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Bully for Bollywood

Sholay (1975) is the magnum opus of Bollywood cinema. Epic in length and themes, it tells the story of two petty criminals that are roped by a local politician into helping capture a local dacoit (bandit). Directed by Ramesh Sippy, the film helped propel actor Amitabh Bacchan’s career to stratospheric heights. It is the highest grossing film in all Indian cinema ($160 million) and it ran in some cinemas for up to fifty weeks. In one particular Mumbai cinema it played for nearly five years on an uninterrupted run. The awards it won were impressive, but, most notably, it was described by Filmfare Magazine as the best film for fifty years.

In the film, Thakur, a local politician is desperate to capture Gabbar, a local bandit known for his vicious cruelty against his victims, and for demanding protection money from the helpless villagers of Ramgarh. He decides that the particular talents of two petty criminals – Jai and Veeru – would be useful in apprehending the terror of Ramgarh. What follows is a series of tragicomic misadventures, shoot-outs, dance scenes, sacrifices and romances that culminate in a final epic battle between good and bad.

The theme is one common to certain parts of India – bandits and gangsters often manage to exploit the corrupt police and political class to obtain sinister levels of power. The character of Gabbar was based on a real-life bandit who was famous for cutting the noses and ears of local policemen if they fell into his hands.
So what are the ingredients of the greatest Bollywood blockbuster? Heroism, comradeship, dance scenes, romance, cruelty, tragedy and, ultimately, justice. It’s actually a bit like an Indian spaghetti western (now known as a Curry Western) with rough-and-ready heroes taking on evil villains in a harsh, unforgiving landscape. The psychotic cruelty of Gabbar is contrasted with the light, bantering and almost reluctant heroism of Jai and Veeru. The chemistry between the main actors is almost irresistible and the cartoon-like violence doesn’t darken the movie to a point where it becomes unbearable.

Romance actually started to develop during the filming. During the (frequent) romantic scenes between actors Dharmendra and Hema Malini, Dharmendra would pay the lighting boys to spoil the shot – necessitating a retake and more intimacy between them. The tactic clearly worked and the two were married five years later. Amitabh Bacchan also married lead actresss Jaya Bhaduri four months after filming started – which caused complications for the movie when Bhaduri became pregnant with Bacchan’s daughter.
The film faced other complications – it was massively over-budget, being torn apart by the censor board and the editors were faced with reducing 300,000 feet of film to something usable. It opened to an initial lukewarm response and won few awards in its first year but slowly the film began to snowball into the largest commercial success Bollywood has ever seen. Its scenes, plot and characters have been referenced, lampooned and just plain stolen by Bollywood films ever since. When the film was first shown on the government television channel, the streets of Mumbai and Delhi were apparently deserted as the entire populace went indoors to watch. Sholay has become a benchmark for film-making and it may be a long time until Bollywood manages to crawl out from its shadow.

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