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PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 6:26 am 
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headless chicken wrote:
Still no good footage of the dance done in the title credits, unfortunately.


Your wish is my command :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcmFGSe_ZmM


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 3:50 am 
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Ragz wrote:

Especially for you, Muz! This video contains a sequence from the originally shot B/W version (Kamal Amrohi cancelled the shooting and arranged for color equipment)

Kamal was so right man;)


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 3:53 am 
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Jiyooooo master ghulammmm Haider ;)


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 Post subject: Re:
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 7:46 am 
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DragunR2 wrote:
headless chicken wrote:
I'm reviving this thread after many years to find out which version of Pakeezah features a dance number during the opening credits. This is the version I saw originally, and I would like to locate a copy (as opposed to this version my Shemaroo in which the dance has been replaced by text only: http://youtube.com/watch?v=h0sRSL_dVKw )


The Shemaroo DVD I have has the dance sequence in the beginning. I'll post a picture of the cover later, since I can't find a picture of it online. IIRC the opening credits were in pretty bad shape, so maybe they replaced it with that text on the later edition.
Is your shemaroo dvd the one with urdu or arabic/ persian subtitles?


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 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:34 pm 
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newDEEP [go-green] wrote:
DragunR2 wrote:
headless chicken wrote:
I'm reviving this thread after many years to find out which version of Pakeezah features a dance number during the opening credits. This is the version I saw originally, and I would like to locate a copy (as opposed to this version my Shemaroo in which the dance has been replaced by text only: http://youtube.com/watch?v=h0sRSL_dVKw )


The Shemaroo DVD I have has the dance sequence in the beginning. I'll post a picture of the cover later, since I can't find a picture of it online. IIRC the opening credits were in pretty bad shape, so maybe they replaced it with that text on the later edition.
Is your shemaroo dvd the one with urdu or arabic/ persian subtitles?


I have that one! It has subtitles in 4 languages. And yes, it does have text cards instead of the original dance sequence.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:00 pm 
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Looks like Shemaroo has come up with a widescreen + restored transfer of Pakeezah on their YouTube channel.


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:29 am 
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At long last! Even though I would prefer a proper blu-ray I have a feeling that this is as good as it is going to get. :( :( :(


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:29 am 
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Hopefully it will be on Netflix


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 3:49 pm 
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Ragz wrote:
Looks like Shemaroo has come up with a widescreen + restored transfer of Pakeezah on their YouTube channel.


Ended up buying this to watch ... verdict: best quality version of Pakeezah I have seen to date (including a screening of a worn out print in the NY film festival a few years ago). The movie is the full movie and not cropped. The detail isn't what I would expect for a HD transfer, however this could be because the restoration was not done from the original negatives. Certain scenes (especially when Sahebjaan arrives at the tent in the forest) are very worn looking and seem to have a lot of digital clean-up applied. The picture quality deteriorates and is very smudgy. I noticed that there is some insertion of sound where it shouldn't be. After Salim is arrested and the crowd is taunting Salim and Sahebjaan, she turns around and the crowd is silent until she turns back. In this version the taunts continue (kind of breaks the impact of her turning to face to crowd of on-lookers).

The sound for this transfer is very low - I had to crank up my speakers to three times their normal level to watch this. YouTube applies a lot of compression to videos and I am wondering if the lower than normal volume and digital squelches that I noticed are due to YouTube or inherent in the processing that has been applied to the picture and sound during the "restoration". I noticed this (in fact much worse) on the iTunes HD version of Mughal-E-Azam.

Those points aside ... I put it on to skim through it and ended up sitting through the whole film. Eventually joined by my kids who watched most of the movie with me. It was great to watch - flaws aside I am glad that there has been work done to bring this movie back to almost it's former glory.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 8:05 pm 
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Some (actually a lot, and still only an excerpt from book) interesting tid-bit about Pakeezah-Meena Kumari-Kamaal Amrohi:

(Not sure how long the web link will stay alive, I'm pasting the whole excerpt here, for zulm.net movie enthusiasts)

Quote:
https://scroll.in/a/826806

Kamal Amrohi made only four films. Fortunately for us, one of them was ‘Pakeezah’
On the director’s birth anniversary, an excerpt from a biography on Meena Kumari revisits the film’s troubled production.
Kamal Amrohi made only four films. Fortunately for us, one of them was ‘Pakeezah’


Vinod Mehta’s book on Meena Kumari is a book-length fan letter disguised as a biography. The journalist frequently refers to Meena Kumari as “my heroine” and gives a deeply personal account of her rise to stardom, her colourful private life, and the tensions with her husband, Kamal Amrohi, which nearly derailed the completion of her final film, ‘Pakeezah’. The movie was released in 1972 a month before the actor’s death, and it is regarded as a fitting tribute to a great star as well as one of Amrohi’s finest works.

On 16 March 1969, five years and twelve days after she had left her husband, Meena Kumari reported for work again on Pakeezah. Kamal organized a great reception. He gave his wife a peda (sweet) as a peace offering, and made a documentary film of her arrival at the studio.

From March 1969 to December 1971, Amrohi and my heroine worked and worked and worked. The last three years were years of feverish activity. Meena now had time on her hands and she willingly gave any dates that her husband required.

Every film, I suppose, has incidents behind it. So has Amrohi’s Pakeezah.
‘Even dacoits watch films’

On outdoor shooting, Mr Amrohi’s unit travelled in two cars, and these cars were poised in the direction of Delhi. Near a place called Shivpuri in MP, the cars all but ran out of petrol. There were just a few trickles left and for miles around there was nothing except a long, deserted, straight road. It was discovered that a bus passed on this route every morning from which fuel could be purchased. ‘Good,’ said Amrohi, ‘we’ll spend the night here.’

He said this without knowing that he was in the thick of India’s most notorious dacoit area. Mr Jayaprakash Narayan had not yet started his mission to reform the criminals and these dacoits were reported to be both ferocious and heartless. On learning where his cars had halted, he ordered that his unit roll up the windows of the cars and hope for the best.

A little after midnight the occupants of the vehicles were disturbed. They were surrounded by a dozen men. The men knocked on the closed windows and forced their way in. They said they were taking the cars to the police station. The unit did not believe this, but the men were armed and as Mr Mao has taught, all persuasion comes from the barrel of a gun.

The cars were led into a gate. There the occupants were ordered to get out. My heroine, already unwell, was in bad shape. She thought the dacoits meant bodily harm. Mr Amrohi, however, refused to get out of the car. Whoever wanted to meet him could come here, he said.

A few minutes later a young man wearing a silk pyjama and a silk shirt appeared.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I am Kamal,’ Mr Amrohi replied, ‘we are on a shooting assignment. We ran out of petrol and are stranded.’

The dacoit thought shooting meant rifle shooting and Amrohi had to explain that they were film shooters. This relieved the dacoit and when he learned that one of the persons in the car was my heroine, his attitude completely changed.

Even dacoits, on their day off, see films, and so did this robber. He turned out to be a Meena Kumari fan and welcomed his guests in true fan tradition. He organized music, dancing, and food. He provided place to sleep. He instructed his juniors the next morning to fetch petrol for the unit.

From my heroine he wanted a special favour. He sharpened his knife and took it to her. ‘Please autograph my hand with this,’ he requested. Meena was not new to signing autographs but she had never attempted anything as ambitious as a knife.

Nervously, she wrote her name on this man’s hand. He said he was grateful for this favour.

Once the unit left, they found at the next town that they had spent the night in the camp of Madhya Pradesh’s renowned and dangerous dacoit—Amrit Lal.
‘Meena Kumari’s supreme test’

About February 1972, Pakeezah was very much in Bombay’s air. The populace was wondering if this heralded and much-talked-about film would live up to its great expectations. The Illustrated Weekly in its 30 January issue headlined: ‘Meena Kumari’s supreme test’. There seemed to be some doubt whether my heroine in her advanced age could do justice to a part which was reported to be grilling and grinding.

On 3 February, in the Arabian Sea a ‘Pakeezah Boat’ was sailing and in Maratha Mandir the premiere was scheduled. A one-and-a-half-crore rupee film, CinemaScope, Eastmancolor, fifteen years in the making, was at last to be screened.

Looking reflective and refined, my heroine arrived to attend the last premiere of her life. She let Mr Raaj Kumar, for the benefit of the press, kiss her hand and then she went in to see the film.

The next morning reaction was discouraging. The Times of India in an unflattering review called Pakeezah a ‘lavish waste’. Later, the resident critic of Filmfare, Mr Banaji, gave it one lonely star (this rating means very poor). Most of the so-called sophisticated critics of India had no time for the hackneyed story of a dancing girl.

My heroine, however, silenced the sceptics. At the age of forty, she had come roaring back to form and demonstrated that she was still in a class of her own. Sahebjan had come out with flying colours; Sahebjan’s creator with not so flying.

The Urdu press, more in sympathy with the concept, was fulsome in its praise. They called Mr Amrohi’s effort sensitive, historic, moving, beautiful …

Meena Kumari’s Sahebjan is not my favourite. I don’t know why, I saw only competence in this part and not genius. While she was dancing. I would have preferred more lust. While she was playful, I would have preferred more frivolity. While she was briefly happy, I would have preferred more joy. While she was resigned, I would have preferred more fatalism.

I suspect, however, that long after she is dead and gone, millions in India will remember my heroine as the woman who danced and sang ‘Inhi Logon Ne’.
Who deserves credit for ‘Pakeezah’?

Raging controversy exists as to who is the true owner of Pakeezah. There is a large body which says that without Meena Kumari this film is nothing.

Let me make my own position on Pakeezah clear. I thought it was a flawed but noble attempt. No one before Amrohi had captured honestly the dilemma of the dancing girl. Certainly many debased and unworthy commercial formulas were used. Certainly the story was unoriginal, and all that bit about the train stopping inches away from the heroine could have been avoided. But what makes this long-awaited film worthwhile is its devotion, its period authenticity. I don’t think I have seen any other film which evokes a strata of Muslim society with more correctness and realism than Pakeezah.

Of course the difficulty is that Amrohi’s is a minority film. Mr Banaji, the very worthy critic of Filmfare, and other worthy critics dabbling in Pasolini and Renoir are disqualified from comment. If you have no sympathy with Muslim folklore and if you can’t speak and understand Hindustani, you might as well not see Pakeezah. When one nautch girl says to another, ‘Sahebjan ham ko ek din ke liye apni kismet de do,’ the nuances of this request can only be relished by someone who comprehends the language, and by someone who has been to the ‘kotha’ of a dancing girl himself.

I don’t think Pakeezah is a great film. But compared to the likes of Hare Rama Hare Krishna it is a classic.

Nostalgia as a box-office ingredient is new. Those who do not like Amrohi say that this film is only running because of Meena’s timely death. The crowds outside Maratha Mandir and scores of other cinemas all over the country are crowds of reverence. These people have not come to see Pakeezah, they have come to pay respects to Meena Kumari.

Amrohi denies this. His film, he feels, is gathering crowds entirely on merit. Although I somewhat agree with him, I feel a small percentage of the crowd is possibly on a pilgrimage. The major percentage is there to see Mr Amrohi’s wizardry. No film can run house-full for thirty-three weeks, as it is today, on nostalgia alone.

This still does not answer the question, whose film?

I think you have to be some sort of pervert to deny Kamal Amrohi his right to this film. He used my heroine at an age when she was lost, he used for his leading man an actor who was no Rajesh Khanna, he took for a music director someone who was in disgrace and unemployed—and from this he produced one of the greatest hits in recent times.

My heroine herself acknowledged Kamal’s ownership. ‘Pakeezah is the beloved which has been born of this film-maker’s imagination nearly two decades ago. Pakeezah is the vision which has haunted his soul for as long as I can remember.’ Ashok Kumar made the same point, a little more openly, ‘Actually and literally Pakeezah is Kamal Amrohi, and Kamal Amrohi alone. Every frame of it, every motivation, every plot-curve, every character in it, is exactly as its visualizer conceived.’

Excerpted with permission from Meena Kumari, Vinod Mehta, HarperCollins India.


The following link shows two books, both perhaps are the same, except one a 2013 edition and the second a 2016.

http://www.amazon.in/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u ... lins+India


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