Few days back when i came to know about the three books published in Film Series by Harper Collins from a friend Arun,i was eager to have them in my collection as all three were written upon the movies which are among my best favorites,i.e,'Deewar,Disco Dancer & Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron'.
The very same day i placed a order on Flipkart for all the three books and today evening i received one of these which was 'Disco Dancer-A comedy in Five Acts' authored by Anuvab Pal.
Since i am enjoying a forced bachelorhood nowadays hence there was no obstruction which could prevent me to go through this 208 paged book in one shot which i eventually did as i was eager to read the story behind creation of this cult movie of early 80's which brought a rage for Disco Fever in India.
I was expecting a detailed inner view behind the inception,conception and creation of the movie via director angle supported by music composer,actors and other crew members detailed view which normally one expects from a book written over a cult movie but i was hugely disappointed as the books covers up only a very brief overview about the movie which can easily be accessed while going through the interviews of its director or any other crew members over net or old film magazines.
Out of 208 of total pages 108 pages covers up the screenplay of the movie in English language which was not at all required because a avid and interested reader longs for the unknown information supported by unseen images/photos of during the making of the movie and the story behind the creation of the movie rather than having a whole screenplay which one could easily watch in the movie itself.
The author has included personal interviews with director B.Subhash and music composer Bappi Lahiri along with a telephonic interview with actor Mithun Chakravorty but these interviews seems to be very casual in nature rather than those focused,acquainted and continual meets which could led to a detailed and deep insight view over the making up of this cult classic.
Though the author have met producer and director B.Subhash in person but this meeting fails to bore up any visual fruits for the readers in the shape of any unseen images and photos taken on the sets during the making of movie which could have easily been a readers delight as this is all which a book written on a movie mean for common readers,and nor did the interview is supported by any interesting anecdotes and incidents during the making of the movie.
Overall also the book heavily lacks the support of visual images and photos leaving behind only 4 pages which contain the B/W photos of mainly the lobby cards of the movie.
The book priced at Rs.250/- proves to be a futile and costly affair to satiate the thirst of those who are craving for some meaningful and in-depth/information/knowledge about this historical movie.
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5 comments:
Hi Jaheer
an excellent review of a book which could be an interest for very selective group of people like yourself.
recently i saw ad of one other book " making of Lagan" and the first thought came to my mind was that do i really want to read book like this..
now just a diversion..
here i see lot of books like on Angelina Julie, biography of political leaders such as Bill clinten, hilary, obama, john harward etc etc and from cricketer as well and I wonder how many people really read it..
reason they say or write all those things which was never part of there actual doing or saying when they were active.. for example George Bush will write his biography and will say that he was dead against to send army to Iraq or Obama will say that he never funded wrongly etc etc..
Manoj prabhakar will say that he warned Kapil on Fixing ..
so this type of books are either sell gimmick or marketing gimmick ..
now coming to this book..
Disco Dancer movie is 'our' favorite but how many 'new' people know about this movie ? how many " Sheela ki jawani" generation will dance on " i am a disco dancer" , how many "munni badnam " can remember the beautiful lyrics " goro ki na kalo ki" of this movie..
just to sell they tried to cash popularity of this classic movies..and because it is pure business they didnot bother to add the trueness what real lover ( Read Jaheer) are looking for.
and above all the lover of Dicso dancer era must have read all those filmi books , magazine that time which were good to read , informative and know more about this movie then what this book is written about as you mentioned.
most of the people know Mithun as a flop actor but hardly few recognize him as one of most stylish actor and dance king of his time.
Kuldeep Jain: Kuldeep bhai,actually what prompted me to write the review was the general disappointment through which i gone while going across the book.
I am always eager to know more about those movies which i have cherished right from my childhood days,also as about the current movies information more than enough is available on net as well as print media but very few or negligible in depth and behind the scene information is available about these yesteryears movies specially of those of before 90's.
Hence it was quite natural on my part to be quick in picking up any known book written over these cult classic movie but after going through such book(s) which do not cover the real thing rather than a brief and far overview i was compelled to vent out my sheer disappointment which arose due to failure of my expectations with the books written on such milestone movies.
Yeah,you are right that nowadays publishers are trying to cash the popularity of these classic movies rather than providing some read worth of money.
to be continued...
Book on Jaane Bhi Yaroo will not disappoint you. The problem is that publishers commissioned different writers for book on each film. But Jay Arjun Singh's book is different. Nowadays a trend has started to publish screenplays of films as books - Andhi, 3 idiots and 7 Khoon Maaf. I have just seen book on 7 Khoon Maaf and it is nothing but screeplay of the film plus the main story by Ruskin Bond. What a way to fool film lovers like us. But whatever littile till now I am able to read book on JBDY is different.
SB: Yeah JBDY seems different and really informative but at the moment i am nibbling the book on 'Deewar' which also seems providing in depth analysis of 'Vijay' character in specific and movie in general.
Nowadays writer have found to way to consume pages in the form of providing screenplay unnecessarily which adds to the page count and make the book appear thicker that it would have been if counted of readable material.
Do the Editors even read the book before they publish it. It's sick to see such undercooked work being published so widely, when there are so much talent yet to be unearthed in Indian writing or Comics scene.
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