In The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, a segment in the classic Walt Disney Fantasia (1940),Mickey Mouse is a not-so-bright disciple to the world’s
greatest wizard, who perceiving that Mickey is really mickey after all, takes a
nap, forbidding the newbie to touch anything. Looks are deceptive after all,
and Mickey proving that Shakespeare was right (What’s in a name? A rose…)
snatches the grand wand and almost manages to destroy the world which might
have been created by another act of trespassing. The guru wakes up just in
time, and doomsday is averted. (We shall come back to the sorcerer, and his
apprentice later…)
Mario Puzo wrote a novel in 1969, which Francis Ford
Coppola filmed in 1972, and the rest is history - THE GODFATHER.
The tale of a Sicilian immigrant, who became a colossus
in the American underworld, remained a family man till the end, and became one
of the best known fictional icon in the world. In a rare instance, both the
book and the movie are equally great and have become the most popular Siamese
twin in the history of popular entertainment, and the debate is over who you
like more/ or side with – Don Vito Corleone/Marlon Brando, or Michael Corleone/
Al Pacino.
Al Pacino is hailed as the crown prince of American
actors of all times due to that one single role. Many aver that the younger
version of Vito Corleone played by Robert De Niro in THE GODFATHER II is a more
compelling watch, but nobody who has seen the whole franchise, or even one of
it, can dislike it. ‘Hate him, fear him, despise him – but you cannot ignore
him’ was the blurb for the central character in Puzo’s book. It stands true for
the book, and the movies as well.
Cecille B De Mille is supposed to have said, that
religion plus sex is equal to box office. Godfather proved that violence and
family, and family above all is equal to box office eternity. The tale of a son
detaching himself from his family enterprise out of disgust, and then being
forced to take charge to get his folks out of the doldrums is universally
everlasting.
And perhaps that’s why, it has inspired several Indian
versions, and will continue to do so because family is one God in this land of
many which will never go away, whether it stays together or not.
Feroze Khan, the original Bharatiya cowboy, and star of
many a curry western, nosed out the gigantic appeal of the Puzo behemoth and
produced, directed, starred in the first ever Indian retelling of the Sicilian
family saga in Dharmatma, 1975.
Premnath reprised Don Vito, and his character was fleshed out on a contemporary
matka overlord, who was something of a Corleone in real life – an honest man
in a dishonest trade.
Nayagan,1987, directed by Mani Ratnam with Kamal Hassan
playing the central character is based on the real life Vardarajan Mudailar, a
Tamil who rose from the docks of Mumbai to rule its underworld, is a spiritual
cousin of the Coppola blockbuster, and has some similar frames as a tribute. It
is an original work, except those frames, and yet its central core is THE
GODFATHER, with Illaiyaraja almost matching Nino Rota’s haunting pastorale theme
from the original.
It is tacitly considered to be the best Indian Godfather
film till date.
In a remarkable decision, Feroze Khan, who brought the
Puzo/Coppola magnum opus to India, remade Nayagan as Dayavan (1988) with Vinod
Khanna reprising Velu Nayagan, and failed to go anywhere near his own
blockbuster of more than a decade ago, let alone Mani Ratnam’s universally
acknowledged classic.
This became an interesting pattern as it unfolded that
THE GODFATHER was as irresistible to its inspired makers as to its audience.
Kamal Hassan, the star of Nayagan wrote, produced, and
starred in Thevar Magan (1992), a Tamil film –his tribute to the Godfather in a rural setting. The film was once again
scored by Ilaiyaraja, and won 5 National
Film Awards. It was dubbed into Telegu as Kshatriya Putradu, remade into Hindi
as Virasat(1997) by Priyadrshan, and in Kannada as Tandega Takka Maga(2006) by
S Mahender.
Mohanlal, the iconic actor, had starred in two inspired Malayalam
adaptations – Naduvazhikal (1989), and Abhimanyu (1991).
Aamir Khan had essayed the role of Michael Corleone in
Dilip Shankar’s Atank Hi Atank(1995), Abhishek Bacchan in Ramgopal Varma’s
Sarkar(2005) and its sequel to the Vito Corleone played by his real life
father, the legendary Amitabh Bacchan.
Amitabh, spoke his lines in the now celebrated hoarse voice of the
original Don Vito, Marlon Brando in Agneepath(1990).
The stories would never end as the Indian fascination
with the Puzo/Coppola creation would never get abated. It all began with Puzo,
so let’s get back to him in 1969. When he wrote it, and even after it, for some
time Puzo felt that it was his left hand’s work as he was interested in writing
literature and not bestseller. His serious works never received as much
attention as his ‘popular’ creation, and THE GODFATHER though falls short of
being high literature, is nevertheless many leagues away from being another
bestseller.
Like the sorcerer in the Walt Disney animation, Puzo was
immune to his own creation’s potential initially, though later he got
reconciled with it just like Vito did with Michael.
Russian literature is supposed to have come out from
Nikolai Gogol’s, The Overcoat. And
out of Puzo’s southpaw emerged India’s best loved story of all time after The Mahabharata.
