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UNBELIEVABLE!! When Can I watch it? where can I watch it?
Guys Pls record it with HIGH DEF camcorder!! I'll pay $100 for that copy!
Sixty-four years after Mughal-e-Azam went on the floors and 44 years after it first exploded on screen, Mughal-e-Azam is ready for a grand revival. This Diwali, the epic extravaganza will unfold in colour. Deepesh Salgia, the project manager who has overseen the restoration over a three year period, is confident the film will be a smash hit again. “We have been having test runs and have screened the digitally mastered, all colour, wide screen version for around 500 people from different walks of life. And everyone from the age of 16 to 70, be he a chowkidar or an industrialist, has felt the magic. I know when the two-hour-57-minute spectacle opens to the public on November 12, entire families of sons, fathers and grandfathers will flock to see it,â€Deepesh says with complete conviction.
The project has been undertaken by the original production company and the heirs of Shahpoorji Palonji. It is rumoured to have cost Sterling Investment Corp. Pvt. Ltd. as much as Rs 10 crore. Restoration includes digitalizing the 300,000 frames of film at 2K resolution. Gamma, contrast and fungus correction, scratch and pinhole removal, digital stitching of torn frames and stabilisition work has been carried out on the original negatives. The sound has been upgraded and the music re-recorded. “Ask any director and he’ll tell you that he has always dreamt to making a Mughal-e-Azam. The film is a classic with the kind of production values that leaves you awe-struck even today,†Deepesh insists.
The newly restored Mughal-e-Azam is Deepesh’s brainwave. In 1996, inspired by the revived Hollywood classics, he came up with the idea of colourising the film for TV and DVD output. “But, on second thoughts, I realised that touching up the film for the small screen alone would be making a big film small. After 40 years, if people were going to see Mughal-e-Azam in colour, the spectacle had to unfold in the theatres,†he muses.
It was an ambitous and audacious idea and one that needed a overflowing coffer. “It was too big a gamble to risk at that stage so I put my extravagant project on hold,†the project manager continues his narrative.
Three years ago, it sprouted wings again when Dilip Kumar who plays Prince Salim, himself urged the original producers to fall in with Deepesh’s plans. And after 18 months of intensive research, Sterling gave Deepesh the go-ahead to undertake the Herculean task of colouring 300,000 frames, each containing 10 MB of data.
Deepesh immediately got in touch with restoration specialists working on high-end PCs in Hollywood and was told that his mission impossible could be brought to life. But it would cost him $12-15 million. “It was crazy! We didn’t have that kind of funds,†he sighs at the memory.
Deepesh then decided to develop the software in India to cut costs. He took his proposition to the Indian Academy Of Arts And Animation. The Academy started work on Deepesh’s Mughal dream around two-and-a-half years ago.
It was tedious work because many of the frames were damaged and work had proceeded at a snail’s pace, frame-by-frame, shot-by-shot, depending on the condition of the negative. Mughal-e-Azam is a film rich in sets, clothing and exquisite jewellery. A software had to be specially written to incorporate these features.
Even at Rs 100 a ticket, Mughal-e-Azam is complete paisa vasool - Deepesh Salgia
It took almost 18 months to develop the software following regular discussions with historians of the Mughal era and careful perusal of research material. The ‘Natural Colourization’ process as it is called has got underway only in the last 10 months.
The technology is customised in such a manner that it accepts only those dyes that match the gray shades of the original input that was shot in Technicolour and not Eastman colour way back in the ’50s. This ensures that the colours selected are as close to the original as is possible and were in use when the film was shot. That the Academy was on the right track was proved when a coat worn by Prince Salim in the film was discovered in the Mughal-e-Azam godown. It was the same colour as that in the restored negative.
Enthused by the success of his experiments with colour, Deepesh decided to upgrade the sound too. For the first time in the world an old, 6.1 mixed track has been digitally mastered for the Dobly surround sound system. The film’s original composer, Naushad Ali has been involved along with a younger colleague, Uttam Singh in re-recording the music. Though the voices of the original singers like Mohd. Rafi, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Shamsad Begum and a very young Lata Mangeshkar have been retained, the instruments have changed and a real Dolby effect has been created.
Huge amounts of manpower, effort and money have been lavished on the epic extravaganza. The estimated cost of restoration is in the range of around Rs 10 crore. It’s a huge investment and distributor Ramesh Sippy admits that he’s apprehensive about the production company’s chance of breaking even. “The film will have to do a business of at least Rs 15 crore to cut costs and though Diwali and Eid that follows three days later, is boom time for the trade, I don’t see Mughal-e-Azam generating that kind of earnings,†Sippy avers.
His lack of confidence stems from the fact that unlike Sholay, Mughal-e-Azam is a period film that would have little appeal for the youth who make up for 70-80 per cent of the theatre-going audience today. “Sanjay Leela Bhansali did a smart thing by not staying faithful to the orginal Devdas but modernising the film in terms of sets, costumes and jewellery. He took liberties like turning the zamindar’s bungalow in the village into an eye-catching palace and wooing the audience with visual aesthetics,†Sippy points out.
Devdas, he adds, also has Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit...Contemporary icons and huge box-office draws. Even Sholay for that matter has Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Jaya Bachchan who are familiar faces on the small and big screen even today. Since the generation next has been seeing them for the last decade, identification was not a problem. But Dilip Kumar has been out of circulation since Saudagar in the ’90s. And Madhubala is just a face from the past. “It remains to be seen if the bond of connectivity is as strong with Mughal-e-Azam as it was with Sholay,†Sippy muses.
His biggest worry however is the scarcity of theatres that Mughal-e-Azam could face coming during the festival of lights with Yash Chopra’s cross-border love story, Veer-Zaara, Subhash Ghai’s web of deception, Aitraaz and Ram Gopal Varma’s eye-opener of a musical and Naach. Dr Arindam Chaudhury’s campus caper, Rok Sako To Rok Lo is also jostling for playing time in the same week. “Sholay was re-released at a time when there was no flow of products. Mughal-e-Azam is coming at a time when supply far exceeds demand,†Sippy warns.
Exhibitor Nester D’ Souza who is the manager of one of Mumbai’s biggest and oldest city theatres, Metro Cinema agrees that the Mughal dream might have to sacrifice on screens with the Yashraj banner flooding the market with 550 plus prints of Veer-Zaara.
D’Souza however has no doubts about the film’s commercial viability. He is sure youngsters will flock to see the film and will be as mesmerised by Madhubala’s beauty as their fathers and grandfathers were way back in the ’60s. “But the film has to be positioned and marketed well,†he advices. “And Mughal-e-Azam should be screened at sprawling, single screen theatres and not matchbox multiplexes for 3-4 generations of film buffs to appreciate Asif’s grand spectacle and enjoy the music they’ve grown up hearing.â€
D’Souza says that he would have loved having Mughal-e-Azam play at Metro cinema and would have taken 18 shows out of 21, so confident is he of the film drawing full houses. He insists that he would have recreated the ambience of the period in the film’s foyer so people could relive the experience. “Metro is a theatre that draws both the classes and the masses, from Colaba to Bhendi Bazar. I’m confident that Mughal-e-Azam is one film that will appeal to everyone because it has everything from grandeur to great dialogue, romance to action. But unfortunately, I’m already committed to another film this Diwali,†he rues.
Deepesh is unfazed by the news that Metro is out of bounds for him. He is also untouched by speculations in the trade about his magnum opus. The film, he insists, will work because earlier, whenever it has been released in the Eid week it has packed in the crowds. People have come out rhapsodizing about Madhubala’s ethereal beauty, Dilip Kumar’s soul-stirring passion, Prithviraj Kapoor’s arrogant tyranny and the grandeur of the sets. “It is the biggest film in Indian cinema. A film the likes of which we’d not seen before or since. It’s a must-see for every lover of celluloid dreams,†Deepesh asserts.
You talk economics with him and he shuts you up by pointing out that he’s not expecting to earn his revenue over the next 12 months. The returns will come from royalties that flow in over the next 50 years. “The film has tremendous potential. It is the first film in the world to be colourised for a 35 mm release. It will be a star attraction on the festival circuit,†he insists.
Its satellite and DVD/VCD rights should also fetch good money, Deepesh is confident. And even Hollywood and overseas distributors are showing interest in the colour version. “A distributor who markets only Hollywood films saw a trial show recently and came out raving about the ‘awesome’ war sequences. It’s a great film, I was told,†Deepesh exults.
How is the trade in India reacting to his grand experiment? Reportedly, he is asking for a price of Rs 2 crore per territory. Is anyone biting the bait? “Oh, we’ve been getting good MG offers and are even being offered excellent sharing ratios. The success of Sholay has come as a blessing in disguise,†says a well-pleased Deepesh. At the time of going to press we learned that the East Punjab- and DelhiUP territory has fetched him an impressive Rs. 1.5 crore. Ginni Arts who’ve bought the rights are planning a big release.When Mughal-e-Azam was first released, Deepesh recalls, people told Shahpoorji that it was a Rs 1.5 crore investment gone bad. But over the last 44 years, he points out, the film has brought in huge returns and made money everytime it has been released in the theatres or on TV. “People are laughing today, saying I’ve lost my mind. Let’s wait and see what tomorrow brings,†Deepesh smiles.
The competition he is up against doesn’t bother him either. “There will be drop-outs,†he maintains. And of the films that make it to the theatres, some are going to run out of steam once the reviews are out and the four-day weekend that includes Diwali (Friday, November 12) and Eid (Monday, November 15) holidays, runs out. “But Mughal-e-Azam doesn’t have to fear the critics. People know what the film is about. The curiosity will be only about how it looks in colour. And even at Rs 100 a ticket, the film is complete paisa vasool,†Deepesh promises.
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