I think some film with this sequence was a big hit and producers have attributed its success in part to the singing sadhu. The relentless use of this scene shows how short on creativity is our filmmaking. The sadhu has become a box office regular now, endlessly irritating those in the audience with a bit of taste and discernment. Please let’s be done with this fellow.
Villains: early American cinema’s ideas and formats dominate our industry even today, as we celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary. The plotlines and treatment are copied with such diligence that all our films are now alike. We need to change this immediately. Originally, the earliest American movies used to be centred around three characters — hero, heroine and the villain.
In India this is still the format. The producer picks a hero and then immediately a heroine and a villain.
I accept that there must be good and evil and light and shade but surely there must be some method and some logic in how they are shown? In general, I have no objection to heroine and villain. They could be important elements of the story. But I do have a problem with villains who are labelled so, even before their characters have a chance to reveal themselves. Villains who are villains in every role.
Literature and film in my opinion are like saloons where bottles have no labels. I want to taste each one myself and figure out which is what. If I’m denied this by labelling, then my entertainment is considerably lessened.
The other thing I find idiotic is how all our heroes look the same. Handsome, young, brave, kind and so on. He fights from start to finish as if swords will never bruise him. And his love is always true, unlike the poor villain’s lust. I find such characters totally unconvincing and am not drawn to the plot they are a part of. To me, a hero must be a character I’m able to accept. For whom I have sympathy, who is human with all the traits that humans have. I want nobody angelic because I live on earth. He can soar in the sky but he must be rooted to the ground. I have no grouse against angels, but I love my fellow human beings more, who share the world with me.
I find our goody-goody heroines trying as well. Few writers are able to present an accurate picture of a woman and the reason for this is the purdah that veils our women. Such separation of the sexes produces ignorance. I would say that eighty per cent of our female literary figures are fantastic and unreal. The are counterfeit and lack the clink of real coins. They don’t have the aspects of true femininity that goes into making a woman. They are fantasy figures, who don’t belong to our world, and I have the same feeling about our villains. These are lifeless figures of clay, standing in because the script needs them.
There are bad people among us, accepted, and certainly we have no shortage of criminals in society. But to me, a man who is villainous throughout the day, seems unable to see the good from bad, or white from black, cannot be convincing, turning around, in a moment at the end to protect the writer from criticism.
Should we not move beyond these stereotypes? Our heroes are blemishless because our writers think any stain on the character is a stain on them. This childishness, laziness, this sentimentalism has no place in first rate literature.
Stories are not meant to be played out on a chessboard, where each piece moves in a defined manner. The world is its domain, where an infinite number of possibilities exist.
Plots, heroes, side-heroes, heroines, side-heroines, villains, side-villains, vamp and side-vamp — without all of these, stories can still be written.
Only a little understanding is needed.
— (Originally published as
Hindustani Sanat e Filmsazi Par Ek Nazar)