The Bollywood Curry Western

The magic of Sholay

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It is often said that other than war, only three other things unify this vast and diverse nation of ours. They are Elections, Cricket and Movies. Of the movies, the one that must have been watched by the largest number of Indians to date would be “Sholay”. The movie is a cult classic, a trendsetter and an evergreen entertainer. Its impact in the popular culture of the country can be felt even today. One can find ads spoofing it or it being referenced in one way or the other in every Indian’s daily life. The excitement about the movie is expected to reach a crescendo with the imminent release of its remake by a prominent Bollywood director.

Released in 1975 and directed by Ramesh Sippy, Sholay is the story of a village where people live in perpetual fear of a bandit gang led by the infamous Gababr Singh. A retired police officer of the village named Thakur Baldev Singh, himself a victim of Gababr’s atrocities, enlists the services of two convicts to capture Gabbar. The two convicts Jaidev and Veeru learn during the course of their stay at the village that Thakur’s entire family was murdered by Gabbar (with the exception of his daughter-in-law, who was not at home at the moment). Thakur however is unable to take revenge upon Gabbar as the latter had cut off Thakur’s hands.

In the village, Veeru falls in love with the chatterbox Basanti who makes a living by riding a horse-cart. While the more serious Jaidev feels drawn to Radha, the reclusive widowed daughter-in-law. The duo of Veeru and Jai constantly thwarts the plans of the bandits when they try to raid the village. However matters come to a head when Viru is captured by the bandits when he tries to rescue a kidnapped Basanti from their clutches. How they overcome Gabbar and how Thakur extracts his revenge forms the rest of the story.

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Sholay is considered a masterpiece mainly because it got all the ingredients of a blockbuster right as far as Indian movie audiences go. It had a high power star cast with some of the big names of the time in the industry collaborating in the movie. It even propelled the careers of future big names like Amitabh Bachan and Gabbar Singh. Often multi-starrers take away the focus of the director from telling the story to making the stars look good. However in this case though all the actors give powerhouse performances that enriches the movie to no end.

Sanjeev Kumar as the Thakur desperate for revenge is riveting and lends credibility to the character and his emotions. Dharmendra as the extrovert Viru is colourful and essays the role with ease. Amitabh Bachan as the serious Jaidev essays a role that would become a template for his future career defining roles. He would later go on to become a superstar on the back of those roles. Unusually for a movie of this kind the women are not degenerated to mere show pieces but have characters with substance to essay. Hema Malini essays the role of Basanti with such conviction that nobody hence has been able to essay the role of the chatterbox village belle with such aplomb. Jaya Bachan as the ill-fated widow gives a performance where her silence is as memorable as any of the great dialogues in the movie.

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But the tour de force performance of the movie definitely comes from Amjed Khan as the evil Gabbar Singh. It is ironic to think that he was not even the first choice for the role. He gives the character, which not just enjoys evil but actually revels in it, a larger than life attribute that makes both the character as well as his performance truly memorable. He gave such a great performance that all his subsequent performance never seemed to achieve the same heights.

The movie as said earlier had all the ingredients of a Bollywood blockbuster: good music, a comedy track and drama. The background music by R.D. Burman enhances the underlying tension in the movie manifolds. But the real stars of the movie are the script-writer duo of Salim and Javed. Sholay was one of those movies which had its dialogues released in audio cassettes. It went on to become bestseller on its own. Every kid in India even today knows at least one memorable dialogue from the movie.

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The technicalities of the movie too were brilliant for the time it was released. Ramesh Sippy captured the mood of the movie to a T by shooting it in the rocky taverns of Ramanagaram. The place is so much identified with the movie that a part of it was later renamed ‘Sippynagar’. His techniques were innovative. As part of the story he would have been required to show some brutally violent scenes. His use of symbolism not only helped him get past the strict censors of the time but also gave the movie that masterly feel of leaving the more brutal scenes to the imagination of the audience. This in fact made those scenes even more terrifying without actually showing any gory details. It also helped that the great action sequences in the movie were conceived by someone from Hollywood. It was also the first 70mm stereophonic Indian movie that enhanced the theatre experience of the film.

When the movie got released it was not met with favorable reviews or response. Many felt it was a flawed attempt at making a Spaghetti Western with Indian values. Theatre owners wanted the length of the movie to be shortened. Many trade insiders and columnists even started declaring it as an expensive flop. Then slowly the cinema halls started to fill up with people who came to watch the movie because their friends liked it. All of a sudden the movie became a cult craze and queues that stretched more than a kilometer began to be formed outside the theatres. People began to watch the movie multiple times and it became usual to meet people who have watched the movie 30-40 times. So much so that later on the shows became a karaoke experience with the entire audience mouthing dialogs in unison with the actors on screen!

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The movie was later declared a superhit and went on to become the highest grossing film in Indian movie history. Some claim that it still is when you consider inflation and other factors. It created history when it ran in Bombay’s Minerva theatre continuously for 5 years. In its wake several films were released that tried to cash in on the trend of multi-starrers and male bonding. But none of them were able to recapture the magic of Sholay. When it was shown on Indian televisions for the first time in 1994 it is said that streets became empty during its screening. Sholay epitomizes the magic of the Bollywood even today.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

A voyeuristic suspense

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Rear window is considered by many to be one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest works. The master of suspense focuses on the pleasures of watching the mundane and everyday lives of others. He appeals to the dark and instinctive nature inherent in all of us; to know about the lives of others. However, he also twists around the concept of voyeurism to serve a good purpose lest anyone have too much of a moral inhibition to enjoy the movie. Whatever be the moral implications of the movie be, there is no denying that Rear Window is a suspense movie par excellence.

The movie is about L.B Jefferies, professional photographer who has been confined to his apartment in a wheel chair after he broke his leg in the pursuit of taking an exclusive picture. As he has been confined in his apartment for six weeks he becomes progressively bored. To amuse himself he takes to watching the lives of his neighbors from the rear window of his apartment. There he is able to see them going about with their mundane lives. He also gives them some interesting nicknames. He calls a ballerina Miss Torso, a spinster Miss Lonely Hearts and so forth.

His only visitors are his nurse Stella, and his girl friend Lisa Carol Fremont with whom he shares an uneasy relationship. He believes that Lisa maybe a bit too perfect for him. Lisa on the other hand loves him but even her patience is running out because of Jeffries’ moodiness from being cooped up within the apartment. However from being a passive onlooker of the events happening around him, Jefferies becomes more obsessive about their live and even becomes an active participant in it when he begins to suspect a neighbor (a traveling salesman) to have murdered his wife. Though nobody believes him at the beginning he eventually manages to convince Lisa of the crime. Together they try to find out if the murder actually occurred or whether it was all a figment of Jefferies’ imagination.

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Hitchcock shoots the entire movie from within Jefferies’ apartment. Most of the time, we are shown the same view that Jeffries has from the rear window. By doing so Hitchcock gives us a glimpse of all the happenings in the other apartments of the building. Through the open windows (due to the oppressive heat) we see the other bit characters of the movie go on with their live with varying emotions. Jefferies as well as we, see their anger, joy, sorrow and frustration. The most amazing part of it all is that not even once are they aware that someone is watching them and is paying close attention to them.

Hitchcock creates a comic panel kind of feel when he shows different stories unfolding opposite to Jefferies’ apartment through the windows of the various characters’ apartment. Because of this he is able to show multiple stories and lives simultaneously. This creates a natural sense of identifying with the setting rather than being distant from it. Also by giving us the view from protagonist’s angle we are able to identify with the same feeling that Jefferies has. We sense his boredom, his anxiety and even his initial mild interest in the lives of his neighbors.

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Hitchcock shows his master class in keeping us hooked with such limited setting and keeps us engaged with some imaginative narrative. He is able to maintain, almost throughout the movie, the suspense of whether or not the salesman murdered his wife. By giving us a glimpse of an event which occurs when Jefferies’ is asleep he casts doubts in our mind as to the veracity of Jefferies’ claim. This helps in generating the right amount tension in us to find out the truth.

The performances in this movie are all superlative to say the least. James Stewart is brilliant as the complex Jefferies, who go through a gamut of emotions. Due to his character’s lack of mobility Stewart has to convey the various feelings of Jeffries through his eyes, facial expressions and vocal variations rather than with body language. Grace Kelly as the perfect Lisa is indeed just that: Perfect. She brings an unknown something on to the screen every time she comes on it and lifts our hearts instantly. She adds that much needed glamour to an otherwise dreary setting of the movie. The snappy dialogues too make the movie immensely enjoyable to watch.

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Voyeurism is a topic that Hitchcock briefly touched upon in Psycho. It has been showcased in many movies before and since Rear Window. But what Hitchcock has done here is to turn it more into a harmless pastime rather than something for sexual gratification or for other dark pleasures. He is not concerned with moral issues raised in the movie either. He is there to entertain us and to make a memorable suspense drama. And he is more than successful in that.

Psycho

Iconic

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Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is probably one of the most iconic movies in the history of cinema. If ‘Jaws’ made you afraid to go into the sea, then this movie must have given the chills to anyone who stepped into a shower during the initial days of its release. This is the movie that is most identified as Hitchcock-ian in its suspense and treatment.

The movie starts off with the two lovers, Marion Crane and Sam Loomis, sharing an intimate moment at a downtown motel room in Phoenix, Arizona. We learn that Sam is a divorcee and because of his alimony payments his finances are none too good. Unless his financial state improves he will not be able to marry Marion.

Desperate to improve the situation that they are currently in Marion steals $ 40,000 from her place of work and absconds to find Sam, who lives in a California town, by embarking on a road trip. Marion is raked by the guilt of her stealing the money and becomes paranoid along the way. Her behavior attracts attention including that of a police officer, who finds her dozing off in her car that is pulled over to the side of a road. She even changes her car and buys a new one at a second hand dealership in a bid to avoid attention and continues on her journey to meet Sam.

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As night falls Marion finds herself driving in the dark and totally exhausted. To add to her woes there is a pouring rain too. She gets off the road and finds a motel called “Bates Motel”. There she meets Norman Bates, the young owner who looks after the hotel. She learns that he lives along with his ailing mother in the mansion near the motel. She feels sorry for Norman because she believes that he is wasting his time at the sinking motel. As she retires to her room and begins to take a shower a shadowy woman like figure appears with a knife and stabs her to death.

Norman finds the body and believes that his mother murdered Marion. He quickly disposes off the body, along with the car and all her belongings (including the money, which Norman has no knowledge of) in a swamp nearby. He also wipes out all evidence of the heinous crime. Thus Norman believes that mother is well protected. But what he does not know that there are people looking for Marion who would soon reach the Bates Motel with disconcerting questions. How they reach there and what becomes of them as well as Norman Bates forms the rest of the movie.

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I have often wondered what it would have been like to have watched the movie during the times when it was first released. It must have been quite a shock for the audience to see the biggest box office draw in the movie killed off with more than half the movie still to come. Even before I had watched the movie I had already been exposed to various scenes and references to it in pop culture. So it, in a way, robbed me of the feeling of surprise in seeing one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history. Mind you, that didn’t in anyway reduce the terror of the brutality in that famous shower scene.

Alfred Hitchcock is at his peak as a storyteller in this movie. He knew that for the audience to truly appreciate the movie they will have to come into the cinema halls with no inkling of what is to come. So he went to elaborate lengths to ensure that the movie’s suspense and twists were not revealed. He implored the audience not to do so in almost all the posters. Even critics were denied private screenings in a bid to preserve the plot. He also enforced a ‘no late admission policy’, which denied late comers from entering the cinema hall. He contented that the audience would be unhappy if they entered late and not see Janet Leigh, the star of the movie and who plays Marion in it.

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Hitchcock shot this movie entirely in black and white as he thought that the audience would be put off by the color of blood in the shower sequence. Irrespective of whether he is right or not, there is no denying that having it shot in black and white enhanced the creepiness of the entire setting of Bates motel and the Bates mansion. In the hands of Hitchcock every shadow takes on a horrifying identity and enabled him to create the proper feel of the movie. And the music just enhanced the horror of the shower scene. So much so that it is as identifiable as the scene itself. What made it even more iconic were its quick cuts and the symbolisms used in the shot like that of the blood going down the drain or the close up of Marion's open eyes which conveyed nothing but horror.

The actors all do a brilliant job in the movie. So much so that most of them became typecast in their roles. Anthony Perkins who plays the role of Norman Bates played it so effectively that he almost defined the way it should be played. It was as if he was living the role rather than playing it. As a tragic offshoot he found that he couldn’t get any work other than those that had a similar characterization of Norman Bates.

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He also uses innovative narrative techniques. When the movie starts we are led to believe that its main focus is on the relationship between Marion and her lover. Then we feel that the story is about Marion’s theft and her subsequent guilt over. It is not until Marion is killed that we realize that the main protagonist of the movie was not Marion in the first place. Hitchcock keeps us all on tender hooks till the very end, with an astounding revelation in the climax. Psycho is truly one of the most thrilling and iconic movies of all time.

Alfred Hitchcock: North by Northwest

The Granddad of James Bond

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This is one of the most entertaining movies of all time. The highlight of the movie is its screenplay which is charming, witty, fun and at the same time as Hitchcock-ian in its thrills as any other. Alfred Hitchcock weaves a story of an ‘everyman’ caught in a bizarre and extraordinary situation and his adventures thereof. It is a cinegoer’s delight as it provides pure entertainment and does not have any pretense about its substance.

The plot is about a Madison Avenue advertising executive, Roger Thornhill, who is mistaken for a secret agent called George Kaplan. He is seized by two thugs at a hotel and taken to their boss Lester Townsend. There he is interrogated by Townsend, who is agitated that Roger is steadfast in his denial of being George Kaplan. He therefore orders that Roger be disposed off and to make it look like an accident. Roger is therefore forcefully given a large quantity of bourbon and is put in a stolen car, intending to stage a fatal accident.

However Roger escapes when he is caught by the police and taken into custody for drunken driving. When the next day he brings the police and his mother to the house of Townsend he is surprised to find that the entire setting of the house has been changed from what it was the previous night. Furthermore no one believes his side of the story when a lady of the house reveals that Townsend is in fact a UN diplomat.

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In an effort to prove his innocence Roger visits George Kaplan’s hotel room only to find that the actual George Kaplan is much shorter in height than him. He also finds a picture of Townsend there. In the meanwhile we are shown a meeting of some secret agents where it is revealed to us that George Kaplan is a non-existent spy whom the intelligence agency has created to divert the attention of the enemy.

When Roger reaches the UN he finds out that the man he so far took to be Townsend is someone else. The real Townsend is about to reveal the true identity of Roger’s real abductor when one of the men who earlier tried to kill Roger murders Townsend by throwing a knife. Townsend falls over onto Roger’s arms and Roger inadvertently picks up the knife from Townsend’s body. Everybody thinks that Roger had murdered Townsend and from then on he leads the life of a fugitive.

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While on the run from the law Roger decides to follow Kaplan’s itinerary and go to Chicago. He therefore sneaks into a train to Chicago as there is massive manhunt on for his alleged murder of Townsend. While aboard the train he meets a beautiful young blonde named Eve Kendall, who overtly flirts with him and also goes out of her way to help him escape from the law. Who is this lady and what are her true intentions? Who are the people that are after Roger? Will Roger be able to get out of this mess in one piece? All this forms the rest of the story.

As we have said earlier the highlight of this movie is its screenplay. It is witty, charming and exciting all at the same time. It is a movie that has everything in it; witty dialogues, romance, thrills, action, espionage, mistaken identity and much more. But still the story is not without its share of holes. Most importantly we never find out why the goons actually mistake Roger to be a fictional George Kaplan. The flimsiest of reasons shown in the movie is how the villain’s henchmen see Roger summon a hotel attendant, who is paging Kaplan, and then promptly kidnaps him assuming that he is Kaplan. Also nobody sees the actual killer throwing the knife at the real Townsend even though the deed is done in a fairly crowded lounge at the UN.

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Despite the holes, the movie works because it concentrates on one thing only: that to provide the audience its share of fun and not dwell too much on the details. So much so that what exactly is contained in the McGuffin, a microfilm hidden in a statue, is never revealed even though everybody seems to be after it. But the real star of the movie is Cary Grant. He goes through the role with the ease of a seasoned professional. He is able to carry off some of the dialogues and its cockiness which any other actor would have found hard pressed to do.

Hitchcock’s direction is also exemplary in the movie. His usage of various techniques and methods is assured and as always is able to capture the full attention of his audience. Two sequences in particular are so well done that they have achieved iconic status in the realms of movie history. One is the scene where Cary Grant is being chased by a crop duster in the middle of nowhere. The other is the climatic Mount Rushmore chase scene where the protagonists try to escape the villains by climbing around the faces of the former presidents.

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Don’t go and watch this movie if you are expecting to take some profound meaning from it, because there aren’t any. Don’t go and watch this movie if you like picking through the complexities of a plot, because there aren’t many. Watch it if you want to have a whale of a time and be captivated by some amazing shots, not to mention Cary Grant.

Forrest Gump

A movie like a box of chocolates

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Once in a while you get to see a movie that you just can’t get enough of. You had such a good time watching the movie that you tend to go back and watch it because of the sheer joy of watching it. Forrest Gump is one such movie which you can watch for a zillion times and still not get bored with it. Even after years since it became a big hit and swept the Oscars of its year it still feels as fresh today as when it was first released.

It is the story of a man named Forrest Gump and his adventures through life. He is someone who is a bit slow as far as mental abilities are concerned. You see his IQ is 5 points less than normal. So much so that his mother has to sleep with the local school principal to get him admitted into a school. Early on Forrest learns most of the things about life from his mother, who explains things to him in as simple a term as possible.

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At school he is befriended by Jenny Curran, a girl who is physically and sexually abused by her father. Forrest falls in love with her from the very beginning itself. She on her part never lets on how she feels about him. However it is clear that she cares for him. As they grow up Forrest meets others who play a significant part in influencing his life. He meets Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue while serving together in the army at Vietnam. Bubba tells him all there is to know about the shrimping business. This later on helps Forrest to make a fortune from shrimping.

He also meets his commanding officer Lieutenant Dang while serving in Vietnam. Lieutenant Dang’s faimily members has fought and died in every war America was involved in. He therefore wants to die in the line of duty at Vietnam. However his plans are thwarted by Forrest when he saves him from an air raid. His legs however are amputated in the attack. He later on joins Forrest in his shrimping business thereby becoming a millionaire himself.

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He meets Jenny again after coming back and finds her to be going down a road of destruction. She has taken to drugs and prostitution and seems keen not to drag Forrest into her doomed life. However she does make love with him once and leaves him while he is sleeping. A heartbroken Forrest begins to run all over the country and becomes a celebrity. But one day he gets a letter from Jenny that changes his life once again.

The best part of Forrest Gump is its screenplay. The movie’s catchphrases like “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get” or “Stupid is as stupid does” has achieved iconic proportions. The various situations in which Forrest finds himself in like meeting dead presidents, achieving success in sports, meeting other famous celebrities and generally being in the middle of all the major events in America’s most tumultuous period, is so well integrated into the plot that one cant help but enjoy it. It makes you laugh and cry at the same time and makes poignant remarks on life. Even Forrest, who achieves everything he didn’t wish for finds it hard to achieve the one thing he really wants; Jenny’s love.

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The other major plus point of the movie is its superb cast. Tom Hanks, Sally Field and Gary Sinise all give superlative performances. Tom Hanks pays the character so well with the right touch of humor and poignancy that it is difficult to think of anyone other than he would have been able to do justice to the role. Gary Sinise gives an explosive performance as the crippled Lieutenant Dang and holding together the movie in its middle stages. He is so good that there are stages when he overshadows even Hanks.

A mention has to be made of the visual effects in the movie. Forrest Gump is a prime example of how to make CGI a medium of telling the story rather than making it the primary focus of the movie. So often we have seen good movies being undone due to their over indulgence with effects. Here however it brings to life one of the most magical moments in the movies like that of Forrest’s meeting with President Kennedy of Forrest playing ping pong.

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The overwhelming theme of the movie is its positive outlook towards life. Almost every major character in the movie finds contentment in their lives. The movie shows how someone like Gump, who should ideally have no chance of succeeding in life, makes it big just because he flows according to life’s various currents. The movie gives the message of sticking on with life and not giving up no mater how tough the going might get. Both life and the movie are like its recurring catchphrase “like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.”

Guiseppe Tornatore

A man of society

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Born on 1956 in a small town of Sicily, Guiseppe Tornatore has made movies which are rooted in the life and culture of his native place. He makes movies which capture the complexities of the people and land of Sicily. His movies are mostly emotional reflections of the past where an individual and the community he belongs to are showcased side by side.

At the age of 16 Tornatore started taking his first steps in show business by directing two stage works: Luigi Pirandello's “Bella Vita” and “L'Arte della” Commedia by Edoardo De Filippo. In 1979 he began to collaborate closely with Italy’s RAI television and made a number of TV films and documentaries. In 1982, Tornatore won a prize for Best Documentary at the Salerno Film Festival for ‘Ethnic Minorities in Sicily’.

His first full length feature film was Il Camorrista, in 1985 which was adapted from a novel by Giuseppe Marazzo. The movie was about an Italian journalist's valiant struggle against the mob. It won him the Italian Golden Globe for the Best Young Director.

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But the movie that really propelled him into the limelight was 1989’s Cinema Paradiso. The movie about a famous director returning to his hometown for a funeral and his subsequent trip down memory lane won Tornatore great accolades. It won the hearts of both audiences and critics all over the world and went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Festival in 1989, the Golden Globe in Hollywood in 1989, and the Oscar for Best Foreign Picture in 1990.

From then on he has gone on to make other notable movies though none so far has managed to achieve the success of Cinema Paradiso. His ‘The Star Maker’, released in 1995, is about a talent scout searching through the country side of Sicily and the stories of the people he encounters. The movie brought him his second Best Foreign Language Oscar Nomination.

His 1998 movie, ‘The legend of 1900’, about a pianist who lives his whole life in the sea and never sets foot on land was widely considered as one of his lesser works. He bounced back though with the wonderful Malèna a touching tale about the passionate power of fantasy and the destructiveness of rumors.

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Tornatore’s movies are simple emotional fares which strikes a chord with anyone who has had the good fortune of experiencing it. He transforms his beloved Sicily into a place that we readily identify with. His movies stress the importance of society and its effect on individuals; be it the good, the bad or the ugly. If Cinema Paradiso highlighted the joy of togetherness then The Star Maker highlighted the common desire of the society to make their life better than what it is. While ‘The legend of 1900’ showed an individual rejecting the society due to circumstances, Malèna showed the society alienating an individual due to sheer jealousy.

Tornatore is also a master craftsman. His collaboration with Ennio Morricone has produced some of the most haunting soundtracks in movie history ranging from Cinema Paradiso to Malèna. His photography of the beauty of Sicily is stunning. He is a director who is willing to take risks by putting in non-professional actors in his movies. He rarely gives interviews preferring to let his work speak for itself. Maybe he can afford to do that because his works do speak volumes.

Hit movies from Guiseppe Tornatore Reviewed at Kerala Articles

Cinema Paradiso	The Star Maker	Malena

Cinema Pardiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso)

Fall in love with the movies

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Released in 1989, Cinema Paradiso shot the Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore into the global limelight. The movie, which was released in Italy as Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, became a huge success globally and even won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. It is ironic to think that it had a poor box office run in its native place. It is a sentimental and nostalgic movie about the friendship between a young boy and an old projectionist at a local theatre told mostly in flashbacks.

The movie takes place in Tornatore’s beloved Sicily. It begins with a successful movie director, Salvatore "Toto" Di Vitto, being informed of the death of an old man named Alfredo. Alfredo was the projectionist at the local movie theatre named ‘Cinema Paradiso’. It is revealed to us that Toto hasn’t visited his home town even once after he had left and if he decides to come for Alfredo’s funeral it would be the first time he has returned to his village.

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Upon hearing about Alfredo’s death Toto decides to come and along the way he reminisces the old times that he had spent with Alfredo. We learn that Toto’s father had gone off to fight the World War II and has been missing for some time. We later on learn that his father was in fact killed in action at the front. Toto thus is deprived of a father figure very early in his life itself and he is more than a handful to his single mother.

Toto however is mesmerized by the world of cinema. To him the various dubbed Hollywood movies that are played at the local movie theatre “Cinema Paradiso” offer a chance to view an outside world. He is so taken in by the movies that he even utilizes his milk money to watch the latest movie playing at the Cinema Paradiso. Alfredo too develops a liking for Toto and makes him his apprentice, a decision that would later save his life.

Alfredo and Toto develop a strong bond between each other. Alfredo becomes the mentor, the confidante and above all the father figure that is so lacking in Toto’s life. He helps Toto understand the various mysteries of life by quoting lines from the numerous movies he had seen.

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When Toto reaches adolescence he falls in love with the beautiful young girl named Elena. His love for her is filled with the romanticism that he has seen in his movies. He even stands under her balcony every night for days to prove his love for her. Alfredo (who is now blind as a result of an accidental fire in the projection room), out of deep affection for Toto, tells him to leave the small town and to go out into the world and make something of his life. When Elena apparently disappears all of a sudden, Toto takes the old man’s advice and sets forth to find his place in the world, never to come back again until the old man had passed away. When Toto inevitably returns, he finds the world he had left behind to have changed completely.

The one word that describes this movie is charming. Tornatore’s sentimental and nostalgic reminiscences takes us back to a time in our own life when things where much simpler. Every one of us can identify with the townsfolk’s excitement of a new movie coming to our local cinema theatres. We are taken in by the apparent innocence and growing up experiences of Toto. We are a part of the changes that sweep through the town which shown through the changes to and within the theatre ‘Cinema Paradiso’.

In fact change is one of the overwhelming themes in the movie. During the early days we see a priest acting as the local censoring authority by ordering the removal of any scene which shows kissing or romantic intimacy. Later on we see that as the theatre become more commercialized the priest’s powers are eroded and he never comes back to watch a movie at all.

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Tornatore creates a whole lot of small characters that stay with us long after watching the movie. We are not likely to forget the priest or the mad man who thinks that he owns the square or even the women who wash their hair at the fountain. All of them have their life centered round the theatre the sole source of entertainment for an otherwise bleak life. Later we see that these very same people are actually sad about missing out on the community experience of watching the movies.

The highlight of the movie is the humor and the charm that it exudes. It is unlikely that anyone would watch this movie and not reminisce something from his past that would strike a chord with his heart. It could be that movie experience that you had in your childhood, or that ever lasting experience you had with your friend or even that elusive first love. In the climax of the movie we learn that Alfredo had left behind a roll of film for Toto. It is a montage of all the edited kissing scenes from earlier on. Toto is overcome with emotion on seeing this as all his past pent up feelings emerge to the surface. Cinema Paradiso will make you fall in love with the movies all over again.

The Star Maker

The darker magic of cinema

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Giuseppe Tornatore burst into the limelight globally with his Cinema Paradiso in 1989. The start maker is one of his later works released in 1995 and was nominated for the best foreign language film academy awards in the same year. Cinema Paradiso was a nostalgic movie about the pains of growing up and the magic of cinema. It invited you all to come and fall in love with the movies. However the Star Maker showcases the darker side of being enthralled with the magic of cinema.

The movie is about Joe Morelli or Dr. Morelli as he calls himself. Morelli claims to be a talent scout for a big studio in Rome. He travels around small towns and villages of Sicily in the aftermath of World War II, promising to film the auditions of anyone and everyone who has 1500 lire to give as fee. All anyone who is interested in making big has to do is go to his tent, pay the money and enact a scene from ‘Gone with the Wind’. Morelli claims that he will sent the audition films to studio executives who would then get back to the individual whom they have selected. As he says repeatedly, he is not making any promises. But he gets the Sicilians hook, line and sinker when he gives off a list of famous actors whom he claims to have discovered.

The effect of the dream of making it big in the film world is huge among the townspeople. The townsfolk react to Morelli’s arrival as if the circus had arrived. There are large crowds around his tent who dream of the big salary and fame of making it big in the movie world. But most of the people don’t have the talent or the literacy to enact a scene from ‘Gone with the Wind’. So they begin to talk about their personal lives on camera which borders on confession.

Morelli however is a self centered man who is only interested in being remunerated for his efforts. He even takes sexual favors from a woman who doesn’t have enough money to pay for her daughter’s audition. He however begins to change when he meets a beautiful young teenage orphan called Beata. She scrubs floors at various homes and offices in town. To obtain the 1500 lire for the screen test, she strips naked in front of a local bigwig. Morelli however is taken in by the girl’s story as well as her naivety and begins to have feelings for her. She wants to travel with Morelli and get out of her present life. She believes that by making it big in the movies she will have a better life. Morelli falls in love with her and takes her along with him on his travels.

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Just when we think that Morelli has turned a new leaf, it is revealed that Morelli is in fact a fraud and fake. He was doing nothing more than selling dreams to the poor impoverished people of Sicily. From then on the movie takes a darker turn and how this revelation eventually affect the lives of both Morelli and Beata forms the rest of the movie.

I loved this movie because of the slow change in the mood of the movie. It starts off as a light hearted and sometimes poignant comedy. The confessions of various people who come and sit in front of the camera are quite funny in the beginning. Then the mood slowly changes as the movie moves along and we hear some really touching confessions. It again changes when Beata come into the picture. Her innocence and naivety makes you sympathize with her plight and makes you want to protect her. But what really shook me was the climatic portions of the movie when both Beata and Morelli’s life becomes depressingly tragic.

Tornatore shows the beauty of Sicily as well as the ugliness in the hearts of men in this movie. He shows tremendous skill in a scene which has silhouette-saturated shots of Morelli inside his tent after dark. In my opinion he gets the pacing of the movie just right and I found it thoroughly enjoyable to watch. But what really impressed me is that there was no redemption for Morelli even at the end unlike some of the Hollywood or Bollywood movies that I have seen in the past. His sins catch up with him and he is forced to suffer the consequences.

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The last sequence of shots where Morelli looks back sees all the confession that he had ‘filmed’ in his mind. All those confessions which we found to be comic earlier now take a whole new meaning. We watch it with a lump in our throat as we realize the true meaning of what the Police Officer who caught him, himself a victim of Morelli’s con, tells him, “Everybody confessed to you. They gave you their soul and perhaps they will never again. And you didn't understand a thing. They trusted you Morelli, and so did I. But all you wanted was money.” The sequence of shots reminded me of Tornatore’s famous last sequence of edited kisses in Cinema Paradiso. But in The Star Maker it evokes a totally different emotion.

Akira Kurosawa

An Emperor and a Master

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Akira Kurosawa is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in cinema history. It is a testimony to his genius that he was able to break the language barrier and was able to entertain and communicate with millions of cinema lovers all over the world including yours truly. Born in 1910 he made around 30 movies in a career spanning five decades from Sugata Sanshiro (1943) to Madadayo (1993) before he passed away in 1998.

Kurosawa’s father was the director of a junior high school operated by the Japanese military. He was a man who had a western outlook and inculcated in his children the same outlook. He used to take Kurosawa out to see western movies and may have influenced his outlook to movies from an early age itself.

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In 1936 Kurosawa began his career in movies as an apprentice of Kajiro Yamamoto. He made his first movie at the age of 33. His earlier movies were mainly nationalistic and propaganda movies made under the watchful eyes of the government during the world war days. It was not until he directed the ‘Drunken Angel’ in 1948 that he came into his own. Kurosawa himself has said that he discovered himself with this movie. Incidentally this was also the movie which saw the master working with Toshiro Mifune for the first time; in my opinion one of the greatest actor-director collaborations of all time.

From then on through the 50s and 60s Akira Kurosawa achieved the zenith of his craftsmanship. Masterpieces came one after another and with such amazing regularity that he became the undisputed master of Asian cinema. Three of his most acclaimed movies; Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) all came during this period. This was followed by adaptations like Thorne of blood (from Macbeth), Lower Depth (from Maxim Gorky’s play of the same name) and The Bad Sleep Well (from Hamlet). He also made such great entertainers like Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962). This was followed by movies which were more or lees a social commentary like High and Low (1963) and Red Beard (1965).

After Red Beard Kurosawa acquired a reputation of being dictatorial in his approach and was called an Emperor by some. He subsequently found it difficult to get work and funding for his pictures. This is reflected by the sad fact that he made just 7 movies in the next 2 decades after Red Beard. Of these his Dodesukaden (1970) was such a failure that he even tried to commit suicide. He had to make the Russian Dersu Uzala (1975) in the meanwhile, his only non-japanese movie, in a bid to do some work. It was only through the help of his famous admirers George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola that he was able find the necessary funding for Kagemusha (1980). But even there he was asked to make cuts of about 20 minutes to the movie. In 1985 Kurosawa made Ran (adapted from King Lear) which is widely considered by some as his last masterpiece. He made three more movies before his death; Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991), Madadayo(1993) though they are all considered to be the master’s lesser works.

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Kurosawa was a master of the narrative. When you see some of his movies the he made at his peak you can see the various styles of narratives that he has used. In Ikiru he tells the story from different timelines. He shifts between the past, the present and the future with such effortless ease that it never confuses the audience. In High and Low the movie is clearly divided into two acts with nothing but a train sequence connecting both parts of the story. But the best of them all is Rashomon. He tells the story from the perspective of four different people giving the audience the desired effect of guessing which the accurate narration of events is.

Kurosawa also showcased many themes and genres that are used in movies even today. He used the classic team building and practice routines in Seven Samurai. His Yojimbo must be one of the greatest Westerns ever although it is set in 16th century Japan. It was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars in Hollywood. The Hidden Fortress is a classic action/adventure movie which was the inspiration for George Lucas’s Star Wars.

He also tried to raise questions about the moral and emotional complexities of man. Rashomon showed that man’s perspective is clouded by his own ego. Red Beard showed the sufferings of the poor and their struggle for survival. High and Low was a dark reminder of the dangers of the inequalities in society. Ran showcased the destructive nature of man’s ambitions. Kagemusha showed the effects of image and the blind belief in it. And Ikiru showcased the shortness of life and the importance of living it fully and meaningfully.

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Kurosawa is a master of the technique of film making too. In Throne of Blood, in the final scene in which Mifune is shot by arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range, landing within centimetres of Mifune's body. He was the first to use the telephoto lens to give a flat view of the shot. His sometimes used elaborate and grand shots to give the audience breathtaking visuals in the background. Several of his shots in Ran were almost painterly. He used various natural elements to telling effects like the rain in Rashamon and Seven Samurai, the snow in Ikiru, the wind in Yojimbo and the oppressive heat in High and Low.

He was a perfectionist who spent enormous amounts of time and effort to achieve the desired visual effects. Some of his techniques were innovative and expensive, sometimes even time consuming. He dyed the raid water black with ink to get the desired effect of heavy rain in Rashomon. He built an entire castle set in Mt. Fuji which was later destroyed in the climax. He demanded that the entire cast live in the sets of Red Beard to give it the proper lived in feel. He would give his actors their costumes 2 weeks in advance so that they would look properly worn out. He would wait for weeks to get the right cloud formation. Production for Red Beard took 2 years to complete which ultimately fractured his relationship with Toshiro Mifune.

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Despite all this there is no denying his genius. And like most other geniuses people forgets their eccentricities because their work more than makes up for it. His work will be remembered for generations to come. His works have influenced many. Direct influences can be found in The Magnificent Seven, A fistful of Dollars, Star Wars, Outrage, even in India’s biggest hit of all time Sholay and many more. Kurosawa was a master of his craft and will be remembered as one of the true Emperors of cinema.

Reviews of Akira Kurosawa's Major works

Rashomon (1950)	Ikiru (1952)	Seven Samurai (1954)
Hidden Fortress (1958)	Yojimbo (1961)	High And Low (1963)
Red Beard (1965)	Kagemusha (1980)	Ran (1985)
Rhapsody In August (1991)