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Old dreams, new colours
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The most famous royal romance of Indian cinema, Mughal-e-Azam, has been dusted and dressed up in colour for release again, aided by state-of-the-art technology
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Mughal-e-Azam is known for its scenes of delicate sensuality
SPEAK OF grandeur and sweep on the Indian screen, and Mughal-e-Azam is the first name that pops up in your head.
A good 44 years after its release, people are yet to tire of talking about the blockbuster: the breathtaking battle scenes, the splendour of the Mughal court, the delicately sensuous Salim-Anarkali sequences, the powerful confrontation scenes between Akbar and Salim...
Equally endless are the trivia woven around the film: of craftsmen being brought from Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolhapur, Rajasthan and many other places to work on the sets and costumes, of the several changes in casting and the anecdotes that went with each, of the thermocol shackles made specially for Madhubala since she was too ill by then to carry the weight of iron ones...
A bit much?
Those of us who were not born back then and are used to an altogether different pace of films might find it all a "bit too much". The really dramatic Prithviraj Kapoor or Dilip Kumar, who seems to work a little too hard on his role, may not exactly have us glued to our seats. Blasphemous as it may sound, you might even wonder why K. Asif, who spent Rs. 1.5 crore and over 10 years making this film, didn't spend a little more time on editing.
But even the worst critics of Mughal-e-Azam would be mesmerised by Madhubala singing "Pyar Kiya Tho Darna Kya" and the spirit of youthful defiance she exudes in the song. It does, to this day, strike as an iconic moment in Indian cinema as Madhubala swirls round and round in this Sheesh Mahal song sequence and her image is reflected in hundreds of mirrors all round: a moment when the power of the mighty emperor is dwarfed.
The song, shot in colour in what was otherwise a black-and-white film, had people going back to watch the movie again and again.
The story goes that colour technology, which hadn't reached India when Asif started work in 1944, reached Indian shores even as he finally finished the film. When he said he wanted to re-shoot the entire film in colour, the distributors threw a fit and he had to be content with the iconic song and a couple of scenes towards the end being in colour.
The production house that made Mughal-e-Azam has now taken upon itself the task of fulfilling Asif's "unfinished dream". Sterling Investment Corp. Pvt. Limited has coloured the entire film, which was released during Deepavali, using a never-tried-before technology.
"This technology of colouring has not been done for a big screen release anywhere in the world," says Deepesh Salgia, the man behind the project.
The technology was developed entirely indigenously over one-and-a-half years. It's a "natural colouring" software, says Salgia, which approximates the original colour by translating the shade of grey to the original colour.
The process has meant restoring and colouring three lakh frames (which translates to that many 10 MB files!) over a period of 10 months.
The sound too has been refurbished.
The old mixed soundtrack has been re-recorded and digitally re-mastered with the original music director, Naushad, overseeing the whole process himself.
"We flew down musicians from Chennai for the recording because we didn't want electronic sounds," says Salgia. "It's going to sound like Rafi or Bade Ghulam Ali Khan singing today."
The process has involved enormous manpower, effort and money.
"Let's say it has cost us as much as it would have to make a medium-budget Hindi film," says Salgia. Why not make a new film then, a contemporary take on the classic tale? That's blasphemy to Salgia.
"This is much more than making a new film!" he says.
He proudly talks of how, with this film, the Indian industry has made technological strides way ahead of even Hollywood. "In fact, there have been enquiries from Hollywood," he says.
And if you have apprehensions on how a "touched up" classic can still be called a classic and if a contemporary film buff would be impressed with this long-winding saga, Salgia allays all fears. "We haven't harmed the original feel. Shashi Kapoor, who watched the, film said, `It looks original.' That's the biggest complement."
And yes, they have done "some editing", but again, "nothing to harm the original". Salgia says that the entire Bombay industry is "gung-ho about it" and they've actually hit upon an "untapped demand".
Technological edge
Only post-release will we be able to check on the authenticity of this demand-and-supply logic.
But the effort has definitely given a new technological edge to an old legend. As the film dusts itself off for a new lease of life, the myth-making machines around it also seem to have come alive and a new set of trivia are doing the rounds.
A sampler: the producers found an old coat worn by Dilip Kumar in the film somewhere in the godown.
They checked its colour against the shot which was already coloured by the software, and they were perfectly matched!
BAGESHREE S.
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