How Sanjay Leela Bhansali changed the way dance is done on screen
A retrospective
1999. The year Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam came out and so did his first ever full-blown dance number, Nimbooda Nimbooda. This wasn’t SLB’s first film. He made his debut in 1996 with Khamoshi, however, other than Manisha Koirala doing some steps in her night suit, there wasn’t much else dancing in that film.
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam is a film about a love triangle. The triangle involved Aishwarya Rai as Nandini, Salman Khan as Sameer, her lova’, and Ajay Devgn as Vanraj, her admirer. Nimbooda Nimbooda is the moment that Vanraj first lays eyes on Nandini and gets interested in her. The song is a traditional Rajasthani folk song about lemons. Yes, lemons. The lyrics are a double entendre which is a line with two meanings. The choreography is vibrant and unique by the legendary Saroj Khan herself. But here, in this essay, we are most interested in how SLB has captured the dance.
The thing that will stand out the most in this song are the nature of the wide shots. The wide shots are meaningfully composed and almost forcefully built to have action on all three levels in the frame: foreground, middle-ground and background. They are staged. It feels less like a film and more like a stage production being filmed. Action and movement are in the dance and not in the picturising as much. The picturisation, in that sense, is very classical. Yes, there are your handheld shots, your track shots, however, they are used to follow the dance not to enhance a movement. It could be attributed to the equipment of the time; you didn’t have robotic gibs flying in and out of a frame.
2002. SLB released his first magnum opus Devdas. The plot follows Devdas, a lawyer who returns from London, to marry his childhood best friend Paro played by Aishwarya Rai. Upon getting rejected, he plummets into alcoholism and finds respite in the company of Chandramukhi, a courtesan, played by Madhuri Dixit. Watching the film, I think SLB wanted to make it just for the dance sequences. Out of the nine songs in the album, six are dance songs. While for the purpose of this essay I would love to pick up Dola Re Dola, I think I should take a break from fangirling over that one after last week’s essay. We will instead pick up Chandramukhi’s introductory song Kahe Chhed Chhed Mohe. Context: Devdas has been brought to a brothel to be cheered up. There we see, for the first time, the beauty and the brilliance of Chandramukhi who is trying to win over Devdas’ favour. We see a lot of theatrical framing here too, where we can clearly see the entry and exit of the dancers in a wide shot; however, in this context, it works. The set is that of a brothel known for its dancing. Therefore, we are more convinced when we see dancers moving in and out of frame and even staying fully static on wide shots while the dance simply happens in front of it. What is most stunning in this sequence, and something that becomes an SLB motif, is the close-up. A clear face in the foreground with a moving, shuffling, constantly changing blurred background keeps us engaged.
As the years progress, SLB seems to get more confident in capturing dance. It moves from simply capturing movement to picturising it, giving it an artistic edge. We saw this in 2010 with Guzaarish. Indian Greek God Hrithik Roshan plays the role of Ethan, a quadriplegic magician who puts in a legal request for euthanasia. SLB collaborator extraordinaire, Aishwarya Rai, acts as his nurse Sofia. The song Udi is probably an anomaly in this essay’s curation for it is not as staged as the other choices. Ethan and Sofia are at a bar where they start playing music. Sofia, moved by the band and singer, gets up and dances. The context of the song is natural. What is interesting to see here is how the picturisation changes as a result. We are no longer going into beautiful closeups, we are instead staying on unique wides which capture the movement in space. It captures the mood; we see the blue lights, the smoke, the people around enjoying themselves. We see the meaning of the dance in that space. The closeups we use are of Hrithik sitting and watching. That too is contextual; his closeups keep us from getting swayed by the dance and keep us firmly planted in the story. This is not your quintessential “dance song” that is there solely for the dance. It is a dance captured for the film.
We jump another five years into the future to 2015 for Bajirao Mastani. The love story between the Maratha warrior Bajirao played by Ranvir Singh who falls in love with the warrior princess Mastani played by his real-life wife, Deepika Padukone. In it, the song Deewani Mastani stands out as something peculiar. We see Deepika as Mastani walking into a fully mirrored room wearing a golden turban with a banjo-like instrument in their hand. Devdas and Bajirao Mastani have a lot of similarities; they both have love triangles, they are both adapted from novels and they are both period pieces. However, while Devdas had the classical, Bajirao Mastan stood out for some interesting aesthetic choices. It looks like SLB’s confidence has grown. The song has a healthy mix of mids, closeups and wides but it is the choice of what frame to use to cover what movement that shows his conviction. He isn’t afraid to use close ups to merely suggest movement whether it is in the background or the foreground. We have also become comfortable at losing the protagonist in frame. A flurry of dancers go by and we now have the confidence that the camera will lead the audience’s eye to her.
An obvious change over the years has been Bhansali’s set design. It has only grown in opulence and budget. This allows his camera to play with things in the frame. You can see this clearly in Bajirao, one of the most expensive Hindi films ever.
Coming finally, nine years ahead, to 2024. We are gearing up for the release of Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar which follows the fate of courtesans during the British rule in India. It is bound to have a barrage of dance sequences. Of the ones that have been released already, Tilasmi Bahein stands out. Why? Well, it’s a single long shot. The song looks like a moving painting, a renaissance painting.
That’s thing about SLB, I have a feeling the man loves dance more than he does filmmaking. In an interview he had once said “Dance is the soul of all my films… Dance was my main inspiration to make films.” And it shows. It is not for no reason that every classical dancer wants to be his muse. He makes the classical commercial, modern, approachable. That is something dancers for years have struggled to do. He pulls in audiences to watch dance songs, especially classical dance songs, in droves. And they all leave the theatre with stars in their eyes.
That brings us to the end of the SLB series. This three-part series on the auteur Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been a joy to write. I am so grateful for all the love you, the reader, has shown it whether here or on Instagram. If this is the first essay you are reading in the series, we have two others! Go and read them. We talk about why SLB’s dance sequences look the same and why Dola Re Dola is one of the greatest dance songs to ever be made. If you don’t like reading, we do reels too. See them here!
Until the next post, see you soon internet wonderwalls.