What is the point in remaking Sholay?

Sholay is a classic film loved by everyone. What is the point in remaking a movie that is considered flawless and was; is and always will be a craze? Let us look at some possibilities to get an answer to our question.

From the viewer’s perspective, Sholay is not a movie that needs to be remade due to the advancement of technology as the remake does not have any special effects or technical strengths.

Lack of creativity

Ram Gopal Varma, the director of the remake film has made many outstanding pieces of work. He is famous for his matchless ideas and unmatched method of direction. He is a college dropout but is extremely passionate about his movies and every movie he has made has its own uniqueness. So, it can be possible for one to say that he remade Sholay as a challenge and not as a lack of creativity.

On the other hand, in an interview for the Indian Express, Singh, 200 Ram Gopal Varma was asked ‘what posed as the bigger challenge: remaking Sholay or presenting Amitabh Bachchan as Gabbar Singh?’

He answered: “See, challenge is just one-upmanship of trying to prove something. I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone. This film is simply my interpretation of Sholay. I’m just trying to show the film in a new light. It’s not important that my interpretation needs to be better than the original. At the end of the day, every creative artiste is an extension of something that someone else has done. He puts his own personality and spin on that which already exists. That said, I think my version of Sholay will appeal to three types of audience: the die-hard Sholay fans; those who have seen Sholay but are not that much into it and those in the age group of 12-30 who have probably not seen the original. At the end of the day, films need to be discussed and I’ll be happy if everyone who watches Aag discusses it. You might ridicule it or criticise it but it shouldn’t bore you.” (Singh, 2006)

After reading this answer we realise that he does not want to challenge Sholay but might just be trying to use his ‘creativity’ and making the old classic again.

Reach new audiences (Generations and Language)

Sholay had been made in the year 1975 and RGV could have reckoned that today’s generation’s viewers would want to know how the yesteryear classic would look in their generation. He tried to appeal to today’s generation by updating the movie to today’s scenario. This can be one of the reasons he remade Sholay.

Better pool of talent available

The characters of Sholay are immortal and this was possible due to not only th characterisation in the story but also the actors who played those roles. Amjad Khan was and is still considered the scariest villain existing in the life of Bollywood. My mother used to tell me; ‘beta soo ja warna gabbar aa jayega’ (my child go to sleep or else Gabbar will come) to scare me and put me to sleep. According to RGV, the only person who could even come close to this actor was Amitabh Bachchan. This could be the wisest choise the director must have made but it turned back on him negatively due to the audience, as they could not accept Mr. Bachchan as a villain. The other cast is not even worth talking as none of them were close to the actors in Sholay. Hence this could never be the reason Sholay was remade.

Revamping flop concepts

This point cannot be considered as Sholay is an icon, which showcases the Hindi film industry in a nutshell. All the people associated with this movie: the actors, director, producer and the rest of the crew members, had become instant hits with their respective industries after doing this movie (For more information visit http://ezinearticles.com/?Sholay---Biggest-Hit-of-Bollywood&id=3030922). BBC has declared this movie as the "Film of the Millennium" in the year 1999. Released on August 15, 1975, Sholay has earned more than $200 million till now, and had run for more than 5 years in one Mumbai theatre: Minerva. With 60 Golden Jubilees across the country, this is the only movie in the history of Indian cinema to celebrate Silver Jubilee in over 500 theaters all over the country, at the same time. Sholay is definitely much more than a movie. It was a real blockbuster.

Reincarnating Actors This could be a possibility; RGV is known for giving an opportunity to new comers and what would better for them than doing the role of legendary heroes. The actor who acted as Raj in the remake did a brilliant job but did not receive much appreciation.

Update a story

Looking at the story and reviews, this is one of the major reasons to remake Sholay. There was a difference of three decades between Sholay and RGV ki Aag. The director even mentioned in one of his interviews that he has made his version of Sholay, i.e. how Sholay would be if it was originally made in 2007. Hence Ram Gopal Varma wanted to update the story of Sholay to today’s scenario.

Money

Funding: This would be not one of the reasons as RGV himself has financed Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag.

Profits: No film wants to incur losses not even RGV Ki Aag. Hence, profit must have been one of the reasons to remake Sholay. Since Sholay had made huge profits even RGV must have expected this remake to make a lot of profit.

Hence on to give an overview, we can see that RGV Ki Aag was made for mainly to update a story and reach new audiences by reincarnating actors.

Aag's version of Mehbooba.

What went wrong?

Remaking Sholay:

Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag was a much awaited film as everybody was eager to watch their favourite movie remade to today’s scenario. The movie was hence over-hyped and people had extremely high expectations from the film. On the other hand critics had jabbed the movie brutally by criticising the director to attempt to remake the evergreen Sholay. There was also a section of the people who disregarded the movie was released. Hence, the first thing that went wrong was the attempt to remake the movie itself. According to me there are many classic movies that have been remade well and so I would not consider remaking this movie as a mistake.

Casting:

According to me the back drop caused in this remake was due to wrong casting. Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, the godfather of Bollywood (I call him that not only because of his stature in the Indian film industry but also because he has played the role of Vito Corleone in the Indian version of Godfather) has been the good saviour hero not only in the movies but in the public’s eyes. In all the movies he played a villain, terribly failed. RGV casted Mr. Bachchan as the villain in this remake and people could not accept him as a bad guy. Though he did his best and acted marvellous, people did not like him as a villain. I believe that if the movie had a better starcast it could have worked wonders. The other actors selected were also inappropriate. Ajay Devgan, a renowned actor who has done serious roles all his life was selected to do a comic lead role and a new actor was given the role of the second lead. Even the evergreen chirpy role of Hema Malini was given to a new comer. I consider the casting of Sushmita Sen and Mohanlal was one of the few things that could be appreciated. If the actors would be good the audience would have atleast one reason to watch the movie.

Songs:

The third reason that led to the failure of the movie was its soundtrack. Songs are an essential ingredient in Bollywood movies and the songs of Sholay are sheer classics. If one puts away the comparison of the two movies and considers RGV ki Aag alone; the songs were absolutely terrible. Hence the songs just added to the collapse of the film.

The truth about Sholay

Conclusion

“In remaking or sequelising Hollywood, Bollywood plays an important role not only in constituting “Indian-ness”, but in continuing the ideologies that pervade the cultures of India well into the future.” (Cooke, 2009) Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood by Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Page 121”

Firstly, I would like to revel that Sholay itself is a remake of two Hollywood and hence we cannot call it “original”. The movie is an ‘Indianised’ version of Seven Samurai (1954); (which was remade as Magnificent 7) and Once upon a time in the West (1968).

Hence Sholay is not exactly an original film. As a result, this leads to a few questions; what can be called original? The question of fidelity, and is there really a point in remakes?

The first question is of what is original and what is not.

“The film’s originality, paradoxically, lies in the audacity of its imitation, quotation and absorption of other texts, its ironic hybridisation of traditionally opposed discourses.” (Stam, Burgoyne & Flitterman-Lewis).

The definition of originality is the ‘quality of being original’ and the same dictionary defines original as:

1. Preceding all others in time; first.

2. a. Not derived from something else; fresh and unusual: an original play, not an adaptation.

b. Showing a marked departure from previous practice; new: a truly original approach.

3. Productive of new things or new ideas; inventive: an original mind.

4. Being the source from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made

(Definitions from www.thefreedictionary.com)

The first, second and third definition would regard Sholay as a copy and not original but if one looks at the forth definition which says that it is a source from which a copy or reproduction is made; then Sholay can be considered. Hence, one can conclude that putting a tag of originality on a movie differs from person to person. Some will disregard the fact that Sholay is ‘inspired’ from another movie and some will accept it and still adore the movie and there will be some who wouldn’t like the movie irrespective of the fact that it is original or not. Sometimes originality is simply how much creativity one puts in the work instead of blindly copying.

Talking about fidelity; this word is generally used for adaptations of literature into moving images. “Andre Bazin highlights fidelity to ‘the spirit rather than the letter’” (Elliott, 2003). We would not get into the depth of the fidelity argument but the basic point theorists of fidelity argue is that the adaptation should be kept real to the source. But when fidelity is considered for remakes which can be regarded as a type of adaptations i.e. video to video adaptation or similar to adaptations; a viewer will view the film depending on his knowledge of the ‘original’ i.e. the source of the remake. If the viewer has seen the previous work he/she will unintentionally compare the two; and will make his perception about the remake according to his view about the original. For example, when I saw the remake of the movie Casino Royale; I liked the film a lot; being a hard core Bond fan, I have seen the Casino Royale (1967) and I liked the film but the 2006 Daniel Craig film appealed to me more as it was not only very well shot but every other aspect of the film was outstanding. It was not a cut copy paste of the original. It had its own uniqueness and 21^st century’s feel.

This brings us to the last and most important question; is there a point in a remake?

After looking at the different types of remakes and the reasons a remake is made, from an audience’s point of view, it can be said that it is not bad to remake a film. I conducted a small survey and saw that around 34 % of the people said yes when they were asked if movies should be remade and 56% were unsure if they want to watch a remake and only arounf 10% were negative about remakes (http://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_Responses.aspx?sm=LSZTESEhzNLBygYhtc6Oz5YZo%2b2vOS2rYQpnIklDOeI%3d). Also, the audiences are negative about movie remakes mostly because of having a bad experience after watching some dreadful remakes like Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag and Ugly aur Pagli (remake of a Korean movie-My Sassy girl). If remakes are not made we would not have been able to enjoy classics like a King Kong, Sholay, Ocean’s Eleven, Casino Royale and many more! So it is impossible to stop people from remaking films; but it is important for filmmakers to understand the value of the original film and treat it in a very good way with the use of their creativity to make better movies.

Thank you for reading.

I would like to thank my professor Jim Pope for giving us this project so that we could understand the theory behind film making and apply it in practical film making.

Bibliography:

Fidelity knowledge: Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature by John Desmond, Peter Hawkes.

Film Adaptation and Its Discontents: From Gone with the Wind to The Passion of the Christ By Thomas M. Leitch

N put all the others