Yeh Gul(zar)istan Hamara, Films of Gulzar Options

[swarapriya]

Yeh Gul(zar)istan Hamara - Films of Gulzar

Sampooran Singh Karla, popularly known as Gulzar, has been active for 50 years in the film industry. At age 73, after winning an Oscar in 2009 he seems to be going from strength to strength and hardly shows any signs of slowing down.

Originally a car mechanic, Karla always wanted to be a writer. He took the penname of Gulzar Deenvi and started writing. His first opportunity to write for films came in 1960.

He entered into the movies as an assistant director and song writer for the film “Shreeman Satyawadi”. After that ambitious start, he has been involved in writing dialogues, lyrics, stories, screenplays, producing, and directing movies for all these years.

During his brilliant career he garnered several awards. Aside for the Oscar for “Slumdog Millionaire” for the song “Jai Ho”, he also won a Grammy for the same song. He won the best lyricist Filmfare award a record 11 times. He also won the Filmfare award as the best dialogue writer four times, best story once, and best director once. He won seven National film awards in various categories. He is a recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Bhushan.

During his illustrious career Gulzar collaborated with various artistes, including Asha Bhosle, Bhupinder Singh, Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh, and R.D. Burman, and came out with several private albums. He invented a new technique of writing poetry called “Triveni” that contains each stanza as rhyming three lines. The album with Jagjit Singh, “Koi Baat Chale”, was written completely using this technique.

He also made his presence felt on TV by making a series on the life of “Ghalib”. He wrote songs for many children movies for TV. He directed 21 movies and was involved in some capacity or other in over 140 movies. In the next few weeks, I would like to share songs from the films he was associated with.

For showing continued brilliance for 50 or so years one cannot help but be in just awe of his unending creative juices. All one can say about him and his magnificently illustrious career, borrowing from his now world famous song, “Jai Ho!” …

This post has been edited by swarapriya: Mar 5 2010, 02:51 AM

[swarapriya]

Namak Haraam (1973)

This movie was directed by Hrishida. Even though story is credited to Biresh Chatterjee, it was an adaptation of the famous English movie called "Becket", made in 1964, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. Rajesh played the role of Burton and Amitabh played the role of O'Toole. The English movie was based on a historical fact and was a period drama. The Hindi version was set in the modern times. Hrishida vehemently denied in an interview that his movie was not based on “Becket”. He said that “ … critics insisted that mine was inspired from “Beckett”. “Beckett” is the story of a king who wants to turn his servant into an Archbishop. My film is about an affluent who cannot live without his middle-class friend …”. Whatever the claim Hrishida may have made, this movie is definitely a modernized version of “Beckett”.

But even before the Hindi version came out, there was a movie made in Telugu in mid-60s, just a year or
two later than the English film, called "Praana Snehitulu" with A. Nageshwara Rao and Jaggayya with almost the same backdrop as that of the Hindi version.

This was the second time Rajesh and Amitabh acted together for a Hrishida film. The other movie was "Anand (1971)" also directed by Hrishida. In that movie Amitabh was relatively new and even though gave a fine, restrained and understated performance, it was Rajesh Khanna's movie all the way. In that movie Rajesh played the role of an extrovert whereas Amitabh’s role was that of an introvert. In this movie their roles were reversed with Rajesh playing an introvert to Amitabh’s extrovert. These two films show how contrasting roles these dominating players have easily played and the wonderful rapport they had acting together. Too bad they never came together to act in another movie again. Most of the people attribute this to the fact that the critics thought Amitabh's overpowering performance just overshadowed that of Rajesh and that didn’t sit too well with Rajesh. Also, after this movie Amitabh's fortunes started climbing up while Rajesh's started declining.

It is interesting that Amitabh learnt from Hrishida later on that Rajesh was the hero of the movie because he dies in the end (“heroes die”). Amitabh was apparently unhappy about it as he felt all along that he was the hero. Hrishida says that Amitabh didn’t speak to him for several days. He felt that Hrishida betrayed him. But with critics pouring in rave reviews Amitabh felt vindicated. Hrishida also says that Amitabh was so over critical of himself with his performance in the movie that he thought he could have done better. Per Hrishida, Amitabh always strived for perfection. This was just one example of that. Amitabh received a Filmfare award as the Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal. Interestingly Amitabh paying an introvert in the movie “Anand” also received the Best Supporting Actor Award from Filmfare magazine.

Gulzarji wrote the screenplay and dialogues for the movie. He received the Filmfare Award for the Best Dialogues.

This one is a beauty as far as R.D. Burman's music is concerned. Kishoreda has four solos in it. Out of them three are just outstanding.

Here are the songs from this album ...

[Viraj Padhye]

Namak Haraam (1973)

This movie was directed by Hrishida. Even though story is credited to Biresh Chatterjee, it was an adaptation of the famous English movie called "Becket", made in 1964, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. Rajesh played the role of Burton and Amitabh played the role of O'Toole. The English movie was based on a historical fact and was a period drama. The Hindi version was set in the modern times. Hrishida vehemently denied in an interview that his movie was not based on “Becket”. He said that “ … critics insisted that mine was inspired from “Beckett”. “Beckett” is the story of a king who wants to turn his servant into an Archbishop. My film is about an affluent who cannot live without his middle-class friend …”. Whatever the claim Hrishida may have made, this movie is definitely a modernized version of “Beckett”.

But even before the Hindi version came out, there was a movie made in Telugu in mid-60s, just a year or
two later than the English film, called "Praana Snehitulu" with A. Nageshwara Rao and Jaggayya with almost the same backdrop as that of the Hindi version.

This was the second time Rajesh and Amitabh acted together for a Hrishida film. The other movie was "Anand (1971)" also directed by Hrishida. In that movie Amitabh was relatively new and even though gave a fine, restrained and understated performance, it was Rajesh Khanna's movie all the way. In that movie Rajesh played the role of an extrovert whereas Amitabh’s role was that of an introvert. In this movie their roles were reversed with Rajesh playing an introvert to Amitabh’s extrovert. These two films show how contrasting roles these dominating players have easily played and the wonderful rapport they had acting together. Too bad they never came together to act in another movie again. Most of the people attribute this to the fact that the critics thought Amitabh's overpowering performance just overshadowed that of Rajesh and that didn’t sit too well with Rajesh. Also, after this movie Amitabh's fortunes started climbing up while Rajesh's started declining.

It is interesting that Amitabh learnt from Hrishida later on that Rajesh was the hero of the movie because he dies in the end (“heroes die”). Amitabh was apparently unhappy about it as he felt all along that he was the hero. Hrishida says that Amitabh didn’t speak to him for several days. He felt that Hrishida betrayed him. But with critics pouring in rave reviews Amitabh felt vindicated. Hrishida also says that Amitabh was so over critical of himself with his performance in the movie that he thought he could have done better. Per Hrishida, Amitabh always strived for perfection. This was just one example of that. Amitabh received a Filmfare award as the Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal. Interestingly Amitabh paying an introvert in the movie “Anand” also received the Best Supporting Actor Award from Filmfare magazine.

Gulzarji wrote the screenplay and dialogues for the movie. He received the Filmfare Award for the Best Dialogues.

This one is a beauty as far as R.D. Burman's music is concerned. Kishoreda has four solos in it. Out of them three are just outstanding.

Here are the songs from this album ...

Hi SP,

There is one more song "Holi hai ho saraa raa raa holi ke" by Chorus in this movie. I am looking for the same for a long time now.


Viraj

[Aditya Pant]

Hi SP,

There is one more song "Holi hai ho saraa raa raa holi ke" by Chorus in this movie. I am looking for the same for a long time now.


Viraj

Since this song was never released as audio, the best bet would be to rip it from youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR2uZ_MMZ84

Aditya

This post has been edited by Aditya Pant: Jul 7 2010, 08:12 PM