Sam Dumas-Sholay

As with all movies, Sholay has its own unique and individualistic style.  Its visual aesthetic is of course based upon the normative standard of Bollywood films in general.  With dramatic story lines that twist and turn like a soap opera, to the musical dance numbers, Bollywood has a somewhat rigid and fixed style.  In Sholay, things are no different and the visual style is not only stunning, but very structured as well in that way that it highlights certain aspects of the camera.  Both foreground and background are extremely affected by the extremely vibrant colors represented in the Holi Ke Din Song.  This musical number is entertaining, but its art is present in how the clouds of color highlight different physical spaces within a scene.

            First off, in Sholay, the bursts of color in this particular scene, coming from the throwing of colored ‘smoke’ (whether it be purple, red, blue, green), has the effect to build from the background to the foreground.  What I mean by this is if you take a very close look at this approximately six minute scene, in many of the sub-shots where there is depth, the colors of smoke are being thrown in the background and slowly make there way to the foreground where the camera is.  This sounds obscure, but that fact is that they either stop right behind the desired focal point, or in about three particular points, approaches the camera and clouds out the camera.  This is seemingly used to gently go from once shot to the other.

            The second use of the colored smoke is in framing.  By framing I am speaking of the different camera emphasis that is provided through the use of the smoke. I have a few examples of this amazing scene to prove my point.  In one shot, the camera is facing towards a ferris wheel with a box underneath it.  The ferris wheel is on the left side of the shot and is the focal point for this very short shot.  On the right side, different colors of smoke are used to cloud out that right side so that the viewer automatically looks at what is visual, being the ferris wheel.

            In addition to these two visual experiences, I also noticed how the women’s head dressed, those in the background and foreground, somewhat matched the colors of smoke that were present in the foreground/ background.  This created a direct link between foreground and background.  This reminds me of Magnificent Seven in that in that movie, the camera held a direct link through the narrowing of camera and clear visuals.  In Sholay, the only difference is that he link between foreground and background is made with color while Magnificent Seven used visual clarity and narrowing.