 "Firstpost at Kerala Literature Festival 2025: Naseeruddin Shah slams Bollywood, says 'It would be a big tragedy if 100 years later, people look at our films and...'")
At the Kerala Literature Festival 2025, veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah didn’t have too many encouraging things to say about the industry. Shah was quoted saying, “It would be a big tragedy if 100 years later, people look at Bollywood films to understand India of 2025.”
Shah added, “I don’t think anybody’s thinking is changed after seeing a film, no matter how wonderful it may be. Yes, it may help you raise a few questions, but the most important function of cinema is to act as a record of its times. These films feed into the secret fantasies of men who, in their hearts, look down on women.”
The actor continued, “It is very terrifying and does explain the horrendous things that happen to women in our society.”
Naseeruddin Shah says he once had a discussion about the definition of originality with Javed Akhtar when he told the screenwriter that his 1975 classic Sholay was a copy of Charlie Chaplin and Hollywood filmmaker Clint Eastwood’s works.
Sholay, which Akhtar co-wrote with former writing partner Salim Khan, is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential Indian films of all time. “I remember Javed Akhtar had once said to me, ‘Something can be called original when you can’t find its source’. I was talking to him about Sholay, and I said, ‘You have copied every scene, you didn’t leave any of Charlie Chaplin’s films, besides Clint Eastwood is felt in every frame.
“But he said, ‘The question is not about where you have lifted a reference from, it’s about how far you have taken it’. It’s difficult to define originality. William Shakespeare, who is considered a great playwright, apparently was also copying stuff from old plays. But originality was there in the way they presented,” Shah said recently at the IFP Season 14.