Showing posts with label Shahryar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shahryar. Show all posts
I didn’t watch Umrao Jaan’s remake; the audience won’t allow its contamination either-Muzaffar Ali
3:55 PM
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; June 17, 2025)
Come next week, Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan will be back in theatres, 44 years after its release. On June 26, ahead of its premiere in Mumbai, the veteran filmmaker will launch a book dedicated to his celebrated film. In a conversation with us, the filmmaker takes us down a nostalgic path as he revisits his timeless classic. Excerpts:
How would you describe Umrao Jaan, a film that went on to become a classic?
Umrao Jaan is a serious tragedy, a tale of entrapment. The story revolves around a woman’s helplessness and, at the same time, her resilience to face reality. When she wipes a mirror in which she sees herself, she comes to terms with what’s happened to her. It’s about the realization of losing yourself. The whole Lucknow ambience was so compelling and romantic that it gave birth to the persona of Rekha.
Your story is rooted in Lucknow and it’s fascinating how you cast Rekha, a south Indian actress for lead and made Asha Bhosle, a Maharashtrian singer, her voice.
Only Shahryar (lyricist) and I were from Lucknow. Farooq Shaikh was Gujarati, and the legendary music director Khayyam was Punjabi, yes. I wanted to break this myth of who’s from where. They belong to the world. When I chose Rekha, I realized that there was this resilience in her eyes which could make her fall and rise in the same moment. She can be broken and not defeated. I couldn't see that in anybody else. I found in her a sense of total surrender. For this film, she knew something organic was taking place in her system to become what she could never become otherwise. Had she been reluctant about it, she wouldn’t have reached where she did. She flowed with the wind. She was weightless. Asha ji and I had a lot of discussion, and she asked a lot of questions. Shahryar (lyricist) would complain, ‘why do you make me do women's poetry’? Mushkil nahi hai, kuch bhi agar thaan lijiye. He created that kind of optimism for a woman who was abducted from her home. That was special.
What inspired you to cinematically narrate this story, which is based on Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s 1899 Urdu novel Umrao Jaan Ada?
A lot of our imagination is based on truth. So, Umrao Jaan, for the writer, Mirza Ruswa, was also a compendium of many characters he must have met in life. Coming from Awadh, I wanted to tell the story of this region. I realized that many people who've come from Awadh have got lost in the ocean of Bollywood. They had these beautiful nuances, words and cultural imagination, which became a part of someone else's agenda. So, all these rich minds that went into Bollywood, they were not themselves, you know what I mean? Particularly the poets. Even Sahir Ludhianvi was not himself, in that sense. All these people probably had as rich an imagination as mine, and that imagination needed freedom. So, for me, it was that liberated mindset, which could create an authentic artistic statement. I wanted to tell the story of Umrao Jaan the way I felt it. Be it Umrao or the protagonist, who’s a taxi driver in my film Gaman (1978), the latter doesn’t realize that he would go to Mumbai and drive a taxi with no freedom and reason to come back to his village. Umrao was also trapped in a situation where she couldn't get out of it, and she then was also unacceptable in her own home. This was many people's predicament in Bollywood.
How did you navigate artistic vision and commercial expectations while making Umrao Jaan?
This is a good question because we were all battling between art and commerce at the time. Umrao Jaan is not a box office potboiler. My film was costless; it was the most inexpensive film made at the time. I don’t think expensive, and opulence translates into emotion. Fortunately, I didn't struggle as much because I was working for Air India while making the film. After six months into the film’s making, I myself decided to quit the job because I realized the film will take almost 3 years to be made. Mr. Ratan Tata was gracious and said, “Don't we have employees who play cricket and hockey? Let him make his movie.” I worked for them for 11 years. They were extremely generous.
What were your views on the remake of Umrao Jaan made by J P Dutta starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan?
I didn't watch the remake but saw bits of it and I didn't find anything. I didn't want to disturb my own world of Umrao Jaan. I had no point of reference when I made Umrao jaan. My point of reference was me looking inside. The remake’s point of reference was my film. They had to reinterpret it to make it look originally different and that’s not an easy step. The thing is that people don't understand the kind of layering that goes into a film that’s emotional and artistic. You're telling the story of textiles, the story of sunsets and sunrises in Awadh. You're telling the story of this light going into Rekha's eyes and coming out as a tear, so these are the nuances that the story contains. It is not my story now. I'm very fortunate that it has gone into a domain where viewers are the fortress protecting the film. They won’t allow any contamination. They want the purity of what Rekha could present to the audience. A melody which goes into people’s souls cannot be erased by some limb shaking music.
If you were to make the film today, who would you cast as the lead?
It's not easy for Umrao Jaan to find Rekha and for Rekha to find Umrao Jaan. There were layers of preparation that went into essaying this role. You must also be the right age. Kareena Kapoor has something. Alia Bhatt has something. They have a lot of magic, but I can't say till I open the book. I think actors today work in shifts. They have too many commitments, they're spread out too thin, so they don't immerse themselves in their roles as much as they should. Also, it's not just them, everybody is in a hurry these days. Everyone’s attention span has depleted.
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Deep Saxena (HINDUSTAN TIMES; June 17, 2025)
Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali believes the 1981 cult movie Umrao Jaan, based on Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s novel, should not be reinterpreted. As the film prepares for a re-release in theatres later this month, he admits he wouldn’t even attempt to remake it.
“Rekha is not easy to find! You don’t people with such commitment — what she did, no one else can do today. Every person in the film was as real as Rekha, and she, too, became part of that milieu. It reflected in everything: Shahryar’s lyrics, Khayyam’s music, Kumudini Lakya’s choreography, Asha Bhosle’s playback singing, the characterization, the actors, the cinematography, and the costumes. Everything was crafted in layers,” he says.
Muzaffar adds, “The film has reached such a level that anything new should surpass it. Films aren’t made just with budgets; they’re made with commitment and passion. I haven’t felt that same passion again, and even I wouldn’t redo it. Closure is important — you can’t make it better than this. It can’t be recreated. Others have tried and failed, so why should I? Instead, I’d rather tell new stories with the same passion.”
The film has been restored in 4K by the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) and the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). On the release date (June 27), he will also launch his coffee table book, featuring archival pictures and write-ups, including contributions from Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah.
Umrao Jaan: Poetry, pain, passion and Rekha
7:41 AM
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 14, 2015)
Today, when asked if he can imagine anyone other than Rekha as Umrao Jaan, Muzaffar Ali insists he can't. But back in the '80s, when the writer, producer and director decided to adapt Mirza Hadi Ruswa's 1905 Urdu novel, Umrao Jaan Ada, he admits that he had a lot of choices before him to play Amiran, who is kidnapped by her neighbour and sold to the madam of a brothel, and grows up to become Lucknow's famous courtesan. He surprised everyone by opting for the Bollywood diva who, being a Tamilian, had to learn the delicate nuances of an alien language.
Ali however insists the character needed a particular stance and sharpness, speaking eyes and an actress who embodied romance. And while Rekha wasn't a kathak dancer, she had the body language and bhav of one. And through song-and-dance conveyed a range of emotions which seesawed from optimism to a shattering realisation.
"I'm not a great film buff so I hadn't seen much of her work. I didn't want to having decided to mould her my way without seeing what she'd been like in the hands of other directors," Ali points out, adding that perhaps Rekha herself 'smelt' something different about this film because she stayed committed to it till the end.
In an earlier interview, the late Farooq Sheikh who played Umrao's princely parmour, Nawaz Sultan, had revealed how he, along with Rekha and Dina Pathak, had to take a train from Delhi to Lucknow for the shoot. It was a 14-hour overnight journey in winter. They had been promised bedding and breakfast but once the train started, they realised that the production guy had forgotten to load the bedding.
"Dinaji had a shawl but Rekhaji had only a dupatta to ward off the biting cold. It was freezing and forget about sleeping, we couldn't even sit without our teeth chattering. Yet, not a word of complaint passed through Rekhaji's lips," he flashbacked.
On the return journey, they ensured that the bedding was in place but after getting off in Delhi, discovered that there was no car waiting. Her identity camouflaged by the dupatta, Rekha uncomplainingly stood besides Shaikh in the taxi queue for 35 minutes. As the cab whisked them away, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Given how big a star she was then, had anyone recognised Rekhaji, she'd have been treated like a queen. But I would have surely landed in a hospital with a few broken bones for coming between her fans and their idol," he'd laughed.
Ali reasons that when you're filming on location, there are times when you end up with unit members who aren't as professional as you'd wish and star-gazers on bikes driving past the mustard fields. But none of it affected Rekha temperamentally. And the performance bagged her the National Award for Best Actress. While many believed the country's highest honour should have gone to Jennifer Kapoor for her portrayal of the lonely schoolteacher in 36 Chowringhee Lane, Ali argues that Rekha deserved it for her startling metamorphosis on screen.
The film also bagged National Awards for art director Manzur, music director Khayyam and playback singer Asha Bhosle. It's still remembered for its musical gems like Dil cheez kya hai, Justuju jiski thi, In aankhon ke masti ke and Yeh kya jagah hai doston. The lyrics were penned by Shahryar, a non compromising, non-Bollywood poet and an Urdu teacher. "One the prescribed books which he taught was Umrao Jaan Ada. So, he understood the character well and brought out her pain, pathos and passion in his poetry. He used to stay in my house in Juhu.
Khayyam saab lived just across the road and we would often meet for discussions through which the score evolved," Ali remembers.
Most of the dances were choreographed by Kumudini Lakhia but since he wanted a creative distinction between In aankhon ke masti and Dil cheez kya hai, Ali got Gopi Krishna to direct the latter, along with Raagmala. "Rekha was comfortable with both but Gopi Krishna's moves came naturally to her since he was more commercial. Kumudini had nothing to do with Bollywood and brought a certain realism into the dances," says Ali, revealing that he reshot Yeh kya jagah hai doston completely because after watching the fiveday shoot he felt it lacked emotional depth. "Rekha went through it again knowing it would add value to the film."
It did. Even three decades later, one is haunted by the image of Umrao Jaan who has lost her lovers to class distinctions and the cops and her home to the British, ending up with a bunch of refugees in her hometown, Faizabad. There the pariah entertainer breaks into song, Yeh kya jagah hai doston. Her mother recognises her lost daughter and welcomes her into their home. But her younger brother intervenes and closes the door on her. And a desolate Umrao Jaan returns to the nowdeserted brothel and the profession which has tainted her life forever.
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