The story so far

It was the 31st of December of the year 1989. I was in a cinema hall watching the movie Siva. The very popular song on the ‘Botany class’ had just started. I was hardly able to hear the song. The crowd was in splits throwing papers all around and cheering their new star. The fight sequence that came 10 minutes after the song is still fresh in my memory. (I am sure it still lingers in the mind of anyone who watched the movie.) Siva picks up the cycle chain and fights the goons. It wasn’t the typical ‘dishum dishum’ fight that was very popular in Telugu cinema at that time. There was an element of intensity in the fight, something that was never witnessed before. For the first time, the silence spoke for the protagonist. He never spoke instead he let his eyes do the job. Amitabh, I thought let his eyes do the talking in the latest RGV movie ‘Sarkar Raj’.

Well, RGV is a popular name now When Siva was released RGV was known by the name Ram Gopal Varma. I guess one would be very familiar with the line ‘A Ram Gopal Varma film’ I can feel the kick that I derive as this line appears at the beginning of the movie. It would usually be a dark screen, pitch black with the credits line slowly scrolling across the screen. Ram Gopal Varma or RGV as he is popularly known as these days has a sense of realism in his movies. This aspect of real life becomes critical when one is dealing like a sensitive subject like the underworld. One cannot think of creating a Bollywood style underworld where one finds the don behaving as if he never had any feelings toward others. At the end of the day, an underworld don is one among us, who turned out to be one because of certain circumstances in his life. It is interesting to note that in most of RGV’s underworld movies, it’s not the villain but the hero who plays the central underworld character. By doing so, RGV makes a point that the don of the underworld is just like any one of us and any of the other Bollywood heroes- he laughs, he cries, he has friends, he loves a woman and wants her to be in his life. More importantly, the underworld don doesn’t have a happy end in the movie just because he happens to be the hero.

This write-up attempts to do a semiotic analysis of the underworld movies of Ramgopal Varma. Semiotics is the study of signs. Signs consist of two parts- the signifier (sound, object, image, or the like) and the signified (concept).While the signifier or denotation is the literal meaning of a meaning of a term, figure or a text, the signified or connotation is used to describe the cultural meanings attached to a term. This write up analyzes through semiotics how RGV has effectively used the signifiers to effectively narrate his story to the audience.

The dark silent underworld

A dark background is quite powerful. I believe that even this writing would be more effective with a black background than the current white one. A dark background very often becomes a very powerful expression of the story that is being narrated. The use of darkness and shades in the movies with an underworld theme has a similar or may be even more powerful effect. The darkness in this case also clearly brings out the anti-social element involved in underworld activities. RGV uses the darkness and light and shade effects very effectively in his movies. In his movies like ‘Sarkar’ and ‘Sarkar Raj’, the protagonist remains in the dark for a major part of the movie to an extent that it sometimes becomes impossible to read the character fully. But that is perhaps exactly what RGV wanted- the darkness speaking out for the protagonist instead of the protagonist doing it himself. The darkness in this case is the signifier or the denotation, something that is very obvious. The signified or the connotation that RGV is trying to convey through this is about the dark, shady world where various nefarious acts are carried out. The dark room in the movie ‘Sarkar’ with a single ray of light emerging out of the window captures the usual grim mood in the Sarkar camp which is the connotation that RGV is trying to portray.

Image1: The line that gives the kick for the RGV fans

RGV brought in simple, crisp and hard-hitting dialogues instead of the long-winded never ending ones. The protagonist in his underworld movies is usually a silent and taciturn character who usually lets his facial and eye expressions do the talking. Even when he speaks it is usually a crisp dialogue that gives a killer effect to the scene. The scene in ‘Sarkar’ between Amitabh and Abhisek, when Abhishek assures Amitabh that he will fight for him and get him released has very few dialogues. The dialogues here are interspersed with gaps where a lot seems to be conveyed through the expressions of the eyes. It is finally the intensity in the eyes of the son that seems to assure the father and this in-effect makes the scene convey the meaning in intended to. Unlike the movies which have the dialogues carrying the message across, RGV uses crsip dialogues to convey the same. There is a stronger sense of the signified or the hidden message (connotation) that is conveyed here as opposed to the blatant and long dialogue (which is the signifier or denotation).

Image2: The intense eye expression- Abhishek Bachan in an RGV special

The scenes in RGV movies, such as the one discussed in the last paragraph are usually followed by an intense background tune that brings in the myriad of emotions that needed to be conveyed to the audience. The gripping background tune that is in play during the chasing scenes adds to the suspense of the chase. This kind of background music accompanied by the stunning camera work which brings in amazing angles is perhaps the stuff that marks out RGV as a special director of this genre. There have been times when the audience felt that his strong background score came in the way of the dialogues. This is what RGV has to say to them.

"My tendency is to have very dramatic and in-the-face background score. I have two reasons for it; one reason is I find background score drives the emotion of the audience in a specified intended direction. At times I have been accused that I use it so loud almost to the point that you cannot hear the dialogue properly. Sometimes the reason for this is when I reach the mixing stage at times I am so bored of the dialogues myself by hearing it so many times I feel like listening to the music at that time. I know it sounds stupid but it can happen. So I think more or less if we know of the emotion of what they are going to talk about so why do we need so specifically for them to hear the lines.” (Source: http://rgvarma.spaces.live.com)

In all these cases the text is the movie as seen by the viewers in the form of dark and shady locations, short and hard-hitting dialogues and gripping background score. The language is the meaning that RGV is trying to convey through the audio visuals- the shady activities and the grim mood. The discourse is the larger picture of the underworld - their lifestyle, their mindset, their eccentricities, and their perspective of the outside world that is portrayed using the darkness, dialogues and the background music.

The Reel Hero unreeled

One of the most fascinating aspects of a RGV underworld movie is perhaps the character of the hero – the protagonist of the movie. As mentioned earlier, he is silent, reserved and someone who delivers the punch directly instead of aimlessly rambling about his capabilities. The RGV hero also doesn’t have a filmy reason to join the underworld – he doesn’t join mafia to take revenge on those who killed his parents or raped his sister/wife, he does it just to survive and loves what he is doing. The hero doesn’t have a heart of gold. On the contrary he is cold blooded and ruthless. As seen from the character of the protagonist in the movie ‘Satya’, he has no qualms about making use of his girlfriend to get his job done, nor causing a stampede in a theater and killing innocent people to escape from the cops.

The most important aspect of an RGV movie is that it doesn’t glorify the gangsters just because the hero is a part of it. There are no sermons by the cops or gangsters either about how unjust society is. RGV gives the police their due and depicts them as honest and dedicated people who take on the gangsters in a ruthless manner. They even win finally showing that the law of the land is above everyone. There are not many movies in Bollywood where a hero is shot dead and meets a gruesome end like a ‘Satya’ or a ‘Company’ did. It is perhaps RGV’s way of showing the reality on the big screen and reiterating the truth that crime never pays in the long run. This is exactly the semiotic connotation that RGV seems to convey to the audience through the story of his protagonist who is the signifier in this case.

Image3: The hero is a mortal after all. The underworld dons of Company and Satya brutally killed in typical mafia style

Beyond the Hero

RGV also used new and relatively unknown faces for all his underworld movies apart from the Sarkar series. His Telugu movie Gaayam that was released in 1993 had newcomer Jagapathi Babu playing the lead. ‘Satya’ brought fame to the unknown duo of J.D Chakravarty and Manoj Bajpai. Vivek Oberoi’s role in ‘Company’ as an underworld gangster won him the ‘Best Debut’ filmfare award. RGV thinks that casting newcomers works for the underworld movies because it brings in an element of unpredictability. “When people ask me my thing of casting new actors, it works in a scene because people have never seen that guy, I can play around with the audience’s imagination. If I take a big name in the effort of trying to match somebody with Amitabh Bachchan, somebody like Danny Denzongpa or Amrish Puri, I don’t think the scene will be effective enough because subconsciously the audience will feel the final outcome thereby making it predictable. With the new guy they won’t know what to make of him… how big he is? How small he is? And what he can do? That unpredictability of an unknown face I think works very well in films of this genre.” (Source: http://rgvarma.spaces.live.com).

The unknown new hero perhaps works very well because the story usually dwells much beyond the hero. There are usually characters in RGV films who have performed just as well as the hero did or may be even better. In the Telugu movie ‘Gaayam’, Kota came up with an amazing performance as the rival gangster of the hero-Jagapathi Babu. ‘Satya’ had Manoj Bajpai playing the role of Bheeku Matre to perfection. Vivek Oberoi and Ajay Devgan had almost equal roles in ‘Company’ and Malayalam superstar Mohanlal playing the cop had a meaty role as well. The lack of ‘star power’ thus never affected any of these movies. There was a strong script and then there were other characters apart from the hero (as in other Bollywood movies) running the story.

RGV thus seem to lay more emphasis on the story which is concept or the signified by purposely underplaying the signifiers (the actors in this case). By casting unknown faces in the lead roles, RGV seems to make sure the attention of the audience remains with the story. Even in cases where the actors or signifiers have the star-value (as in Sarkar and Sarkar Raj) RGV seems to tune the signifiers to the story or (the concept or signified) that he is trying to narrate rather than dominate it.

The unconventional Varma Girl

A typical bollywood movie usually had the female lead running around the tress or in the Swiss Alps. The heroine would be more realistic only in case the story revolved around her or if she was the protagonist of the movie. As RGV rightly feels, she had to be one of the two extremes - cute and bubbly (wearing a T-shirt and a jeans) or dignified and demure (wearing a sari and sporting a bindi). The typical Indian girl perhaps was somewhere between or may be even beyond these stereotypes.

RGV painted a more realistic picture of his heroines in his underworld movies. Urmila Matondkar’s character of Vidya in the movie ‘Satya’ is an example of this. Vidya who is the innocent next-door neighbor of the Satya (J.D.Chakravarthy) falls in love with him. However she rejects him the moment she finds that he belongs to the underworld. In stark contrast to this, Antara who plays Kannu in ‘Company’ falls for Chandu (Vivek Oberio’s character) despite knowing that he is an underworld don. It was the same director in both the instances but then there was absolutely no stereotype. No two women are same and RGV definitely believed that two of his heroines in two different films were different.

Another interesting aspect about RGV’s heroines is that they all seem to have an element of spontaneity about them. Revathy, Urmila Matondkar and Antara Mali are heroines who seem to perfectly fit the bill in his movies and the instinctive reactions in certain situations seem to come naturally in their cases. Urmila Matondkar’s terrorized expressions when her lover Satya is brutally killed in front of her eyes in the movie ‘Satya’ or Revathy’s expression of concern when the villain threatens to kill her husband in the Telugu movie ‘Gaayam’ bear testimony to this fact. Once again, it can be seen that RGV has chosen a heroine or signifier such that her characteristics strengthen and contribute to his story-telling (the connotation or the signified)

Image4: The expressions of the Varma girl- Urmila in the movie Satya

What’s the future - Can it get any darker?

RGV’s latest venture Contract explores the nexus between underworld and terrorism. While it has been a case of cinema imitating life in all the RGV movies so far, real life seems to have been inspired by cinema this time around. The perpetrators of the Ahemedabad blasts that have claimed 49 lives last week seem to have been distinctly influenced by the plot of the recent Bollywood release, Contract. The main villain in the movie ‘Contract’ plans to first carry out low intensity explosions in crowded places, and then, when the injured throng the nearest hospital, triggering a much bigger blast at the hospital itself. In Ahmedabad too, two deadly high intensity explosions two hospitals - the Civil Hospital and the L. G. Hospital - killing 27 people followed the less lethal which saw the injured being admitted to these hospitals. The future literally seems to get darker in this case.

Underworld is perhaps as huge as the real outside world. There seem to be myriad aspects of the underworld that are yet to be explored. That’s the reason RGV who doesn’t seem to lose his fancy for them seems to come out with new kind of underworld movies in his every attempt. If Satya is the story of an immigrant, who comes to Mumbai seeking his fortune, but instead gets sucked into the Mumbai underworld, Company is a fictional exposé of the Mumbai underworld, loosely based on the Indian mafia organization. Going by the current trend, we are likely to see many more underworld movies from Ramgopal Varma (RGV). “Somebody asked me if Contract is a trilogy. I wouldn’t say that, because trilogy sounds more like a finale and my intent is to make a hundredology of gangster films” is what RGV has to say to all this fans.(Source: http://rgvarma.spaces.live.com).

RGV certainly seems to have a loud message to convey through his underworld movies. But then he doesn’t shout the message loud. He does it a subtle manner though the clever use of what semiotics calls the signifiers (hero, heroine, and other characters of the story, camera work, background music and dialogues). All these seem to perfectly blend in to put his message (connotation or signified) about the underworld across to the audience. So then, three cheers to RGV and his underworld movies.