The results of poll #1, on the most influential Desi musician of the 2000s, are pretty clear — with about 200 votes cast, A.R. Rahman wins by a significant margin, with M.I.A. as the second most influential Desi musician of the 2000s.
The topic of the next poll was strongly suggested by the comments following the first one — sports. I tried to use what the commenters were suggesting to guide my choices.
While I am at it, however, I am also doing a poll for the best Desi film of the 2000s. Here, it seemed wrong to put artsy “diaspora” films up against commercial South Asian cinema (Bollywood, Tollywood, etc.), so I created a poll #3 — for commercial cinema — and a poll #3A — for specifically South Asian diaspora cinema.
Choosing the films for the commercial cinema category was challenging, and I kept finding that certain films had a natural pairing (for instance, Lagaan, by Ashutosh Gowariker, goes with Swades). I also realized that some of the most influential commercial films were known not for their directors, but for writers and producers; Vidhu Vinod Chopra, whose name was associated with both Munnabhai films, only wrote the first one. Similarly, Karan Johar’s name is associated with several important films he produced rather than directed. And the directors for many Yash Raj Films are unknowns, but the films have a certain “stamp” to them. So I used the idea of the “filmmaker,” which could be the writer, director, or producer.
I’m sure my approach will seem a little unusual to some folks, but hopefully it’s coherent enough, and you see something there you want to vote for. (At the very least, my approach solved the problem of how to pick just 10 commercial films from over the entire decade.) Finally, people who really know regional cinema might want to create your own “Best Of 2000s” lists in the comments — I simply haven’t seen very much Telugu cinema, for example, so I don’t have any Telugu filmmakers listed here.
All three polls after the fold.
#2. Sports:
3. Cinema: Commercial Cinema
3A Diaspora Cinema:
am at a bit of a loss. the dilemma has me in a cummerbund old jalebi. does one vote for what one has enjoyed the most or does one vote for that has the most influence on the hoi pulao? ferinstance i think mirza is a mediocre player elevated to a lofty status in desh only becos there's so few like her. ergo she has a HUGE influence. but her abilities are modest. in contrast, brother khan from the vilayti pind is quite at the top of the game. this momo is vexatiously knotty forsooth. ve are wery waxed.
Khoofi, well, it's up to you.
Personally, I think it makes for the most interesting results when people vote for personal favorites, rather than the person who has had the biggest impact on the largest number of people.
"American Desi"?? "Where's the party, Yaar"??
so true rudie_c.... so true. American Desi should've been up there.
if anyone is starting a tollywood poll in the comments, i'd love to join!
Voted for "Harold and Kumar" in diaspora category. I thought it did a good job of shattering some stereotypes of the model minority, and I especially liked that Kumar was conflicted about his "decision" to become a doctor.
Also, anything with NPH wins as far as I'm concerned.
Which stereotypes? That we don't smoke weed before going on to become a doctor?
Can one vote twice in a poll (for example sports poll, pick two different choices?) Or does it lock you out once you vote? Torn between Vijay Singh and the Fab Five. Also Murali. Tough choices.
Aamir khan as the filmaker for 00s..Dil Chahta hai, Lagaan, Taare Zameen par, Rang De Basanti
and seriously Munnabhai is known for Raju Hirani and Sanjay Dutt and VVC
Tendulkar should be by himself in that poll, it is just not fair to have a him jumbled with others.
I meant **not VVC**
"Tendulkar should be by himself in that poll, it is just not fair to have a him jumbled with others."
Tendulkar was the clear stand-out of the 1990s. The 2000s have been more up and down for him, although he's still brilliant/genius by any standards, any decade. But India's successes in the 2000s and improvement as a team would not have happened without the other four. For example, Laxman and Dravid's awesome partnership in the 2001 Eden Gardens Test against Australia after being asked to follow on. India won the match and broke Australia's win streak. Ganguly forged a tougher team and Kumble was a rock as well on many occasions.
Desi film makers that were influential for me:
Parvati Balagopalan (Straight)
Anurag Kashyap (Dev D)
Sagar Ballary (Bheja Fry)
Sachin Kamlakar Khot (Ugli aur Pagli)
All of them either challenged the norm of Hindi film making or turned normal Bollywood stories and the generalized depictions of women/men/romance on their heads.
Jeet, hm, you may be right about Munnabhai -- maybe it's just my circle of friends where VVC was talked about a lot, especially after the first Munnabhai.
Aamir khan as the filmaker for 00s..Dil Chahta hai, Lagaan, Taare Zameen par, Rang De Basanti
But here I think my approach is better. Aamir Khan didn't **make** any of those films, as far as I know -- he was just the lead actor. Farhan Akhtar's approach in Dil Chahta Hai was really quite different from Ashutosh Gowariker's approach in Lagaan or Ram Mehra's approach in Rang De Basanti.
Maybe the real question is why didn't I put Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya) down as one of the ten most influential director/producers? (The honest answer is that I thought Dil Chahta Hai came out in 1999; I only just checked it.)
Which stereotypes? That we don't smoke weed before going on to become a doctor?
Er, I think the relevant term is "model minority".
I just cant see any of those movies made without Aamir at the helm. Lagaan is known more for Aamir Khan as actor/producer of the movie. Taare Zameen par is another movie he produced/directed/acted in.
He was even voted in Forbes as the 7th most powerful
One more for Harold & Kumar. Double joy if you watch it with an Asian brother as I did.
Multiple-threat Vishal Bhardwaj should get some love for his music as well.
And put my unmarked bills on Sacred Games in lit polls.
Nonfiction and translations, are they getting a spot?
yeah the little master is a class of his own
Nonfiction and translations, are they getting a spot?
Mr. X, got any titles in mind? I have been going back and forth on how to approach the lit. poll. On the one hand, it would be a shame not to have a place for a highly influential book like "Maximum City" (which I think probably inspired the scriptwriting for "Slumdog" more than has been publicly noted).
But I think there are also many, many interesting non-fiction titles out there -- from Fareed Zakaria to Sudhir Venkatesh to Rajiv Chandrasekharan to Pankaj Mishra. Not to mention economists (conservative Gurcharan Das) and all those people who wrote "New India" type books (i.e., Mira Kamdar's "Planet India"). And of course Ram Guha's monumental "India After Gandhi," which I devoted some nine separate posts to, back in the fall of 2007. In short, it will certainly be better to have a separate non-fiction list.
And maybe even a third list -- best first novel. This might give us a chance to revisit some of the books that have been reviewed by SM bloggers over the past 2-3 years (Samarasan, Viswanathan, Amam... even our own VV Ganeshananthan).
As for translations, for political reasons I would love to have such a list (Angrezi hegemony, etc.), or at least be sure and include a few titles on a centralized fiction list. But again I'll need some help.
#2- Definitely the the "fab five"- the unofficial national sport and India's the no. 1 team for the first time. Thanks to these gentlemen who delivered us from the mediocrity and sleaze of the '80s and early '90s.
#3 Definitely Vishal Bharadwaj- Director, singer, music director, screenwriter- Is there anything that this man can't do? probably dance like Hritik Roshan- Though I wish that you had included Anurag Kashyap on the list. He would get my vote for sure.
#4 Monsoon wedding- I was at a holiday recently, a couple of us desis and a few Americans who had no other desi connection. One night , we decided to play an Indian film. I was surprised to know that our American fellow travelers had seen the movie a couple of times each, and voted for it to be played very enthusiastically, keenly questioning us about the finer nuances of the movie ("is it common to eat marigolds?"). It apparently is also similarly popular with the BBCDs- Definitely a cut above the rest of the movies on the list. Also such a fab soundtrack.
Seriously? no place for Anurag Kashyap (Dev D, No Smoking, Gulaal) in the top 5? D Banerjee and V Bhardawaj made good movies but from concept to execution they were no where close to Dev D or Gulaal
Amardeep,
All the titles in your post plus:
Nonfiction
Red Sun: Sudeep Chakravarti
The Ugliness of the Indian Male and other propositions: Mukul Kesavan (I don't think this should be on the list, but a couple of essays are brilliant)
A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling: V.S. Naipaul (only if you're a die-hard fan)
Translation
Black Margins: Saadat Hasan Manto (already on your list?)
Glimpses of Indian Literature in English Translation was published last year I think, but seems to have the usual suspects.
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi: William Dalrymple. I haven't read his other two from this period.
Thus opening another category (and hate-post fodder) for honorary desis like Donninger, Nussbaum etc. In conclusion, not helping at all.
lol . thanks for the tip. i looked up the trailer on gulaal. this line just cracked me up. :-) totally didnt see that coming.
I do have to second Anurag Kashyap, esp. since he not only directed, but also wrote for several films. And Sudhir Mishra - if not for any of his other work, simply for Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
Considering all these films listed were Hindi, I would change the term 'desi' in the filmmaker category, since it excludes a hughe portion of the desi film industry.
bheja fry is the umpteenth remake of the dinner game. it didn't even have the level of originality that sanjay gupta brings to his "inspired by"s and definitely does not deserve any kudos for being either genre breaking or exceptional.
people responsible aren't the fab five in the long run. ganguly, and the best bat under him, who had a purple patch for the first 5-6 years this decade, dravid. dhoni. kumble. the rest were important but don't deserve to be "players of the decade". tendulkar's standout decade was the 90s, and while he is still great now, he stands much more with the pack. if sehwag continues his rich vein of form for the next 2-3 years, he could be for dhoni and match-winning what dravid was to ganguly and match-saving.
.
further, if you want to talk about "influential" and not best (whatever that means) desi player, at least in cricket, i'd have to say dhoni. his leadership of a rookie team to t20 world cup victory is singlehandedly responsible for the explosive popularity of t20 in india, and lalit modi's decision to forge ahead with the ipl (also as competition to icl, although that is likely a lesser factor) which has completely changed the face of cricket globablly, and introduced the notion of club based cricket at the international level. the amount of money and change ipl has brought and will bring to the game is truly dramatic, whether you agree that it is for the good or not.
Does Slumdog Millionaire not count as a Desi Diaspora film?
No Farhan/Zoya Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On, Luck By Chance, Don remake)?
My opinion on the "American Desi"-type films (e.g American Desi, American Chai, ABCD, Where's the Party Yaar) was that people's excitement about our generation getting voice and representation in film overshadowed the fact that the screenwriting/direction were amateurish and full of one-dimensional stereotypes. (I actually found WTPY borderline offensive.) But hopefully that will change in the next decade.
i am surprised that anurag kashyap (black friday, no smoking, dev d, gulaal) was not in the list of the most important/influential film-makers of the 00s. arguably he is the best desi film-maker out there (or as naseeruddin shah put it, in an interview with mtv iggy that was linked from this site: the only one with the balls to make a new kind of cinema).
the last decade has seen a huge shift in hindi cinema - from the aspirational weak sauce diaspora shite into the maderchode verite of the urban hinterland. in my memory there hasnt been this much bluntness or intensity to the moviemaking. the stars arent paragons of virtue and virginality. if movies were a channel out of daily misery for the everyman in the nineties, it sure isnt so now. rather than soothe or numb, the plots seem to drag nails through old scabs. i remember naseeruddin shah's monologue from wednesday when he says i dont know whether to grow a beard or not, or i have to think twice before naming my store because i dont know who the fuck is going to plug my ass the next day and he's tired of this same old shite. powerful stuff man. and i think back... the movies that seem to indicate the generational shift have originated with a core group of people most of whom have been indentified above. i would add ronnie screwvala and utv films to the list above though. they seem to be playing behind the scenes in a lot of this new wave.
1.The 100th year of the 20th Century and last year of the 2nd Millennium was definitely and indisputably 2000.
2.The 1st year of the first decade of the 21st Century and of the 3rd Millennium was definitely and indisputably 2001 - obviously. The clue is in the number '1'.
3.The 10th and last year of the first decade of the 21st century will be 2010 - obviously. The clue is in the number '10'.
4.The last day of the first decade of the 21st century and 3rd millennium will definitely and indisputably be December 31st 2010.
There is a concerted effort by the BBC and other major media players (oh...and Sepia Mutiny?) to deny these facts for cynical commercial and branding and packaging purposes.
Clear non-murky thinkers will, of course, ignore them and respect and express true and honest chronological facts and conventions.
Rage Against The Machine!
You forgot the third category: People with basic math skills and an ability to enjoy harmless lists.
Relax man. have a jalebi.
marathi cinema has been undergoing a renaissance of sorts in the last decade with lots of indie-style new cinema:
valu
tingya
gabhricha paus
evdhasa abhal
nital, vaastupurush
harishchandrachi factory (india's oscar entry in '10, apparently)
any others?
Not even a single non-bollywood movie in the Commercial Cinema group? Biased poll!
sea @ 33 - maybe add shwas to your list?
I 5th (6th) the confusion over not including Anurag Kashyap. Dev D was brilliant. In his absence I had to go with Bhardwaj. Sooni Taraporevala's "Little Zizou" was really great, sad it wasn't included on the diaspora list.
Hi folks,
I think it's safe to say that it was probably just an oversight not to include Anurag Kashyap... I really liked Dev D too -- I think I tweeted that it was, in my view, the first really watchable remake of "Devdas" I'd ever seen...
Unfortunately, there's no way with Blogpoll to go back in and change the poll after it's been created.
" 24 · unlist on December 22, 2009 5:09 PM · Direct link
Sagar Ballary (Bheja Fry)
bheja fry is the umpteenth remake of the dinner game. it didn't even have the level of originality that sanjay gupta brings to his "inspired by"s and definitely does not deserve any kudos for being either genre breaking or exceptional."
Honestly, I have no idea what the dinner game is. But when I saw Bheja Fry I felt it was something new and original to Indian film-- it's approach, it's storyline, etc. It was all very different from the Indian-film norms and that is why I saw is influential. If it is a remake or not of another film doesn't really matter in that regard to me. The point is it broke out of the same-old and kind of made an opening for more different kinds of film in mainstream cinema.
Also I thought of sanother that stuck in my mind... more influential regarding the topic...
Shonali Bose (Amu)
bheja fry was neither first of its kind in the way you describe, nor original, nor particularly distinguished as a movie, despite some good individual performances (vinay pathak, as always).
I have to add-- I think the film poll really doesn't do Indian cinema(s) justice--- Some of the films on the list are good and were very popular--, but a lot of them are the sort of mainstream Bollywood popular movies with out much depth, character or storylines....
Fanaa, New York, Delhi 6, Jodhaa Akbar, Chak De! India, Veer-Zaara are all extremely typical and pretty uncreative Bollywood films, in my own (humble) opinion.
A lot more can be and was done by a lot of other Indian film makes during this time-- though not all were big budget and as well advertised.
Amu is one example.
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer by Aparna Sen
There were also some big budget films that brought something new to Bollywood, like Taare Zameen Par, Life.. in a Metro, Das Kahaniyan (though I really thought while some of the das were great, others were awful!) as well as the ones I mentioned above.
I'm sure there are lots more I'm missing, but of course, I also understand how difficult it is to pick out movies/directors for a poll! :)
unlist, can you name some other earlier films like Bheja Fry? I'd love to check them out.
for one, khosla ka ghosla. there's many more, for example kukunoor films like iqbal. therse are examples of lighthearted (comedy/feel-good) indies. there's many more if you take more serious movies - maqbool, omkara, hazaaron khwaishein aisi, for example. all of these were released prior to bheja fry, iirc. and if you take movies released the same year as bheja fry (dont know which came earlier), there were such gems as johnny gaddaar and manorama six feet under.
i am sure there's many more i am missing.
S. R. "Macaca" Sidharth.
hmm, unlist, I think we may have different ways of categorizing movies.. :)
I haven't see khosla ka ghosla, but I don't think I would categorize Iqbal or Omkara as a similar movie to Bheja Fry. (that's just my opinion, of course). (I have not seen the rest (yet!) so I can't say about those)
I don't particularly love Bheja Fry personally. But when thinking of 'influential' films it came to mind because it was so small budget, and pretty simple, yet it became a very popular film in India, something that didn't often happen with the non-mainstream style films.
i specifically said omkara was a diff genre of movie. and i said iqbal was a feel-good movie. which it is - the standard underdog/mentor story arc.
while my previous comment clarified that i understand your categorization, i am not sure why it is that categorization which is important when evaluating bheja fry as an influential film. i gave you examples of light films as well as more serious ones - which share the common aspect of being low budget and without big names playing lead roles. heck, going far enough back, there was even jhankaar beats in the earlier part of the decade which was also a light film without big names.
(the dinner game tried to explore the class ramifications and implications of the behaviors of the rich snots while still being a farce, and often succeeded in its goal. bheja fry, on the other hand, was a remake which just played the situation for laughs with very little by way of greater depth, save for pathak's empathetic acting)
many of the movies i mentioned fit that criterion. the ones that don't don't mainly because they aren't simple :)
i dont think it was any more popular than many of the others i mentioned. you might have sampling bias based on the anecdotes about people you know. not saying it was unpopular, just that it didnt break any barriers.
Bheja Fry Total Collections (Till Date): 6,15,03,389
Iqbal Total Collections (Till Date): 2,83,79,058
Khosla ka Ghosla Total Collections (Till Date): 3,02,26,901
Omkara Total Collections (Till Date): 13,18,04,190
(above from Box Office India,INR)
hazaaron khwaishein aisi INR 2,778,000 (India) (29 April 2005)
Maqbool INR 7,001,000 (India) (6 February 2004)
(above 2 from imdb.com)
Personally I would count Maqbool and Omkara among the bigger budget more well known actor type films... but anyways, where is a general idea of the film gross of the different films mentioned
where= there.
just realised the last two obviously are not comparing the same thing.... getting tired.. my apologies..
just found a better number for Maqbool Total Collections (Till Date): 64,09,451
Unfortunately they don't have a Box Office India info page for Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi that I could find, so I guess we can't compare that one...
i am not sure about the veracity of these numbers given the fact that imdb lists maqbool's total collections as INR 25,590,000 which is 4x off from box office india's numbers. in fact, imdb lists maqbool's first week collections at roughly 7 million and box office india lists it at 2.8 mil, which is a factor of 2.5 off.
so no idea what numbers i should believe on any of these.
no idea why you would count maqbool either as big budget or as big actor. maqbool didnt have any stars. the biggest name in it was tabu, who mostly hadnt being playing a traditional lead for many years and was more on the award movie/arty bollywood (like what madhur bhandarkar tries to do) type circuit. and the rest were acharacter actors/unknowns in pankaj kapur and irrfan. omkara was very different, i agree - it had devgan, saif, and oberoi, as well as kareena and bipasha.
Maqbool
Starring Irfan Khan
Tabu
Pankaj Kapoor
Om Puri
Naseeruddin Shah
Piyush Mishra
Masumeh Makhija
Deepak Dobriyal
Tabu, Irfan Khan, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah? They are not well known to you?
"During the 1970s and the 1980s, parallel cinema entered into the limelight of Hindi cinema to a much wider extent. This was led by such directors as Gulzar, Shyam Benegal and Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and later on Mahesh Bhatt and Govind Nihalani, becoming the main directors of this period's Indian art cinema. Benegal's directorial debut, Ankur was a major critical success, and was followed by numerous works that created another field in the movement. These filmmakers tried to promote realism in their own different styles, though many of them often accepted certain conventions of popular cinema.[20] Parallel cinema of this time gave careers to a whole new breed of young actors, including Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amol Palekar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pankaj Kapoor, and even actors from commercial cinema like Rekha and Hema Malini ventured into art cinema.
Adoor Gopalakrishnan extended the Indian New Wave to Malayalam cinema with his film Swayamvaram in 1972. Long after the Golden Age of Indian cinema, Malayalam cinema experienced its own 'Golden Age' in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of the most acclaimed Indian filmmakers at the time were from the Malayalam industry, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G. Aravindan,Padmarajan, T. V. Chandran and Shaji N. Karun.[21] Gopalakrishnan, who is often considered to be Satyajit Ray's spiritual heir,[22] directed some of his most acclaimed films during this period, including Elippathayam (1981) which won the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival, as well as Mathilukal (1989) which won major prizes at the Venice Film Festival.[23] Shaji N. Karun's debut film Piravi (1989) won the Camera d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, while his second film Swaham (1994) was in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.[24]
Girish Kasaravalli, Girish Karnad and B. V. Karanth led the way for parallel cinema in the Kannada film industry, while Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan have done the same for Tamil cinema. In particular, Ratnam gained international acclaim after directing Nayagan (1987), based on the Mumbai underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar.[25][26]
[edit] Decline
By the early 1990s, the rising costs involved in film production and the commercialization of the films had a negative impact on the so-called art films. The fact that investment returns cannot be guaranteed made art films less popular amongst filmmakers. Unlike the European art film industry (which earlier had a major influence on Indian art cinema), there is less of an art film audience in India.
[edit] Resurgence
Konkona Sen Sharma and Rahul Bose, in Aparna Sen's Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002).
The term "parallel cinema" has started being applied to off-beat films produced in Bollywood, where art films have begun experiencing a resurgence, largely due to the critical and commercial success of the Mumbai underworld film Satya (1998), directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Anurag Kashyap. The film's success led to the emergence of a distinct genre known as Mumbai noir,[27] urban films reflecting social problems in the city of Mumbai.[28] Later films belonging to the Mumbai noir genre include Mahesh Manjrekar's Vaastav: The Reality (1999), Madhur Bhandarkar's Chandni Bar (2001) and Traffic Signal (2007), Ram Gopal Varma's Company (2002) and its prequel D (2005), Varma's Sarkar (2005) and Sarkar Raj (2008), Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday (2004), Vishal Bharadwaj's Maqbool (2004), Apoorva Lakhia's Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007), Rajeev Khandelwal's Aamir (2008), and Irfan Kamal's Thanks Maa (2009).
Other modern examples of art films produced in Bollywood which are classified as part of the parallel cinema genre include Mani Ratnam's Dil Se (1998) and Yuva (2004), Nagesh Kukunoor's 3 Deewarein (2003) and Dor (2006), Sudhir Mishra's Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005), Jahnu Barua's Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005), Pan Nalin's Valley of Flowers (2006), Nandita Das' Firaaq (2008), Onir's My Brother… Nikhil (2005) and Bas Ek Pal (2006), and Anurag Kashyap's Dev.D (2009) and Gulaal (2009). Independent films spoken in Indian English are also occasionally produced; examples include Revathi's Mitr, My Friend (2002), Aparna Sen's Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002) and 15 Park Avenue (2006), Anant Balani's Joggers' Park (2003), Homi Adajania's Being Cyrus (2006), Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear (2007) and Sooni Taraporevala's Little Zizou (2009).
Other Indian art film directors active today include Mrinal Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Gautam Ghose, Sandip Ray (Satyajit Ray's son) and Rituparno Ghosh in Bengali cinema; Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N. Karun and T. V. Chandran in Malayalam cinema; Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani and Shyam Benegal [29] and Deepa Mehta in Hindi cinema; and Mani Ratnam and Santosh Sivan in Tamil cinema."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Cinema
sorry folks... i jumped to the bait. pls to delete.
bait?
LinZi, We deleted a somewhat nasty, ad hominem comment directed at you.
ah. geez.
heh heh heh heh
Why is VISHWANATHAN ANAND'S name not on the sportsperson list? His contribution is as good as TENDULKAR'S.
ak@35 yes shwas, too (though i thought it was a tad over-dramatized). also, some others:
bayo
maati-maay
i am looking forward to harishchandrachi factory - the story of dadasaheb phalke, and the first indian film!
I just wanted to point out-- first, this whole discussion was based on "influential" films, which can have many definitions. So different people are going to have different opinions, obviously.
Since my group of friends and I tend to enjoy Parallel films more than commercial films, though I still do watch a good amount of commercial films as well. Hence for me, I don't limit my definition of 'well-known' actors to commercial films, but rather include quite a lot of actors who work and have worked in parallel films (many of whom have also worked in commercial films as well) including some of my favorites-- Shabana Azmi, Nasseruddin Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Bhose, Irfan Khan, etc. While Parallel film is, by nature not commercialized, I do feel pretty confident that if I mention one of those names in India, people know who they are and some of the films they have been in.
Hence I don't discount the whole of Parallel cinema. No, it is not commercial Bollywood as most people see it, but it is an important and well known film movement in India, and one that has seen a resurgance of popularity in the 2000s.
Films like Bheja Fry are influential in my book because they are not a typical commercial film and they are also not a typical parallel cinema film. The version of comedy is much different than other comedies at the time, and also, while not being a large commercial film, Bheja Fry was able to break out and created quite a stir. I was in India when it came out and I remember that it was a topic of much discussion.
Anyways, like I mentioned above, all the ideas of what is influential are in the end an opinion and up for debate. Hopefully such discussions won't lead to nastiness, it's just a film discussion!
don't know what the ad hominem or stuff was, but just to be clear, it wasn't me. linzi, these actors are all character players and do not carry a movie, as i mentioned in my comment. irrfan was really quite unknown at the time, except in character circles. tabu hadnt done a mainstream heroine film in years either, for example.
Linzi, admittedly, one of the problems in this post is that I never really defined what "influential" means.
Let's start with the question of straight-up Bollywood -- Yash Raj Films. On the one hand, films like Veer-Zaara and Fanaa were definitely pretty formula in some respects. But they also had ripple effects on other things -- the cross-national and cross-religious love story in Veer-Zaara was at times moving for me at least, and it marked a change from the more jingoistic vibe of "Gadar: Ek Prem Kahani". And there were some really beautiful moments in the first half of "Fanaa" -- a bit of a revival of the classical Urdu romantic style, I thought.
I was thinking about films that were commercial successes -- super-hits -- but which also made a "serious point" in some way, that might have made some impact on bigger Indian issues, like caste, communalism, gender relations, etc. (Another film that might be called "influential" along those lines was "Main Hoon Na". And obviously the "Munnabhai" films...) I'm less interested in run of the mill superhits ("Krrish" "Dhoom" "Singh is Kinng" etc) because nobody remembers them two seconds after seeing them. I think even bad, conventional bollywood movies can be influential if there is an important twist or idea there.
With parallel cinema, multiplexers, and art films, it's a gray area and rapidly changing. Though Omkara was a much bigger film than Maqbool, the former couldn't have been made without the earlier Maqbool. And the idea of these edgy, modernized adaptations of Shakespeare (Macbeth and Othello) makes the two films of a piece for me. Also, sometimes smaller films like Maqbool end up having an outsized impact because their soundtracks become popular (in Maqbool's case, deservedly so).
There is no science for what is influential; it's not just the masses who might be watching certain films, but other directors, writers, and producers. Something like Page 3 might be small in terms of box office, but if it inspires a slew of other films (Luck By Chance and so on), perhaps it might also be seen as influential? I doubt that people like Dibaker Bannerjee, Zoya Akhtar, or Anurag Kashyap are getting returns on anything like the scale of the average Yash Raj film production or Karan Johar, but what they are doing as "major minors" or "artsy multiplexers" -- or whatever they are -- is going to shape the next generation of even more commercial/family-oriented/mainstream bollywood films. I tend to think that something like "Wake Up Sid" got made in the wake of the success of "Khosla ka Ghosla" and "Oye Lucky Lucky Oye"...
Um...why weren't Rinku Singh and Dinesh Kumar Patel added in the sports category? They're the first Indians to be signed on an MLB team.
I think that between his role directing hugely successful diaspora films + producing movies like this, K Jo is undoubtedly the most influential filmmaker of the decade.
Two things on the sports choices for discussion sake. I didn't want to pass up the joke at the end about India and Luxemborg vis a vis Gold medals. One because it plausible it's correct. And also I think there's a lot of things going into the sentiment.
Also, I'd consider MS Dhoni, Sewag and Yuvraj Singh in the poll. For one, India is now in the top spot in Test Cricket in the world, someone wrote a comparision between them and the Brazil national soccer team, and those three are carrying the standard for the team, Yuvraj less so. Also, and this might be controversial, the first five are part of an old guard, old boy's network. Dhoni, Sewag and Yuvraj come from different backgrounds, and could be a shift to meritocracy.
I was also going to say something controversial about Murali....but then I'm not from Oz!
dont agree with them being part of an old boys club. ganguly was dropped for a long time, and got a second chance which he made good on, and settled on his place in the team. tendulkar might've been from shardashram but he is truly an exceptional talent. dravid again got a break due to manjrekar's injury and made good consistently for years after his debut. further, ganguly's success in captaincy was pretty reliant on dravid being both in a rich vein of form during this period, and being a trustworthy second in command. kumble executed brilliantly from the moment he was in the team becoming the fastest indian to get to 50 test wickets and second fastest to get to 100. laxman has been dropped a gazillion times when he didnt perform. not one of these could be considered a nepotistic pick and not meritocratic.
dhoni did break through from a second tier team like jharkhand, but yuvraj's dad was a cricketer and he has had powerful backers, so if anything, as his pathetic test record and general bad attitude proves, his holding his place in the test team is the exact opposite of meritocracy.
i hope that sehwag has a 2-3 year brilliant run of form like many players hit in their early 30s, as he could truly help dhoni to take the indian team to new heights. especially important as laxman and dravid retire over the next year or three and people like rohit sharma will take their time to find their place in the team, especially given the fact that the team is carrying a player like yuvraj who averages ~30 in tests and boosts it only on featherbeds.
Granted, all five are great players, although Laxman I think is further back from the others. Yuvraj does not average that high in Tests, but opposite to having a bad attitude, I think his attitude helps in the team because he can do things like blow Broad out of the water. I mean to say with Dhoni and Sehwag are more people a common person can think of becoming. It's to India's good to move away from the elite feeder system of before.
And in general I think Tendulkhar is a great role model because it seems he is a very fair-minded person, for example his comment about being an indian first and foremost versus regional identity, and his friendships with many of the players on the team.
To take one example of the way the Indian team is going, Sreesanth gets back on the team and says that Harbhajan is like an older brother to him. Not only is Sreesanth a much-needed fast bowler, he is a christian from the South telling India that Harbhajan, a sikh from Punjab, is like his family. And it's a heart-warming story. That can only be good for India.
Sports can move a society in needed directions.
a. don't think sreesanth is a christian. he just does the cross-like thing since he is a hyper character and needs to do a million different things before he bowls.
b. as for his harbhajan statements, he is a drama queen and prone to melodramatic statements. and he is probably afraid of getting another well-deserved resounding thappad from bhajji :)
c. tendulkar is very admirable for keeping a quiet and calm public persona, but as a sportsperson, his heyday was in the late 90s. granted, he is still a wonderful player, but he has been close to the pack in the 00s.
d. i am not talking about yuvraj's aggression on the field, which is a positive; i am talking about his arrogance and sense of entitlement off it - something that is very well documented, and has, for example, led to his deservedly being booted from the captaincy of kings XI punjab in the ipl. and aggression in the field does not merit poor attitude of it, especially when the aggression doesnt come with results. also his broad biffing was in 20-20s, and he is a good player in that and odis, but a liability as a no 5 in tests.
lot of credit goes to ganguly for that - both insisting on picking good performing players, and sticking with them. he deserves immense credit for rebuilding the team after azhar and matchfixing.
Point taken about Sreesanth, it was an assumption. I hope he has calmed down now, they need a fast bowler. I think Yuvraj is a threat even in a Test format, and his on-field attitude cements a different kind of attitude for the Indian team. The six sixes against Broad were special. Granted, I am a homer for him, as he and I are punjabi. I think he should no doubt be on the team, but his numbers are near the level of Sehwag. I look for his scores at every innings and most of the time they are disappointing. Tendhulkar is still going very strong. Maybe it's because with the Indian team you get used to it, but some of the scores he has put up recently are amazing.
*not near the level of Sehwag
Amardeep @ 63
Agreed.
You phools should have had some Indian-American spelling bees there!!!! Spelling bees are definitely considered a sport by ESPN! Don't hate your own kind.
The latest video of Andhra Pradesh's chief minister, Tiwari, and his 3 lady friends is also very influential enough to influence India's politics.
Trying to be clever? You succeeded in being incomprehensible, but still somewhat arrogant. congrats
aja, waiting for a retort
please to be forgiving saab, bara vaj gaia see
This very helpful