This week on #Favourite Five, we have Sajid Khan, the funny man turned filmmaker. Unlike other filmmakers, he is absolutely sure about the order of his favourite films, and talks about them with the passion of a child talking about his favourite toys. Here we roll.
The Abyss (1989)
Sajid Khan: The film which actually did it for me was The Abyss. I was around 18 when I saw the movie for the first time on 70 mm. It was at Sterling Cinema, which had a huge screen, the only cinema which had installed a two channel Dolby stereo in India. I must have seen it more than 15-20 times at Sterling. The sound mix, the visuals, the spectacle, the storytelling, I was thrilled. This is one film that defies classification. Unfortunately, it was Cameron’s only flop. Somewhere, The Abyss lost to a film called Deep Star Six, which released a few months before it. It is also the first movie that used CGI. It was experimented with before in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), but that was badly done. The Abyss took it one step forward. This was a technology he was allowed to play with, and he put it to excellent use later in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But when I saw The Abyss, it changed my life forever.
Half Ticket (1962)
Sajid Khan: I have said this in many interviews before that if the loony characters ever came to life and made a film, it would be Half Ticket. It had some mad people writing and directing it, and Kishore Kumar going completely bukaroo banana crazy in his head. Kalidas, the guy who directed it, was a Bengali. Somewhere, Bengali filmmakers’ sense of humour is slightly off and bizarre, like Monty Pythonish, and I love that. It’s stupid, bizarre, slapsticky, and it’s the funniest movie I have ever seen.
Duck Soup (1933)
I think I had just started going to college when I saw Duck Soup on VHS, and I just started laughing. It introduced me to Marx Brothers, back when I did not know who the Marx Bros were. For me, the b&w stars were Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. To see the Marx Bros in action, Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo, each one with distinctive characteristics, was a revelation. Chico, for some reason, was Italian. Nobody knew why. Do you know it was a disastrous flop at that time? The jokes were so fast and there were almost 3-4 one liners per minute, so much so that I would say it was way ahead of its time. I have taken, in a way, a lot of inspiration from Groucho, in my films, stand up comedy acts or the way I host shows. It’s tongue in cheek, a little sarcastic and hits directly at you. If there were no Marx Bros, there would be no Pink Panther, there would eventually be no Monty Python, because I think somewhere this sort of writing has got to be inspired by Marx Bros.
Himmatwala (1983)
I was 12 years old when I went to see Himmatwala. It was like the Canon cinema of the ‘80s. We all knew it was bad cinema. It was the potboiler popular culture cinema with Sridevi matkas, Kader Khan dialogues, and Jitendra with the wig. I don’t know how to say this, but it had a strange magic to it. When I wanted to remake Himmatwala, the whole industry was up in arms against me. But I wanted to give that ode to the 80s, that every defunct thing about the 80s, right from Jai Mata Di, tabiz stopping the chaku, to the lost and found, to the blood transfusion, to the sister being raped, then brother coming over and helping her, to the hero fighting with the tiger, I took everything from the 80s, and I put it in one screenplay - that was the gist of the film. It didn’t work. The perception of the movie was so much that I started making fun of the film myself. But I will not shy away from calling it my most favourite fourth movie.
Golmaal (1979)
One film that I can watch once every day is Hrishida’s Golmaal. I love it. My regret in life has always been that I was born a little late, I should have been born in the 60s rather than the 70s, because when I became a filmmaker, some actors I wanted to work with weren’t alive any more, and Utpal Dutt was one of them. He was fabulous in Golmaal, and Amol Palekar, I think, has never been better in any other film.
(The writer is a journalist and a screenwriter who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. Follow him on Twitter: @RanjibMazumder)
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