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1975: Hindi Film Spring

It was the year of cult classics — new themes, stars, directors and script writers
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'Deewar' belongs to Amitabh and established him as an Angry Young Man dispensing his own form of justice when the state machinery was inadequate.
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In Indian politics, 1975 is remembered as a turning point. It was the year the Emergency was imposed, fundamental rights were crushed and the Constitution itself seemed to be frozen. With the Opposition leaders in jail, it was a political winter. But, for the Hindi film industry, it was the spring season, with the emergence of many new stars, new story lines and new directors. No other year produced so many cult classics — ‘Deewar’, ‘Sholay’, ‘Chupke Chupke’, ‘Chhoti Si Baat’, ‘Julie’, ‘Khushboo’, ‘Mausam’, ‘Mili’, ‘Aandhi’, ‘Nishant’ and then the sleeper hit, ‘Jai Santoshi Ma’.

Fifty years ago, these films came like a breath of fresh air, and even today are watched, dissected and analysed for their social significance.

The biggest stars of the year though were the scriptwriters Salim-Javed, the brains behind ‘Deewar’ and ‘Sholay’. Their fees matched those of the top actors. This was also the first time that the public became aware of scriptwriters and started recognising their faces.

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Numerous fresh themes were explored, many new genres emerged, several conventions were broken, and a whole bunch of wonderful actors came to the forefront and caught the public imagination.

What explains this year of new beginnings? Firstly, the government lauded art films of the late 1960s and urged mainstream filmmakers to learn from them. This did not produce much results other than mainstream films adopting gimmicky camera shots to appear ‘arty’. Secondly, a significant number of new actors from the Film and Television Institute of India and the National School of Drama, who were prepared to enact off-beat roles, had joined the film industry.

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But much of the innovation was cost and technology-driven. Most equipment, belonging to the ’50s, was obsolete. Only the big producers could get import licences. Studio sets were expensive and shooting on different locations a big exercise in logistics. The solution was the bungalow shoot in hired mansions, seen in nearly all of these films. Fifty years ago, even the camera film was not readily available and was not up to global standards. Perhaps the stress on better and tighter screen plays was inevitable.

Lastly, this was mostly pre-Emergency. The fate of ‘Aandhi’ and the arrival of the Emergency pushed the industry back onto the path of safe entertainment. The producers could not afford to annoy governments. No surprise then that the ’80s had a surfeit of Angry Young Men and Disco Dancers! Here’s a recap of the classics of 1975...

'Deewar’s' dialogues were so popular that they are still quoted.

DEEWAR

Amitabh Bachchan (Vijay) and Shashi Kapoor (Ravi) are two fatherless brothers living in a slum. Vijay begins life as a worker but after trying to lead a trade union ends up losing his job and turns to crime. Ravi, the younger brother, studies and becomes a police officer and almost straightaway learns that his brother is a dangerous gangster. If this story sounds familiar, it’s only because it’s been copied endlessly. The meeting of the brothers is as dramatic as one could hope for.

The film belongs to Amitabh and established him as an Angry Young Man dispensing his own form of justice when the state machinery was inadequate. Cinematically, the film borrows kung fu techniques from Hong Kong, which brought innovation to fight scenes that are acrobatic and often air-borne. Director Yash Chopra has too many zoom-ins and zoom-outs and overly fast shots showing everyone’s reactions, but when the camera catches a silent, brooding Amitabh smoking a bidi and thinking of his next move, you realise this is a style not seen before. The dialogues were popular and ‘Mere Paas Ma Hai’ is still quoted!

Modern viewers may not like the bad wigs and metres of shiny polyester she sports, but Nirupa Roy as the mother who does not leave the path of virtue gave a career-best performance. The script writers had ‘Mother India’ in mind, but ‘Deewar’ created a new archetype for the Indian mother.

‘Sholay’ was a gripping story of justice that entertained but also shocked.

SHOLAY

An arid region is facing the terror of dacoit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) and his gang. The local Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar), a retired police officer himself, despairing at the failure of the state machinery, hires ex-convicts Dharmendra and Amitabh to take on the dacoit. The two appear inept if not comic and are busy wooing local girls. Though one of them eventually dies, they finish off the dacoit gang.

With an awesome ensemble cast (Jaya Bhaduri, Hema Malini and a host of character actors), ‘Sholay’ was a gripping story of justice with scenes of sadism, cruelty and gory violence. It entertained but also shocked. With many repeat viewers, it became a blockbuster hit and people began quoting its dialogues. It was the first film where the dialogues were released in an audio cassette. Dwarka Divecha’s lyrical cinematography and the eerie background music score by RD Burman heightened the emotions of the narrative. While Amitabh recapped his Angry Young Man persona, Dharmendra popularised a new genre of the comic action hero which is still going strong.

While ‘Deewar’ looked east to Hong Kong, director Ramesh Sippy drew inspiration from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western films. The characters are grimy and unshaven and not without their failings. It was a new realism without the left-wing moralising that cinema usually used. Gabbar became a commonly used word thanks to Amjad Khan’s commanding performance.

'Chupke Chupke' is a middle-class comedy with polished performances by Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan.

CHUPKE CHUPKE

The film is a middle-class comedy with polished performances by Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan. Hrishikesh Mukherji often looked homewards to Bengal for inspiration and this film was a remake of an Uttam Kumar hit. The film hinged on mistaken identities but part of the fun was about the lack of common sense in college professors, who for all their intellectualism get taken in by imposters.

In an age of social media and background checks like ours, this kind of mistaken identity is unlikely. But 50 years ago, we were a society with more social trust.

Amitabh was himself the son of a professor so he obviously enjoyed this role. It’s still a hilarious watch.

CHHOTI SI BAAT

Basu Chatterji had already established himself as a competent director, but this comedy made him a household name. A young working girl in an office in Bombay (Vidya Sinha) must choose between two suitors who are her co-workers, a dashing Asrani and a timid Amol Palekar. Fortunately, Palekar finds a life coach in Ashok Kumar and even beats Asrani in the funniest- ever table tennis match. Basu had adapted a British comedy, ‘School for Scoundrels’, but Amol Palekar’s character of the timid middle-class male negotiating urban life stood out. Palekar did several subsequent films with this Mr Everyman character which contrasted with the Angry Young Man films.

Basu, like Gulzar and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, was left-wing and they were all former assistants to Bimal Roy. This film, however, lacks the usual ‘Bad Capitalist, Good Worker’ kind of propaganda. But most of all, it recalls Bombay in a sweet spot before the overcrowding set in.

‘Mili’, dubbed the female version of ‘Anand’, was probably Jaya Bachchan’s most acclaimed performance.

Mili

A terminally-ill patient fights courageously and tries to make the life of all those around better and brighter — well, it’s not ‘Anand’ but ‘Mili’, which was dubbed the female version of ‘Anand’. Hrishikesh Mukherjee created a character in ‘Mili’ which was different from ‘Anand’ but equally heart-wrenching. This was also probably Jaya Bachchan’s most acclaimed performance. In that era, Jaya was a bigger star than Amitabh. Amitabh played a depressed alcoholic character brought back to normality by Mili’s love. They just don’t make these kind of female-centred films anymore!

‘Julie’ shocked straitlaced audiences with its frank depiction of pre-marital romance and sex.

JULIE

A remake of a Malayalam hit, ‘Julie’ retained many stars from the original. Lakshmi, unknown to Hindi audiences but a respected figure in the South, did the title role and you can find Sridevi making her Hindi debut as Julie’s kid sister. Julie, a young Anglo-Indian girl, falls in love with a Brahmin boy who moves elsewhere for a job and loses contact with her. Julie is pregnant and gives birth to a child who must be given up to an orphanage (the Catholic church does not allow abortion) and one expects the film to be another seduced-and-abandoned kind of weepy story. But Julie’s mother (Nadira), who was unsympathetic earlier, has a change of heart. Will the lovers ever reunite and what happens to the baby?

‘Julie’ shocked straitlaced audiences with its frank depiction of pre-marital romance and sex. Even more novel were the reunited lovers’ attempts to overcome religious (Hindu versus Christian) and caste (Brahmin versus lower caste) prejudices. Caste and religion and the passions these aroused were absent from Hindi films at that time. Lakshmi unfortunately never got another standout role in Bombay and Sridevi took time to return.

KHUSHBOO

Gulzar had a bumper year with three films, all relying on stories from well-known authors. Gulzar, being a fan of Bengal, not unexpectedly chose a Sarat Chandra novel for this period film dealing with child marriage. Hema Malini and Jeetendra, better known as dancing stars then, got an opportunity to show their acting chops and did remarkably well. Hema, in particular, was fiercely defiant. While Jeetendra soon went back to his Jumping Jack kind of films, the industry noted that Hema could single-handedly carry a film. Gulzar was a heavy director and the film may drag for today’s audiences, but the performances broke stereotypes and were path-breaking.

MAUSAM

Based loosely on an AJ Cronin novel on male repentance and amends, Sharmila in a fiery role shows the subtle restraint she learnt from Satyajit Ray.

AANDHI

Released before the Emergency, this was one of the first attempts at political filmmaking. Celebrated Hindi writer Kamleshwar wrote the story. The daughter of a well-known politician succeeds to his political role after his death, but political success comes at the cost of her marriage, which ends in separation. Years later, while on the campaign trail, she stays in a hotel where her estranged husband is the manager. While she rediscovers her feelings for her husband, they do not reunite, as the husband supports her political role and even mounts a political meeting in her support.

The supposed resemblance to Indira Gandhi —Suchitra Sen, the lead actress, had a white streak in her hair, though her mannerisms did not copy Indira Gandhi — ensured that the film ran into trouble with the Election Commission during its release before the Emergency. During the Emergency, it received an outright ban while the producers released statements that it was inspired by Gayatri Devi and Tarakeshwari Sinha’s stories, both being opponents of the Congress. In 1977, it was re-released and attracted curious crowds.

‘Nishant’ saw the emergence of stars of the future like Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Anant Nag and even the then not-so-well-known Shabana Azmi.

NISHANT

Shyam Benegal’s film on evil landlords in pre-Independence Hyderabad attracted curious viewers eager to see the new and much heralded actors Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Anant Nag and even the then not-so-well-known Shabana Azmi. As evil went, the feudal landlords had rape but not murder in their arsenal and were not as plain evil as Gabbar Singh. Still, this was the first Benegal film to get decent mainstream crowds and was a hopeful sign for the future.

‘Jai Santoshi Ma’, the sleeper hit of the year, was a stupendous success and theatres which showed the film were treated as temples, with audiences removing footwear before entering.

JAI SANTOSHI MA

Apart from ‘Julie’, all the nine films above avoided mention of religion, except perhaps the temple scenes in ‘Sholay’. ‘Jai Santoshi Ma’ was a stupendous success and theatres which showed it were treated as temples, with audiences removing footwear. The doorways would be garlanded with marigolds. As a film, this was B-grade stuff but the music was a hit and the aarti song ‘Main To Aarti Utaroon Re’ can still be heard in temples. The film was a smash hit and led to an upsurge in religious devotion, particularly during the Emergency, when there were no political meetings!

1975 was undeniably a defining year for Indian cinema.

— The writer served as Director General, All India Radio

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