If this is right, then Shantaram will shoot right after New Years. LOL Not quite sure what they are talking about with some of these things...can anyone help?

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.as...222500d0ec716d#


Take a Depp breath, Johnny


Johnny Depp to get a real taste of Bollywood. Reportedly, he will be doing a masala item number in Shantaram

Posted On Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Will Vishal Bharadwaj make Johnny Depp do another 'Beedi jalaye le'? The buzz going around is that the director-composer has got the music assignment of Mira Nair's Shantaram. The composer has been asked by Mira to compose four Sufi numbers, and a masala Bollywood item number for the film.

"It is learnt that the item number will be picturised on Depp," a source said.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that Nitin Desai's Studio is getting ready for Depp's shooting in Mumbai. The art director's team is busy recreating Dharavi, the place where Shantaram lived most of the time when he was in Mumbai.

"Most of the shooting is likely to take place in the studio and very little of it may happen at actual locations. Depp, it is learnt, may arrive in India after Christmas for the shooting of the film. Mira Nair has asked Amitabh Bachchan who plays a pivotal role in the film to block his dates for the film at that time," adds the source. Bachchan will be playing a kind-hearted gangster in the film.

When contacted Amitabh Bachchan said, "Yes, they have asked me to block my dates from January 2008 to May 2008."



There were reports about Gregory David Robert aka Shantaram wanting Shah Rukh Khan to play the character of Qasim Ali Hussein, but it is still not clear if Khan will be doing the project. Also, Irrfan Khan too may be part of Shantaram although there is still uncertainty over which character he will be playing in the film.

Shantaram is an adaptation of Gregory David Roberts's book of the same name. The film is about Robert, a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who escapes from Pentridge Prison, Australia, and flees to India to live in Mumbai.

Interesting Karen, I Googled some of this. Came up with this for Sufi music:

http://www.the-south-asian.com/Sufi_Music.htm

Masala Bollywood mainly turned up with info. that leads me to believe it's "sexy" Indian type music? There are sites that mention sexy masala Indian actresses? Just a guess--

Here's a Youtube link that came up when I Googled 'Beedi jalaye le';

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-910-uA2QzQ

Now if "picturised" means Johnny's doing this---well, this I have to see!

-Donna

I'm with you on that Donna. That I will have to see. Will be interesting!!

Nicci :captainjack

Could be just that.. I had this in one of my Google alerts..

http://www.bollytamasha.com/2007/07/25/joh...p-in-bollywood/

Johnny Depp in Bollywood
Johnny Depp is confirmed to dance in a song in Mira Nair’s upcoming film Shantaram.....

Donna.. thanks for that youtube link .. checked it out and yeah.. this could be very interesting!!!!!

~ Mary Kay

I really like this type of music and dancing-just wish I understood what they are saying. Bollywood movies are fun. You might consider one that my Indian students turned me onto Kal Ho Naa Ho-"tomorrow may not be"-the story of an Indian family living in New York-it was filmed in New York, the film is mainly in English and it is a musical! Colorful sets and costumes and your feet will be moving. This film is not as serious as The Namesake. It will be fascinating to see where these two talents- Nair and Depp will take Shantaram. :shistle

:lol: This is an interesting conversation!
Hmmm... what IS a Bollywood movie...?
I've seen Monsoon Wedding. I loved the musice dance scenes. :thumbsup

Not filiming untill 2008, eh?
Well then I've decided, I won't go to India until then!
Thanks for the update! :thumbsup
Happy to be kept informed. :thanks

This has become a really interesting thread! Thanks to all who dug around for the info and tidbits...this will really be one different movie for our guy! He just loves a challenge, and I love that about him! ;) But I have to admit that I am not a Bollywood musical fan at all. LOL

I googled Vishal Bharadwaj 's name, then searched for a film where he/she is a Musical director and came up with this music review of a film:

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/m...eview/7733.html

Sounds like music and meanings that Johnny can relate to. :thumbsup

Agreed! a wonderful new 'height' and choice for Johnny! BOLLYWOOD! A fit challenge! :thumbsup Now to figure out if the names are he's or she's ... :shistle Then I wonder , with CUT and PASTE, does it really make a difference?!? :rolleyes: Cut and Paste saves the day! LOL

Thanks Depputante for the review!! I guess time will tell the he or she issue?

I have very little doubt that in the hands of Mira Nair and Johnny this project will be classy and colorful and will bring the best of both film worlds (Bolly and Hollywood) to the screen.
The thought to Johnny dancing, a la masala-sexy, is almost more than I can bear!

This is interesting news about Shantaram, Karen thank you so much :D

I actually had a Shantaram dream about Johnny and the director Mira Nair was telling me about Johnny and that he did a great job on Shantaram it was funny :lol:

Well we know there is a Bollywood scene in Shantaram, and I'm with you Parlez---if Johnny's doing that kind of masala(?) dance, then that will be something to see for sure!

-Donna

Parlez wrote:

I don't think I'll even be still breathing after I hear him sing.

Plus, Lin arranged for the dancers and musicians to perform at Prabaker's and Johnny Cigar's wedding in the slum (pg. 608) where he witnessed the uncensored and erotic nature of the dance. "I joined the thick, gyrating jungle of men in front of the stage, and danced until my thin shirt clung to me like seaweed in a shallow wave." (pg 611).
I can see this scene, if they keep it in the film, offering Johnny a chance to show off his 'sexy dancing' skills. :rolleyes:

You girls are trying to give me a heart attack!! :lol:

I would looove to see Johnny doing such a sexy dance(and who wouldn't wanna be in his fellow dancer's position) but he has said that he hates dancing with a passion :(

This whole 'sexy dancing' discussion reminds me of Jack on the beach with 2 rum bottles, shaking his chest at Kiera. :lol:

You know.. you might have something there!!! And then again.. I have the flash back to his little jiggy dance thing in CATCF which wipes that out completely.. lol

Considering how petrified he was just doing that little bitty short dance scene in Chocolat......well........this could be interesting.

One of the sexiest dance scenes I've seen in that one------c'mon Johnny, let your hair down and cut loose------you know you really want to!(And of course we all want to see it, too!)

Would be too hot to handle :upinsmoke Johnny ,sexy dancing................
Pity he hates dancing. Interesting thread we have going here. Make one think and contemplate..............................




Yvonne in LA :writing

First singing and now maybe dancing! And sexy dancing!
Just picturing that gives me palpitations!

:thanks for all the info on this girls!

I love it, that sexy dancing, isn't it?
At least they are not naked, especially not without their clothes!


Irffan Khan! YES!! please :snoopy

I can't wait!!!! :snoopy

Thinking about Johnny dancing like that brings a smile to my face. I love the seen out of "Chocolat" where he is dancing. That is so romantic. I bet he would make a wonderful dancer. :thud

Nicci :captainjack

I had questions now you wonderful and informational ladies
have answered them. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

:unsure: Now is it that Johnny can't dance or just says that
he can't ? ;)

He says that he can't dance but then he has also told us that he can't sing either but that hasn't kept him from doing "Sweeney Todd." I thought that he danced just fine in "Chocolat."

Nicci :captainjack

It's weird to me that he says he's afraid of dancing.AFRAID!LOL

cause he has such a wonderful body and also he seems like he has a dancer's physique.
And as Nicci said,he didn't turn down Sweeney Todd because of the singing.
We know he always challenges himself,so a sexy dance number would be A M A Z I N G
:lol: :lol: :P

I wonder if he will have a partner.... :shistle

Yes, Johnny's always been self-deprecating when it comes to his abilities. I think he has many "hidden" talents that we will see in the future.

He danced with the bear in FN too! Not to mention one of my favorite outtakes from DMC, where he's on board the Pearl, turns away from the camera and does a little wiggle. Almost dancing, isn't it? At least enough, yaar, to wet my appetite for more! :claphands

I've been totally preoccupied the past two weeks with houseguests and some other serious stuff, and it's probably going to be another two or three weeks before I can catch up with what's been going on with JDR. I see I've missed out on a whole slew of good conversation like this dancing speculation. But I just wanted to mention that I remember a few dance steps in Don Juan de Marco, too, when he was teaching the orderly to woo females.

Later,
Rose

Something like this perhaps??

Forgot about that little scene out of Don Juan. I think that we all need to sit down with this man and tell him what we all think. He certainly can dance but the singing we will have to wait on. But I am sure that he is going to do a beautiful job of it.

Nicci :captainjack

If you've ever seen any of Vanessa's music videos-------she knows how to "sexy" dance-------she's probably taught him------- :P

Just some comments on the Beedi song that Donna (herestoyou) posted. Coincidentally, apart from being by Vishal Bharadwaj (he not only composed for Omkara, but also directed it - the film is an adaptation of Othello moved into a rural Indian setting), it has another connection with Shantaram - the girl, Bipasha Basu, has apparently been roped in to play Kavita :)
Someone asked what they were saying - I don't remember much, but I've seen the film with subtitles and that was a particularly saucy number with lyrics going something like "light your cigarettes on my bossom". Most Bollywood films have much more family orientated lyrics ;) The makers of this one were actually worried that they would be forced to make cuts by the censors (I don't think in that particular scene, but just generally), but fortunately the censors gave them an option between cutting stuff out to get a family friendly certificate or leaving everything in and getting an R. They went with the R (which is quite uncommon).

Masala is a term from Indian cuisine (it's a mix of many spices) and when used to describe Indian films it means a "mix of genres". Indian films often combine much more genres than films in other countries (for example mixing action, romantic comedy and melodrama is quite common).
Usually the way I've seen the term used it meant the more commercial kind of films which tend to mix it up much more (Omkara was a slightly less commercial venture and for a Bollywood film had a much more "unified" style).
So "masala" can mean a lot of things. My guess is that the song might be in a scene on a Bollywood set in which case the song could be vastly different than the style of the rest of the film. To give you an idea of what a more commercial Bollywood song and dance number looks like (though they can look and sound vastly different from film to film - much more so than in Hollywood musicals), here's a scene from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Sad) with Amitabh Bachchan (who will play Khader) and Shahrukh Khan (who they're trying to rope in to play Quasim):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MiB_twmh_Ek

As for the "sexiness" of Bollywood films - the great majority of commercial films are sexy and sensual, which is perhaps a little ironic as there's a lot more things that are taboo in Indian films. To date I don't think there's been any nudity in a commercial Indian film and sex scenes are rare. Kissing on the lips happens, but there's pleeeenty of romantic films which do not have even one kiss and some stars straight out declare they're not comfortable doing scenes like that. There was even a recent case when two Bollywood stars were sued by somebody for an on-screen kiss because it was considered indecent.
I guess because of this, Indian films have found ways round that and I often find it funny how they manage to make a simple scene seem like it's XXX ;) There's one scene in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham where a man is putting bracelets on a woman's arm and my dad always says it's pure pornography lol Of course the song and dance scenes in particular can be very sexy and sensual. The Beedi song is very raw, but there are often much more romantic and sensual ones. To give an example below is the link for another song from a Shahrukh Khan - Amitabh Bachchan co-starrer "Veer Zaara" (though the song doesn't actually feature Mr Bachchan). The girl is to be married to the man with a moustache (it's the engagement ceremony at the beginning of the song when the man puts a ring on her finger). It's an arranged marriage which she was perfectly happy to go through with a few days ago (she knew that guy and was friends with him, she was only a bit worried about moving out from her parents and making such a big change in her life), but bad luck would have it that a few days ago she met this guy (Shahrukh) and she finds she can't forget him. Anywhere she looks she keeps seeing him, every time of day she keeps thinking of him...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IoMZGNLtcP4

Someone also asked what a Bollywood film is exactly (which is a very good question as many people, even journalists, get the meaning of the word muddled up), so here goes...
Because of the amount of languages used in India (banknotes have 14 different languages on them - the most out of any country in the world and those aren't all the languages used! There are litterally hundreds of them!) the film industry has ended up fragmenting quite a bit with each "filmmaking centre" using the most commonly spoken language of the region. The three biggest film centres are Kollywood (Tamil), Tollywood (Telugu) and Bollywood (Hindi). Of course there are many films made outside of those three centres as well, quite a few films are made in Bengali for instance and then a lot of films (even in the centres mentioned above, though usually only briefly) mix languages.
What makes Bollywood different is that as anyone who read Shantaram knows, the native language of Bombay (now Mumbai), which is where Bollywood films are centered, is not Hindi but Marathi. And by choosing to make films in Hindi (which is the most commonly spoken language in India), they've kind of made it into a "global Indian" industry rather than just a regional industry. And that's why Bollywood has the biggest stars, biggest budgets and so on. But actually Kollywood makes more films yearly than Bollywood! And Bollywood only accounts for about 200-300 films from the 900-1000 films that India makes yearly.
But er if you've found my explanation more confusing than explanatory then the short version is Bollywood = commercial Indian films made in the Hindi language.

Another thing mentioned in the course of discussion that I wanted to touch is the term "Bollywood musicals". A lot of Indian filmmakers actually protest when Bollywood films are called musicals. I'm not sure they're right in protesting :P but I guess they're right that the term confuses Western audiences. Because when you use "musical" in the West you think of something that is primarily told by music and dancing and this isn't really the case with commercial Indian cinema (Tollywood and Kollywood films are also usually "musicals", in fact only art house films in India don't have song and dance numbers). I mean like if you took Moulin Rouge or Chicago and cut out all the songs, you'd probably have less than half the film left and the plot wouldn't be understandable. If you took a Bollywood film and cut out the songs you'd still have over 2h of film and while you might be confused about the plot at times, you'd probably be able to follow most of it. It's just that it's a very different structure. I mean I know people who don't like musicals, but who are quite happy to watch a Bollywood film (though perhaps choosing some of the songs as a time to go to the bathroom).
Also, remember that the Indian film industry is extremely vast and makes many very different styles of film (even the "musicals" can be veeeery different from each other, there's realistic ones where the actors hardly wear make up or ganster ones for example), so if you've only seen 2-3 films that gives you no more of an idea of what that cinema is like than watching 2-3 Hollywood films :)

Thanks rosowesk......for the interesting background info. Do you or have you lived in India? You have a lot of great info. about the Indian culture. I found it interesting from that one youtube video I posted, that showed very suggestive dancing, would be acceptable in India. I remember the uproar that occurred when Richard Gere kissed the Indian actress in public in India not long ago. I've known that Bollywood movies included both the song and dance numbers, as well as typical "movie" scenes, and weren't strictly like a Chicago musical. Some people like this style and others don't. For me, I don't really care for it that much, but I think they're interesting to watch now and then. Thanks again for your great insights!

-Donna

Nope, I've never lived in India :) Never even been there *sigh* (hopefully I'll change that someday :P ) I'm Polish and have no Indian roots or anything.
I'm just a big film buff and about 3 years ago at a film festival I saw my first Bollywood film and was fascinated as it was vastly different to what I had expected to see and also very different to anything else I'd seen. Western media usually portray commercial Indian cinema as a sort of factory where the quality of the film doesn't matter and which only the people of India could enjoy and I guess that's what I was expecting. Instead I got this amazingly colourful and beautifully shot film about family values with an innocence that I've still not seen even in a Disney film ;) I remember finding it very funny that all the male actors in the film kept having melodramatic fits of crying for all sorts of strange reasons. In fact I'd never seen so much male crying in a film before. The film was "Kabhi Khushie Kabhie Gham", which is where the "Say Shava Shava" song and dance number came from :) In fact Shahrukh has tears in his eyes right before that scene as he's saying a toast to his father (Mr Bachchan) and is very emotional about it :D Three years on from that, that film still remains the most innocent film I've seen with the most male crying ;)
But anyway - it got me hooked and since then I've done loads of watching and reading up on Indian cinema. This is not always simple in Poland as we don't have an Indian diaspora here, so the availability of these films is very small (it's getting better as I wasn't the only one who got hooked ;) ).

As for what's acceptable and what's not - it's very odd. I haven't quite sussed it.
I mean in the art house Indian films I think pretty much anything goes. Although I still haven't seen anything quite as explicit as in some European art house films.
In commercial films I really have no idea... Sometimes considering what's taboo, their directness is very weird. I mean I've seen a scene in a sex shop which is then proceeded by a scene in which a blindfold and whip is used. Er, ok there was no sex in those scenes and it was comedy, but even so ;) And even taking sexual content aside, some of it is very direct. There was one scene that I felt would have never been put in in a Hollywood film. It was a film about a guy who had been brought up on the street and the first scene of it was leaving a crying baby on a big pile of rubbish.
I guess part of the issue is that the audience in India is becoming more and more divided. Like in Mumbai and Delhi the audience will cope with anything a Western audience will. But India is a huge country and it's not like that everywhere.
But generally I think you can discuss loads of things very freely in Indian cinema. For example there's quite a few commercially orientated films discussing terrorism or religious conflicts in ways in which I think commercial Western cinema wouldn't dare to do it. I mean personally, I'm yet to see a commercial American or European film showing what has motivated a terrorist to a suicide attack.

I can go on and on about Indian cinema because I'm totally obsessed - if anyone actually wants more clips or information please just tell me ;)

Since I'm addicted to Bollywood clips on youtube, here's a very famous song and dance scene from a film called "Dil Se". It is the first song and dance scene in the history of world cinema to be made on top of a train. As the film is from the 90s, the budgets were much lower then and all that you see was made without any harnesses. It's a Shahrukh film yet again (sorry for the lack of variation, but that's what I watch the most of - partly because I'm a fan and partly because his films are the most widely available in the West). It's different than most of the other clips as the film is in a more realistic style (not much make up, lighting is minimal and I think some of the dialogue scenes were improvised):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOlgbfFy3k

Thanks so much for all of the information! I was really surprised that I know that song! Not sure where I know it from though! LOL


Again, many thanks!!

Maybe baseball? I thought I heard something about that song being played during something important in baseball. I'm very ignorant about most sports, so sorry for being so vague :)

Well I'm pretty un-sportsy too. I do love ice Hockey tho..lol

I wonder if it was included in another film? It's a mystery, but I do like the song!! Many thanks for sharing so much with us!

I checked it on wikipedia and apparently it was used in Spike Lee's Inside Man and also in the stage musical Bombay Dreams.
But I heard it's generally appeared in bizzarre contexts. It seems to be one of the most popular Bollywood tunes :)

Also the scene is supposed to have been the inspiration for the dance scene on a train in Lars Von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark".