what I thought were the ideas that will change the face of Indian cinema … Fresh outlook, enthusiasm and energy to make a difference and also to get accepted in an almost century old system of Hindi film making.
Now when you are pregnant with ideas you are desperate to deliver too. You start speaking out of turn without judging the listeners. The listeners, mostly Bollywood veterans, always seem to a fresher to be the best ears in town. So you pour, pour and pour till you force them to pick up their dilapidated mobile phones, open the contact list in it and give you a few references to the veterans relaxing on the next level of hierarchy.
The next level is the club of ghosts from the Christmas past. Now you start meeting and knowing some well known names of the past. They are filmmakers who’ll use Chi-chi instead of Govinda, Bebo instead of Kareena and Amitji or Bachchan instead of Amitabh Bachchan, in their talks. You’ll feel secure in their company, suspend all your disbeliefs for a moment and your heart will tell you to listen more than speak.
Which fool would doubt or interrupt when the man who made Inkar, Satte Pe Satta etc or the guy who shot Mr. India, Arjun, Dil etc or the much respected television director who made Circus (with Shah Rukh), speaks? So you listen earnestly to learn what appears to you as the valuable tricks of surviving & succeeding in the trade.
You feel honored & obliged working for them on their next big project with some of the biggest names in business. The last big thing these veterans did was when you were in primary school, but you are too overawed by them to think on that line. They encourage you with an occasional pat on the back for your revolutionary ideas but then lead you smartly to their own terrain of comfort- the formula.
Allow me to explain this smart play with an example. Let’s see, you are given a story idea to work upon. Maestros always have a few thousand great ideas which if made shall break all box office records. Anyway, you are given a story idea which though seems attractive is full of dangers of leading you to the clichés of Hindi commercial cinema. You decide to give the screenplay a fresh approach and you start with giving every stereotypical situation a deliberate spin, making characters a bit more contemporary and interesting. Now you show your version to the maestro,
The maestro appreciates and acknowledges your effort in such a melodramatic fashion with superlative praises ranging from mind-blowing to fantabulous, that the rebel-with-a-cause in you goes numb. Now the maestro suggests a few changes here and there to make the screenplay better and more suitable for, say Aamir Khan. Now you cant argue cause the maestro knows Aamir better than you do. So you begin to listen again.
Now for each change that the maestro suggests, he’ll provide a story from his glorious past to back it up. He’ll say things like, when Mansoor (Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar fame) narrated to me the script (of Akele Hum Akele Tum), I told him, ‘boss, you are showing an Indian mother leaving her child to pursue her dreams… our audience will not accept it. But Mansoor didn’t budge. See what happened! The film sank. Mother, my dear, you can’t fool around with a mother’s image in Indian culture and Aamir agreed. Now back to the scene in this brilliant screenplay of you, involving the hero & his mother, what I want you to do is…’
And you make the required changes without creating any fuss. Then a few more and more till you realize that you have ended up writing a script which is no different from those formula films which embarrassed you to such an extent that you took up writing to do a better service to your beloved Indian cinema. Finally, Aamir Khan will tell you in a more politically correct manner that he has no time to act in the maestro’s film because of his earlier commitments though he loved the idea. And with it you one and a half year of labor is lost.
Anyway, the point is, this is how and this is where the formula behind our films originates, propagates and auto-install itself in the psyches of young Turks who have no other way to scale up but through this hierarchical club of the maestros. Losing out their originality, they take refuge in the formula and then we read some west-bound star quoting Alfred Hitchkok in his blog- “three ingredients of a good film are:- 1. a good script. 2. a good script 3. a good script”.
May God bless them all!
(to be continued.)
Vishal
*Shah Rukh Khan here is a metaphor for saleable star.
Let me explain this by quoting my own experience of the city (Mumbai) when I first arrived here some six years ago. I came here with, what I thought were the ideas that will change the face of Indian cinema … Fresh outlook, enthusiasm and energy to make a difference and also to get accepted in an almost century old system of Hindi film making.
Now when you are pregnant with ideas you are desperate to deliver too. You start speaking out of turn without judging the listeners. The listeners, mostly Bollywood veterans, always seem to a fresher to be the best ears in town. So you pour, pour and pour till you force them to pick up their dilapidated mobile phones, open the contact list in it and give you a few references to the veterans relaxing on the next level of hierarchy.
The next level is the club of ghosts from the Christmas past. Now you start meeting and knowing some well known names of the past. They are filmmakers who’ll use Chi-chi instead of Govinda, Bebo instead of Kareena and Amitji or Bachchan instead of Amitabh Bachchan, in their talks. You’ll feel secure in their company, suspend all your disbeliefs for a moment and your heart will tell you to listen more than speak.
Which fool would doubt or interrupt when the man who made Inkar, Satte Pe Satta etc or the guy who shot Mr. India, Arjun, Dil etc or the much respected television director who made Circus (with Shah Rukh), speaks? So you listen earnestly to learn what appears to you as the valuable tricks of surviving & succeeding in the trade.
You feel honored & obliged working for them on their next big project with some of the biggest names in business. The last big thing these veterans did was when you were in primary school, but you are too overawed by them to think on that line. They encourage you with an occasional pat on the back for your revolutionary ideas but then lead you smartly to their own terrain of comfort- the formula.
Allow me to explain this smart play with an example. Let’s see, you are given a story idea to work upon. Maestros always have a few thousand great ideas which if made shall break all box office records. Anyway, you are given a story idea which though seems attractive is full of dangers of leading you to the clichés of Hindi commercial cinema. You decide to give the screenplay a fresh approach and you start with giving every stereotypical situation a deliberate spin, making characters a bit more contemporary and interesting. Now you show your version to the maestro,
The maestro appreciates and acknowledges your effort in such a melodramatic fashion with superlative praises ranging from mind-blowing to fantabulous, that the rebel-with-a-cause in you goes numb. Now the maestro suggests a few changes here and there to make the screenplay better and more suitable for, say Aamir Khan. Now you cant argue cause the maestro knows Aamir better than you do. So you begin to listen again.
Now for each change that the maestro suggests, he’ll provide a story from his glorious past to back it up. He’ll say things like, when Mansoor (Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar fame) narrated to me the script (of Akele Hum Akele Tum), I told him, ‘boss, you are showing an Indian mother leaving her child to pursue her dreams… our audience will not accept it. But Mansoor didn’t budge. See what happened! The film sank. Mother, my dear, you can’t fool around with a mother’s image in Indian culture and Aamir agreed. Now back to the scene in this brilliant screenplay of you, involving the hero & his mother, what I want you to do is…’
And you make the required changes without creating any fuss. Then a few more and more till you realize that you have ended up writing a script which is no different from those formula films which embarrassed you to such an extent that you took up writing to do a better service to your beloved Indian cinema. Finally, Aamir Khan will tell you in a more politically correct manner that he has no time to act in the maestro’s film because of his earlier commitments though he loved the idea. And with it you one and a half year of labor is lost.
Anyway, the point is, this is how and this is where the formula behind our films originates, propagates and auto-install itself in the psyches of young Turks who have no other way to scale up but through this hierarchical club of the maestros. Losing out their originality, they take refuge in the formula and then we read some west-bound star quoting Alfred Hitchkok in his blog- “three ingredients of a good film are:- 1. a good script. 2. a good script 3. a good script”.
May God bless them all!
(to be continued.)
Vishal
*Shah Rukh Khan here is a metaphor for saleable star.
1 comment:
Gr8 piece man... keep it up. We r following...
N. Shah (Durban)
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