1173. Biopics.....necessary???

Biopics are to stay in Indian Film Industry. A Biopic is a cinematic conversion of the life of an individual who has earned fame in the career and reached the status of a celebrity. The intention of this venture is to highlight the ups and downs of the individual in the career graph. In recent times we have had a lot of Biopic. The question is, are these Biopics necessary???

Biopics are not new to us earlier any historical movie made was indeed a Biopic. We never questioned those Biopics two decades back, why are we sceptical about them now???  As I understand earlier a biopic gave an inner view of the character regarding both personal as well as public life. Audience were double thrilled when their favourite actor was donning the role of their favourite personality. Many untold or unrecorded events in the life of the character that were veiled by the media or biographers can be revealed in a biopic. Sometimes Biopic was to be a summed up version of various writes on a particular character.

Then why do we have to have such uproar on a Biopic when it is made on a gangster???

Biopics made in recent times do not reflect the event as it is for commercial reasons. In the climax of the movie Dangal the father of the wrestler was shown to be locked up in the rest room. In reality Mahavir Phogat, the real life father was very much present at the final bout. The screenplay was twisted a little to make the audience more emotional. Biopics are meant to glorify but not to the extent of making it a pro-film. If the Biopic is on a gangster there is no doubt the director will show the police, judiciary and media in low light to highlight gangster character.

Cinemas do not remain purely entertainment any longer now it has been used as a medium to instil a thought. We had many movies that glorified crimes which started from the English movie “Godfather” a frictional novel by Mario Puzo. We had many Indian movies which glorified the crime like Satya by Ram Gopal Varma. I would say it was glorifying criminality. Movies reach the masses and impress the youth. Youngsters who watch them begin to think that crimes are normal. After feeding our audience with such movies now the trend is to glorify criminals. 

Unfortunately we have become such an audience that we readily accept a Biopic of a criminal. Recently we had a Biopic of a gangster in Gujarat with a leading actor playing the role of the gangster. Now we have a brilliant director in Bollywood who has made a movie on a Movie Star by spicing up things. To make the movie hit among masses he conveniently avoids showing the underworld in bad light and adds imaginary story bits that would make the fans go-gaga-over.   

It is so unfortunate that while Hollywood makes a movie on “The Man Who Knew Infinity” a great Indian Mathematician called Srinivasa Ramanujan, we have our own directors scripting on Gangsters and directing Criminals. Not that we do not make Biopic on inspirational personalities, a Biopic was directed by Sandeep Varma on Manjunath (remember him he was an employee of Indian Oil Corporation Limited). He was shot dead for sealing down two petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh for selling adulterated fuel. He hailed from a poor family and had taken a loan to complete his management course at IIM, Lucknow. He never wanted to join the private sector or a multinational company, his aim was to improve the system of allotting at filling stations. 

If only our brilliant directors script a Biopic on such characters and our ace actors don the role of such personalities, the real meaning of a Biopic can be justified.