Bachchanalia : The Films and Memorabilia of Amitabh Bachchan

Contents: Nine years to take the first step/Neville Tuli. Foreword/Bhawana Somaaya. 1. The many faces of Amitabh Bachchan. 2. From Saat Hindustani to God Tussi Great Ho, 1969 to 2008. 3. Filmography and technical credits. 4. Select bibliography. Acknowledgements and image credits. Index of publicity material and index of featured actors. The Osian's C.A.R.D. (Center for Archiving, Research and Development).

From the Foreword: "Most of the time, cinegoers remember their favourite films through hoardings.

For the author, the idea for this book materialised when a friend presented her with a stack of vintage Bachchan film posters. The young, intense face in the pictures was almost unrecognizable from the suave, awesome presence we are accustomed to watching on the big screen today.

The sepia-tinted images evoked, strong, nostalgic memories of a bygone era, and she was hungry to put the actor's entire journey together.

Predictably, the problem arose in tracing the early films, most of them commercially unsuccessful, since no one had bothered to preserve records. Finding documents post-Zanjeer was relatively easier, even for those films where the actor did just guest appearance, because his face dominated in the publicity. On the other hand, the smaller budget films like those he did with Hrishikesh Mukherjee were missing even in the production office files.

Acquiring relevant posters of the various films was not the only problem. While compiling the credits, she discovered that the writer, supposedly the backbone of the script, is the most neglected technician in Indian cinema. He was never mentioned in the hoardings, and in the booklets documenting the film adequate attention was not paid to segregating the credits for story, screenplay and dialogue.

The first time the writer's name featured prominently on the billboards was with the emergence of Salim-Javed.

It was a dicey proposition listing the box office fairing of all his 135 releases over 40 years because there was no guaranteed way of recording collections of returns in the old days. The evaluations are therefore recorded on the basis of documents available (trade magazines) and on perception. Often, a film declared as 'Average' when first released was looked upon as a 'Grosser' in retrospect. Ramesh Sippy's Shaan for instance initially generated only 'Average' box office returns according to the trade pursuits but ten years later the same film was declared a super success!

Hits and flops were determined by the recovery of the investments and smaller films not only recovered their costs quicker but guaranteed an overflow as compared to mega budget starrers like Sholay. Interestingly, the definition of a 'Hit' altered from time to time so every time a film surpassed the collections of the previous success, one tended to undermine the magnitude of the earlier successes.

No matter how many different systems the film producer recommended in recording of the box office collections, contradictions persisted between the exhibitor and the distributor. This was because the advance and current bookings were done manually and there were possibilities of tampering with sales. Some facts remained undisputed. For example, everyone acknowledged that Amitabh Bachchan starrers (including his earlier flops) when re-released did better business and fetched exorbitant telecast prices as compared to his contemporaries. According to trade pundits, his flops do better business than other actors' successes!

The trend of releasing multiple prints began sometime in the '90s. This was a faster way for the distributor and the exhibitor to recover investments both in India and overseas. A decade later came the multiplexes that altered box office equations forever. For the first time in India all ticket sales and canteen collections were computerized and there was transparency in transactions between the producer, the distributor and the exhibitor.

In his four-decade long career Amitabh Bachchan has been a witness to all the turning points in show business both on and off screen. He symbolises the evolution of Indian cinema in creativity and technology. His growing stature from an actor to a superstar is evident from his altering body language reflected in the film posters over the decades. He stands testimony to the changing trends in cinema as well as the socio-political scenario in the country. Amitabh Bachchan will always remain the touchstone of the entertainment business."

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