100 Films To See Before You Die: Interesting Anecdotes about the making of films

100 Films To See Before You Die: Interesting Anecdotes about the making of films

David Lynch, an American filmmaker, musician and actor, once said that Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas. It is really built for big screen and big sound, so that person can go into another world and have an experience. It helps human beings to fill the empty spaces of their life. This can be felt at the time of reading the book 100 films to see before you die which was written by doyens of the Indian film critic Mrs. Anupama Chopra.  It is a well-compiled book. This is her fifth book. This book is not the list of greatest films ever made but the bucket list of films which have been loved by the author of this book. According to her, these films inspired her and spoke to her. Therefore, the author is telling readers to watch these films and experience fundamental changes within them. It is not at all an exhaustive list but subjective. She has selected the classic films from the world cinema which includes Hollywood and Bollywood. 

From: Yogesh Gogwekar

Anupama Chopra born as Anupama Chandra on 23^rd February 1967 in Kolkata but grew up in Mumbai along with her brother Vikram Chandra a novelist and sister, Tanuja Chandra an Indian film director and screenwriter. She graduated from St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai with a BA in English Literature. She did her MA in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of journalism, Chicago, USA. She won the Harrington Award for academic excellence in the field of magazine journalism. After completing her education, she took keen interest in film journalism which was totally neglected at that time. She married a Hindi film producer and director Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Her daughter Zuni Chopra is a writer and her son Agnidev Chopra is a cricketer. The book, “100 films to see before you die” was published in 2013. Before publishing of this book, Anupama Chopra has written four excellent books, namely, Sholay: The making of classic in 2000, Dil wale Duniya Le Jayenge in 2002, King of Bollywood: Shahrukh Khan in 2007, First day first show in 2011 and two excellent books after the publication of this book are Freeze Frame in 2014 and The front Row in 2015. Recently she has written Conversations with stars.  All her books have been critically analyzed and written in excellent ways.

The book,”100 films to see before you die “has not provided any events or critical review of any films but recommendation of 100 Films to be watched by everyone. It includes Bollywood films like Mother India, Sholay, Anand, Amar Prem, Chupake Chupake, Zanjeer, Deewar and Hollywood films like Modern times, Lawrence of Arabia, Saturday Night Fair, Bicycle Thieves, Enter the Dragon, Casablanca  and many more. She has also included many names of foreign films like Belle de Jour, Kung Fu Hustle etc. You have to read this book and enjoy it. At the time of reading, one must accept the personal nature of it because the author shares her own collections of films with us. It is true that this book failed to introduce good Indian languages films in Tamil, Telgu, Marathi, Bengali etc. She has mentioned only one name Charulata which was made in Bengali in 1965.

Still this book is mostly acceptable and finds it to be a richly diverse set of films. It has considered the films which have been made from 1922 to 2007. Book gives the information of films in a couple of pages with summary of awards and graphics of posters of films.

Cinema is the beautiful combination of art, literature and science. Like other modes, it is inspired and influenced by society. It develops all types of emotions. It makes us cry at the time of watching Rajesh Khanna die in Anand, In Aarth, it raises the question of women's role in society, Sholay gives us a lot of entertainment and Chupake Chupake makes us laugh. All such things have been considered at the time of selecting the 100 films. According to Anupama Chopra, everyone should watch 100 films which have been mentioned in the book. She said that these are the subjective lists of her favourites. She likes the film "The 40 year Old Virgin “which may not be the best film and insists readers watch it.

This book is worth reading and every film lover should keep in his\her collections.  You can start, take a break & start reading again. You will enjoy it without losing any interest. Please try and get this book to know about the classic movies of Bollywood, Hollywood & Non English foreign languages.

Mumbai

12/09/2020