Shankar Movies

[Lynn Hepler]

Ostenand Rai made a trilogy of silent movies together, all shot on location in India. The first, Prem Sanyas (Light of Asia, 1925), was about the early life of Buddha with Rai playing the central role. Shiraz (1928) was the second and the third was Prapancha Pash (A Throw of Dice, 1929), in which Rai played the devious Rajasthani King Sohat. The BFI commissioned a dynamic Throw of Dice score from Nitin Sawhney ten years ago.

Shankar wasn't the first Tamil filmmaker to mix animation and live action in a song sequence. SP Muthuraman got there with the Rajinikanth-starrer Raja Chinna Roja, in 1989. But see the two music videos today, and you see the difference between a safe, efficient filmmaker and one with balls-out vision and drive. The Raja Chinna Roja song imagines the Superstar with a bunch of children, in a forest, as Disney-esque animals scamper around them. The most that happens is that they get trapped in a fire, which is put out by an enterprising elephant. Cute is the word that comes to mind. Or saccharine, if you're more of a grouch. But 'Chiku Buku Rayile', from Gentleman, is something else. Prabhu Deva opens his jacket and sends hearts to Gautami. She squishes them like you'd clap a mosquito dead. He shoots arrows at her with his eyes. She drops one of them in a dustbin. He then sheds giant, comical tears, that plop on the ground with a tiny splash. Many words come to mind. Overkill. Overreaching. Tacky. But also: Fun. Crazy. Unexpected. Larger than life. Like nothing else out there.

On the other hand, we have the out-there entertainers, the directors who wanted to show you the seven wonders of the world for the price of a movie ticket. You'd begin, of course, with SS Vasan. His Chandralekha (1948) came with hundreds of giant drums, on which hundreds of dancers danced, and from inside which hundreds of rebel soldiers emerged at the end. A few years later, he produced (but did not direct) Avvaiyaar, where hundreds of elephants overcame hundreds of soldiers and brought down a fort. But these films still fell under the mythology/fantasy rubric, where larger-than-life was the way of life. If a movie was set in Indra's realm, as Manaalaney Mangaiyin Baagyam (1957) was, or if it was set in Shiva's abode, as Thiruvilaiyaadal (1965) was, the pomp and pageantry wasn't just expected, but necessary. What about BR Panthulu, you ask? He didn't make only mythology/fantasy, and yet, his films were still big. But Veerapandiya Kattabomman (1959) and Kappalottiya Thamizhan (1961) were still historical epics, not contemporary stories. Even the genie in a "social" story like Pattanathil Bootham (1964) isn't just expected but necessary, owing to its roots in the Arabian Nights.

To get to the forebears of Shankar, we have to consider directors who sought out spectacle in "regular" (as opposed to historical or mythological or folklore/fantasy) films. In the 1970s, there were the odd Jaishankar-starring wannabe-Bond capers, with "never-before-seen" helicopter stunts, or MGR's Ulagam Suttrum Vaaliban, a fantasy-adventure woven around a missing scientist. (Sivaji Ganesan, in the late sixties, made a similar globe-trotting thriller in Sivandha Mann.) In the eighties, we got the movies by Abavanan and the Film School techno-brats, who attempted to scale up the masala entertainer with huge set pieces, like the rekla race in Uzhavan Magan (1987) or the mountainside action set pieces in Inaindha Kaigal (1990).

This slice-of-life dramedy, top-lined by Siddharth and Genelia D'Souza, is a genuinely bold film, a more hip companion piece to Selvaraghavan's Thulluvadho Ilamai (which was released a year earlier). It portrays youngsters as aimless and seriously sex-obsessed, and it could have redefined the "youth movie". But Shankar overstuffs this small, coming-of-age tale with gargantuan screenplay "items" (earthquake, Naxalites, a marriage-breaking sex worker). Is this an Azhiyadha Kolangal-like drama of hormonal youth? A Maro Charitra-like problem-romance, with unyielding parents? A Pudhu Vasantham-like journey of musical ambition? Shankar's answer, of course, is (d) all of the above. Sometimes, less is more, but then, that's not why we go to a Shankar film, right? And okay, Vivek rocks.

Anoushka Shankar, the talent sitar player and daughter of the illustrious, late Pandit Ravi Shankar, is following in her father's footsteps. Almost 60 years after Pt. Shankar first composed music for director Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, Anoushka will be lending her musical prowess to the 1928 silent film, Shiraz: A Romance of India, which is making a multi-city tour across India in November.

A small town around 30 miles north-west of London serves as a repository of history. Situated here is the British Film Institute National Archive, home to a treasure trove of movies, TV series and more, harking back to 1895. Not only is the museum dedicated to the dying medium of celluloid; it is also where reels are exhumed and prepared for a digital afterlife.

The latest beneficiary is Shiraz: A Romance of India, which was co-produced by India, Britain and Germany in 1928. The movie turns the spotlight on Shiraz, the architect of the Taj Mahal, and Selima, his muse who is eventually sold into slavery. It's a fictionalized account, of course. This silent film, however, is far from silent.

List of movies with music composed by Shankar Jaikishan, listed alphabetically with trailers of the movies when available. This list includes any film scores composed by Shankar Jaikishan, ranging from smaller indie movies to larger blockbuster pictures. Film composers are responsible for writing and composing the music that plays during the movie, which is particularly important for dramas and adventure movies- imagine what Lord of the Rings would have sounded like without an amazing score. Useful bits of trivia are can be found below, such as who directed each film scored by Shankar Jaikishan and when the movie was first released. Shankar Jaikishan is a world renowned film composer, so if you're a music buff use this list to find the names of Shankar Jaikishan soundtracks that you haven't heard before.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday slammed Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad over his comments linking Bollywood to the economy and dismissing an economic slowdown, saying he must come out of the film life and should not turn his face from the reality.

"It is sad that when lakhs of people are losing jobs, the banks are sitting on the hard earned money of the people and the government is not worried about their problems. People are not bothered about the profits of the films. Minister sir, come out of the film life and do not shy away from the reality," Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.

While addressing a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday, Mr Prasad was asked to comment on the economic slowdown. The Minister replied: "I was Information and Broadcasting minister in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government and I am fond of movies. Movies have been doing huge businesses. Three movies were released on October 2 and film critic Komal Nahta told me that the national holiday saw them earning Rs 120 crore. Rs 120 crore comes in a country, which has a sound economy."

However, under fire from political opponents, the Union Law Minister on Sunday withdrew his statement and clarified that he made the comment as he was in Mumbai, which is the film capital of India and "provides employment to lakhs of people and contributes significantly by way of taxes".

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