On 21st January 1975, one of Amitabh Bachchan’s most iconic movies, Deewaar was released in theaters all across India. The film which was released at the height of Emergency in India went on to become a smash hit and also made Amitabh the angry young man, an image that he successfully carried forward in his future movies. No doubt, Amitabh considers Deewaar as the most perfect script he has ever come across in his career. This year, the movie completed a glorious 40 years of existence and Amitabh himself recalled certain special moments of the film.
“It was very difficult to find any fault in the scripting. Salim saab (Salim Khan) and Javed saab (Javed Akhtar) were brilliant and I think Deewaar was the most perfect script written for me,” said Amitabh.
The movie which was made in 1975 could have been delayed had it not been for Amitabh’s ardent persuasion in getting the film made. Shared Amitabh, “The film was not in a situation where it wouldn’t have been made but it could definitely have been delayed. I was working on a film with Yash Chopra and we were already about 8 days into the shooting schedule when Salim saab and Javed saab came to meet me to narrate the script. I enjoyed it and they (Salim-Javed) wanted Yash Chopra to direct it. So I called him but he said, ‘Okay. Let me finish our film first and then maybe we can think about.’ But then I told him, ‘May be you want to hear the script first and perhaps change your mind.’ And that is exactly what happened when we narrated the script. Yash infact dropped the film we were doing and we started work on Deewaar.”
Of the many lesser known facts about Deewaar, one of them is that Yash Chopra had started work on his next, Kabhie Kabhie while filming Deewaar. Infact, Amitabh and Yash shot both movies simultaneously. Revealing this was Amitabh himself who said, “Not many people know that Deewaar and Kabhie Kabhie were shot simultaneously and that shows the acumen of Yash Chopra for making two different kinds of films at the same time right in the middle of the shooting schedule of Deewaar. We took off for a month somewhere in October and November to Kashmir and shot Kabhie Kabhie there. After a month, we came back and finished Deewaar. So all credit to Mr. Yash Chopra and his team.”
Well, the industry truly misses the genius of Yash Chopra.
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