Monday, November 06, 2006

Era of Remakes in Bollywood

Suddenly it is a trend catching up with the film makers in Mumbai. The age of remakes is now here. Devdas, Don, Umrao Jaan, Sholey and the list goes on. Though the box office results of these 'remade' films are not so encouraging still the experiments are going on.

Remade films are the flavour of the season with those extravagant sets and costumes overshadowing their original. But when a film is remade, the comparisions between the original and the remade is inevitable. And the result is that the newer one fails to impress the critics and even the audience to some extent (if they had seen the original earlier) in most occasions. Younger generation may be thrilled to see their favourite hero in a new role. But not for those who had seen the original. When I saw Don a week ago this was the case since I had seen the original Amitabh starrer. One has to be careful when choosing the leads for their remade version as today most of the actors in Bollywood are stereotyped for their typical roles. So it is hard to accept Shah Rukh as Don in place of Amitabh as SRK is most known for his romantic roles.

Generally the films in an era are inspired by the socio-economic condition of the nation at that time. So can you imagine a movie like Coolie which starred angry man of that time Amitabh remade today? At that time nation was in the phase of industrialization and labour unions. So the film suited those circumstances and was well appreciated. But not now. Next in the pipeline of remade films is Sholey. Dont know how the audience will accept this seemingly misadventure with Big B who played Jai in the original playing the bad man Gabbar Singh here!! This week released Umrao Jaan also met with the same fate as other remakes with critics.

In the case of remakes with the plot already known to the viewers the film cast is under severe inspection as there is a comparision between the two versions. In my opinion when you are about to make a remake it should be a basic idea from the original with the film story relevant to today's scenario. With the media blowing the remade films out of proportion naturally the expectations are also high. Atleast till the movie is released film makers should not reveal it as a remake. But there is a catch here, you are about get to lot of publicity and hype if it is a projected as a remake right from day one. So there is a thin line between the two. So it should be a fine balance between retaining your fresh ideas, not merely copying from the original and living up to the expectations. As they say rather than remake, 'inspiration' is a better word.

But one question still remains unanswered. Does the era of remakes indicate the absence of fresh ideas? This is the question that is yet to be answered by the filmmakers.

Mr.Amitabh Bachchan is now Dr.Amitabh Bachchan with the Delhi University awarding him honorary doctorate. Congratulations Dr.Amitabh Bachchan.

Regards
Raveesh

6 comments:

  1. nice post .. i was about to write on the same topic.

    Remakes are made in Hollywood also. Blockbusters such as 'Titanic', 'King Kong' are remakes. This year Hollywood's most critically acclaimed movie 'The Departed' is a remake of the popular HongKong movie 'Internal Affairs'.

    You said box office results of these 'remade' films are not so encouraging . I won't agree with this since movie has grossed 75 crores in first week !!!.

    You also said SRK is most known for his romantic roles . Actually SRK came to limelight by doing negative roles in Baazigar and Darr.

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  2. hey!!!
    I dont think DON is a complete remake of original "DON". second half is completely different from "DON" that we appriciated.
    I went for the movie just for farhan akhtar (little genious). Only thing that falla apart from the movie is shahrukh khan. He just does not suit that character..
    anyway well done farhan!!!

    Coming back to remakes, people always compare the original with the present one. Its like the remixes.. there are people who love to listen to these remixes, same goes well with movies also. younger generation might love the way its been cinematographed...

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  3. Earlier, it was an actor's charm and personality that made films successful and the movie was pretty natural. These days they use technology and glamour to sell the movie

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  4. Thank you all for the comments

    @Shande
    SRK entered bollywood with his negative roles in Baazigar and Darr. But that was more than 10 years ago.Now he is known more as chocolate hero. And I also had mentioned that 'he is most known for romantic roles'.
    For other your other concerns check the link below
    http://www.ibnlive.com/news/postdon-umrao-jaan-in-line-of-fire/24679-8.html

    @Pavan, Bhatta
    I too agree that Don is not a complete remake of the original. But then the dialogues still have the hang over to the original Don making it less appealing to today's world.

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  5. Atleast till the movie is released film makers should not reveal it as a remake.
    Why do you feel so?

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  6. @Shridhar

    It is because it can avoid pre-release comparisions. For the other side of this I have provided explainations in the post itself
    But there is a catch here, you are about get to lot of publicity and hype if it is a projected as a remake right from day one. So there is a thin line between the two.

    ReplyDelete

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