Il cinema indiano: non solo Hollywood

Won 3 Filmfare Awards: Best Cinematography; Best Dialogue Writer; Best Film - 5 Nominations Filmfare Awards: Best Actress; Best Director; Best Lyricist; Best Music Director; Best Playback Singer

Mughal-E-Azam

1960, regia di K. Asif

Scheda: Nazione: India - Produzione: Sterling Investment Corp. - Distribuzione: Shemaroo Video Pvt. Ltd, UTV Motion Pictures, Star Tv - Soggetto: Aman - Sceneggiatura: Aman, K. Asif - Dialoghi: Aman, Kamal Amrohi, Vajahat Mirza, Ehsan Rizvi - Fotografia: R.D. Mathur - Montaggio: Dharamvir - Art Direction: M.K. Syed - Musiche: Naushad - Effetti speciali: Ansari - Formato: B.N.-Technicolor, linguaggio Urdu - Durata: 173' (191').

Cast: Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Durga Khote, Nigar Sultana, Ajit, M. Kumar, Murad, Jilloo Maa, Vijayalaxmi, S. Nazir, Sheela Delaya, Surinder, Johnny Walker, Jalal Agha, Tabassum, Gopi Krishna.

Trama e commenti: nonfarelindiano.blogspot.com - xoomer.virgilio.it/srijan/film - kalpana.it - worldlingo.com - all.uniud.it: «...il «tema matrimoniale» è quello fondamentale (o, se non fondamentale: un quasi ineludibile tema secondario) di tutto il cinema indiano, non solo di Bollywood, ma anche dei film cosiddetti «d’arte» (da Mughal-e-Azam a Mr e Mrs Iyer, per esempio). La caratteristica del «tema matrimoniale indiano» è di avere sempre tre candidati allo sposalizio o all’unione: due donne e un uomo, o due uomini e una donna. ... Mughal-e-Azam (1960), diretto da K. Asif, [sull'amore del principe Jahangir per la danzatrice Anarkali] è uno dei più importanti film indiani mai realizzati».

Plot Summary, Synopsis, Review: IMDb - allmovie.com - en.wikipedia.org - rediff.com - planetbollywood.com - bbc.co.uk - razyboard.com - hindustantimes.com - sfgate.com - livemint.com - uiowa.edu: «The theme of the conflict between passionate individual love (pyar, mohabbat) and duty — especially the duty owed to one's father and patriarchal family lineage (involving the obligation to maintain izzat or "honor", maryada, "propriety," and usool, "principles") may be to mainstream Hindi filmmaking what "boy meets girl" was to Samuel Goldwyn's Hollywood — an abiding preoccupation that spawns endless cinematic permutations. Yet for sheer baroque grandiosity, K. Asif's excessive elaboration of the theme remains in a class by itself, and more than forty years after its release, still holds a place on nearly every list of the "ten best Hindi films of all time." Purportedly a decade in the making, it was said to have been the costliest film yet produced in India. It's not hard to see why. Asif's grand operatic vision piles spectacle on spectacle, moving masses of extras with a choreography reminiscent of Fritz Lang or Sergei Eisenstein, and fabricating fairtytale sets that have definitively stamped popular imaginings of Mughal imperial opulence. Asif's ultimate trump card was technicolor—then prohibitively expensive for Indian filmmakers, and so reserved by the director for two legendary climactic musical scenes, both set in the royal pleasure pavilion or Shish Mahal ("palace of mirrors," stunningly crafted by mirrorwork master Agha Shirazi), that unfold as mind-blowing epiphanies. The simple storyline blends facts of history—the sometimes tumultuous relationship between the Mughal empire's most charismatic ruler, Akbar the Great (1542-1605), and his eldest son and designated heir Prince Salim (later the Emperor Jahangir, 1569-1627), a far weaker character with a well-attested taste for wine, women, and opium—with the popular story of the slave girl and court dancer Anarkali ("pomegranate blossom"), for whose sake Salim is supposed to have defied his father, and whose legendary fate was to be walled-up alive at Akbar's order. In the role of Akbar, Prithviraj Kapoor gives his quintessential performance as outwardly-stern-but-inwardly-suffering patriarch (cf. Judge Raghunath in Awara), declaiming every line (composed in an Urdu so thickly Persianized one could weave rugs out of it) in a stentorian baritone that even Amitabh Bachchan might envy. ...».

Approfondimenti: Movie Review

Il film, conosciuto anche con i titoli: The Great Mughal; The Emperor of the Mughals, nel 2004 è stato ripresentato in versione colorized.

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