70's Week! Manoj aur Rum - the affair that started it all!

Emo pain personified: Bharat the face covering hero!

Its 70's week here in the Blogosphere, and I thought I'd shed some light on the man that started my 70's film odyssey: Manoj Kumar. I am the tiny majority that loves things all Bharat, I first happened upon Purab aur Pachhim, when it was my 16th burrday, and my parents gave me a ton of birthday money, and thanks to the lovely aunty dvdwallah I was able to indulge in my 70's paraphernalia. But I was struck by Manoj because he was so cuuute, and had a lovely and sometimes awful puff like Dev Anand did, but more importantly he was earnest in his filmmaking. No man ever came as close to the Bharat - emo man of the country, Manoj made himself into a symbol of a frustrated nation, just like Amitabh's angry man voiced the concerns of the fed up people in the Emergency. So here is why Manoj makes me happy:

Bharat wants you to behave

• · Manoj rocks because he has a brilliant filming techniques which influenced me a lot when I sent off my own school produced Bollywood movie to the local fim fest. His sweeping cuts, and frenetic shots in Upkar were maybe silly but made effective points. The crazy colours of Purab aur Pachhim reflected a mad generation of the upcoming 70's, especially the glut and madness that was the boat song.
The sternest upholder of patriotic values!


• · Manoj rocks, because he is sooooo HAWT in a blobby, serious-man-next door style, he was always a bit blobby but then I love a bit of flab on my men, like my pyar for Shammi, Shammi wouldn't be himself without his jiggles and wobbles, and rolly cuteness. Just like Manoj wouldn't be Manoj without his tight coordinated t-shirts and bell bottoms and signature fluffy pouffy hair
• · Manoj rocks, because he founded the Byronic Nationalist man of India, in Roti Kapada etc, no one could have been so broody in that movie and especially the scene where he sings "Main Na Bhulunga" the sad one, that was one sad man! He even outbroods Amitabh in the film, I thought that wasn't possible but his sadness was overflowing.


• · Manoj is great, because he did only 120ish face covering sadness moves in Upkar when he started out, but right till the end in Clerk he gave a whopping 320 (I'm on Olympic holidays, and I'm bored??) face covering sadness faces moves, it was a delight and I don't know why he needed to pull a hissy fit for Om Shanti Om, i would consider that a lovely compliment!


• · Manoj is an uber nationalist and patriot in every single movie he directed, which was brilliant at the time of the Emergency of Indira Gandhi's reign and the many wars fought with Pakistan, he appealed to the masses as a sort of common man who has all of India's injustices to fight and boy he fights 'em. It would seem that subjects that he chooses are bleak and hopeless. But Manoj lifts the tempo up with a bunch of masala ingredients sadness redemption and happy resolution. Thats why I don't mind that he symbolized India and all the massive obstacles they face.


• · Manoj tends to be fascist leaning, especially in the god-awful sinfully released by him Clerk. In all his movies there was an obvious overflow of patriotism that were in the dialogues and everywhere but with his patriotism highlighted a few times, Manoj usually gets back to the story but in this shit picture it was an abslolute fascist backwass. It was soooooooo right wing that i got so upset watching that I threw it over my balcony. Patriotism is fine, Manoj rocks because he makes mistakes like this abomination!


• · Manoj has excellent dialogue delivery, as I mentioned in my English dialogues post, he has wonderfully cute delivery that is very sparse in pauses, but its that deep soulful voice that made me awwwwwww. Though he sometimes sounds mumbly its just the Manoj way!


• · He makes excellent jodis with Shashi = Manashi? Shatrugan = Shatroj, Amitabh = Manotabh, Prem Chopra = Manoprem, and Dilip Kumar = Manolip?


• · He loves Dilip Kumar like a fanboy likes Star Wars, he got soo giddy when filming his fight scene with Dilip in Kranti that he wouldn't come out of his dressing room as he didn't want to hurt Dilip awwwwwww


• · He always has an excellent supporting cast of Asit Sen as the comical relief, Prem Nath as the religious stereotype that always smokes(chi chi chi!!) Kamini Kaushal as his sabse pyari maa, Madan Puri as lecherous bad guy/nice father/black marketer, Aruna Irani as vamp that is very unfortunate, Prem Chopra as bad brother/rapist/general Bad man!


• · Manoj loves to show sex, his very frenetic and shocking rape scene in Roti etc was a bit of an omigosh but he pushed the boundaries, and showed a proper cut shot of sex with Manmohan with an English girl in Purab, a rape scene in Kranti, and a shameful one in Clerk!


• · Manoj never thinks he gets old as he played a college kid in Clerk in 1980 something which means he was 55 to play that, and he though he could play an 19 year revolutionary in Kranti as mentioned in the lines "I'm a 19 year old man, and I can get these whites out, irrespective of my YOUNG age!"


• · Lastly he rocks, because he can do everything direction, editing,lyrics (horrendous in Clerk) writing, producing and singing! VAAAH VAAH VAAH!

So here is my first outpouring of pyar for a 70's icon, that just made my day when I discovered him! Hope you like it and share some of Bharat/Manoj experiences!