Teachers in Hindi-Urdu Cinema
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Bollywood’s tryst with teachers
Teachers are finally getting a realistic portrayal in Bollywood – and our heroes don’t mind playing one either The Times of India, Sep 5, 2011
If it was school, it had to be cool. For ages, Bollywood’s portrayal of the teacher hadn’t moved beyond the hot teacher that left students smitten (Simi Garewal in “Mera Naam Joker”, Sushmita Sen in her sexy sarees in “Main Hoon Na”), or a teacher who did everything but teach, (aka Shah Rukh Khan in “Mohabbatein”, who was more interested in finding girlfriends for his students) – in short, the profession has mostly had a cheesy portrayal on the silver screen.
It took an offbeat flick like “Rockford” or the critically acclaimed “Black” to provide the deviation from the norm, or if you want to look really far back in time for a mainstream example, there was, well, the Naseeruddin Shah starrer “Sir” in 1993.
But slowly, somewhere, the teaching bug bit Bollywood’s A-listers, and films started providing a non filmi, non naach-gaana-mohabbatbutt-of-jokes portrayal of the classroom and the teacher. Where “Taare Zameen Par” had Aamir take on a dyslexic child and “Stanley Ka Dabba” (which, incidentally, was directed by Amole Gupte, the guy who walked out of “TZP” and made a film on the classroom again) left audiences in tears, “3 Idiots”, a laughter-cum-tears riot, made students throughout the country think that this was the story of their college days (with Boman Irani playing the classic college professor),
Amitabh Bachchan took a hard hitting look at the morals and ethics of the teaching profession in “Aarakshan” – never mind that the film became ‘a controversy’ even before it released. But it looks like this subject’s finally working for Bollywood. Happy Teachers’ Day!
With inputs from Radhika Bhirani/IANS
BOLLYWOOD’S TRYST WITH TEACHERS THROUGH THE DECADES
MERA NAAM JOKER, 1970 SIR, 1993 ROCKFORD, 1999 MOHABBATEIN, 2000 MAIN HOON NA, 2004 BLACK, 2005 IQBAL, 2006 TAARE ZAMEEN PAR, 2007 3 IDIOTS, 2009 STANLEY KA DABBA, 2011 AARAKSHAN, 2011
Daan Singh
Music director Daan Singh passes away
Avijit Ghosh | TNN
The Times of India, June 20, 2011
New Delhi: Hindi film music director Daan Singh, whose melancholic melody, Woh tere pyaar ka gham, provided soul and succour to a generation of broken-hearted lovers, died following a liver ailment at his Jaipur home on Saturday night. He was 78.
Despite crafting such gems, Singh was never swamped with offers. As Nitin Mukesh puts it, “He was an extremely talented musician who perhaps never got his due.”
Tamil film distribution
Marans hold Kollywood purse strings
Kamini Mathai TNN The Times of India, July 9, 2011
Chennai: The release of Tamil film ‘Vengai’ on Thursday has got everyone talking. Not because it stars national award winner Dhanush, but because it hit theatres after a two-and-a-half month delay. The reason: Sun Pictures, owned by DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s grand-nephew Kalanithi Maran, pulled out of distributing it after promising a May release.
In Tamil Nadu, politics have always been part of the film industry, with all its chief ministers having played a role in cinema either on screen or off. Producers say every time the government changes — from DMK to AIADMK or vice versa — they wait with bated breath to see what’s in it for them. Or worse, what’s not.
This time, after the AIADMK returned to power, there are rumours in industry circles that three of the largest production and distribution houses in the state, all belonging to the DMK family — Sun Pictures, Red Giant Movies and Cloud Nine Movies (owned by Karunanidhi’s grandsons Udhayanidhi Stalin and Dayanidhi Alagiri) are reducing the number of movies they are taking. Interestingly, all the three production houses were set up in the last few years after the DMK returned to power in May 2006.
But the recent arrest of Hansraj Saxena, Sun Pictures’ COO over complaints that he duped a film distributor has shaken the Sun Group. Sources say the arrest of the Sun Group heavy-weight could well change the dynamics within the industry.
In the case of ‘Vengai’, Sun Pictures delayed the release and finally pulled out of the contract 20 days ago. The moment the news broke, several distributors lined up offering to buy the rights. The ‘Vengai’ distribution rights — that Vijaya Productions originally sold solely to Sun Pictures — have now been split region-wise between Selvakumar Pictures, Raj Films and Mumbai-based Turning Point Media.
Producer ‘Anbalaya’ Prabakaran says this is a sign of things to come. “You can sense that producers and distributors are gaining confidence in the industry because they know the market has finally opened up,” says Prabakaran, who is also vicepresident of the Tamil Film Producers Council. While producers admit that the three biggies brought a certain level of professionalism to the industry when they entered two years ago, they also say that the companies used their financial and political clout to dominate the industry.
Producer-director Kothandaraman, otherwise called KR, says the last few years have not been conducive for producers. “Now that we have a new political party at the helm, the industry is getting back on its feet.” But Udhayanidhi Stalin, who runs Red Giant Movies, feels the change in the political scenario has not altered anything.
