Jeans (film)
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| Jeans | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | S. Shankar |
| Produced by | Ashok Amritraj Sunanda Murali Manohar |
| Written by | Screenplay: S. Shankar Story: S. Shankar Dialogue: Sujatha |
| Starring | Prashanth Aishwarya Rai Nassar Raadhika Senthil Raju Sundaram Lakshmi |
| Music by | A. R. Rahman |
| Cinematography | Ashok Kumar |
| Editing by | A. Sreekar Prasad |
| Distributed by |  Oscar Films Digital Entertainment INCEros Entertainment Inc  Cee I TV |
| Release date(s) | April 14, 1998 May 1, 1998 May 1, 1998 |
| Running time | 175 min. |
| Country | India[1] |
| Language | Tamil |
| IMDb profile | |
Jeans is a 1998 love-comedy genre film set in Chennai, India and Los Angeles, United States of America during the 1990's. The film follows the journey of life through the primary characters Vishwanath and Madhumitha, played by Prashanth and Aishwarya Rai respectively. They are a couple who fall in love only for the love to be rejected by Vishwanath's father who refuses to explain his decision. Jeans was directed by S. Shankar, for whom this was his fouth directorial venture and produced by Sunanda Murali Manohar and the American based Ashok Amritraj, a former tennis player. The film stars Prashanth in a dual role as Vishwanath and Ram Mohan, Aishwarya Rai also in a dual role as Madhumitha and Vaishnavi, Nassar in another dual role as Nacchiappan and Pachiappan Rajamani, and Senthil as Gino.
The film's release was originally scheduled for January 14, 1998, on Thai Pongal day, but was delayed; it opened on Tamil New Year April 14, 1998 in India, where the film became blockbusters in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh upon the debut week. The director S. Shankar, however, disassociated himself from the film, as has been his policy for all cinematic adaptations of his work. The filmmakers removed some of the racist themes, smoking references and all but one song before it was played in International Film Festivals to make it more like a Hollywood film than its Bollywood equivalent. However, the critics slammed it as the most effortless film taken by S. Shankar. After the release the film got both great praise and harsh criticism in turn. Jeans was nominated by India as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1998.
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[edit] Plot
Viswanathan (Prashanth) and Rammoorthy (Prashant) are twins raised in the United States by their loving father Nachiappan (Nasser). Madhumitha (Aishwarya Rai), her grandmother (Lakshmi), and brother Madhesh (Raju Sundaram) travel to US for Lakshmi's brain surgery. Madhu and Visu fall in love, but their love is rejected by Nachiappan, as his wish is his sons to marry two twins. He then narrates his flashback about the discord in his family due to him and his brother marrying girls of different families. Lakshmi, eager to fulfill her granddaughter's love, fabricates a story of Madhu's twin and forces Madhu to play dual roles. The comedy of errors that result form the rest of the story.
[edit] Development
The film was made by many of the same filmmakers involved in Indian which won several National Film Awards. In 1995, producer Ashok Amritraj revealed his interests in producing an Indian film, however he picked S. Shankar to be his director, hinting at a Kollywood film as all Shankar's film have been originally made in Tamil. The casting of the film was left to Shankar after he had finalized the story. Genes was the title selected but Shankar felt it would not apply to the masses so he used the the homonym, Jeans. The original idea of the roles of Vishwanath and Ram Mohan was to Abbas, an upcoming artiste at the time, but the offer was rejected by Abbas as his dates were booked for the full year of 1996. The second choice, Ajith Kumar also opted out due to differences in idea with the director. The roles of Vishwanath and Ram Mohan finally went to Prashanth, whose film career had struggled after the first couple of his films. Prashanth had to cut his long hair and changed the hair style all together, trimmed up his body, sharpened his mind and dedicated almost a year and half to Jeans (sacrificing seven films in the process), as he considered it "a once in a lifetime" opportunity' which would straighten up his career for good. Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World, was the original choice for the roles of Madhumitha and Vaishnavi. Despite having a huge fan base and publicity, Aishwarya Rai hadn't given a hit in her two movie career, despite her debut movie, Iruvar directed by Mani Ratnam being critically acclaimed. The other cast of the film were chosen including S. P. Balasubrahmanyam who walked out of the project refusing to comment why he did so, he was replaced by S. Ve. Sekhar as the father of Madhumitha.
The film's Puja, a popular trend in Indian movies, was held at the AVM Studios in Vadapalani, Chennai. Shankar began Jeans with a presentation different from his previous other films. A typical Jeans invitation was printed, wrapped in Jeans cloth and was hand delivered by Shankar to his close colleagues and friends in Chennai. A star-studded guest line-up arrived for the puja ceremonies held in December 1996. Kamal Haasan, Bhagyaraj and Rajinikanth all attended the ceremony as chief guests. Directors K. Balachandar, Bharathiraja, K. S. Ravikumar, R. C. Sakthi, Pandiyarajan and many others made it a point to come to the function to check out the grandest Tamil film puja to date in 1996. Actress Lakshmi lit the Kuthu Valakku, a flame holder, as Kamal Hassan presented Shankar with the clapboard for the movie. Actors Sivakumar, Thyagarajan (Prasanth's father), Prashanth, Abbas, Ajith Kumar, Nizhalgal Ravi, Karate Husseini, Senthil, Ganesh and actress Heera Rajgopal were all in attendance as well. Aishwarya Rai, Prashanth, Balakumaran, Shankar and just about anyone else associated with the shooting of the film, wore their favorite pair of blue jeans to make it the highlight of the function.
[edit] Production
Producers Ashok Amritraj, Michael Soloman and Dr. Murali Manohar began the Jeans project. Shankar had a lot of great experiences shooting this film all over the United States and across the world. Just about any and every significant and beautiful location in the U.S. seems to have found a place in Jeans. While shooting in Las Vegas, Aishwarya Rai was honored with a Key of Las Vegas, commemorating her celebrity status and her visit to the city. A real life shooting incident also occurred closed to the Jeans shooting spot, where a helicopter, police cars and gun fire created a huge scene in the middle of the night, which shocked the cast and crew of the film. By policy, Universal Studios does not grant permission for foreign films to conduct shooting there. With a influence from Ashok Amritraj they were able to obtain special permission to film a few scenes inside. Besides the King Kong set, Jeans was also shot in the "simulated earthquake experience" sets.
While in Los Angeles, a lot of crowds gathered to watch the Jeans filming and the police had to be called in eventually to control the congestion. Jeans was also picturized at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where they had to hire a few helicopters, which cost a huge amount. Other Jeans shooting locations include the Valley of Fire, Manhattan Beach, Malibu Lake and many scenic spots throughout California and the United States. The song Columbus was picturized at the shores of Venice Beach, California with some foreign male and female dancers. Shankar also filmed in New York at the World Trade Center when Michael Salmon and his wife, Luciana Balusia visited the sets of Jeans.
After a tough 45 day schedule in the United States, Shankar and the team returned to India only to realize that they had a theme that had to be fulfilled thorough this film. When Shankar read the lyrics to the song Adhisayam, he began tossing the idea in his mind about picturizing the seven wonders of the world for the song. From that inspiration, came another thirty day trip around the world to the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Statue of Liberty, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Orange Orchards in California, Empire State Building in New York, Pyramids in Egypt, Taj Mahal in India and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was during the shooting in Paris that news of Princess Diana's death shook the world. The cast and crew of Jeans found that they were only a few blocks away from the deadly accident and took the rest of the day off trying to get over the gloominess and depression. A stunt sequence was also shot near the Pyramids in Egypt, when a bomb blast occurred in a bus nearby. For the most part, Jeans was surrounded by world events of all sorts and for Shankar, the cast and crew of the film, the experiences were tremendously vivid and memorable.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Publicity and release
| Ratings | |
|---|---|
| Australia: | PG |
| India: | U |
| United Kingdom: | U |
| United States: | PG |
To add lots of spice to the matters at hand were the rumours that there were multiple Nassars, Aishwarya Rais and Prashanths in the movie. People tossed the idea around so much that creative screenplays were effortlessly generated by fans just to keep the hype and interest going. More was made on the issue as word leaked out that the plot was that Prashanth, for some reason, was chasing Aishwarya Rai around the world in the movie. For quite a while after these rumours, things died down. Until word came that Actress Lakshmi was rumoured to be very disgruntled on the unacceptable food conditions during her stay in the United States. When Jeans skipped its initial release date of Pongal 1998, the magazine rumour machines started churning out some good ones once again. As Kaadhala Kaadhala, a Kamal Haasan and Prabhu Deva starrer, had also not released for Pongal, the media turned jubilant over whether Jeans would clash with Kaadhala Kaadhala on Tamil New Year's Day 1998.
Vannathirai magazine published a small article on the possibility that portions of both Jeans and Kaadhala Kaadhala were being remade as the films resembled another film, Naam Iruvar Namakku Iruvar in more than one way. Naan Iruvar Nammaku Iruvar bombed badly when it released for Pongal 1998, Vannaththirai believed that both Kamal Haasan and Shankar sat down to re-shoot parts of their respective films. In the meantime, New Filmaalaya magazine released another rumour stating that Shankar and the producers had fought over some issue and Shankar had stalled the film tentatively. The magazine also indicated that Jeans would not release for Tamil New Year's Day and should not be expected before Deepavali 1998. One of the last rumours came in February 1998 when Vannathirai once again published a small gossip article stating the producer was threatening Shankar to finish the film fast or he would have some other director complete the film and release it instead.
Adding a lot more to the hype at hand were the Anandha Vikatan Magazine team which created a make-believe invitation and sent it out to many of the celebrities in Chennai for a premiere show of the Making of Jeans on April 1st, 1998. A whole pleathora of celebrities including Gouthami, Suriya, Ajith Kumar and Director Vasanth actually arrived. The twist was that an actual documentary on the making of the Jeans pant from the tearing, dying to the stitching. This was confirmed by Anandha Vikatan as an April Fools’ joke although it created havoc and confusion in Kodambakkam.
The film released simultaneously in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu on April 14.
[edit] Music
| Jeans | ||
 |
||
| Soundtrack by A. R. Rahman | ||
| Released | April 1, 1998 | |
| Recorded | 1997 | |
| Genre | Soundtrack | |
| Length | 34 Minutes | |
| Label | Westop | |
| Producer(s) | Ashok Amritraj | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
|
||
| A. R. Rahman chronology | ||
| Vishwa Vidaatha (1997) |
Jeans (1998) |
Dil Se... (1998) |
The Jeans soundtrack was released by Westop on April 1, 1998. The original scores from the film's composer, A. R. Rahman, make up the tracks on the album. The Lyrics are by Vairamuthu. The soundtrack also features six vocals played during the film: "Ennake Ennaka" by Unnikrishnan and Pallavi, "Columbus Columbus" by A. R. Rahman, "Poovukul" by Unnikrishnan and Sujatha, "Vaaraya Thozhi" by Sonu Nigam, Shahul Hameed, Harini and Sangeetha, "Kannodu Kanbethallam" by Nithyashree and "Anbe Anbe" by Hariharan and Anuradha Sriram. These songs were dubbed into Hindi, using Javed Akhtar's lyrics when it was released in North India.
The climax of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture appears at the end of the track "Anbe Anbe". The revolutionary sounding Overture is played at key parts at the beginning and end of the film.
[edit] Track Listings
[edit] Tamil
- Ennake Ennaka - Unnikrishnan, Pallavi
- Columbus Columbus - A. R. Rahman
- Poovukul - Unnikrishnan, Sujatha
- Kannodu Kaanberallam - Nithyashree
- Varaya Thozhi - Sonu Nigam, Shahul Hameed, Harini, Sangeetha
- Anbe Anbe - Hariharan, Anuradha Sriram
[edit] Hindi
- Hai Re Hai Re Hai Rabba - Unnikrishnan, Pallavi
- Columbus Columbus Chutti Hai Aayi - Sonu Nigam
- Kehta Hai Mera Ye Dil Piya - Unnikrishnan, Sujatha
- Ajooba Hai - Sadhana Sargam, Hariharan
- Kehne Ko Daadi Lekin Saheli - Kavitha Paudwal, Sonu Nigam, Sukhwinder Singh
- Tauba Tauba Ye Jalwe - Hariharan, Anuradha Sriram
[edit] Telugu
- Hayirabba Hayirabba - Unnikrishnan, Pallavi
- Columbus Columbus - A. R. Rahman
- Poovullo Daagunna - Unnikrishnan, Sujatha
- Kannulatho Choseve - Nithyashree
- Raave Naa Chaliyaa - Sonu Nigam, Harini
- Priya Priya Champodde - Srinivas
[edit] Themes
[edit] Critical reaction and box office
The film was a major success in South India and was sent to the Oscars. However, in Hindi, the film was a major flop and the movie was criticized by critics.
[edit] Comments from political sources
[edit] DVD release
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Jeans at the Internet Movie Database
- Jeans at All Movie Guide
- Jeans at Rotten Tomatoes
- Jeans film review at thenisai.com
Gentleman • Kadhalan • Indian • Jeans • Mudhalvan • Nayak: The Real Hero • Boys • Anniyan • Sivaji: The Boss
