Amitabh Bachchan

Revision as of 02:13, 19 April 2014

Zanjeer

On 11 May, 1973, movie director Prakash Mehra released a film that rejuvinated the career of Amitabh Bachchan. The film was Zanjeer (Chains).

This was a film that also changed the industry as it introduced an angry, young hero, capturing the sense of angst and frustration many young Indian men felt at the time.

In the film, a child named Vijay witnesses his parents being murdered by a faceless killer. As he grows up, he has nightmares about this and keeps seeing the images of a white horse and an emblem on a bracelet. He joins the police force and is an honest officer but then he slowly turns into a vigilante. Vijay befriends a Pathan1 and begins to seek out the murderer and his henchmen.

The film helped to catapult Bachchan, although well-known after Anand, to 'superstardom'. The script writers, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, also became a very well-known partnership. Known as 'Salim-Javed', their successes included Sholay, Deewar, Trishul and Don. The director, Prakash Mehra, who had four film flops since his debut film Haseena Manjayegi in the late 1960s, chose Bachchan to star, despite him being rejected by some directors for not being well-known enough. The film went on to become a huge success at the box office, and the name Vijay will be forever associated with Bachchan.

Mehra passed away in 2009 and among the stars who attended the funeral were Bachchan, who married Jaya Bhaduri, his co-star in Zanjeer, and his son Abhishek, who is also a film star and is married to Aishwarya Rai.

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan was born on 11 October, 1942, in Allahabad in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India, the son of Indian poet Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan. He was initially named Inquilab, inspired by the slogan used during the struggle for Indian independence, 'Iquilab Zindabad', but was re-named Amitabh, meaning 'the light that would never go off'. His mother Teji, a Sikh, had a keen interest in theatre and was also offered acting roles but chose domestic duties instead.

Amitabh, the eldest son - the younger being Ajitabh - studied at Allahabad's Jnana Prabodhini and Boys' High School, followed by Nainital's Sherwood College, where he majored in art. He then went on to study at Kirori Mal College in Delhi where he completed his degree as a Bachelor of Science and also obtained an MA. He started a job as a freight broker in Calcutta, but soon gave this up to pursue a film career.

His first film, Saath Hindustani (Seven Indians), released in 1969, was not a success, even though he received a National Film Award for Best Newcomer. This was followed by Anand. He went on to act in several other less successful films and also made a guest appearance in Guddi, which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri, and he also narrated Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Bawaarchi, again starring his future wife as well as Rajesh Khanna. He then appeared in Bombay to Goa with Aruna Irani and the comedian Mehmood. In 1974 he starred in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan (Food House and Clothing). Directed by Manoj Kumar, the film addressed honesty in the face of oppression and financial hardship. The film was a commercial success. But it was the later films which enabled Bachchan to consolidate his position in the industry.

In 1982 he suffered a potentially fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene in Manmohan Desai's Coolie, in which he was performing his own stunts. He was close to death and was in hospital for several months, during which time members of the public gathered outside the hospital to pray for him. In response to the huge publicity that the film received at the time, the director decided to change the ending as the original had the hero, played by Bachchan, dying. The film was eventually released in 1983.

Later Amitabh was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, which made him feel weak mentally and physically. He decided to retire from films and join politics and support his long-time friend, the late Rajiv Gandhi, elder son of Mrs Indira Gandhi and the grandson of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. However, this was short-lived and in 1987, he resigned after a scandal after a newspaper mentioned his name in connection with the 'Bofors Scandal'2. As a consequence there was legal action and his name was eventually cleared. In 1988 the superstar returned to acting and went on to set up his own company, ABCL.

Sholay

In the mid-1970s two more films were released that would raise the levels of Indian film-making - and both films starred Amitabh Bachchan.

The first of these was Sholay. Sholay means 'fire' [No. It means 'flames' or 'embers' ] and this is what this movie had. Directed by Ramesh Sippy, it is said to have been inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and its Hollywood remake, The Magnificent Seven.

Thakur, who is a land owner and a former decorated police officer, hires two small-time criminals, Jai and Veeru, to hunt down Gabbar Singh, a dacoit3. It's after their first encounter with the dacoit that Jai and Veeru find out that almost all of the former police officer's family had been killed by the dacoit. When the officer arrested them a long time ago, he had also arrested Gabbar Singh, but when the dacoit escaped he sought revenge by killing most of the members of the police officer's family. However, his daughter-in-law survives. The police officer chases Gabbar Singh but is trapped and has his hands cut off. Jai and Veeru decide not take the money the landowner has paid them, instead promising him that they will bring Gabbar Singh in - alive. In the end, Jai is killed in action. Veeru is about to take revenge for his friend's death when he is reminded of the promise made by the former, handless police officer, who decides to deal with the matter in his own way with some spiky shoes.

The film had a disastrous opening week and Ramesh Sippy called an emergency meeting with the writers Salim-Javed and Bachchan, who played Jai, to discuss pulling the film from the cinemas to re-edit it. But it was not to be as, the following week, people began flooding to the cinema. By the end of the month, the film was getting full houses. In 1980 Sholay was still being shown in cinemas and had gone on to break Mughal-E-Azam's record. In the 1990s one cinema in Mumbai was still showing it to full houses. People remembered the dialogue, the scenes, the songs and the villain Gabbar Singh, played by the late Amjad Khan. Sholay went on to break all box office records and set up a challenge for many other movies of the same genre.

Deewar

The 1970s would give Bachchan yet another memorable role - Yash Chopra's Deewar. Meaning 'The Wall', writing duo Salim-Javed were inspired by the life of a real notorious smuggler, Haji Mastan, who later reformed.

Vijay and Ravi, two brothers, react differently to their childhood humiliation and struggle after their father, a union leader who fights for workers rights, is wrongfully branded a thief and accused of surrendering the workers rights. Vijay, who sees his mother struggling after their father leaves them, is forced to have a tattoo on his hand that reads: 'My father is a thief.' As they grow up, Ravi, the younger one, becomes a police officer while Vijay, who stops believing in God, has been working on shipyards and at the docks in Bombay and fights physically for the workers, slowly descending into a world of criminality and becoming a wanted man. Ravi is asked to track down some criminals and finds out that at top of the wanted list is his brother. He then hands a piece of paper over to Vijay, asking him to sign it and to agree to reveal all his contacts. In the end Ravi, chasing his own brother, shoots and Vijay, wounded, walks into the temple, where he had arranged to meet their mother, and dies in her arms.

The movie, directed by Yash Chopra, was an instant success and for many, Bachchan was Vijay. The movie had some very emotional scenes, especially when Vijay and Ravi meet under a bridge they had slept under as children. Vijay, after revealing how much he owns compared to Ravi, asks him: 'What do you have?' The reply he receives is 'I have Mother'. When Ravi asks Vijay to sign the paper with all his contacts on Vijay explodes with anger and tells him: 'First of get those men who branded our father a thief, then get those men who forcefully had my arm tattooed "my father is a thief" and then ask me to sign such papers!'

Although the character of Vijay was inspired by the real smuggler Haji Mastaan, the writers had taken great care to punish the bad guy and denounce him repeatedly, while cleverly using hedonistic criminal life style to add glamour to the movie. This film was released at a delicate time in India's history. The then Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi4, was under attack in the Supreme Court by opposing political forces and retaliated by declaring a national state of emergency. The film received a total of seven Filmfare Awards: Best Director, Best Story, Best Screenplay, Best Dialogue, Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Shashi Kapoor) and Best Sound Recording. In 1975, as Bachchan was seen on screen beating up villains, a small-budget mythological film, reminding many of the roots of the film industry, was released in cinemas and went on to also be a success. The film was Jai Santoshi Maa.

Kabhi Kabhie

The year 1976 saw Bachchan in a different sort of role, in Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie. An all-star cast included Shashi Kapoor, Rakhee Gulzar, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Simi Garewall and Parikshit Sahni. But it also saw the return of Waheeda Rehman to the screen. The film was inspired by a poem composed by the lyricist Sahir Ludianvi, a friend of director Chopra.

Amit, a poet, falls in love with Pooja and the two plan to get married. But destiny had other plans for them and Pooja, unable to go against her parent’s wishes, marries another man, Vijay. Amit moves away from his poetry and marries another woman, Anjali, in an attempt to forget Pooja. But then another generation comes along and Pooja and Vijay's son, Vicky, falls in love with Pinky, daughter of Shobha and Dr RP, who are family doctors for Vijay and Pooja. Soon it's time for Cicky and Pooj to get married, when suddenly the story takes a sharp twist and Pinky is informed that she had been adopted when she was a baby.

Pinky, after arguing with her adopted parents and with Vicky, goes to Kashmir to find her mother who, it turns out, is Anjali, married to Amit and has a daughter as well. Vicky, in the meantime, also travels to the region in order to persuade Pinky not to dig up her past but it's too late.

The songs from the movie were released long time before the movie opened, and proved to be very popular. In countries such as Kenya, members of the Indian community would regularly phone local radio stations and request a song from the movie. Even in the UK, almost every Indian family had a vinyl record of the songs and many would play a cassette of this in their car whenever they could. During the shooting of the film, all the cast stayed together as a family and contributed to every aspect of the film; some even had their families staying with them and they were added in as extras in the wedding scenes. The film received a total of four Filmfare Awards: Best Lyricist, Best Music Director, Best Screenplay and Best Male Playback Singer.

Two other films were released later in the decade - Amar Akbar Anthony in 1977 and Trishul in 1978 - both starring Bachchan. The next decade - the 1980s - would see almost any type of film being produced and released.