Basanti and Gabbar Singh

Gaston Roberge dissects Sholay, one of Bollywood’s greatest blockbusters, into 36 chapters to connect moments and actions with a mood or emotion.

“When Basanti dances on glass it’s pity. When Thakursaab’s hands are chopped off it’s a mixed feeling of fear followed by egotism. Emotions maybe experienced differently but the feelings of anger, fear or love are common,” says Roberge, film scholar and senior faculty member of the videography and mass communication department at St Xavier’s College.

In Sholay, emotions are triggered and intensified to a level that you forget yourself, he says.

“There’s fantasy, wilful exaggeration and no continuity of time and space as is usual in western films,” says Roberge who also delves into the cultural roots of Indian movies with references to Bharata Muni’s verses called Natyasastra in his new book The Indian Film Theory, where he explores the roots of what he calls “folk movie”, with Sholay as the centrepiece.

Published by Sampark, the book was launched on June 15 evening at St Xavier’s College by Father Felix Raj.

“When I started writing the book I had some more films in mind such as Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and the Bangladeshi version of Beder Meye Jyotsna but then I was so much more impressed with Sholay,” says Roberge.

Besides Sholay, Roberge in his book of theory harps on folk movie, which according to him is popular cinema with indigenous content as he goes on to discuss the emotional content of Ray’s Pather Panchali, Bobby and Satyam Shivam Sundaram.

“Heightened emotion is one of the main pillars on which Indian cinema stands. The experience of such emotions can be healthy. To make it appeal to western sensibilities, these films would need to be re-edited and then they’d just cease to be popular,” says the French-Canadian priest who made Calcutta his home more than four decades ago.