New Sholay - Ram Gopal Varma

Much has been written about the Ram Gopal Varma and Sascha Sippy tussle over the rights of Sholay. The court verdict finally landed in favour of Sascha Sippy, chairman of Sholay Media and Entertainment. Ram Gopal Varma had to give up the use of the famous title as well as the popular character names like Basanti, Jai and Veeru and Dhanno.

But there is a new twist in the tale! After denying Ram Gopal Varma, the much sought after rights of this film have now been given to Pritish Nandy Communications to remake the film, officially. That’s not all - the film will also be made in an animated version, very soon.
A source adds, “There were many makers who had been vying for the rights of the film, but PNC finally won the deal. Production on the animated version of Sholay is scheduled to start soon. The cast and crew for the official remake is also being planned and top league directors like Shankar, Priyadarshan and Sanjay Gupta are being considered for this project. After that, the prequel and the sequel will also be made. The $100 million deal was finalised in London today.”

When contacted Sascha Sippy confirmed the news saying, “Sholay is undoubtedly the biggest movie brand that India has had and as custodians of that brand we want to be careful and responsible with it. We have chosen Pritish Nandy Communications as our partners as we like and appreciate their work and approach.”

No show…

Big B skips promotional event for Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag in Delhi, owing to his mom’s ill health

Amitabh Bachchan failed to turn up at the press conference of his new film Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag. According to unit members, Bachchan was to fly to New Delhi on Tuesday morning, stay the night there and return to Mumbai on Wednesday. But he excused himself from going to Delhi as his mother’s health needed his attention and therefore decided to drop out at the last minute.”

PVR cinema in New Delhi had made huge preparations to welcome the superstar. According to a unit member, “40 feet-high vinyl standees of Bachchan’s Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag were especially made for the occasion. The two standees must’ve cost them at least Rs 2.5 lakh. Besides, that a presidential suit was booked at the Le Meridian Delhi. PVR Plaza had even cancelled two shows!”

Salu Sabarwal of PVR Cinemas, New Delhi when contacted confirmed saying,” Mr. Bachchan was quite excited about coming to Delhi for the press conference but his mother fell ill and he had to cancel his visit here. In fact, we were in constant touch with him. We had cancelled two shows but we have now opened the shows.” When asked about which film was being screened at PVR Plaza, Sabarwal said,” We had Chak De playing there and the shows are now houseful.” Ramgopal Varma, Nisha Kothari and Prashant Raj addressed the press conference of the film.

He was one of the heroes in the original. Now, he is the most fearsome villain.

Here he talks about the role and the film.

Did you feel sad when Gabbar was christened Babban?

No, actually Ramu (Ram Gopal Varma) took the decision that he should be called Babban. I think that Ramu never thought that he was remaking Sholay. It was just an inspiration and he has interpreted the film in its own way.

When Sarkar was released he said that he was inspired from the film Godfather. Something similar can be said for this film too — that it has been inspired from Sholay but with its own contemporary setting.

Ramu has changed the characterisation and has given a new look, a new kind of conversation, new behaviour of the characters and so on. At no point while shooting the film did I ever realise that we are remaking a film neither was I conscious of the fact that in Sholay I did that while in this film I’m doing something else.

I left everything to Ramu did whatever he instructed me to do. Now lets just see how the film fares at the box office.

You just mentioned that Sholay was inspired from few films from the west. Have you seen the films of Sergio Leone (Italian filmmaker)?

Yes, and they all were really good. Those films are also known as ‘Spaghetti westerns’ because most of the films were shot in countries like Italy.

Sholay was inspired from The Magnificent Seven, which in turn was inspired from The Seven Samurai. I think its necessary for the creative evolution of a performer that he should get inspired from several sources.

In this case Sholay was an inspiration and Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag is a small river or a distributary of Sholay.

It’s been many weeks since the promos of the film started. What’s the feedback like?

To be very honest I have not received that many SMSes and I really can’t fathom how I should I take it (smiles). But some of the people I’ve met said that my look in the film is very menacing and fearful.

In most of the films I have played good-natured roles and people normally associate me with such roles. But this role is a deviation from an actor’s point of view.

Through this role I got an opportunity to do something different and it’s a challenge for me. Every actor in his or her career thinks of doing different roles, unique from what he or she has been doing earlier.

You may say that it was an insane act from my side. Viewers may get confused thinking that they have always seen me doing positive roles and now he is doing something wrong, but after all said and done they too should realise that I am different person in my personal life and the roles I portray in my films.

No one is talking about the chemistry between you and Mohanlal.

I have always maintained the fact that Mohanlal is one of the best actors in our country. No can doubt his acting potential. He is from the south where the film industry is far more organised.

I have seen many of his movies where he conveys extraordinary things in a simple manner. He may look very ordinary in real life but whenever he comes on screen, he is simply amazing. He is also very calm and quiet on the sets.

I respect him a lot as an actor and am really happy working with him in this film. But at the same time I felt sad that our roles were opposed to each other and that I had to fight with him.

You have seen both worlds — Thakur’s and Narsimha’s. Which one do you like the most?

Both Hari Bhai and Mohanlal worked in different environments and they are both amazing actors with many national awards to their credit. So it would be wrong to say that one is bad and the other is good.

Tell us bit about your international projects.

Right now it’s just one film, Shantaram, starring Johnny Depp directed by Mira Nair and produced by Warner Brothers. She has sent me the script and I have gone through it. She has also asked for dates from January to May next year.

The good news is The Last Lear would be screened at the Toronto Film festival.

Yes, Rituparna Ghosh has directed this English film, which would be a part of the master’s section over there. I don’t know much about the rules and regulation of film festivals but from what I hear, films which are selected for the master’s section have their own importance and are revered a lot.

Have Jaya and Abhishek seen the film?

They have seen the film in bits and pieces. There was also a trial a few days back but it was in the editing stage. In true sense they have yet to see the complete film.

Also the rights of the original Sholay were sold to PNC. Your comments.

Well, I think it’s purely a business decision. How can I comment on it? I think PNC has bought the rights of the film to either make a sequel or some animation flick.

‘Ramu Ki Aag’ has been declared as the biggest disaster of 2007 and director Ramu is the man, who apparently is ready to take on all the blame.

Ramu has annoyed Big B and millions of ‘Sholay’ fans in fact, the director has been receiving various SMS and one of them reads, “Hi, Sir; To call Aag a piece of junk would be demeaning junk. What happened to the colors of ‘Rangeela’ and the grit of ‘Satya’?”

In his interviews, Ramu has been claiming that, “Making ‘Sholay’ was the biggest mistake.” The director also added, “If someone else had made ‘Aag’, how would I react being a ‘Sholay’ fan? I’d probably hate it as much as most people. The original is too deeply embedded in the public’s psyche. Yes, I take blame for every actor, cameraman, dialogue writer, and technician in ‘Aag’.”

Sholay’s Ramu has received bad reviews and brickbats for his movie. Looks like the filmmaker has burned his fingers in some serious ‘Aag’.

After all the hype Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag turned out to be one of the biggest duds at the box office. Lets take a closer look at the ticket window business with Rohit Khilnani on Filmy Fiscal.

Ram Gopal Varma’s talent as a filmmaker has been under a cloud for sometime now with series of flops under his belt viz ‘James’, ‘Shiva’, ‘Darna Zaroori Hai’, ‘Naach’ and  ‘Nishabdh’. However, the dismal performance of his latest venture — ‘RGV Ki Aag’ — at the Box Office, has doused any hope of the maverick filmmaker weaving his old magic. The failure of his latest movie seems to be the last straw for the talented director, who has recently directed spate of flops.

On ‘RGV Ki Aag’, Ramu himself had stated that people will not like his film. And that certainly turned out to be the understatement of the year. While Ramu is used to be torn apart by the critics, it’s tougher for him to ignore how phenomenally the film has flopped at the Box Office.

Undeterred by the criticism, Ramu seems to be quite an expert at reverse psychology. Instead of defending his rather shocking attempt to recreate ‘Sholay’, he has decided to plead guilty as charged that ‘RGV Ki Aag’ was one of his most bizarre attempts at film-making. Commenting on his lates fiasco, he said:” I was nuts to attempt to remake Sholay.”

The road to Ramu’s downfall started ironically with his film ‘Road’ followed by others.
Ironically, with his latest movie bombing at the Box Office, Ramu is now in a damage control mode. The release of ‘Sarkar Raj’ has now been brought forward by a couple of months, while his next venture ‘Darling’ is going to be released in three languages to ensure that the film has an audience.

Though, Ramu has embarked on a crisis management exercise, we have a pretty simple solution for him — just make a good film –  and we know you can prove us right for a change.

There is no beating around the bush when it comes to the verdict on Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag.

“It’s the worst film I have seen in my entire life,” says a moviegoer outside a Delhi theater.

To start with, the rustic locales of Ramgarh which gave a sense of realism to the setting of the 1975 blockbuster has now been transported into suburban Mumbai with most of the film shot on film sets with artificial lighting – stylish but still leaves one feeling claustrophobic.

Though, the storyline of director Ram Gopal Varma’s film is a spin-off of the original, the lack of characterisation proves to be the jarring difference between the classic and this forgettable flick.

Sample this – the most famous villain Gabbar Singh is now Babban Singh, never mind the name, but the evergreen dialogues of Gabbar like ‘Kitne aadmi the’ is now poorly compensated with Babban’s facial contortions.

Even the friendship of Raj and Heero is shallow – forget about the Yeh Dosti bonding that one could die for. This 21st Century Jai and Veeru remain strangers till the very end and same goes for the chemistry or rather the lack of it between Raj and Durga.

Speaking of the leading ladies, Nisha Kothari as the vivacious Basanti or Ghungroo in this case, is a tapori with a bidi hanging from her lip, who also happens to be a Rajinikanth fan.

She struts around town in her auto personified as ‘laila’ but all through we just wait for her to light her bidi and actually smoke one! So, much like the movie – this aag too just doesn’t light up.

With critics and fans trashing the movie, it looks like watching this one would be pure sooocide.

“Kitney?” This is the line you’ve been waiting for, because this is where the real connect between the old and the new begins. Instantly, you are back to the original. To the “kitney aadmi thhey?” To bearded brigand Gabbar, in faded olive green fatigues, boots and whip cracking in a mad medley, as he questions his three cohorts. Laughing his head off. And then blowing their heads off, high-pitched whine dying on the rocky outcrops of Ramgarh, along with the three disgraced dakus.

Yesterday’s “kitney?” belongs not to Gabbar, but Babban. To Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, not to Sholay. To Amitabh Bachchan, who’s taken on Gabbar’s mantle, not in Ramgarh, but in Mumbai. Babban asks the question. Babban laughs. Babban shoots his goons dead. But, there is no frisson when Babban asks, laughs, shoots. Your hair doesn’t stand on end. It happens. You look at Babban’s scar on the nose, admire the make-up man’s handiwork, and grit your teeth. And wait for the bitter end.

Within months of its release in the summer of 1975, when Gabbar Singh first said those words, Sholay became a milestone. You remember that year for the Emergency and for the first spaghetti western India made, which turned out to be a monster hit. Zanjeer ( ‘73) and Deewar ( also ‘75) bookended it; Yaadon Ki Baraat started the whole vendetta series in Bollywood. All three were superhits. But not one of them could rival Sholay. It became, then and forever, much more than a mere movie. It divided Bollywood neatly down the middle: BS or AS.

Sometimes, very rarely, a movie becomes magic. Each of its moving parts meshes so beautifully with the other that it becomes difficult to imagine the movie without it. Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay was one such. Jai and Veeru, aka Amitabh and Dharmendra, may not have been the first buddy pair in Bollywood, but they re-defined dosti in the movies, even if Jai folded his long legs in that dinky sidecar of the bike, normally reserved for comic Parsi characters. Motormouth Basanti and her flick-tailed ghodi Dhanno, now that was a great pair too.

Thakur Saheb’s voluminous grey shawl and the horrifying secrets it hid will always be remembered as Sanjiv Kumar’s most visible prop. And the haunting melody on the harmonica Amitabh serenades the widow Jaya with — close your eyes, and you are transported. Thirty-seven years back, instantly.

Ram Gopal Varma said, when he started out, that it would be a remake. But then came the prolonged legal wrangle with the Sippys over the copyright. It sputtered, nearly sank, and then got back on the floors as a “tribute”. In the last week or so, in the run-up to yesterday’s release, he’s been quoted as saying that it is a “representation”.

So Sanjiv Kumar’s vengeful Thakur is played by Mohanlal’s Narasimha. Jai is Raj, Veeru is Heero: the former is rank newcomer Prashant Raj, who has none of the broody drop-dead sexy feel of the old Jai ( remember that groovy red-shirt and blue jeans?); the latter is Ajay Devgan, who has none of Veeru’s muscular humour (that priceless chakki peecing sequence). This has to be, doubtlessly, his worst role till date. And to even compare Nisha Kothari’s graceless Ghungroo with Hema Malini’s Basanti is sacrilege.

Why did RGV, who claims to have seen the movie 27 times, and counting, do this? Bad judgement? Or pure hubris?

Clearly, his skills as a master story-teller of the Mumbai underworld have deserted him. Sholay wasn’t an original: Ramesh Sippy borrowed liberally from Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone; in places, whole scenes from movies have been lifted. But the collaboration of director Sippy, scriptwriters Salim-Javed, music maestro R D Burman, scenarist Ram Yedekar, and each of the actors, turned it into an all-time magnificent entertainer.

At one place, Babban thunders: “sholay barsenge, sholay.” Or words to that effect. You wish he hadn’t. Because this is no aag, nor sholay. Just crumbling cinders.

Finally the verdict is out. And, curiously, filmmaker RAM GOPAL VARMA seems to have predicted the outcome rather precisely when was asked in an interview if he would like to show the remake of “Sholay” to the old gang. He remarked: “ ;No, I don’t think it will be wise. They’ll want to kill me…”

But what Varma hadn’t, perhaps, bargained for was a similar sentiment from an overwhelming section of the audience. Even as moviegoers gave it the thumbs-down, Varma defended his remake. “I think my version of ‘Sholay’ will appeal to three kinds of audiences — the die hard fans; those who have seen ‘Sholay’ but are not that into it; and those who’ve never even heard of the original.”

What Varma forgot was the branding of that film is so powerful that it left little scope for further interpretation. However, Varma was clear about the underlying sentiment. Said he, “See this film is simply my interpretation of ‘Sholay’. I’m just showing it in a different light and it is not necessary that mine needs to be better than the original.” If only the audiences understand that sublime emotion, then Varma’s gamble may just about pay off.

No, this isn’t the worst re-make you’re likely to see. Nor does Ram Gopal Varma’s Aag claim to have the wherewithal, the stock, substance and spice of Sippy’s Sholay.

Let’s just call Aag an interesting revisionist version of Sholay and be done with. The biggest mistake we can make while watching Varma go back to his favourite film (with his favourite actor, Amitabh Bachchan, playing a role that has already been done to ‘dread’) is to look for signs symbols and signals from the past.

Varma is to blame for doing some sequences as parodic homages to Sippy’s Sholay. What is that, if not a tittering tribute to the original, when the neo-Samba (played by a Varma regular Ravi Kale) comes back after being hammered by the two mercenary heroes. Bachchan -Babban does the Kitne aadmi tthey scene like a rude game of Russian roulette with the stakes being life and death.

Trouble is, Ramu treats the classic material with an iconoclastic take-it-or-edit-it-out casualness. Some of the original’s most celebrated sequences (such as Jai going to Basanti’s Mausi with Veeru’s rishta) have been defiantly and not quite definitively subverted to suit the stench of gangsterism that Varma’s cinema embraces almost intuitively. Every time he looks at human relations within a specific socio-political context, it’s almost always the underworld.

The biggest failing of Varma’s revisionist Sholay is its locational dereliction. The action unfolds in a series of indeterminate disembodied locations, mainly run-down ware-houses, half-constructed high-rise buildings and sets that seem to suggest nothing beyond the immediate present that exists between the ‘action’ and ‘cut’.

Cut to Sippy’s Sholay where the boulder-centric locations defined the outlaw’s menacing evil with geo-political accuracy…or the Thakur’s bustling family- home where the villain’s savage carnage occurred.

Here the slaughter of the police inspector’s family is strictly ritualistic…designed to shock rather than create a distending drama of dread and vendetta through the poignant annihilation of the family nucleus.

Mr. Bachchan invests the villain’s part with loads of nuanced diabolism, wacky humour and seemingly casual one-liners.

“Wait till his family hears this news break,” puns the film’s boisterous baddy Babban after breaking off some of police inspector Narsimha (Mohanlal)’s finger.

Sanjeev Kumar’s chopped hand from Sholay becomes Mohanlal’s severed fingers in Aag. The silently weeping-widow Radha from Sholay is transformed into a mutedly militant medico with not even a medical kit by her side to prove her sincerity towards her profession. And the post-Holi dacoit’s attack on Sholay become a Diwali mayhem in Aag. Festival sideline?

Inexcusably the action scenes (Pradhyumna) and the other technical aspects including the camera work (by Amit Roy who was so incredibly outstanding in some of Varma’s earlier films) don’t seem to liven up the luminous antecedents of this purported homage to a timeless film.

Barring one major sequence between Babban and his morally antithetical brother(Sachin), some light moments between Ghungroo the auto-ricksaw siren and Rehmat (Gaurav Kapoor) the blind Muslim patriarch’s playful son, and some perfunctory scenes between the vengeful cop and his non-practising medico-bahu(a.k.a as the widow in black) the inter-relationships among the character just don’t hold together,

Specially damaging to the neo-plot is the complete lack of camaraderie between the new-millennium Jai and Veeu, now known as Raj and Heero. Devgan and newcomer Prashaant Raj (competent in glimpses) look like two acquaintances who have recently met at a railway station. Simply playing Yeh dosti as part of the background score (judicious mix of nostalgia and modernity by Amar Mohile) doesn’t help create any bonding between the supposed buddies.

No, I am not going to think about the warm vibes between Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra in Sholay…Or the clean but carnal chemistry between Veeru and Basanti here reduced a touchy-touchy-feely-feely sticky liaison between Devgan and Nisha Kothari (she knows how to act, but now how much).

I’d still run back and view Ramu’s revisionist Sholay for the pleasure of watching Mr Bachchan’s Babban flick his tongue over his lips in a mix of menace and mischief, and for seeing the way Varma has steered the original material through murky waters to give Sholay a new-age look, albeit a look that’s more bleak than bright.

But then who said movies were always about light?