The Remake Debate

Today,however,Gol Maal (1979) — one of his popular movies made on a modest budget — has been remade on a grand scale as Bol Bachchan,and is releasing on July 6. This heart-warming story of a young man trying to please his boss is now a high-action comic caper with Abhishek Bachchan as a con man. This remake,directed by Rohit Shetty,is in contrast to what people like Menon believe. “Many people have a sense of humour and comic timing,but Hrishida’s cinema was unique and there has been no real successor,” he says.

Menon may be right. But the trend of remaking popular Hindi films is now looking beyond the action-packed Don or Angeepath. So,the current crop of filmmakers are looking at Mukherjee’s contemporaries,including Basu Chatterjee and Sai Paranjpe,to give their movies a contemporary touch. In Bol Bachchan,Bachchan plays Amol Palekar’s characters Ramprasad and Lakshmanprasad,whereas Ajay Devgn steps into Dutt’s rather large shoes as Bhawani Shankar. David Dhawan,meanwhile,is keen on remaking Chupke Chupke (1975) even as he readies to release a contemporary version of Sai Paranjpe’s Chashme Buddoor (1981).

Dhawan says that as a comedy filmmaker,to be influenced by Mukherjee’s works is inevitable. “He gave cinema a streak of humour in the ’60s and ’70s when melodrama ruled. However,the new generation may not connect with them. The remakes with contemporary settings may introduce them to Hrishida’s films,” he explains.

Bhavna Talwar,director of the slice-of-life comedy titled Happi with Chaplinesque Pankaj Kapoor in lead,confessed to have imbibed the simplicity of the plot from Mukherjee’s movies. Raghav Dar,who directed My Friend Pinto,too owns up to similar influence. “He viewed the everyday problems of the common man with a special lens. So a tyrant boss in Gol Maal or a cynical doctorin Anand (1970) would become ‘villains with hearts of gold’ in his stories,” says Dar about Mukherjee’s PG Wodehouse-like humour. Menon,however,believes that Mukherjee’s films should not be viewed as comedies alone. “They conveyed social messages too,” he says.

Mukherjee moved to Mumbai in the early ’50s and started assisting Bimal Roy. Later on,Mukherjee edited latter’s movies such as Do Bigha Zameen. Mukherjee’s early films such as Musafir (1957),Anuradha (1960) and Anupama (1966) were inspired by Roy’s cinematic style. “Raj Kapoor,one of his closest friends,also impacted Hrishida’s work,” says Menon. The director worked with most top actors of his time,including Guru Dutt,Dev Anand,Rajesh Khanna,Dharmendra,Amitabh Bachchan,Sadhana,Sharmila Tagore,Rekha and Jaya Bachchan. Amol Palekar,Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval also worked with him later.

The director suffered from severe arthritis,which would leave him bedridden for weeks. Therefore,by the ’70s he had nearly stopped penning his own scripts. This made him remake Bengali films. For example,Chhadmabeshi was remade as Chupke Chupke. His illness also made him shoot several films,including Gol Maal at his bungalow.

Even though there is a buzz around Chupke Chupke being remade soon,such attempts are being eyed with skepticism. Director Basu Chatterjee believes that very few can do justice to the originals. “Hrishida’s films were a by- product of his personal style. It also helped that he was also a prolific editor,” he asserts. Menon seconds Chatterjee,“The way Hrishida paced his films gave the characters their comic timing,which is an individualistic talent.”

Dar points out that after initial marketing,the makers are playing down the fact that Bol Bachchan is modelled on the 1979 classic. “That innocence of the ’70s is lost — a young man from a small town no more feels lost on his first job in the urban jungle,” Dar reasons. “Young audience has exposure to cinema from across the world. That apart,Indian cinema today is a battle of avant-garde and massy films with little space for simplistic story-telling like Hrishida’s.”