Fade to black

Have started developing a fond craving for old black and white Hindi movies. More specifically, hanker for a time, albeit on celluloid, where life was simpler, cleaner and more elegant. Modern movies have too much clutter for my liking-so much so in fact that the message (if any) gets lost in a sea of hammy acting and terrible effects.

Love the oldies for a number of reasons. Like getting an unexpected view of a sparsely populated Bombay with more open spaces during a standard tree sequence in songs.Unexpectedly coming across a double decker bus in a scene chugging along an empty marine drive.And having scripts that made sense (strange how scripts that were saleable a quarter century back or more find no takers now).And for the optimism which shines through, no matter how bleak the setting, or how dark some of the characters are.

Even the Eastman color movie era that followed was brilliant in its own right. Compelling actors and screenplay gave us such hits as Deewar, Golmaal, and Sholay.

Am deeply skeptical about this movie remake business. Fine that you’ve watched the movie in your school shorts.Also fine that you idolize the hero/heroine/director. But why in god’s name would you want to remake the thing? And trumpet it as your contemporary interpretation of the classic while stating, seemingly humbly in interviews, that you could never match the Original? Why couldn’t you have made it into a class project while at film school? Wait a minute; you never were at film school were you? In that case, carry on, I guess.

I admit that there are some competent remakes out there. Like Psycho, for instance. But those are good only if you haven’t seen the original. Pathetic if you have.

Trying to remake something as iconic as Sholay is suicidal. Agreed that it’s a ‘proven formula’ and you’re just changing the variables. But that approach generally works in maths and not in the movie world. One very compelling reason against such a daft move is that a lot of the target audience has already seen and loved the original movie and has ‘grown up’ with it. I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t seen Sholay to date. If I were in the remake business I would be more comfortable working with something that has a killer script and mass appeal but has managed to keep a low profile over the years. Definitely not something of Sholay’s caliber.

Cannot imagine someone else doing a Jai and Veeru act. Or for that matter anybody else doing a Gabbar, even someone of Mr. Bacchan’s stature.

It just feels wrong.

Perhaps we could possibly maybe change Dhanno, if Maneka Gandhi okays the move…but nothing else...

Even if the movie does decently at the box office, people would never admit it could match up to the original. Don’t imagine anyone renting the movie or buying the DVD five years down the line.

So what exactly is the point here?Am I missing something?