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Dabangg
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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| Hum yahan ke Robinhood hain, Robinhood Pandey |
Watching Dabangg was like coming a full circle. I remember watching full-on masala potboilers in the single screen theatres of Patna as a young kid. Theatres in those days had two audience sections. The front stall for the whistle blowing junta and the balcony for the more civilized family gentry. While the hero played to the gallery, the audience played its part by applauding the insane dialogues and situations arising on screen. Bollywood then underwent several transitions and one of them was fuelled by the springing up of multiplexes in big cities and opening up of the overseas market.
The subsequent breed of filmmakers got so much carried away with targeting their products for a particular segment that they unknowingly created a divide between the front stall and the balcony audience. The elite group of filmmakers whose middle class wore designer labels started to make films for the multiplexes and the overseas market while small time film makers stuck to the B and C centers which still had single screens continuing to showcase the hero as the wronged man forced to take revenge.
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