Yeh Baz nahi aayega, that’s good!

Psychoanalysts might weigh in on this better But I do think the extreme lovelust collectively articulated by women for rockstars and movie stars sometimes is essentially a safe vent or projection of pentup desires that the society may not deem as acceptable if it was similarly expressed for men nextdoorThe effect of music has obviously a huge role to play in it besides the danceperformance to those songs Which is a reason yoursquoll notice girls went giddy for traditional Bollywood heroes from Rajesh Khanna SRK to Ranbir Kapoor in India in a way that they havenrsquot equally swoonedfainted in the presence of greater actors like say Naseer Irrfan NawazItrsquos about the cattyromanticpop numbers those stars became the face for Although none of them were really singers of any kind They took on epithets like King etc otherwise reserved in the West for poprockstars Wherein Michael Jackson 19582009 was the lsquoking of poprsquo and indeed Elvis Presley 193577 was the OG lsquoking of rock and rollrsquoJackson born black grew up to turn himself white with his Presleylike pelvic thrusts moonwalked into becoming the greatest of all time continuing to hypnotise billions Likewise Presley the white man who grew up around black musicians embraced ldquonegro rhythm with a country flavourrdquo Both united the two Americas And God knows there are two AmericasDirector Baz LuhrmannOnly that Presleyrsquos rsquo50srsquo60s was a different America As you can tell from Baz Luhrmannrsquos biopic Elvis in theatres the Kingrsquos dance steps were seen as ldquolewd gyrations and jerky movementsrdquo Women threw themselves and their undies on stage as he walked down the aisle kissing each one to their heartrsquos content inviting some over to his bedNot that his wife Priscilla seemingly had much of a problem with this rockstar life perhaps deeming her relationship as more securely emotional She walked out on him over his drug habit But Americarsquos moral police and network television were appalled equating ldquorock and roll to juvenile delinquencyrdquoLuhrmann captures all of this with the touch of a quasioperatic musical rather than a dark intense drama like say Dexter Fletcherrsquos Elton John biopic The Rocketman 2019 or even a string of concert videos like Bryan Singerrsquos stellar Bohemian Rhapsody 2018 for The Queen Many will see Elvis as a hagiography but only if they donrsquot see in it a killer lsquoBollywoodrsquo filmHow did we first hear of the Australian born Luhrmann anyway Many of my vintage Irsquom guessing from his romantic crime film RomeoJuliet 1996 which may be a rare Shakespearean adaptation to top the American boxoffice by a mile But more so for its soundtrack actually which was so lovingly curated with a white directorrsquos uncommon ear for music that it reminded you of Indian filmmakers who for generations thrived on gathering audiences foremost for the songs in their filmsWithout making a hasty generalisation itrsquos a desi artform on the wane which could also explain the lowering of mass audiencersquos enthusiasm After RomeoJuliet Luhrmann of course warmed the cockles of Indian hearts terming his Moulin Rouge 2001 a tribute to Bollywood of sortsYou could tell the influences by way of a long running time adequate suspension of disbelief with actors lipsyncing without mic to music that is neither from 1900 nor from Paris the filmrsquos setting The songs still took the story forward as with a western musical as against old conventional BollywoodSure there was lsquoChamma Chammarsquo in the climax which is a track from Rajkumar Santoshirsquos China Gate 1998 that was dedicated to Kurosawa but was a Western an American film culture thatrsquos similarly rooted to nothing realMoulin Rouge climax ends with a play on stage gone berserk with the filmrsquos characters getting mixed up with the characters in the performance before a live audience That may sound like Kundan Shahrsquos Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro 1983 but not reallyLuhrmann never namedrevealed the Bollywood films that inspired him mentioning on occasion Satyajit Ray which obviously doesnrsquot count In a recent interview he does call Amitabh Bachchan the young rsquo70s superstar as a ldquomix of Elvis and Brandordquo so he knows what hersquos talking about Bachchan did an extended cameo in Luhrmannrsquos kinetic The Great Gatsby 2013The somewhat unifying theme across Luhrmannrsquos filmography is still a fantasticalfilmic idea of deep emotional eternal love And this is how we see Elvis as someone bereft of personal bonds addicted to public adulation where he finds that loveLike Nicole Kidmanrsquos character in Moulin Rouge Elvis Austin Butler seems like a courtesan caught in the trap of a businessmanrsquos Tom Hanks whimsprofitsmdashselling art but very much his soul too as he goes from ldquoElvis the rebel actor to family entertainerrdquoldquoWhen you feel lost just go homerdquo is a fine line for Elvis Over three decades Luhrmann 60 similarly never left the building What follows in the film is an effort to bedazzle you with songs props lights and conversation What remains therefore isnrsquot so much an Elvis biopic as a Baz Luhrmann film This is what we call in our part of the world the star auteurdirector only Bollywood should be inspired by him now Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper