Bollywood Take Two - Bridges over troubled waters
I don’t know if what you’re referring to as music are just the big production numbers in our cinema or if you’re talking about any interlude in a film that has a song. If the former, I agree entirely with you when you say not every film should carry these items. But if you mean the latter, I disagree, though I do think that, in your words, “the musical format is an ‘Indian’ way of telling stories.”
I think it very much is, but before I explain why, I once again come back to that argument we had over "Black". You said then that IF the subject is such, THEN it shouldn’t be over-melodramatised so. Now you say only certain films should have music. Put another way, you’re saying IF the subject is such, THEN it shouldn’t be presented with songs. And I have only my old argument to give you: I don’t think the subject should EVER dictate how a movie should be made. It’s a filmmaker’s view, an individual creator’s take on the subject that should help him take his movie in whatever direction he chooses. PJ alert, but if a director wants to make a sci-fi movie about a planet with binary moons and suns, and if he wants to have a song that goes "Chanda hai two, mera suraj hai two", heck, I’m all for it, provided he knows what he’s doing.
You say "Sarkar" was better off without songs? Sure, that’s because Ram Gopal Varma, for all his other strengths, is quite lousy with song picturisation. Try watching his full-fledged musical "Rangeela" today, and you’ll see how his idea of translating songs to screen is merely choreography. That’s why "Sarkar" didn’t need songs. But imagine if Mani Ratnam had made "Sarkar" the "Nayakan" way. That Ilayaraja classic, "Thenpaandi Cheemayile" – how wonderfully it underlined the protagonist’s state of mind! What’s to say that Ratnam couldn’t have used a similar piece of music as a motif throughout his (hypothetical) "Sarkar"! (And, frankly, it’s quite depressing that such a filmmaker now wants to move away from song picturisations, when he’s one of the best practitioners of the art.)
And I come to my point: Songs are NEVER the problem. The problem is always the filmmakers who (a) have no ear for music and therefore accept any garbage from music directors just because it has a beat, (b) have no sense of screenplay and therefore do not know where to place the songs, and (c) have no understanding of the power of music, of what a song can do to their film that mere dialogues or scenes cannot do.
And that’s why I don’t see any issue about songs being our way of telling a story. We have our own cuisine, our own customs and traditions, so why can’t we have our own grammar of filmmaking? In fact, one of the ways I judge a director is by how well he’s able to use songs. Because most of today’s filmmakers have a sense of screenplay, of dialogue, but few of songs. And I’ll take your very example of "Dil Chahta Hai" to explain this, because I thought all the songs were beautifully made necessary to the film.
You had a problem with "Kaisi Hai Ye"? But that wasn’t about “dripping technicolour” at all. Sid, for the first time in his life, is combining his passions – the woman he’s in love with and the art he’s in love with. So the whole sequence is about how, as he paints her, his mind is bursting with joy – the technicolour phantasmagoria is very much a part of the whole thing. I practically blissed out when there’s this crescent moon in the sky and it inverts itself and the next shot shows an inverted crescent-shaped chunk of white in his subject’s hair. And that combination of nature and love is perfectly encapsulated in the lyrics. "Kaisi hai yeh rut ke jis mein phool banke dil khile" – it’s the season when his heart is flowering – and he continues, "Ghul rahe hain rang saare, ghul rahi hai khushbuein", as a painter would. If not technicolour, what else could do justice to that level of intoxication? And that’s when I knew Farhan Akhtar was someone to watch out for.
No other film culture in the world combines the two art forms of music and cinema – three, actually, because everyone conveniently forgets lyrics. That’s poetry. Would Hum Dono" have worked without its songs? Sure, maybe it would have been “tauter”, it would have had more room to “explore its characters” and everything else you say. But do I really want to see "Hum Dono" without "Abhi Na Jaao", without "Allah Tero Naam", without "Main Zindagi Ka Saath"? Hell no!
To wrap up, I’m including a section from a piece I did for this Canadian-Indian magazine named Kala. (I can’t locate it on the web. So if any kind soul could provide the URL, I’d be most grateful.) It gives a few reasons why I think – no, why I KNOW – songs are present in our movies, even if the tone isn’t serious, and even if the examples I’ve used are some of the more obvious ones. (That was the brief.)
I’d genuinely like for us to continue this discussion, and that’s why I’ve rambled on so. Looking forward to your response, especially with respect to the lyrical angle of it all.
"Songs are the sips of water between spicy curry meals: Indian movies are filled with heavy-duty dramatic moments, and songs help to take a breather every now and then. Like the "More Piya" sequence in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s "Devdas" – before the number, the stage is set for Paro’s mother’s thundering humiliation, and afterwards, the actual thundering humiliation happens. But in between, seeing Paro and Devdas simply, quietly being in love, it’s romance as well as respite.
Songs are a bridge over troubled waters: You are at the point in "Lagaan" where you need to show how a team of rustic Indians is gearing up to beat the British at their own game – literally, their own game of cricket. And it’s ungainly to show individual scenes of running, then exercising, then doing this, then doing that. How much better, then, if you get AR Rahman to compose the thumpingly upbeat "Baar Baar Haan," and picturise it with a montage of the training. The music links the disparate images, and by the time it ends, you’re all set to cheer the underdogs. "Apni Jeet Ho, Unki Haar Haan"... Indeed!
Songs are a yellow-tipped marker: Sometimes, in the movies, you just need to bask in the moment. The dialogues have been delivered, the revelation’s been revealed, yet something’s needed to highlight that instant before going on to the next dialogue, the next revelation. That something is sometimes a song. Case in point: Waheeda Rehman in "Guide", after she mentally breaks free from her stuffy husband. We know she breaks free because of the scenes that tell us so, but when she bursts out with "Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai", that’s when we really know she’s broken free.
Songs are a bathroom break: It’s a strange thing – we Indian audiences like to get full value for the money we pay for a movie ticket, and that usually means a three-hour running time. Yet, many of us can’t sit still even till the interval at the halfway mark. It’s either that ill-advised litre of Pepsi that, combined with the cold blast of the air-conditioning, is making us squirm, or it’s the need for a cigarette. The solution? A song, of course – especially these days, as few directors seem to know how to properly blend in music into their narratives. So the minute the leads take off to the Alps for some romance, it’s a signal for us to take off to the bathroom for some relief.
Songs are mini transfusions of culture: We all know this to be true of people today – it’s easier to convince someone to watch "Kisna" twice, back to back, than to get them to listen to a CD of, say, Raag Pahadi. But put on a CD of Hindi film hits – "Kora Kaagaz Tha Yeh Man Mera" ("Aradhana"), "Karvatein Badalte Rahe" ("Aap Ki Kasam") – and you’ll find them humming along, probably unaware that what they’re listening to is... Raag Pahadi. Songs do that, they sugarcoat things that are good for us but that we wouldn’t touch with a bargepole otherwise.
Songs are dialogues that can’t be spoken: If you’re a guy of today’s sensibilities, and a guy friend came up, put an arm around your shoulder, looked lovingly at you, and said "Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin Chhodenge", you’d surely think he’s either gay, or... uh, gay. But those are exactly the words of the famous song with Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan in "Sholay", and no one thought they were anything but simply best buddies. What would have been awkward, even purple-prose in words, was transformed into music and lyrics and made immortal.
Songs are... well, simply entertainment: They are about colour and glamour and dance and simply feeling good at the moment – for, at the end of the day, Indian cinema is mainly unapologetic entertainment, much like what Hollywood used to deliver before it got all self-conscious and serious. This isn’t to dismiss those who seek out the more intellectual, intense kinds of cinema, but just to say that losing oneself in the flights of fancy and imagination that songs provide is as valid a response at the movies."
Cheers
Baradwaj
I think it very much is, but before I explain why, I once again come back to that argument we had over "Black". You said then that IF the subject is such, THEN it shouldn’t be over-melodramatised so. Now you say only certain films should have music. Put another way, you’re saying IF the subject is such, THEN it shouldn’t be presented with songs. And I have only my old argument to give you: I don’t think the subject should EVER dictate how a movie should be made. It’s a filmmaker’s view, an individual creator’s take on the subject that should help him take his movie in whatever direction he chooses. PJ alert, but if a director wants to make a sci-fi movie about a planet with binary moons and suns, and if he wants to have a song that goes "Chanda hai two, mera suraj hai two", heck, I’m all for it, provided he knows what he’s doing.
You say "Sarkar" was better off without songs? Sure, that’s because Ram Gopal Varma, for all his other strengths, is quite lousy with song picturisation. Try watching his full-fledged musical "Rangeela" today, and you’ll see how his idea of translating songs to screen is merely choreography. That’s why "Sarkar" didn’t need songs. But imagine if Mani Ratnam had made "Sarkar" the "Nayakan" way. That Ilayaraja classic, "Thenpaandi Cheemayile" – how wonderfully it underlined the protagonist’s state of mind! What’s to say that Ratnam couldn’t have used a similar piece of music as a motif throughout his (hypothetical) "Sarkar"! (And, frankly, it’s quite depressing that such a filmmaker now wants to move away from song picturisations, when he’s one of the best practitioners of the art.)
And I come to my point: Songs are NEVER the problem. The problem is always the filmmakers who (a) have no ear for music and therefore accept any garbage from music directors just because it has a beat, (b) have no sense of screenplay and therefore do not know where to place the songs, and (c) have no understanding of the power of music, of what a song can do to their film that mere dialogues or scenes cannot do.
And that’s why I don’t see any issue about songs being our way of telling a story. We have our own cuisine, our own customs and traditions, so why can’t we have our own grammar of filmmaking? In fact, one of the ways I judge a director is by how well he’s able to use songs. Because most of today’s filmmakers have a sense of screenplay, of dialogue, but few of songs. And I’ll take your very example of "Dil Chahta Hai" to explain this, because I thought all the songs were beautifully made necessary to the film.
You had a problem with "Kaisi Hai Ye"? But that wasn’t about “dripping technicolour” at all. Sid, for the first time in his life, is combining his passions – the woman he’s in love with and the art he’s in love with. So the whole sequence is about how, as he paints her, his mind is bursting with joy – the technicolour phantasmagoria is very much a part of the whole thing. I practically blissed out when there’s this crescent moon in the sky and it inverts itself and the next shot shows an inverted crescent-shaped chunk of white in his subject’s hair. And that combination of nature and love is perfectly encapsulated in the lyrics. "Kaisi hai yeh rut ke jis mein phool banke dil khile" – it’s the season when his heart is flowering – and he continues, "Ghul rahe hain rang saare, ghul rahi hai khushbuein", as a painter would. If not technicolour, what else could do justice to that level of intoxication? And that’s when I knew Farhan Akhtar was someone to watch out for.
No other film culture in the world combines the two art forms of music and cinema – three, actually, because everyone conveniently forgets lyrics. That’s poetry. Would Hum Dono" have worked without its songs? Sure, maybe it would have been “tauter”, it would have had more room to “explore its characters” and everything else you say. But do I really want to see "Hum Dono" without "Abhi Na Jaao", without "Allah Tero Naam", without "Main Zindagi Ka Saath"? Hell no!
To wrap up, I’m including a section from a piece I did for this Canadian-Indian magazine named Kala. (I can’t locate it on the web. So if any kind soul could provide the URL, I’d be most grateful.) It gives a few reasons why I think – no, why I KNOW – songs are present in our movies, even if the tone isn’t serious, and even if the examples I’ve used are some of the more obvious ones. (That was the brief.)
I’d genuinely like for us to continue this discussion, and that’s why I’ve rambled on so. Looking forward to your response, especially with respect to the lyrical angle of it all.
"Songs are the sips of water between spicy curry meals: Indian movies are filled with heavy-duty dramatic moments, and songs help to take a breather every now and then. Like the "More Piya" sequence in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s "Devdas" – before the number, the stage is set for Paro’s mother’s thundering humiliation, and afterwards, the actual thundering humiliation happens. But in between, seeing Paro and Devdas simply, quietly being in love, it’s romance as well as respite.
Songs are a bridge over troubled waters: You are at the point in "Lagaan" where you need to show how a team of rustic Indians is gearing up to beat the British at their own game – literally, their own game of cricket. And it’s ungainly to show individual scenes of running, then exercising, then doing this, then doing that. How much better, then, if you get AR Rahman to compose the thumpingly upbeat "Baar Baar Haan," and picturise it with a montage of the training. The music links the disparate images, and by the time it ends, you’re all set to cheer the underdogs. "Apni Jeet Ho, Unki Haar Haan"... Indeed!
Songs are a yellow-tipped marker: Sometimes, in the movies, you just need to bask in the moment. The dialogues have been delivered, the revelation’s been revealed, yet something’s needed to highlight that instant before going on to the next dialogue, the next revelation. That something is sometimes a song. Case in point: Waheeda Rehman in "Guide", after she mentally breaks free from her stuffy husband. We know she breaks free because of the scenes that tell us so, but when she bursts out with "Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai", that’s when we really know she’s broken free.
Songs are a bathroom break: It’s a strange thing – we Indian audiences like to get full value for the money we pay for a movie ticket, and that usually means a three-hour running time. Yet, many of us can’t sit still even till the interval at the halfway mark. It’s either that ill-advised litre of Pepsi that, combined with the cold blast of the air-conditioning, is making us squirm, or it’s the need for a cigarette. The solution? A song, of course – especially these days, as few directors seem to know how to properly blend in music into their narratives. So the minute the leads take off to the Alps for some romance, it’s a signal for us to take off to the bathroom for some relief.
Songs are mini transfusions of culture: We all know this to be true of people today – it’s easier to convince someone to watch "Kisna" twice, back to back, than to get them to listen to a CD of, say, Raag Pahadi. But put on a CD of Hindi film hits – "Kora Kaagaz Tha Yeh Man Mera" ("Aradhana"), "Karvatein Badalte Rahe" ("Aap Ki Kasam") – and you’ll find them humming along, probably unaware that what they’re listening to is... Raag Pahadi. Songs do that, they sugarcoat things that are good for us but that we wouldn’t touch with a bargepole otherwise.
Songs are dialogues that can’t be spoken: If you’re a guy of today’s sensibilities, and a guy friend came up, put an arm around your shoulder, looked lovingly at you, and said "Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin Chhodenge", you’d surely think he’s either gay, or... uh, gay. But those are exactly the words of the famous song with Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan in "Sholay", and no one thought they were anything but simply best buddies. What would have been awkward, even purple-prose in words, was transformed into music and lyrics and made immortal.
Songs are... well, simply entertainment: They are about colour and glamour and dance and simply feeling good at the moment – for, at the end of the day, Indian cinema is mainly unapologetic entertainment, much like what Hollywood used to deliver before it got all self-conscious and serious. This isn’t to dismiss those who seek out the more intellectual, intense kinds of cinema, but just to say that losing oneself in the flights of fancy and imagination that songs provide is as valid a response at the movies."
Cheers
Baradwaj
posted by Reel Two @ Friday, July 08, 2005
33 comments
