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വായന

24 February, 2009

Dickens meets Bollywood in Slumdog Millionaire

In a radio interview with New America Media editor Sandip Roy, Danny Boyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire, spoke of the making of the film, which NAM in a note describes as “the underdog that did make it to the top with eight Oscars”.

The text of the interview appears at the NAM website: “Dickens meets Bollywood in Slumdog Millionaire”.

You can also listen to the radio interview, if you so wish.

2 comments:

Harikrishnan:ഹരികൃഷ്ണൻ said...

I was 'sort of' amused by the Editor's note for this item in 'New America Media'. The note reads

Editor's Note: "Slumdog Millionaire" is the underdog that did make it to the top with eight Oscars. The film about a young slum kid rising to the top of the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" is as much a rags-to-riches story as it is about an India that's changing before our eyes...

How come SDM is an underdog? Just because it is supposedly depicting the story of underdogs? Or is it that if the movie is about India, it needs necessarily to be deemed an underdog? How come this poorly-crafted story comes to represent India's changing face? Does it mean India's centuries of history is equivalent to a slum?..

BHASKAR said...

Hari:ഹരി, Initially SDM was seen as an underdog, for several reasons. For one, it was, by western standards, a low-budget film. For another, it didn't have a stellar cast. Of course, by Oscar time, it had ceased to be underdog and was in fact a hot favourite, having done well commercially and won some major awards.