Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Has remake of films in recent years been successful?


Had the films remade in the last few years been successful?

By: Rumi Chatterji.

There has been a trend of filmmakers being involved in remaking films based on popular stories which were made in the past, for the last few years. Parineeta had been remade, along with Umrao Jaan , Don, to name a few. Parineeta was successful as it was a story of Sarat Chandra Chatterji, and the previous version was made by Bimal Roy way back in the 50s. Besides the strong performance of Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Vidyabalan and powerful direction of Pradep Sarkar contributed for its success. On top of that the song “piu bole” sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal added the Bengali flavour in the film. Besides, sequences were shot in Kolkata, for keeping resemblance with the storyline.

But Don had a mixed bag of responses. Firstly the version of Don played by Amitabh Bacchan in 1978 was still in the minds of film-viewers, who had not forgotten the action pact performance of Big B and Pran. In the remade version there was added attraction of action sequences being shot in foreign countries, with some modifications in the story, good dance number by Kareena Kapoor and different presentation of the character by Shahrukh Khan. The performance of Boman Irani and Om Puri, adds flavour in the film. One school of thoughts say it is successful as the stories were not identical and the new generation had enjoyed it. The other school of thought say that hit films like Don should not be experimented with.

In respect of remake of Sholay by Ram Gopal Verma, people were quite confused to show their reaction. Firstly each and every character of Sholay including Surma Bhopali, Jay, Viru, Thakur, Gabbar Singh, had got greater than life image which is fresh in the minds of filmlovers. Secondly only within a span of 32 years (Sholay was made in 1975) the same story cannot be replicated unless fresh script and different exposure of the characters are possible. Although Big B, Mohanlal and others tried to show their depth of acting to make the new version successful, it did not create a sensation. Umrao Jaan had also being remade this year.
This brings us to the question, whether remake of popular films can bring revenues these days. The audience are going to answer the question. The trend in 2007 had been mentioned in the article. 2008 may have new dimensions in store. Only time can tell whether the remade films are accepted by the audience or not.

2 comments:

Rumi said...

The reaction to remake of films based on classc literature is different from remake of other films. For example Parineeta was based on classic literature and there was scope of different directors in presenting the story in their own way. It is like a popular rabindra sangeet sung by different singers. For other films, unless the new depiction of th original film is done with novel ideas, people take time to accept them.
Rumi Chatterji.

Unknown said...

The directors of recent times have changed the stories while dealing with films which were depicted 20 years back. But unless the same standard of excellence is reached in the modern version the remake is useless. For example Sholay was an epic creation and the action, comedy sequence, songs, story-telling all were lifetime creations. It is better not to experiment with these films.
Chitta Ranjan Chatterji.