Angry Young Men Is A Rousing Take On The Salim-Javed Phenomenon & Its Impact On The Hindi Film Industry

NAMRATA RAO’s documentary, Angry Young Men: The Salim-Javed Story, which is a coup in many ways — mostly, the coming together of two legendary screenwriters whose breakup was as famous as their movies — has a heartwarming moment in the first episode that is bound to make you weep, even if you’re not a fan of the movies.

In it, Javed Akhtar talks about his struggle days before he became a screenwriter in Hindi cinema. He had moved to Mumbai (then Bombay) all by himself, with no roof over his head, he wandered around the city finding work in the day, and places to sleep at night. He would go hungry for consecutive days, but was determined to make it and refused to go back to his hometown. As he recounts this phase, he tears up very evidently, and doesn’t try to mask his emotions. He tells the camera he can never get over that feeling. Now, when he is successful, accomplished and on “the wrong side of his 70s”, sometimes he feels like an imposter in 5-star hotels, eating fancy breakfasts. “I don’t think I deserve it,” he says, lips quivering.

This is Javed Akhtar we’re talking about, who with Salim Khan created the iconic “Angry Young Man” trope in the 1970s. They’re arguably the most successful writer-duo of mainstream Indian cinema. The dichotomy between their brand of work (testosterone and formula-driven) and the vulnerability with which Namrata Rao frames them in Angry Young Men, is the most special bit about the documentary. Divided into three episodes of 45 minutes each, Angry Young Men is a visceral deep-dive into the pop-cultural impact of these two brave outsiders who clawed their way into the Hindi film industry and changed everything.

From understanding the pulse of the audience at the time — who were frustrated with power centres and were saturated with mindless entertainment — to creating cinematic worlds that fused socio-political commentary with a masaledaar spectacle, Salim and Javed were truly superstar writers. A duo that brought superstardom to the art of screenwriting, a duo that — despite being accused of plagiarism — pioneered many new concepts in Hindi cinema. A duo that was paid higher than Amitabh Bachchan at one point in their career, something they demanded with pride. A duo that — despite a heartbreaking separation — still is very much alive in the cinema consumer of today, via much-loved dialogues and characters and movies.

The first episode traces their childhood, their fractured relationships with their parents, how they left their lives behind to “make it big” in Bombay. Akhtar came to the city of dreams from Bhopal to become a filmmaker, with Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy as inspiration. Salim Khan left his admittedly privileged life in Indore to become an actor in Hindi movies. After several ghost-writing gigs, and advice from their peers, Salim-Javed were finally hired by Sippy Films as their in-house writers, where they went on to write blockbusters such as Seeta aur Geeta, Sholay and Don. The duo has worked together in 24 films, and finally split up in 1982.

The second and third episodes are a lot more personal, but also focus on the two biggest hits of their career, Deewar and Sholay, which were released in 1975. We are told delicious stories about their superstardom and subsequently how the industry had started to wait with bated breath for their downfall. The episodes also shed light on the cracks in their respective marriages that started to form at the time. Rao’s female gaze is very much prevalent in the narrative building, and she doesn’t seem interested in breaking down the “whys” of their lives. Why did they break up? Why did they both end up with second long term partners (Helen for Salim Khan and Shabana Azmi for Javed Akhtar)? Why didn’t the people who loved and trusted them (wives, filmmakers, collaborators) warn them about their arrogance? The “hows” of their career are the focus here. How did two outsiders understand the pulse of the Indian audience so well, and so consistently? How did their sudden rise and then sudden fall impact their personal lives? How have their dialogues and characters travelled through generations, and how have they managed to leave such a lasting impact?

The stories behind the superstardom are quite intriguing. In one scene, Karan Johar calls Sholay the mothership film, from which much of modern mainstream Indian cinema can find its genesis. Sridhar Raghavan admits to having watched the film 36 times in the theatres. A cinema usher from back in the day reveals how many black ticket sellers made homes and properties, and bought cars with the money they made from selling Sholay tickets. But the most goosebump-inducing moments are when Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar speak about their journey with personal anecdotes and observations. Khan tells aspiring screenwriters to spend time patiently reading old screenplays of Hollywood films. Then we see his vast collection of neatly bound scripts from the 1950s, and how protective of it he is. Khan says if you can’t read, you can’t write. Akhtar talks about the evolution of what it means to be an artist in India. How they had immense confidence in their craft, so much so that they would release newspaper advertisements, making tall claims about the box-office collection of their films.

All aspiring writers will feel a fire under their backside on watching this docu-series. Its rousing quality is omnipresent, and the celebrity interviewees validate the importance of writing in the filmmaking process, from Hrithik Roshan to Aamir Khan. However, one wishes there were fewer celebrity cameos and more focus on the comparison between Salim-Javed’s time and today, in terms of being a writer in the film industry. The celebrity cameos added negligible value to the series, almost coming across as lip service. Beyond this minor fault, I found myself obsessively consuming every frame, every story, every little detail in Angry Young Men. Three episodes are too short for such an important part of Hindi cinema history. I was aching for more. Prime Video, are you listening?

Angry Young Men is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video India.