Dt 29 Jan 2017
Its been quite a while since I have got some free time to write this year.And since today is a relatively quiet day I decided to have a go at writing on some issues close to my heart .
We in India now live in an era where every small issue is being seen with a strong Hindutva sentiment.Its as if in the last few years the Hindutva brigade has come to its own and has decided to defend every turf and territory that it feels it owns.Latest to this is the Padmavati controversy where few groups related to a particular cast in India have made their objections to the depictions of their beloved Rani Padmini in a movie .
The beliefs of the Rajputs are that Rani Padmini had to commit Jauhar ( surrender her body to fire) to avoid being used as a war slave for satisfying desires of the evil Mughal king Allaudin Khilji.
Now no one knows what the context of the movie is but it has been based on the poem written by a poet Jayasi called Padmavat.
As an artist who is trying to make a film on historic characters it is important that you do extensive research on the subject and get approval from people who are in any way related to the characters you will be portraying in the film.Biopics have to be made carefully as you often run the risk of offending people who are respected or in this case are a godly figure in some communities.The best way to get this done is that you adapt te characters into a story and rename all the historical context(names of character ,places etc.).You still have the story and it will create the same impact .The moment you say that the character names will remain the same as in history you then take up tremendous responsibility to present the true story ..to the minutest details possible.This is where Bhansali has gone wrong.He didnt do a good job of portraying Peshva Bajirao in his last movie.Somehow the Marathas let him get away with that but no this time.
Some of the good biopics that have been made in India have been Bhaag Milkha Bhag and Mary Kom. In both these movies the makers discussed the movies with the living legends and hence did justice to the character. While Aamir went on to make a movie on the Phogat sisters he didn't name the movie on them although his characters were named the same.My grouse here was that if he used the same character names then he should not have twisted the scoreline & results of the commonwealth games for cinematic liberty.you see this confuses the audience .His only saving grace was that the Phogats were with him & the film did wonderfully well.
So finally Bhansali has been allowed to release the movie by changing the title to Padmavat , which clearly depicts that its based on the Jayasi's poem and that was the only literature used to depict the characters.But to be on the safer side when you create movies to get cinematic liberty and thrill you are always better served to change hte name of characters and events.The essence of the story still remains and that is what matters.
Its been quite a while since I have got some free time to write this year.And since today is a relatively quiet day I decided to have a go at writing on some issues close to my heart .
We in India now live in an era where every small issue is being seen with a strong Hindutva sentiment.Its as if in the last few years the Hindutva brigade has come to its own and has decided to defend every turf and territory that it feels it owns.Latest to this is the Padmavati controversy where few groups related to a particular cast in India have made their objections to the depictions of their beloved Rani Padmini in a movie .
The beliefs of the Rajputs are that Rani Padmini had to commit Jauhar ( surrender her body to fire) to avoid being used as a war slave for satisfying desires of the evil Mughal king Allaudin Khilji.
Now no one knows what the context of the movie is but it has been based on the poem written by a poet Jayasi called Padmavat.
As an artist who is trying to make a film on historic characters it is important that you do extensive research on the subject and get approval from people who are in any way related to the characters you will be portraying in the film.Biopics have to be made carefully as you often run the risk of offending people who are respected or in this case are a godly figure in some communities.The best way to get this done is that you adapt te characters into a story and rename all the historical context(names of character ,places etc.).You still have the story and it will create the same impact .The moment you say that the character names will remain the same as in history you then take up tremendous responsibility to present the true story ..to the minutest details possible.This is where Bhansali has gone wrong.He didnt do a good job of portraying Peshva Bajirao in his last movie.Somehow the Marathas let him get away with that but no this time.
Some of the good biopics that have been made in India have been Bhaag Milkha Bhag and Mary Kom. In both these movies the makers discussed the movies with the living legends and hence did justice to the character. While Aamir went on to make a movie on the Phogat sisters he didn't name the movie on them although his characters were named the same.My grouse here was that if he used the same character names then he should not have twisted the scoreline & results of the commonwealth games for cinematic liberty.you see this confuses the audience .His only saving grace was that the Phogats were with him & the film did wonderfully well.
So finally Bhansali has been allowed to release the movie by changing the title to Padmavat , which clearly depicts that its based on the Jayasi's poem and that was the only literature used to depict the characters.But to be on the safer side when you create movies to get cinematic liberty and thrill you are always better served to change hte name of characters and events.The essence of the story still remains and that is what matters.
