Thursday, April 25, 2019

V : Viewers and Voice-overs in Hindi Films / Bollywood #AtoZChallenge 2019

Most commercial Indian film-makers had always believed that the Indian audiences must leave their brains back at home to really enjoy their films. They actually wanted to convey that their films are about senseless entertainment. As Indian viewers got exposed to the content across the world, they were not willing to accept mediocre work anymore. So big film-makers of 80s and 90s who couldn't reinvent themselves became redundant. Subhash Ghai is the name that comes to mind almost instantly. He had made really successful films in his heydays. But as viewers' tastes changed, he couldn't learn the new grammar and tonality of film-making. On the other hand, Yash Chopra tried to keep up with a younger India and thus remained relevant. Though his later works weren't as powerful as his earlier films, he still managed to attract youngsters.

"Keep your brains at home" maxim is so well entrenched in our film-makers' minds that they don't trust the intelligence of audiences to understand things and thus they feel the need to spell out everything in their films. Of course it is not true for everyone. But this cliche is still dominant. Voice-over by a narrator in a film is a great technique to spell out everything for the audiences. It is necessary sometimes, when things happening on screen are too overwhelming or the material is too thick. Like in the Netflix series Narcos. The two cliches which are associated with voice-overs in India are:


  • If you want to lend gravitas to a film, use voice-over (like the God's voice)
  • There is no one better than Amitabh Bachchan to do this voice-over
There is nothing wrong in it. But then it is a cliche and thus even at times when it doesn't work people stick to it. Viewers changed! Voice-over didn't! 

I think when it comes to period films like Lagaan or Manikarnika, his voice-over is pitch perfect. Listen to his voice-over in Manikarnika and get mesmerized. 


But seemingly Bachchan has done voice-overs even for films like Hello Brother and Ra.One. There was nothing in those films to be really explained. They were senseless and they weren't even entertaining. 

P.S. - In bad connectivity area today, so couldn't upload several other videos which I wanted to. Please bear. 




2 comments:

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