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Said
Sanjay, "TV is such an important medium. There're
so many people who couldn't see it in the theaters.
The film will now be accessible to those who couldn't
experience it earlier. That makes me very happy."
Mr Bachchan was even more forthright about the medium's
rollicking reach. "Size is never a criteria for
noticing nuances. If you do not possess the intelligence
to savour subtleties you won't do so on a screen any
size - be it a 70 mm screen or a laptop. TV brings
in a personalized intimate experience. People will
probably watch Black alone or with the people
they love in an environment they're comfortable with.
In this way they'd be less distracted and be better
able to relate to the characters… No extraneous
distractions, no ambient chatter, no mobile phone
going on, no popcorn-carrying latecomers blocking
your view, and no embarrassment when brimming with
emotion, a tear spills out of your eye.
****
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Wish
we could have more such movie experiences to chew on rather
than the increasing volume of sloppy soaps shot in bungalows
that third-rate Hindi cinema patented for decades.
I'm glad to know that Zee intends to resume a slot for telefilms.
I happened to preview one of the films meant for this slot.
Ananth Mahadevan's ready-for-release Hindi film Staying
Alive had me completely bowled over by its lucid yet
sparse emotionalism as two incompatible men, played brilliantly
by director Mahadevan and Sourabh Shukla struggled for life
and 'breadth' in the ICU.
Staying
Alive is a film that makes you thankful for the gift
of life… and cinema.
Suddenly there's a truck-load of new serials to deal with,
some of it of a highly cannibalized caliber. Sahara's Koh-I-Noor
seems copied from Zee's bombshell Time Bomb. Sahara's
new night-cap Kshitij seems to be an extension of
Zee's Sarkar.
Honestly, do we need another soap about dishonest politicians,
and that too one where the characters seem to be twice-removed
from originality. While Sarkar seeks inspiration
from a long-forgotten masala-maar-ke political drama called
Sansad, Kshitij goes to Sarkar and
comes up with a chief minister's household teeming with
dysfunctional characters, like a volatile son whose wife
seems to share a special bonding with her father-in-law.
In
the inaugural episode father-in-law (SM Zahir) did a lovey-dovey
sequence with his screen wife Rita Bhaduri (commenting on
her eyes) before he was shot down on the steps of Parliament
House.
Remember how Divya Seth's politician husband was gunned
down in the first episode of Sarkar?
Are the serials becoming contagious? How do else do we account
for this double dealing drivel?
****
Speaking
of drivel, the other films this weekend were so fake! Especially
Tanuja Chandra's Film Star which got a first-time
premiere on Sahara on Friday night.
I must admit I'm very angry with Tanuja. How could the maker
of Dushman, Sangharsh and Sur (flawed but
commendable for their originality of vision) make such ersatz
tripe?! Supposedly an insider's look at the sham and shindig
of showbiz (and barring Kagaz Ke Phool we all know
how these films-on-film function!) Film Star had
Mahima Chowdhary hamming away dangerously as a hysterical
fast-fading 'superstar' (wishful shrinking) who cannibalizes
a battered wife's (Vasundhara Das) life to resurrect her
career.
Mahima
turned her role of a lifetime into a role of laugh time.
She was 'supported' by an earnest but deadpan Priyanshu
Chatterjee and a plump and far-from-persecuted-looking Vasundhara
Das (singers , whether Sonu, Lucky Ali or Vasundhara, should
just stick to doing what they know best) whom Aryan Vaid
raped so half-heartedly you wondered what was lacking: sex
or common sense.
Film Star was about marital rape. It was also about
the rape of sensible woman-centric cinema.
No wonder Sahara didn't waste time and money giving Film
Star a theatrical release and put it straight on television.
Film Star belongs in the archives under the section
Director Gone To The Dogs.
Black
the Movie's pic from: hindi.galatta.com
Flim Star's Pic from: images.indiaglitz.com
(The
views expressed here are those of the author and indiantelevision.com
need not necessarily subscribe to the same)
The
premiere of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black this Sunday
on Star Gold had the nation mesmerized. Very few films render
themselves so effectively to both the cinematic and home mediums.
Black managed it beautifully. Sure, we were aghast
at the profusion of ads that accompanied almost every sequence,
specially at the end when suddenly just before the final shots,
some more ads came on to disturb the virile flow of unseen
emotions.
