Opinion Express View on Madhubala: The biopic challenge
Biopics have become a comfortable formula, offering prestige and instant publicity. But does the audience want more of the same?
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An actor of luminous beauty, with impeccable comic timing and a slew of successes, who is also one of Indian cinema’s great tragic figures because of her doomed love life and early death: There is little doubt that the story of Madhubala would make for a compelling film. The announcement of a biopic of the actor, helmed by Jasmeet H Reen — director of the 2022 film Darlings — should, then, be cheering news.
Yet, the general quality of biopics — a genre that seems to have become a Bollywood favourite since the box office success of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag in 2013 — gives pause and elicits the question: What makes a good biopic?
The straightforward answer, of course, is that a good biopic is one that is not a hagiography. It is a film that attempts honesty, and resists the temptation to present its protagonist as an infallible or flawless figure. This, unfortunately, is where so many films falter, including recent releases such as Sam Bahadur, about Sam Manekshaw, and Main Atal Hoon, about Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Mere biographical details cannot be the anchor for a biopic.
Perspective and the understanding that the great figures of history cannot be separated from their times are, perhaps, of greater importance. Could Vajpayee’s story, for instance, have been used to tell a broader story of the India in which he rose to power and which he undoubtedly helped shape?
The real trouble, however, is that the biopic has increasingly become a comfortable formula, offering a ready-made story, a halo of prestige and instant publicity. Does the audience want more of the same? Going by the slew of biopics in the pipeline for this year, including films on Sourav Ganguly, Sambhaji Maharaj, Jhulan Goswami and Indira Gandhi, nobody in Bollywood seems to be asking that question.
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