June 09, 2006

Yes, she can read too.

After watching Lagaan last week I finally ordered "The Spirit of Lagaan" a book about the making of the movie by Satyajit Bhatkal. And read it today.
Bhatkal is the guy who also directed the documentary "Chale Chalo: The Lunacy of Filmmaking" an extended making-of/behind the scenes of Lagaan.
The Book itself is more like a - at times fast paced, at times frittering - production diary giving insight to a (at that time) very novel way of filmmaking for hindi mainstream cinema.
The two major alterations: Lagaan was shot in sync-sound (something that was not done for quite some time apart from small arthouse productions) and the shooting took place during one single schedule (again opposite to industry practice).

Now with five years since the movies release and the knowledge of technical changes in Hindi cinema and how the professional and private lives of the people involved turned out to be, it is an interesting snapshot of indian film history.

1 comment:

Lidia said...

that sounds really good, i love Lagaan. Have you read the book "Balham to Bollywood" by Chris England? Do your remember one of the english cricketers in lagaan, the one who bowls and he has the long weird beard thingy on his face? It's written by him and it's like a diary of his days when they were making Lagaan. It's interesting to see a Western perspective and he's a really funny writer so it's worth it! I really liked it cause it was so different! I'm gonna look up this book though cause it sounds really interesting!