Nutan mania
I've decided to become a full-fledged promoter of Nutan! Below you'll find pictures of her I've collected
since I've started watching films with her and my list of her films. I hope you'll enjoy her as much as I do! 
Practical Info
About me
I'm a French lover of Indian cinema, but I'm also interested in literature, science, art, and reflection in general. This blog will reflect these tastes more or less!
Categories
- letstalkaboutbollywood (47)
- film reviews (97)
- practical info (1)
- Book reviews (19)
- miscellaneous (4)
- Trip to India (8)
- Poetry (1)
Nutan photos
Bolly blogs I visit
- Greta's Memsaabstory
- Madhulika's Dustedoff
- Bollyviewer's Old is gold
- Sharmi's old films and me
- Bollywooddeewana
- Carla's blog Filmigeek
- Beth loves Bollywood
- A2line's Bollyblog
- Amodini's movie reviews
- Anu's conversations over chai
- Daddy's girl's Dharmendra praise blog
- The fabulous Pitu
- Harvey's blog
- Satyam's blog
- Shweta's Apni EA Company
- Julie and Jenny's Diablog
- Post-punk CC
- Nida's Bitten by Bollywood
- Sanni's So they dance
- Stephen 's Bollywood banter
- Blissful Nirvana
- Maria's Filmiholic
- Philip Lutgendorf 's fil-ums
- Darshit's dunkdaft
- Ajnabi's Paisa Vasool - or not
- Shell's Bollyworld
- The BollywoodFan
- Alan's Bellevue to Bollywood
- Pessimisissimo's Exotic entertainment
Archives
- mai 2012 (1)
- avril 2012 (2)
- mars 2012 (3)
- février 2012 (2)
- janvier 2012 (2)
- décembre 2011 (2)
- novembre 2011 (2)
- octobre 2011 (1)
- septembre 2011 (1)
- juillet 2011 (1)
- juin 2011 (4)
- avril 2011 (1)
- mars 2011 (4)
- février 2011 (1)
- janvier 2011 (1)
- décembre 2010 (5)
- octobre 2010 (2)
- septembre 2010 (4)
- août 2010 (8)
- juillet 2010 (2)
- juin 2010 (2)
Subscribe to the posts
Dimanche 20 mai 2012
7
20
/05
/Mai
/2012
23:39
The 2008 collection of short stories entitled « Unaccustomed Earth » by author Jhumpa Lahiri, well-known for her novel The namesake, which Mira Nair shot in 2006, has the unusual quality of being (in fact) a collection of little novels, rather than actual short stories. I know the point will sound technical to many, but the effect is unmistakable: we enter the little world of each of these stories through the lives of characters that belong to novels – one might even say, the same novel – that of a few second-generation expatriated or displaced thirty-somethings who need both to settle their relationship with their parents (often emigrated for financial reasons), and with the new […]
Mardi 17 avril 2012
2
17
/04
/Avr
/2012
23:07
Contrary to what many people think, love isn’t a simple passion. First many things, such as the family, the social situation, the history of the two lovers, etc. combine to create the particular context of the relationship, but also in itself love challenges who you are, your self-esteem, your need for recognition, your ideals. So that when, for example, Bollyviewer (in an otherwise very pleasant review – check her captions !) questions Devdas’ desire for self-destruction (« a man destroying himself for LOVE! » she exclaims in utter disbelief), I believe one has to give the film the credit of complexity and suggestiveness and not rush to decide that Devdas’ downfall is only artistic […]
Samedi 14 avril 2012
6
14
/04
/Avr
/2012
22:48
Hi! Last thursday my wife Frederique asked me to introduce Bollywood to her final year students, and since it was fun and also since I was not able to show the last two slides, here they all are, with the links to the two extracts! Enjoy!
Mercredi 28 mars 2012
3
28
/03
/Mars
/2012
22:53
Rabindranath Tagore Deception 1918 From: Selected poems, translated by William Radice, Penguin classics, 1918 Click on the pictures to read the poem How much of this poem is autobiographical I cannot know, but in 1902 Tagore’s wife died young, at 25 after having fallen ill (TB?), and even if the speaker in Deception should perhaps not be automatically referred to the poet himself, I feel there is enough realistic psychology in it for me to assume Tagore is speaking about himself. There is a fascinating document (A wife’s letter) in which his wife, Mrinalini, writes about a very special relationship she entertained with a relative of hers, Bindu, and there are many parallels to be drawn […]
Mercredi 21 mars 2012
3
21
/03
/Mars
/2012
21:29
After I saw Ganashatru, which Satyajit Ray shot in 1989 (see Ray’s website), I noticed that it was based on Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People, and some good soul has uploaded on YouTube Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Ibsen’s play, so I watched it too. I haven’t read Ibsen’s play (it can be read here), but from what I gather, Miller’s version is quite close to the original. Ray’s adaptation, on the other hand, shifts a number of things: we’ll come to this bye and bye. But the first thing I’d like to underline is the strength and vibrancy of Arthur’s Miller’s version. It really does justice to the aphorism which I read about Ibsen being “the best dramatist since Shakespeare”, […]
Lundi 12 mars 2012
1
12
/03
/Mars
/2012
20:56
When I first watched this 1982 movie by Mahesh Bhatt I knew it was a good one, so many people had written so already. I knew that the main roles were exceptional, Shabana Azmi (Pooja) and Smita Patil (Kavita) leading the team. But Kulbhushan Kharbanda (Inder), as the husband and faithless lover deserves the same praise. I also had Carla’s review in mind, which you must read both for her perceptive understanding of the film’s significance, and for the story itself. Carla’s a great admirer of Shabana Azmi, so much so that it’s difficult to write anything about her without wondering about Carla would say, or has already said. And finally in her videos, Shabana Azmi herself speaks about […]
Samedi 18 février 2012
6
18
/02
/Fév
/2012
19:20
Even today, I suppose all India is bracing itself, preparing itself and half-hoping that it will not come that soon, not just yet: he might still live twenty more years, mightn’t he? Our king is such an indomitable man, why fear? But then we’re all, all of us mortals. It’s normal to think it will happen, one simple day. So if we think of it even now, it will less painful when it does happen, when he does go. One day, like the little caravan circus crossing the bridge in the sepia morning light, one day he will cross the border into the other world, leaving us huddled and tearful, at a loss, knowing it had to come. He will die like all of us, like Guru Dutt, like Raj Kapoor. And we will […]
Jeudi 2 février 2012
4
02
/02
/Fév
/2012
22:29
In the Mahābhārata, Gandhari voluntarily blindfolded herself throughout her married life. Her husband Dhritarashtra was born blind, and on meeting him and realizing this, she decided to protest silently by blindfolding herself. (source: Wikipedia – Jatland.com has a slightly different version “she decided to deny herself the pleasure of sight that her husband could never relish.”) Another website says that her protest was in keeping with her devotion to her husband, and as a result “she was hailed as a Sati for her sacrifice”. In Sai Paranjpe’s movie, Sparsh (Touch, 1980), the character played by Shabana Azmi, Kavita, similarly becomes engaged to a blind headmaster (Naseeruddin Shah), a […]
Mardi 17 janvier 2012
2
17
/01
/Jan
/2012
23:20
I thought at first I wouldn’t have much to say about Peepli live (Anusha Rizvi, 2010), but as I started writing, the following article poured out very easily! I had told myself that the film wasn’t much more than a properly engineered denunciation of the antidemocratic shifts in today’s India, plus the scathing condemnation of an economic system that lets its farmers die for lack of any viable support, and somehow I wasn’t very enthusiastic. Perhaps the film was too much of a documentary nature? It’s true that this is one of my limits: I do enjoy a certain amount of glamorization, and lo! There isn’t any in Peepli. The film is also rather dry on beautification, and perhaps for the good […]
Lundi 9 janvier 2012
1
09
/01
/Jan
/2012
17:57
What is the soul of poetry? Isn’t it a kind of universal music which, universal as it is, springs fresh and clear from a homely and unique source of inspiration? When Tagore writes: Nahin kisi ko pata kahaan mere raja ka rajmahal Agar jaante log, mahal ye thik pata kya ek pal I hear a very Indian voice evoking a king’s palace and telling us that even if it is made of gold and silver, in the reality of whispering truth it stands “at the corner of our terrace where the tulsi-plant grows”. The tulsi is that traditional little tree in the centre of the courtyard, the same aromatic plant we in the West know as Basil (etymologically the king) which means immortality in Hinduism, and is […]
Lundi 26 décembre 2011
1
26
/12
/Déc
/2011
19:54
In Chhalia (Manmohan Desai, 1960), we have another of Raj Kapoor’s avatars: his character personifies a “chhaliya”, translated by Philip as a cheat, or artful deceiver, but who in fact doesn’t deceive anyone, and I wonder whether we shouldn’t say “cunning middleman”. In the story, indeed, Chhalia intervenes to restore the broken bond between Rama and Sita, or at least their earthly representatives, Kewal (played by Rehman) and Shanti (Nutan). These two, here in the context of the Indo-Pakistani Partition period, are husband and wife, but they have been separated by the events, and as the film starts, we follow Shanti arriving in India, after an absence of 5 years. We learn through […]
Lundi 19 décembre 2011
1
19
/12
/Déc
/2011
14:12
The cinematographic monument Mera naam Joker, which was directed, produced and starred by Raj Kapoor took 6 years to complete, cost millions and was a catastrophic flop when it came out in 1972 (see the wikipedia page). No wonder: the first version was more than 5 hours long! And even in its present length of 3 hours 44 minutes, it has two intermissions. Each of its three main episodes could almost be a full feature. Yet the movie has everything one could wish: Raj Kapoor at the steering wheel, a crowd of great actors and beautiful girls, romance, humour, great moments of showmanship: so why the disappointment? On Imdb somebody comes up with this explanation: “This supposedly […]
Samedi 19 novembre 2011
6
19
/11
/Nov
/2011
17:02
I owe Sharmi an IOU because she’s the lover of “threadbare movies” who watched and beautifully reviewed Satyajit Ray’s Kanchanjangha (1962) on her blog and made me want to watch it! Well, everybody whose review I read (check here and here) calls it a great cinematographic experience, some because of the fact that the film’s story wonderfully fits in the time it takes to be seen, some others because the characters (especially Chhabi Biswas) are so good, others again for…other reasons, but all seem in fact rather puzzling. They do appreciate the movie, that’s for sure, but then why can’t they pinpoint a striking, convincing reason? It’s almost as if they the film’s good on the sole basis […]
Jeudi 10 novembre 2011
4
10
/11
/Nov
/2011
14:39
Dhobi ghat (Kiran Rao, 2010) is a pleasant enough film to watch; it has a seductiveness, an allusiveness whose charm lasts a while in the mind, and one wonders, after the last unfulfilled pictures have gone, what was this? What sort of movie did I watch? Surely, not a classic Bollywood flick, not a social manifesto, so perhaps an arty evocation of a changing society? A meditation on the new reality India is going through? One could also say, an emerging director’s state of the art research. Kiran Rao, Aamir Khan’s second wife, is here busy demonstrating she’s got the guts to go it alone, after her spectacular successes as assistant director in such blockbusters as Laagan and Swades. Do […]
Samedi 22 octobre 2011
6
22
/10
/Oct
/2011
16:27
Here’s my belated commentary of Ravi’s song Yeh Raate yeh mausam in Dilli ka thug sung by Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhonsle, lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri (I had promised it to Suja! Cf. here). Below you'll find the video, the lyrics and their translation. Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa Kaha do dilon ne, yeh milkar kabhi ham, na honge judaa Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa Yeh kya baat hai aaj ki chandni me? Yeh kya baat hai aaj ki chandni me? Ke ham kho gaye pyar ki raagni me Yeh baahon me bahen, yeh behki nigaahein Lo aane laga zindagi ka maza… Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka […]