The biggest actor of the NFDC led film movement of 70's Naseeruddin Shah made
some derogatory comments about the early 70's superstar Rajesh Khanna.
The comments made news but this sort of thinking is there in the
industry towards people who have gained superstardom, just most of the
time it stays behind closed doors but unfortunately or fortunately this
time came out. Normally this is there as one feels its the sort of
success you wanted to achieve and could not or feel the other guy did
not deserve the success he got. Also there is a huge misconception about
what is acting, basically it is about likeabilty and making the
audience believe and the ones who do it best succeed the most.
The real shocking thing was when this guy commented about
the films of the times and making the golden era of Hindi films into a
mediocre era.. The fact is that from when colour fims started being made
regularly in the early 60's and till video came in the early 80's it
was the golden era which was not seen before and may not be seen again.
Pages can be written about the box office records of the era but the
easiest way to explain the growth is that India had 4380 screens in 1962
and the total was 12,840 screens in 1980. The total number of screens
in 1980 is more than today. This sort of infrastructure growth can only
happen for one reason and that is CONTENT. The audience is coming out to
watch films which leads to a need of theatres and the audience is
coming out not because of a superstar or two because how many films can
they have to sustain such growth but because of general all round good
content.
Its not just that actor who probably lives in a world of
disillusionment but the case can be made for half the industry today,
actually probably more than half. Its laughable but many in the industry
call today the golden era as well though only god knows why. We live in
an era that two big films can't release on the same day if they want
the desired results but this is not the fault of these releases but what
happens for the rest of the year. .When the content is bad barring 3 or
4 Friday's of the 52 then there wont be enough screens for two films to
release together as how do exhibitors survive outside these 3-4
Friday's.
There are obstacles with putting up new properties be it
rising land prices, high taxation and less than encouraging government
policies in many areas but these issues would have been there is the
60's as well, maybe more as rules were less pro business then but it
made no difference as demand was there. It would be same today if we had
the content. In that period we had films which were going to take up
15-16 weeks released every week which resulted in more screens and today
if we have films every week which can be run just 4-5 weeks in most
cities then the screen count would go up fast.
There was that NFDC art film movement which lived in a
deluded world and this resentment for the huge commercial success of
Rajesh Khanna by Naseeruddin Shah could be because this movement mainly
survived ten plus years as the actors were hardly paid as that was only
way they could make films for 4-5 lakhs which gave a chance for
recovery.
Today its not much different, a Badlapur, Haider or NH 10
can survive because the main talents are hardly being paid or taking
huge cuts in the remuneration. Then on top its said these films are
appreciated but how can these films be appreciated if hardly anybody has
seen them. None crossed 50 lakh footfalls in theatres and less said
about television results the better. You can only have appreciation if
you have an audience. The longevity in the golden era was measured
through repeat runs and today that has been replaced by television.
Despite all this a large section of the industry calls this
the golden era which shows the understanding of Hindi cinema is even
worse than the content of their films.
