LONG, LONG AGO, before music videos became the talk of the town, a beautiful heroine walked out through the clouds in a dream sequence and the good-looking hero gawked and they sang. Visit here now http://certain-songs-blog.blogspot.com
The song played itself into the collective thought of the nation and one of the reasons was that the picturisation laid the foundation of strong visuals for strong music, generally a mainstay for many an immortal number. A couple of generations after Awara caught the attention of a nation that thrives on dreams, we continue to produce great music and our cinematography is improving by leaps and bounds.Music videos have entered our bloodstream and, in cinema, the director not only gets a captive audience to watch his film, he can also experiment and have fun filming the song sequences, without which no self respecting Indian film is complete.
Yet, we have seen many great songs that, when heard, enter our hearts, occupy our thoughts and present themselves as song on our lips. But when we wait for an hour in the theatre to see how well it is picturised, we are woken up, a liffle dazed. Rehna tu from Dilli 6 is to my mind a path breaking song in Indian cinema; it has a great tune, is deeply passionate and resonant, and mixes old Indian tunes with the latest technological wizardry The lyrics are fantastic and it had the potential to redefme the way Hindi film songs are played out. So we waited, after the movie began, to find the song playing itself into obscurity as Rishi Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan are driven through the streets of Delhi and end up having beer and playing a game of pool in an old house. Good acting, great cinematography, poignant scene. But what on earth was the song doing there? And, more importantly, what was the scene doing in that song???
And I flashback to a couple of years ago when the soundtrack of Guru was released. A brffliant number, Dum tara, was an auspicious note to set up the movie for release. And then the song and even Mani Ratnam, that genius of filmmakers, failed us. The song fell, and the movie went through with itself. An opportunity to carve itself into the annals of Indian film music went abegging. Recently, two fine numbers, the peppy Khabar na/tin from Dostana and Kahin toh from Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na both looked like, to borrow a football term, penalty kicks shot wide. The set-up was there, the inahaul was created and then lost with absurd goings on, onscreen. Perhaps the songs would have been happiest being in our memory with our own thoughts around what might have been. Too bad, we went to watch the film, so we remembered the film and forgot the song.
Rewinding to the RD Burman era, many songs were themselves powerful enough to move the film forward, but scant respect for the screen shots was visible.Roz roz aankhon tale from Jeeva, Tu tu ham vahin from Yeh Vaada Raha and Kya yahi pyaar hai from Rocky were all wasted opportunities to score. That the songs still remain on our lips is true testimony to the sheer quality of the music. A word of advice for incipient filmmakers: please do watch how Guru Dutt, Vijay Anand and V Shantaram made the songs organic to the film. It is not always true that the context of the film decides if we hum the number to our grave. However, in an age when the music video itself has become a profession and great videos have rocketed average songs to the top of the charts and mediocre artistes to stardom, our expectation from good directors to back up the music with deep and relevant screens is justified. Otherwise, like the ironically named Rehna tu, the song might not remain in our memory.. H ai jaisa tu... thoda sa dard tu, but no sukoon. Visit here now http://certain-songs-blog.blogspot.com
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