Today it's a documentary series that I'm recommending. I'm not one of those who's into a lot of docu-series but this one is special and for so many reasons. If you've grown up watching films, I think this is something that you'll love...
Transcript
Today it's a documentary series that I'm recommending. I'm not one of those who's into a lot of docu-series but this one is special and for so many reasons. If you've grown up watching films, I think this is something that you'll love, you will appreciate and it will give you a lot more perspective on what maybe shaped your childhood a great deal. Angry Young Men is a three-part series on Prime Video. It's a really short crisp docu-series, as I said it's three episodes about 35-40 minutes each. For anyone and everyone who does not know what Angry Young Men is all about, this is the story of the greatest writing duo in Indian cinema and one of the greatest writers ever in world cinema as well, we are talking about Salim-Javed, and Angry Young Men is the three-part series about that duo.
First episode talks about their individual beginnings where they came from and how they happen to meet each other and then just organically start working together. The second episode talks about their rise their climb and their mammoth effect on the film industry at large and the third episode talks about the split as well as their lives after that and their personal lives as well. Like I said I've grown up watching a lot of these films and the reason of me being a filmy fool is most of their filmography. I mean from, it's insane what all they have written and the frequency with which they've given these films it is just phenomenal. You have to watch Angry Young Men to really understand the effect but I'm going to just give you a little bit of detail on what they've done.
So they started to write in 70-71, 72 was Seeta Aur Geeta, 73 was Zanjeer, and Majboor 74 was, um can't recall what was 74, but 75 was Deewar and Sholay together and that was one of the biggest battles in the year-end awards as well. At Filmfare that point of time where Deewar swept almost all awards and Sholay didn't really get too much but both of these films were written by Salim-Javed. You've got plenty of other films after that as well, Dostana, Shan, eventually going down and trickling down even after they split to get credit for something that was written earlier, one of my all-time favourite films, my first film in cinema Mr. India. So I owe my childhood, my love for cinema to Salim-Javed and you really have to watch this three-episode series to understand the effect that they had on the industry.
One piece of fact for everyone just to get you nudging into the right direction. There was a time when the duo was at their peak and a writing duo said to Yash Johar, that we'll take one lakh more than whatever your leading star is taking as the fee. At that time, the leading star was Amitabh Bachchan, the movie was Dostana and Salim-Javed said okay if Amitabh Bachchan is taking 20 lakhs, we'll take 21 and that's the power of that writing duo. Karan Johar in the docu-series goes on to say, can you imagine a writing star saying that they would charge one crore more than Salman Khan, any writer today charging anything close to what a film star is charging? I think it's it depicts the greatness of Salim-Javed, but at the same time it also talks a lot about the condition of writing today in Indian cinema. It has really deteriorated we do not give writers their due. There are some fabulous screenwriters we have today and some of them do come and talk about Salim-Javed and the influence they had on uh the writing careers of so many budding screenwriters. You've Jaydeep Sahni who's written fabulous films like Chakde as well as Khosla and Ghosla and many many others and then you have Juhi Chaturvedi who's written some fabulous pieces of cinema including Piku.
The series has a lot of Bollywood in it, it talks about a lot of those films that I grew up watching so hence I naturally loved it. But what really gave it something extra was how candid Salim saab and Javed saab were in the series. While their children and everybody else were talking and they were still slightly guarded about how they were coming across and what they were saying, I think Salim saab and Javed saab just let loose to a very very great extent and that was beautiful to watch. They were vulnerable on screen, especially Javed Akhtar. I do not think I have ever seen him like this, it was beautiful to watch, it was heartwarming. There is a time in episode 1 or two I think episode one where he talks about the craft of screenplay he explains it beautifully, masterfully, and I do not think there is anybody who can choose a more simplistic way of describing what is such a complex art as screenplay writing but he does it so seamlessly, so beautifully, so naturally, only Salim-Javed can do something like that.
While you have a lot of cinema, you also have a lot of personal relationships and the dynamics of their individual lives, their lives together and their married lives as well so overall it was a beautiful watch. If the nudge earlier wasn't enough, they wrote 24 scripts together and 20 were blockbuster hits two were semi hits and there two just two films that didn't work out of 24. That is the kind of hit rate that Salim-Javed had. It has never been seen before in cinema world over, I do not think it can be repeated. 20 blockbusters out of 24, if you're going to see it as hits, then 22 hits out of 24 is what Salim-Javed created and that cannot be just a stroke of luck which some people could believe but only one duo, Salim-Javed. I cannot cannot harp on this enough, please go watch it. If you love cinema, if you love films, if you watched Deewar and Sholay and Majboor Shan Dostana Seeta aur Geeta Zanjeer, all of these films growing up please watch Angry Young Men, The story of Salim-Javed on Prime Video right now. It is fantastic, it is beautiful, you are not going to regret it. Watch it right now, just three episodes. Fantastic, fabulous, loved it