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REEL INCARNATIONS
Rrishi Raote / New Delhi May 28, 2011, 0:51 IST
Among the new biopics the most promising are of less-known but still great
Indians
Truth is better than fiction, especially in Bollywood. Perhaps, as
they say, there is now more experimentation and less `inspiration.' in
the film world. Predictability of plot and the habit of making Indian
avatars of Hollywood films are still problems at the big-budget
end. Saviours, however, are in sight. They are not (or not only) young
and innovative filmmakers and scriptwriters. Rather, they are (more
often than not) interesting dead people, who make excellent subjects
for biopics.
Gauhar Jaan, for instance. She was a singer of the late 19th and early
20th centuries, and one of the early Indian `celebrities'. She was
born Eileen Angelina Yeoward, an Armenian Christian. Her father died
when she was young, and she converted to Islam. Gauhar Jaan became one
of the best-known tawaifs and singers of Calcutta, patronised by the
deposed Awadh ruler Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887), himself a poet, singer
and dancer. She developed a broad and deep musical repertoire.
As she grew famous, Gauhar Jaan also developed a lively
reputation. She was associated with wealthy lovers. She became rich,
and was notorious for driving around in a carriage drawn by six horses
-not a privilege permitted to ordinary Indians, but she happily paid
the fine. Postcards with her portrait on them were sold in Europe. She
even made musical recordings, starting in 1902 when she became
probably the first Indian singer to have her voice recorded. The
crackly three-minute recording still survives, and is the basis for
the revival of interest in Gauhar Jaan. By 1920 she had made over 600
records.
Of course, her life took a tragic turn. Eventually she lost her
wealth, her lovers and her patrons. She ended her life at the Mysore
palace, a mere court musician. She died in 1930.
Now what could make a better subject for film or book? You can't make
up a story like hers. Yet the book had to come first. A young techie
from Bangalore named Vikram Sampath published a biography of her a
year ago, titled My Name Is Gauhar Jaan! (This is what she said at the
end of every recording.) The book was launched to unusual fanfare. As
many as three well-known film makers are said to be interested in
filming Gauhar Jaan's story, including Kiran Rao, director of Dhobi
Ghat.
Sampath says, `Many people have shown an interest.' But he does not
want his protagonist `cheapened' by a typical Bollywood portrayal. On
the other hand, he points out that `it would be a dream role for any
woman actor'. Without his book, however, there would be no story to
film - Gauhar Jaan has received little scholarly attention and as
Sampath says, `the music world has more or less forgotten her. She
left no lineage, family or students.'
Bal Gandharva (real name Narayan Rajhans), the great Marathi stage
singer and actor of the same era, was one of Gauhar Jaan's lovers. He
is the subject of a just-released Marathi film - among the most
expensive and technologically advanced - directed by ad filmmaker Ravi
Jadhav (who released Natarang in 2010, a film on tamashas, the popular
Maharashtrian performance form). But Bal Gandharva would not have
happened if the actor who plays him, Subodh Bhave, had not read a
biography of the star while researching a role for a play and then
approached producer Nitin Desai with the idea of a biopic.
* * * * *
Not surprisingly, biopics have tended to be about big names. Out now,
for instance, is a biopic titled Gandhi To Hitler which looks at the
German dictator's last hours with lover Eva Braun in his Berlin
bunker. There are two films on the last Iraqi dictator, including The
Trial of Saddam Hussein. Ram Gopal Varma has said he is working on
Terror Turns to Horror: Al Qaeda Part II in which Osama bin Laden
returns as a ghost to haunt the White House. (Really.) The Ramakrishna
Mission is planning a biopic on Swami Vivekananda (Bernardo Bertolucci
was name-dropped).
Also not surprising, old film personalities offer subjects for new
films. Three (or four) films are being made on Kishore Kumar. One by
Anurag Basu features Ranbir Kapoor as Kumar and Katrina Kaif as
Madhubala. Rajinikanth, Silk Smitha (played by Vidya Balan), Salman
Khan, Rekha and Suchitra Sen (in Bengali) are some upcoming star
subjects.
Potentially more interesting, however, because they are based on
little-known but great people, are films on cultural stars like
painter Raja Ravi Varma (focusing on his love life), Malayalam poet P
Kunhiraman Nair (who loved `nature and women'), and Maharashtrian
musical prodigy DV Paluskar, who died young. The first two follow from
books, a biography and an autobiography. The third was filmed by an
independent Pune scholar named Anjali Kirtane who released her Marathi
`docu-drama' Gaanyogi and a fat biography of Paluskar on the same day
last year.
A biopic of the great runner Milkha Singh (whose family was killed
during Partition) and of Noor Inayat Khan, a Tipu Sultan descendant
who was one of England's most useful spies in Nazi-occupied France
during the 1940s and died in a concentration camp, have both come out
of recent books =80' Singh's Hindi and Punjabi memoirs and historian
Shrabani Basus biography, The Spy Princess. These is also big money -
Singh has said he was offered Rs 1-1.5 crore for his story, though he
settled for Rs 1 and a share of the profits for his charitable
foundation.
With already famous subjects, filmmakers have to pick an angle. It is
the lives of the less-known names, rediscoveries of modern scholars,
that offer the most meat. They offer mild name recall, a terrific
story that is still fresh and combines achievement with tragedy in an
inspirational or satisfying way, that illuminates history or the
present, that derives from more or less rigorous scholarship, feeds
our taste for nostalgia and celebrity anecdote, and finally, gives us
something to be proud of. No wonder the immediate future looks good
for biopics.
Rrishi Raote / New Delhi May 28, 2011, 0:51 IST
Among the new biopics the most promising are of less-known but still great
Indians
Truth is better than fiction, especially in Bollywood. Perhaps, as
they say, there is now more experimentation and less `inspiration.' in
the film world. Predictability of plot and the habit of making Indian
avatars of Hollywood films are still problems at the big-budget
end. Saviours, however, are in sight. They are not (or not only) young
and innovative filmmakers and scriptwriters. Rather, they are (more
often than not) interesting dead people, who make excellent subjects
for biopics.
Gauhar Jaan, for instance. She was a singer of the late 19th and early
20th centuries, and one of the early Indian `celebrities'. She was
born Eileen Angelina Yeoward, an Armenian Christian. Her father died
when she was young, and she converted to Islam. Gauhar Jaan became one
of the best-known tawaifs and singers of Calcutta, patronised by the
deposed Awadh ruler Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887), himself a poet, singer
and dancer. She developed a broad and deep musical repertoire.
As she grew famous, Gauhar Jaan also developed a lively
reputation. She was associated with wealthy lovers. She became rich,
and was notorious for driving around in a carriage drawn by six horses
-not a privilege permitted to ordinary Indians, but she happily paid
the fine. Postcards with her portrait on them were sold in Europe. She
even made musical recordings, starting in 1902 when she became
probably the first Indian singer to have her voice recorded. The
crackly three-minute recording still survives, and is the basis for
the revival of interest in Gauhar Jaan. By 1920 she had made over 600
records.
Of course, her life took a tragic turn. Eventually she lost her
wealth, her lovers and her patrons. She ended her life at the Mysore
palace, a mere court musician. She died in 1930.
Now what could make a better subject for film or book? You can't make
up a story like hers. Yet the book had to come first. A young techie
from Bangalore named Vikram Sampath published a biography of her a
year ago, titled My Name Is Gauhar Jaan! (This is what she said at the
end of every recording.) The book was launched to unusual fanfare. As
many as three well-known film makers are said to be interested in
filming Gauhar Jaan's story, including Kiran Rao, director of Dhobi
Ghat.
Sampath says, `Many people have shown an interest.' But he does not
want his protagonist `cheapened' by a typical Bollywood portrayal. On
the other hand, he points out that `it would be a dream role for any
woman actor'. Without his book, however, there would be no story to
film - Gauhar Jaan has received little scholarly attention and as
Sampath says, `the music world has more or less forgotten her. She
left no lineage, family or students.'
Bal Gandharva (real name Narayan Rajhans), the great Marathi stage
singer and actor of the same era, was one of Gauhar Jaan's lovers. He
is the subject of a just-released Marathi film - among the most
expensive and technologically advanced - directed by ad filmmaker Ravi
Jadhav (who released Natarang in 2010, a film on tamashas, the popular
Maharashtrian performance form). But Bal Gandharva would not have
happened if the actor who plays him, Subodh Bhave, had not read a
biography of the star while researching a role for a play and then
approached producer Nitin Desai with the idea of a biopic.
* * * * *
Not surprisingly, biopics have tended to be about big names. Out now,
for instance, is a biopic titled Gandhi To Hitler which looks at the
German dictator's last hours with lover Eva Braun in his Berlin
bunker. There are two films on the last Iraqi dictator, including The
Trial of Saddam Hussein. Ram Gopal Varma has said he is working on
Terror Turns to Horror: Al Qaeda Part II in which Osama bin Laden
returns as a ghost to haunt the White House. (Really.) The Ramakrishna
Mission is planning a biopic on Swami Vivekananda (Bernardo Bertolucci
was name-dropped).
Also not surprising, old film personalities offer subjects for new
films. Three (or four) films are being made on Kishore Kumar. One by
Anurag Basu features Ranbir Kapoor as Kumar and Katrina Kaif as
Madhubala. Rajinikanth, Silk Smitha (played by Vidya Balan), Salman
Khan, Rekha and Suchitra Sen (in Bengali) are some upcoming star
subjects.
Potentially more interesting, however, because they are based on
little-known but great people, are films on cultural stars like
painter Raja Ravi Varma (focusing on his love life), Malayalam poet P
Kunhiraman Nair (who loved `nature and women'), and Maharashtrian
musical prodigy DV Paluskar, who died young. The first two follow from
books, a biography and an autobiography. The third was filmed by an
independent Pune scholar named Anjali Kirtane who released her Marathi
`docu-drama' Gaanyogi and a fat biography of Paluskar on the same day
last year.
A biopic of the great runner Milkha Singh (whose family was killed
during Partition) and of Noor Inayat Khan, a Tipu Sultan descendant
who was one of England's most useful spies in Nazi-occupied France
during the 1940s and died in a concentration camp, have both come out
of recent books =80' Singh's Hindi and Punjabi memoirs and historian
Shrabani Basus biography, The Spy Princess. These is also big money -
Singh has said he was offered Rs 1-1.5 crore for his story, though he
settled for Rs 1 and a share of the profits for his charitable
foundation.
With already famous subjects, filmmakers have to pick an angle. It is
the lives of the less-known names, rediscoveries of modern scholars,
that offer the most meat. They offer mild name recall, a terrific
story that is still fresh and combines achievement with tragedy in an
inspirational or satisfying way, that illuminates history or the
present, that derives from more or less rigorous scholarship, feeds
our taste for nostalgia and celebrity anecdote, and finally, gives us
something to be proud of. No wonder the immediate future looks good
for biopics.