Scenes From My Father’s Films

As I have mentioned in the About page, I always wanted to have a site dedicated to my father. Way back in the past I wasn’t sure about the form the site would take, but one thing I was sure about and that was I would have a section on scenes from his films. I therefore started collecting DVDs of his films, so that my brother could edit the scenes and upload them. Initially in the first few posts my brother did just that, but those of you who are regular readers may have noticed that I now use a new tool TubeChop. This has made life easier, there is now no need to edit the scenes, all I have to do is directly chop the videos from You Tube and either embed them or link to the chopped scene.

As Tube Chop does not provide you with an option of a suitable thumbnail, I decided to publish the screen caps from the chosen scenes and provide links to the chopped scene instead of embedding them.

Forgotten Melodies (Part 1) – My Favourite Dance Sequences From My Father’s Films.

Way back in the old days of black-white cinema and even during the early days of colour films, the directors were truly the captain of their ships. They took an active interest in every aspect of film-making, naturally therefore no song or dance sequence or fight sequence was  filmed in the absence of the director. During the eighties things began to change. I learnt that the directors handed over the reins to the dance director for the song and dance sequences and the action directors for the fight sequence. I was surprised to learn that the directors did not bother to be present on the sets or the location. Not surprisingly therefore, while the song and dance sequences blended with the film’s narrative in the past, later on and even today, the songs appear from nowhere and look more like music videos. The dance sequences remind me of aerobic exercises.

My father in a song sequence in 'Shama'

How I miss the dance sequences of my childhood. Back in my childhood I heard names like Lachhu Maharaj, Gopi Krishna, Sachin Shankar, all of whom were legends to whom filmmakers turned when they wanted a choreographer. While most of the choreographers were accomplished and respected classical dancers, there was Sachin Shankar a cousin of sitar maestro Pt. Ravi Shankar who had trained under the legendary Uday  Shankar (Ravi Shankar’s elder brother). Shankar’s area of expertise was dance ballets and dance dramas. His shows ran to packed houses.