Salim-Javed

For the Pakistani pop singer, see Saleem Javed.

Salim-Javed were a scriptwriter duo who wrote a number of commercially and critically successful Hindi films in the 1970s and early 1980s. The duo, composed of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, made the writer's role popular with their names appearing in the posters of the films, and in some films they shared up to 25% of the profit. Their association lasted until 1982, following which Javed moved into writing lyrics for films. During their time working together, the duo won six Filmfare Awards. Though these movies are considered to be in Hindi but they mostly include vocabulary from Urdu, a register of the Hindustani language.

Salim started his friendship with Javed during the making of the film Sarhadi Lootera. Salim was a small-time actor, and Sarhadi Lootera was one of the last films he acted in before he turned his attention to writing. Javed was a clapper boy for the film and was later made the dialogue writer as director S.M. Sagar was unable to find a dialogue writer.

They lived in Bandra and would write stories together. Since their individual work was flopping, they decided to team up.

Contribution

Story and script writer Salim Khan has written and produced a majority of the successful movies all through the 1970s and 1980s era. Salim Khan was earlier a junior technician for various films had not made any considerable mark in the field. Realizing the lack of writers in the movie making industry, he gradually learnt about story telling and writing techniques used in films, along with close friend and then business associate Javed Akhtar and began writing short transcripts. Salim-Javed (as they are famously called) have scripted innumerable commercially and critically accepted movies for movie making giants like Nasir Hussain (Yaadon Ki Baraat), Yash Chopra (Deewar), Yash Johar (Dostana), Ramesh Sippy (Sholay), Shekhar Kapoor (Mr. India) and Farhan Akhtar (Don - The Chase Begins Again). The duo split up in the early 1980s and ended their 15 year professional relationship because Javed Akhtar shifted to writing lyrics. Khan's eldest son, Salman, made his film debut at the age of twenty four with Maine Pyaar Kiya in the year 1989 and eventually went on to become one of the most successful actors in the history of Indian Cinema and is till date considered to be one, among the most influential people of the country, enjoying heavy commercial and critical success throughout his career. Salman Khan, however, for unknown reasons, has not collaborated with his (writer) father Salim Khan but with Javed Akhtar in only one film project, Marigold, in his two decade old career. Javed Akhtar, on the other hand, has worked in all the films produced by his children Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar's Excel Entertainment.

They are credited with the creation of the "angry young man" image of Amitabh Bachchan. For a significant number of his major hits, they wrote the screenplay, story and dialogue. They brought credibility to a profession which had previously been relegated to the background. It is due to their efforts and work that screenplay/story/dialogue writers are seeing the limelight. They fought for and achieved the mentioning of screenplay/story/dialogue writer's names on the movie posters.

Beyond their influence on Hindi films, their work has also recently begun influencing Western films. According to Loveleen Tandan, the screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008), "studied Salim-Javed's kind of cinema minutely." In particular, Deewaar (1975) was described by the director Danny Boyle as being "absolutely key to Indian cinema" and influenced the making of Slumdog Millionaire. Actor Anil Kapoor noted that some scenes of Slumdog Millionaire "are like Deewaar, the story of two brothers of whom one is completely after money while the younger one is honest and not interested in money."

According to Javed Akhtar, in their early periods, on the cinema posters, there were no names of script writer, story and screenplay. Realizing that the hard work is done by these duo, and not getting the appropriate recognization, Salim and Javed decided to paint their names on all the posters pasted in the city. They hired a rikshaw and put the paint bucket on that and did all the work themselves the entire night. After that, the directors also started to put their name on the posters.

One of the techniques often used by Salim-Javed was their use of a montage sequence to represent a child growing into an adult, a technique that dates back to Raj Kapoor's Awaara (1951). For example, Deewaar showed a character entering a temple as a child and then leaving the temple as an adult. Slumdog Millionaire paid homage to Salim-Javed by showing a montage sequence where two "brothers jump off a train and suddenly they are seven years older".

Filmography

• Mr. India (1987)
• Shakti (1982)
• Shaan (1980)
• Dostana (1980)
• Kaala Patthar (1979)
• Trishul (1978)
• Don (1978)
• Manushulu Chesina Dongalu (Telugu) (1977)
• Immaan Dharam (1977)
• Chacha Bhatija (1977)
• Premada Kanike (Kannada) (ಪ್ರೇಮದ ಕಾಣಿಕೆ) (1976)
• Sholay (1975)
• Deewaar (1975)
• Majboor (1974)
• Zanjeer (1973)
• Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973)
• Seeta Aur Geeta (1972)
• Haathi Mere Saathi (1971)

Filmfare Awards

	Filmfare Awards Won
Year	Category	Film
1983	Best Screenplay	Shakti (1982)
1976	Best Dialogue	Deewar (1975)
1976	Best Screenplay	Deewar (1975)
1976	Best Story	Deewar (1975)
1974	Best Screenplay	Zanjeer (1973)
1974	Best Story	Zanjeer (1973)

External links

• Salim Khan at the Internet Movie Database
• Javed Akhtar at the Internet Movie Database