Yash Chopra made memorable love stories, but some of his best films had more complex themes.
The media has been full of tributes bidding goodbye to the ‘King of Romance’ Yash Chopra who died on Sunday. Romance, is officially dead with his demise, is the dominant narrative.
However, recall some of Chopra’s earlier films and you’ll soon realise that by branding the master storyteller merely the ‘King of Romance’, you are undervaluing a career he built film by film — 22 in all — over 53 years.
There is no doubt that Chopra did love stories well. By his own admission, romance is where he found most comfort as a filmmaker. But crime (Deewaar/Mashaal), polygamy (Daag), mystery (Ittefaq), obsession (Darr) and redemption (Kaala Patthar) have featured as prominently in Chopra’s films as much as romance.
Here’s a flashback.
In 1961, just 14 years after independence, BR Films’ Dharmputra touched on the sensitive issue of Hindu-Muslim tension following Partition. A Muslim boy is brought up by a Hindu family and has nothing but hatred for Muslims without being aware of his own roots. At the time, Chopra was just one-film old. It was brave of him to tell a tale dealing with a sensitive issue that also revolved around a flawed hero.
For his very next film, Chopra envisioned a plot that would bring all members of the Kapoor clan – Prithviraj, Raj, Shammi and Shashi – together in a film about a family that separates after a natural calamity only to meet years later in unusual circumstances.
Though the star cast never worked out (barring Shashi), Waqt started the trend of multi-starrers. It had a stellar supporting cast made up of Balraj Sahni, Achala Sachdev and Rehman, aka Chinoy Seth. The film also had a brooding Raaj Kumar (“Yeh bacho ke khelne ki cheez nahi”) and a charming Sunil Dutt vying for the attention of the heroine, Sadhana. Waqt was executed with flair, a trait Chopra stuck to in his later films.
And what did he do after directing the biggest big screen cast ever seen? He took an upcoming romantic star and cast him in a songless thriller that clocked under two hours. With Ittefaq, Chopra fought off mainstream pressures to give us a dark thriller that worked within the commercial setup without compromising on taut storytelling. That’s really how he should be remembered best: a filmmaker who told diverse and engaging stories in the most entertaining way without alienating audiences.
In his last recorded public interaction (on his 80th birthday) Chopra recalled Deewaar as the most robust script he had worked on, one without a flaw. A remarkable scene has the cop Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) shoot a boy who steals bread. Guilty for hurting the boy for a petty crime, Ravi visits the boy’s family to find them living in poverty. The boy’s mother lashes out at him, accusing the police of targeting small-time criminals like her son while letting off bigger gangsters. The father isn’t angry as he understands that no crime is small.
Ravi’s conflict – whether or not he should bring down his gangster brother Vijay – is immediately resolved and he decides to put duty before emotion. It’s a small moment in a film packed with memorable scenes and unforgettable dialogues. But the director’s absolute command over storytelling comes through. Yash Chopra, clearly, was more than just the king of romance. He was a storyteller like no other.
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