Book Review

Author: Anupama Chopra
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 376
Price: 499
ISBN 976-0-143-04594-4

First up, an honest confession: I am not particularly enamoured of the changes that the Hindi movie industry is supposed to be currently in the throes of. The so-called new Bollywood is still burdened with much deadwood. It has acquired a veneer of technical sophistication all right, but in terms of ideas the Mumbai dream machine remains trapped in old habits and mothballed ideas. That is probably the industry’s chief strength as much as it is its principal failing.

That is not to say that a segment of Mumbai cinema hasn’t moved, as the author of this book emphasises, “from crass  to cool” over the past decade. It certainly has. But, no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot be enthused by a cinema that shouts when gentle whispers would do, that raves and rants when a simple gesture is all that is needed, that breaks into raucous song and dance when it can choreograph small gestures to articulate a whole world, that resorts to a splash of garish colours when it should be exploring the power of subtle shades, that invariably misses the nuances of life in its obsession with broad sweeps of emotion…

For me, a pretentious old soul who barely manages to tolerate the defiant shallowness of commercial Hindi films, this hyped idiom is, more often than not, terrible tedium. So whatever I might say about a book by a self-confessed apologist for Bollywood, an idiom that is less cinema than star-driven indulgence, should be viewed – and probably dismissed – in the light of my deep-seated prejudice.

But, then, can any movie critic claim to be free from biases? I have mine, and with good reason. Anupama Chopra has hers with good reason too – she derides “neo-realist Iranian cinema” as depressing. I find it uplifting and illuminating. But that is the beauty of cinema – you can agree to disagree and yet worship at the same altar with equal fervour no matter who your deity is - Karan Johar or Michael Haneke. So, ‘First Day First Show’ is worth a read even if aren’t a uncritical and certified Bollywood freak.

Bollywood is, indeed, a valid form of filmed entertainment, but a nation of a billion-plus people and a multiplicity of cultural conventions certainly deserves better. Popular Mumbai cinema’s power stems primarily from the tyranny of numbers. Chopra has, since the early 1990s, been one of the more passionate Bollywood chroniclers. This book, a compilation of her journalistic articles plus an extract each from her monographs on Sholay and DDLJ, is eminently readable and provides a clear ringside account of the industry’s highs and lows of the past two decades.

‘First Day First Show’ has a lively foreword by none other than Shahrukh Khan, contemporary Bollywood’s biggest superstar and the subject of one of Chopra’s several books on Hindi cinema. The book’s tapestry straddles a wide swathe of themes that are as riveting as they are relevant. 

Curl up in bed with this book, peruse it between catnaps on a long haul or speed-read it – you might find something or other to savour. It includes snapshots of different aspects of Bollywood – the stars, the moguls, the movies, the trends and the spills. For a reader looking for a quick overview of what this industry is all about will certainly be rewarded, and so one presumes will inveterate Bollywood junkies who devour everything that comes their way. But if you happen to be somebody who is looking for something that you do not already know about Mumbai movies, you might be a tad disappointed.

But that is certainly not for want for trying or lack of ability. There can be no denying that Chopra is an insightful critic and reporter and she writes with passion, precision and humour. But magazine articles, by virtue of their very nature and their limited length, do not allow for much depth of exploration. They usually skim the surface, leaving far too much in the realms of the unsaid.       

Chopra started her career at a time when writing about Bollywood was “decidedly infra dig” but it was an era when – and she does not concede this point – India had its most intelligent and incisive writers on cinema at the peak of their prowess, the likes of Chidananda Dasgupta, Iqbal Masud and Bikram Singh, who viewed the movie output of this vast and diverse land in its totality.

Chopra, like others of her ilk, is peddling her skills at a juncture of Indian cinema history where, in her own words, “the cultural landscape (is) saturated with Hindi cinema”. And that is the undoing of our generation of film critics.

At the best of times, it is difficult to sustain even a casual conversation on Hindi cinema at a level that is anywhere near meaningful. Writing on the spectacularly superficial world of Hindi cinema, where the only cultural reference points seem to be either Mumbai films of yore or Hollywood blockbusters cannot but be onerous. Chopra has been at it with distinction for years. That fact is amply reflected in this compendium of her writings.

But how one wishes that the “Bollywood trenches” from where she reports could open out to offer a more holistic view of what Indian cinema could have been but isn’t.