"The Godfather" remade

More often than not, remakes are a soft target for criticism. Viewers can’t refrain themselves from drawing comparisons with the original. While many a times, remakes fail to recreate the magic, sometimes they give an interesting twist and are better than the original. Sometimes the twists itself weigh the movie down whereas sometimes the movie fails just because viewers are devoted to the original. Let’s take a closer look at some remakes of The Godfather.

The first one to remake in bollywood was Feroz Khan, way back in 1975. He modified the story and made Dharmatma, 3 years after its hollywood debut. He picked up only the main characters from the original, the father and the son. In fact, only the son. The godfather portrayed by Premnath does not have a role.  Some characters from the original that were merged and the dialogues translated to hindi were lost in translation. The scenic locations of Italy were replaced with the equally scenic but rugged terrains of Afghanistan. Overall, it was a stylish movie coupled with good music. You can appreciate the movie, only if you do not see it as a remake of The Godfather. But, the moment you start watching it as a remake of The Godfather, the movie starts to lose its charm.

Mani Ratnam toyed with The Godfather in his Tamil remake, Nayagan. Although, the movie is the true story of the underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar, Mani Ratnam peppered it with a few elements from The Godfather (trilogy). The moral center of The Godfather was ‘family’ and it was changed to ‘anything that can help people is not wrong’ In Nayagan. The movie maintained a realistic narrative style. The protagonist Velu (Kamal Hasan) never tried to play a ‘larger than life’ character. The realistic portrayal of his fight with the police inspector is a perfect example of this. Kamal Hasan’s brilliance can be seen many times including the famous scene of Velu’s interaction with his grandson in the climax. When the grandson asks “Are a good man or a bad man?” Velu replies (after a pause) “I don’t know.”  Use of camera and lights are also worth mentioning, especially the one where little Velu asks the fisherman, “You pray every day and go to the mosque, you donate to anyone who asks. But at night, you smuggle goods. Isn’t it wrong?” He replies, “No. Anything that can help people is not wrong.” The complete scene is shot against the sunlight and in silhouette.  The audience also witnessed the deft use of camera in another scene. Velu’s interactions with his daughter at the ACP’s house, when he finds that the ACP’s wife is his daughter. His daughter’s half face is visible during the whole conversation. It signifies that the daughter finds herself in the tussle between her father and her husband. On one hand, she wants to meet/greet him while on the other hand she knows that her father is involved in illegal activities whereas her husband is a police officer.

There were quite a few forgettable remakes. Dayavan, a failed remake of Nayagan by Feroz Khan. Remake of remake of The Godfather. The only thing that remained in popular memory was the sensual song with Madhuri Dixit and Vinod Khanna. Next was Zulm Ki Hukumat with Dharmendra as Vito, Govinda as Mike and Shakti Kapoor as Sunny. Viewers stayed home with the original and the movie flopped. How badly one can go with Rajnikant and Aamir Khan in a movie can be learned from Aatank hi Aatank.  Although the movie went through financial troubles and was delayed, but that was not the only reason for its failure. With dialogues like “Paisa gale ki nas kaant ke bhi kamaya jaata hai aur Pajame ka naada khol kar bhi” and “Revolver se zyada khatarnak cheez agar koi hai ... toh woh hai tumhari aankhen,” it tried to deliver The Godfather. Another failed attempt was with Sapoot, featuring Kader Khan as Vito and Akshay Kumar as Mike.

RGV paid tribute to The Godfather with Sarkar. He cleverly framed the movie in his own style, with his trademark dark shots and camera angles. He moved the story from a mafia family to Maharashtra politics. The Bachchans played the Corleone’s.  Amitabh brilliantly essayed the role of Subash Nagre. He does things which he feels are right even though they might be illegal to the outside world. He also gave smart advices just like Vito – “Nazdeek ka phayda dekhne se pahle ye soch lena chahiye ki kahi door ka nuksaan to nahi ho raha.” The momentous scene in the original where Vito refuses to deal in narcotics, was also adapted perfectly by RGV, but in his own style. Viewers can feel the goosebumps when Subash Nagre says – Main nahin karunga… A pause…. aur tujhe bhi karne nahi doonga. Overall, it was a good attempt from RGV.

The Godfather met a modern day adaptation of Mahabharata in Rajneeti, set against the backdrop of politics. The characters from Mahabharata were given shades of The Godfather. Like Arjun with shades of Mike in Samar and Lord Krishna with Tom Hagen in Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar). The screenplay had plenty of turns like when Suraj (Ajay Devgn), a Dalit leader, plans to contest the elections against Samar’s political party, Brij Gopal makes Suraj’s father as his party’s candidate, even before Suraj (Ajay Devgn) announces his candidature. Quite a shrewd move and an interesting twist that leaves audience with a ‘wow’. The movie tries it’s best to include all the elements for a compelling political drama but fails at many places. The characters at times neither resemble the ones in Mahabharata nor The Godfather.

When one remakes a movie, there is no need to copy the original frame by frame. Director has the creative liberty to use his own interpretations but he must make it with sincerity.  It is not easy to decide what to tweak and what to keep. Add sub-plots, more spice, and melodrama but don’t lose the essence of the movie. In some of the above, the cast itself was not good to pull it off, in some there was nothing to add and there was no convincing reason to see the movie after admiring the original. Some missed most of the nuances, the complexities, and the subtexts from the original. Nevertheless, movies like Nayagan stood out primarily because of its vision and sincerity and Sarkar to some extent for being a true tribute.

The debate on whether we need a remake or not will always be on.

Photo Source - Wikipedia, movierulz, webmusic

Many facets of a dialogue - Deewar

The scene I am talking about is from the story of two brothers, who were thrown by fate on the either sides of the law. The movie found parallels with the story of Haji Mastan, who was a dockworker and later became a powerful smuggler.  The movie also established a cult following for Amitabh Bachchan and cemented his angry young man image that started off with Zanjeer.  

Who can forget the image of Amitabh Bachchan in a denim shirt (knotted at the waist) and khaki trousers? Yes, I am talking about “Deewar.” Even though, there are similarities between Deewar and movies like Mother India (Mother choosing the right over wrong) and Ganga Jamuna (tale of two brothers on the opposite sides of the law), Salim-Javed took it to another level by doing away with stereotyping.  It was a perfect script equipped with powerful screenplay and megawatt dialogues. Many dialogues from the movie are imprinted in popular memory - “main pheke hue paise nahi utha ta,” “Peter, tum mujhe dhund rahe ho,” “Jao pahle tum us aadmi ka sign lekar aao jisne mere haath pe yeh likh diya tha, “Mere paas… Maa hai,” “Khush toh bahot hogey tum!” But, let’s take a closer look at a very powerful albeit a less popular dialogue:

Vijay (Amitabh) is working as a laborer at the docks. A local gangster collects money from each dockworker on payday as protection money. One day, a new coolie refuses to pay and he dies. Vijay witnesses it. But, he doesn’t react.  When the camera captures him, we can see the anger seething in his eyes.

The scene cuts to the restaurant where Vijay is silently smoking a beedi. Other dockworkers are discussing about this incident and are saying that the new coolie should have given money; what’s the big deal? He lost his life for a few pennies.  Vijay, deep in his own thoughts is also listening to the conversation. Camera zooms at him and gives the audience a glimpse of his resentment.

When a dockworker says, “25 baras ho gaye, humne to nahi dekha, kisi coolie ko hafta dene se inkar karte hue,” Vijay’s anger bubbles to the surface.  He removes his beedi and says, “Rahim chacha, jo pachis baras me nahi hua wo ab hoga, Agle hafte ek aur coolie, in mavalion ko paisa dene se inkaar karne waala hai” The dialogue creates a tense situation. Vijay seems confident and the audience are intrigued by this. He keeps the beedi  in his hand. Camera zooms at him and audience can see the determination as well as some guilt in his eyes. Guilt that he didn’t do anything at the right time and determination that he wants to stop this in the future. 

He throws the beedi and gets up. Camera holds him when he waits for a split-second. This additional second tells the audience that he has thought through what he wants to do. He knows the repercussions and is ready to face them. There is also no melodrama in the dialogue. He doesn’t say, the coolie died and I want to avenge that.  Only a lazy writer will try to justify. The dialogue should be more than what the character says. It should be just as implicit as it is explicit. It should add another layer to the drama. And Salim-Javed got it just right. 

Trivia - Yash Chopra’s first choice for the role of Vijay Verma (that eventually played by Amitabh) was Rajesh Khanna, but due to Salim-Javed’s fall out with Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh was offered the role.