| ESSAYS |
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The
Converter of Opinion - Part III
Taking
on Naipaul’s most violently
contested opinions on Islam, Dhondy
defends their rationale and unsentimental gaze |
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‘What
am I doing in Bollywood?’
From
the first raw excitement of Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay to
the bewildering thrill of films like The Rising, FARRUKH
DHONDY tracks his fascinating journey through Bollywood
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What’s
a good crossover recipe?
Bandit
Queen worked in India because it challenged the audience to solve the
equation between mass rape, caste and child abuse, banditry and mass murder,
writes Farrukh Dhondy
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Who’s
the real artist in Bollywood?
However much we wish to classify cinema as ‘art’ and however
seriously we treat it with reviews and post-modern theses, it is very much
a dhandha. It is for commercial and egoistical reasons that Indian filmmakers
want to embrace crossover, writes Farrukh
Dhondy |
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‘All
film is the assertion of myth’
In
the West, art is a way of exploring hypocrisy. In Bollywood, it is an instrument
of it. But the tradition of Indian films, unlike those of the West, descends
directly from the Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, writes
Farrukh Dhondy |
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Why
does Bollywood like happy endings?
How
many times have we done Romeo and Juliet divided by Ram and Rehman? But
they don’t kill each other through tragic misunderstanding. Our nationalist
realism dictates that some happiness and reconciliation come out of the
mess. Farrukh Dhondy ponders
the recipe of the X-over film |
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Written
by a chattering mob
Scriptwriters
in Bollywood are horses pushing carts, says Farrukh
Dhondy. They talk, they don’t write. They bandy plots
and regurgitate Hollywood. If the Indian crossover film is to be born, Indian
cinema has to stop being religion and become ‘art’ |
