Formula reigns

ANUJ KUMAR

As Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag” envelopes the silver screen this Friday, director Ram Gopal Varma is nonchalant as ever.

I don’t think Gabbar was negative in the first place. If he was, why was he used to promote biscuits soon after the release?

PHOTO: R.V. MOORTHY

READY FOR BRICKBATS Ram Gopal Varma says the film is high on mental violence.

His critics should know that Ram Gopal Varma’s favourite dialogue from “Sholay” is De thakur jitni gaali deni hai. Yes, the man is ready with his homage to the film that he says stays with millions of Indians 31 y
ears after its release. He himself watched it 27 times in the first four months of its release.

Is it the biggest challenge of his career? “It would have been if I were vying for one-upmanship. It’s just my take on a film that has intrigued generations with its characters, plots and technique. It is not a risk either, for there are three kinds of people. One, who remember the original by heart, then those who know ‘Sholay’ but have forgotten the spirit of the film. It has been copied and spoofed so many times that few remember what the original stood for, and the third – 16-25-year-olds – who haven’t seen the original. All of them should have a reason to watch ‘Aag’.”

Bitter tussle

Yes, it is called “Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag” after a bitter tussle with the Sippys’ in the court over the rights. “Initially, I wanted to buy the rights of the original and G.P. Sippy (who passed away recently) was agreeable. While pondering over the idea I felt I should not make a scene-by-scene remake and for this I didn’t need the rights. In the meantime some internal feud happened in the Sippy clan and they refused to part with the rights, made it a trademark issue and moved the court to stall the release. I could have continued to fight but it would have delayed the release indefinitely. So I changed the name of the film and characters. I don’t see it as defeat. I have not made a copy…there are already several copies of the film in the market…one is ‘Chinagate’, which is set in a similar terrain.”

He says his is a tribute to the formula films that were a rage in the ‘70s and the genre was inspired by films like Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”.

“People should not expect the intellectual class of ‘Company’ in it. It’s my way to try formulaic.”

Ramu says though Gabbar (now Babban) is central to his idea, the film has not been made from Gabbar’s point of view. “I feel the original could not answer why Gabbar severed Thakur’s hands and killed his entire family. That Thakur arrested him could not be the only reason for such an act of vengeance. So I have tried to look into Babban’s mind. It’s more rounded than Gabbar. As for the comparisons Superman and Batman basically do the same thing but in their own way.”

The promos make one feel that the film is more violent and Ramu is going back to his raw days of “Satya”. “It is high on mental violence, as I always feel it’s all in the mind and as the original set some benchmarks in terms of technique, we have also tried some new angles, frames and colour schemes.”

Why Bachchan?

On his choice of Amitabh Bachchan as Babban and Ajay Devgan as Hero (Veeru), Ramu says the attempt was to go as far as possible from the original. “People would say how Ajay could replace Dharmendra. My contention is Ajay is playing Veeru, the character…he is not supposed to mimic Dharmendra.” But Ajay has never played Veeru in his career? “True, that’s what I mean when I say I wanted to take the characters as far as possible from the original. Otherwise, I would have got trapped in the match-up game. People would only feel that they have seen a similar character somewhere.”

As for Bachchan, Ramu says as a filmmaker he always feels tempted to try something new with Bachchan…to challenge the actor in him. “And once again people will see him in a new light. As for negativity, I don’t think Gabbar was negative in the first place. If he was, why was he used to promote biscuits soon after the release?”

Ramu is not concerned about the loss of image and fan following if the film fails to live up to the expectations of people. “The consumer is very selfish. If the film is ripped apart, there is nothing I can do. Nobody goes to watch a film because of my name. Had it been true, ‘Naach’ and ‘Nishabd’ would not have met such fate. And in between they would not have returned for ‘Sarkar’.” But this time there is an attempt to make him look silly? “Yes, there is, but nobody can stop a good film. After ‘Aks’ Rakeysh Mehra was projected as if he knows nothing about cinema. But look how things changed after ‘Rang De Basanti’.”

All said and done, is there something left to pay homage? “No”.

Hindu On Net

Arre O’ Samba!

SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO

‘Aag’ hits the screens today, but without all of the immortal lines of ‘Sholay’. We take a look at dialogues that have outlived their films in the recent times – from Mumbaiyya one-liners to Urdu couplets.

Smart talk Stills from ‘′Aag’

Aag, what Ram Gopal Varma calls as his “interpretation of Sholay,” releases today. When Amitabh Bachchan takes centre stage as Babban Singh, the audience will pitch him against late Amjad Khan’s character of Gabbar.

For many, watching Sholay is a karaoke experience. Having memorised the dialogues (Salim-Javed), the Sholay faithfuls would join Dharmendra in echoing “Kuttey mein tera koon peejaoonga,” or Amjad Khan in “Kitne Aadmi The?” Varma’s Aag, on the other hand, will tear away from the original and according to Varma, will not replicate all of the immortal lines. “My film is a tribute to Sholay and not a remake. Babban is an exotic looking, larger-than-life villain and is as dangerous as Gabbar. But the way he speaks will be different,” reasons Varma.

Don – the chase begins

Keep it short

Munna Bhai MBBS

“Which film’s dialogues have stayed in public memory in the last 15 years?” asks Amitabh Bachchan, talking to Friday Review. If Shah Rukh Khan as Don is widely heard on ringtones and ringback ton
es of mobile phone users declaring “Don ko pakhadna mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai,” that too cuts back to Amitabh Bachchan’s original Don (dialogues by Salim-Javed again) in 1978. Amitabh reasons t
hat the emphasis on dialogues has changed over the years. “This is the age of fast food; everything has to be precise and concise. If your laptop takes a few minutes to boot, you want to replace the hard disk. There’s no time for redundancy and rhetoric. We have to cater to this generation of youngsters. On the other hand, films in the 50s to the 80s emphasised on the written word,” he says.

The written word still rules, and blends to suit different contexts. Mumbaiyya language saw a revival thanks to Munna Bhai and Arshad Warsi. “Even today, many people on the streets call me ‘maamu.’ Mu
nna Bhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munna Bhai spoke in a language that people could relate to. It’s needless to add that only when the story, the concept and the film succeed, people remember the dialogues,” points out actor
Bomman Irani.

A stark departure from Don, Aag and Munna Bhai are films like Fanaa and Rang De Basanti. An easy blend of Urdu and Hindi hooked the younger lot to Fanaa. An
d Rang De Basanti (dialogues by Prasoon Joshi and Rensi D’Silva) made both ‘masti ki pathshaala’ and ‘Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna’ anthems for many a revolution across colle
ges. “Before RDB, I had planned to make another film on freedom fighters who preferred the sword to the pen. We got groups of youngsters in Delhi and Mumbai and discussed at length about the freedom movement and what they thought of the country. It was clear that they weren’t interested. I understood that I had to juxtapose the old with the new. This reflects in every aspect of the film – from the screen play to the dialogues and lyrics in songs. We needed Sarfaroshi ki tamanna as much as Roobaroo and Masti ki paathshala,” says Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.

In the film, Su, the Brit youngster, watches in dismay as Siddharth and his friends read lines from her script – Azadi meri dulhan hai – and chuckle “what’s his (Bhagat Singh) problem? Who speaks like this?” Of course, the brat pack undergoes a sea change and get into the spirit of the roles of the freedom fighters. Lines from the Bhagvad Gita echo in the background as the freedom fighters endure their days of torment in prison.

Rang De Basanti

Fanaa, meanwhile, is a throw back to the days of the shayari. Among the many quoted in the film, “Tere dil mein meri saason ko panaah mil jaye, tere ishq mein meri jaan fanaa ho jaye,”
remains the most popular. In Shaan’s voice, Subhanallah also became an anthem.

Lyricist and writer Javed Akhtar explains, “Don and Sholay captured the youngsters with smart one-liners. The other films presented couplets that were easy for the younger lot to understand. Many youngsters
cannot differentiate between Hindi and Urdu. They assume that what they can understand easily is Hindi and what takes them some time to decipher is Urdu. There is no clear boundary between spoken Urdu and Hindi. In many films and songs, what is used is neither pure Hindi nor Urdu. It’s Hindustani.”

And we’ll get to see more of this blend when Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Akbar-Jodha opens later this year with Hrithik and Aishwarya Rai.

Hindu On Net

KUALA LUMPUR 30 Ogos – Dua buah syarikat menyaman Datuk DJ Dave, anak lelakinya dan syarikat milik penyanyi itu kerana didakwa telah menggunakan satu program pada sambutan Hari Kemerdekaan ke- 50 oleh kerajaan tanpa kebenaran atau lesen syarikat tersebut.

Symphony Light & Sound Services Sdn. Bhd. dan Carlson White (M) Sdn. Bhd. selaku defendan pertama dan defendan kedua memfailkan writ saman melalui firma guaman, Tetuan Thomas Philip di Pejabat Pendaftar Mahkamah Tinggi di sini.

Dalam saman tersebut, kedua-dua syarikat itu menamakan Dave @ Irwan Shah Abdullah, 59, defendan pertama, anaknya, Shazdarween, 25, defendan kedua dan Shahdave Holdings Sdn. Bhd. (SHSB) defendan ketiga.

Plaintif-plaintif memohon perisytiharan bahawa mereka adalah pemilik bersama harta intelektual dalam satu program yang menjadi dasar sambutan Hari Kemerdekaan ke-50 yang dilaksanakan oleh Kementerian Kebudayaan, Kesenian dan Warisan melalui SHSB.

Mereka juga memohon perisytiharan bahawa SHSB atau Dave secara salah dan tanpa kebenaran atau lesen yang dimiliki mereka telah menggunakan program itu atau sebahagiannya untuk faedah defendan-defendan.

Turut dipohon ialah perisytiharan bahawa defendan-defendan atau dua daripada mereka secara salah dan dengan niat melakukan penipuan ke atas pihak plaintif dan menyembunyikan hasilnya daripada mereka.

Berikutan itu, mereka memohon injunksi menghalang defendan-defendan atau dua daripada mereka melalui ejen atau pekerja mereka daripada menggunakan atau mengeksploitasi secara langsung atau tidak langsung program itu atau sebahagian daripadanya.

Plaintif turut menuntut ganti rugi yang tidak dinyatakan jumlahnya dan pampasan atas dasar ekuiti.

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Orang ramai memeriahkan sambutan ulang tahun kemerdekaan yang ke-50 di Dataran Putrajaya, malam tadi.

PUTRAJAYA 30 Ogos – Lebih 150,000 pengunjung membanjiri Dataran Putrajaya di Presint 3 di sini, bagi meraikan sambutan Ambang Merdeka peringkat Putrajaya sempena ulang tahun kemerdekaan negara ke-50.

Laungan ‘Merdeka’ bergema pada detik 12 tengah malam di Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan ini yang menjadi lambang pencapaian sistem pentadbiran awam Malaysia.

Kemeriahan itu mencapai kemuncaknya apabila ratusan ribu rakyat terpegun menyaksikan pertunjukan bunga api selama 20 minit oleh pasukan Tamaya Kitahara Firework dari Jepun yang menyertai Pertandingan Bunga Api Antarabangsa Putrajaya yang sedang berlangsung di sini.

Pasukan itu menampilkan persembahan bunga api yang menakjubkan bertemakan iklim musim sejuk, panas, luruh dan bunga.

Jepun merupakan pasukan terakhir menunjukkan kehebatan dalam pertandingan bunga api berirama itu selepas Malaysia tampil sebagai pasukan pembuka tirai pertandingan pada 18 Ogos lalu, diikuti oleh Australia (22 Ogos) dan Itali (25 Ogos) bagi merebut Trofi Emas Merdeka.

Terdahulu, sambutan Ambang Merdeka yang bermula pada pukul 10.30 malam ini diserikan dengan pertunjukan kesenian dan kebudayaan pelbagai kaum selain persembahan artis-artis popular tanah air antaranya Awie, Dina, Bob AF dan Mas Idayu.

Hadir sama menyaksikan sambutan itu ialah Presiden Perbadanan Putrajaya, Tan Sri Samsudin Osman.

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Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) menyediakan pelbagai program menarik untuk tontonan seisi keluarga khusus sempena sambutan ulang tahun kemerdekaan negara yang ke-50. Program-program pilihan khas ini menemui para penonton menerusi RTM1 dan RTM2.

RTM1 – 31 Ogos

(Tagline: Gemilang Merdeka)

* 7.30 pagi

- Siaran langsung Perarakan Hari Kebangsaan dari Dataran Merdeka.

* 11.05 pagi

- Tayangan Dokumentari Khas: Menuju Kemerdekaan terbitan Filem Negara Malaysia. Dokumentari ini menyingkap kisah perjuangan rakyat negara ini mencapai kemerdekaan bermula sejak zaman penjajahan Portugis, Belanda dan Inggeris.

* 3.05 petang

- Teledrama: Suatu Persinggahan. Dilakonkan oleh Errynne Erryna, Mandy Chong, Choolan Khoo dan Mubarak Majid, drama ini menceritakan lara hati Mui Ying dan Ah Fong yang mendambakan erti kebahagiaan hidup berumahtangga. Namun, impian mereka hancur berkecai apabila suasana kehidupan mereka diasak dengan gelora komunis yang semakin memuncak keganasannya.

* 5.30 petang (31 Ogos dan 1 September)

- Drama kanak-kanak Hanafiah Merdeka. Berkisar mengenai kejayaan tiga kanak-kanak; Hazri, Lee Wee Siang dan Sethupathi dalam peraduan menulis esei sempena kemerdekaan hasil penceritaan seorang lelaki tua bernama Hanafiah. Drama ini dibintangi oleh Noorzamzam Zakaria, Aurangzeb Khan, Shafimie Saedon, Chee Ka Shing dan ramai lagi.

* 8.45 malam

- Meriahkan sambutan merdeka anda dengan menyaksikan siaran langsung Perayaan Raksasa Merdeka Ke-50 yang dipancarkan dari Stadium Merdeka. Menariknya acara gilang gemilang ini bakal dihadiri ketua-ketua negara luar yang dijemput khas.

1 September

* 2.00 petang

- Teledrama: Hero. Mengupas konflik cinta dan pertentangan antara sahabat karib. Hero dibintangi oleh Fiz Fairuz, Sofie Jikan, Yalal Chin, Aznah Hamid, Almy Nadia, Wong Sip Nen, Saifullah Ghazali dan Azman Ahmad.

RTM2 – 31 Ogos

(Tagline: Fiesta Emas Merdeka)

* 7.30 pagi

- Jangan ketinggalan meraikan merdeka dengan menyaksikan siaran langsung Perarakan Hari Kebangsaan dari Dataran Merdeka.

* 12.30 tengah hari

- Di Hujung Kemarau (setiap Isnin hingga Jumaat). Drama bersiri berunsur patriotik ini disiarkan menerusi slot Galeria Famili. Drama yang dilakonkan oleh Razali Buyong, Baharuddin Hj. Omar, Shaharudin Sulaiman, Sharif Nor dan Zainudin Ismail ini mengisahkan perjuangan dan susah payah kehidupan orang-orang Melayu menentang pengaruh komunis.

* 8.55 malam

- Gerak Khas Istimewa Merdeka bertajuk Darah Merdeka. Ia merupakan kesinambungan daripada episod minggu sebelumnya. Ikuti kesudahan cerita anggota polis yang berjaya menjejaki Hasan bagi membantu mereka menyelesaikan kes bunuh yang didalangi Dino. Pelakonnya: Norman Hakim, Abby Abadi, Farid Amirul, A. Galak dan Angeline Tan.

1 September

* 10.00 pagi

- Teledrama Rencong. Memaparkan kisah lima pelajar Sarjana Arkeologi iaitu Aizat, Lisa, Sofea, Raymond dan Remy yang melakukan kajian di sebuah tapak cari gali sehingga menemui serpihan Gendang Dong Son yang merupakan artifak zaman logam dan akhirnya membawa kepada penemuan jongkong emas. Drama terbitan RTM ini menampilkan pelakon Hasnol Rahmat, Nabila Huda, Haryati Hamzah, Soffi Jikan, Johnny Heng, Loganathan, Sobri Anuar dan Den Wahab.

* 10.30 malam

- Program hiburan Zoom In Khas Merdeka. Menampilkan para penyanyi terkenal tanah air seperti Nora, Jay Jay, Deja Moss, Shamrin, Kelvin, Jerry, Eja, Zarina, Haziq, Ridzuan dan Dia Fadilla. Mereka akan mendendangkan lagu-lagu patriotik yang masih segar dalam ingatan. – RTM

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