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Jeans (film)

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Jeans
File:Jeans 1998.jpg
Directed byS. Shankar
Written byBalakumaran
(Dialogue)
Screenplay byS. Shankar
Story byS.Shankar
Produced byAshok Amritraj
Sunanda Murali Manohar
StarringPrashanth
Aishwarya Rai
Nassar
Radhika Sarathkumar
CinematographyAshok Kumar
Edited byB. Lenin
V. T. Vijayan
Music byA. R. Rahman
Production
company
Amritraj Solomon Communications
Distributed byAascar Films (Tamil)
Sri Surya Movies (Telugu and Hindi)
Eros Labs (US)
Cee I TV (UK)
Release date
  • 24 April 1998 (1998-04-24)
Running time
172 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil
Budget₹ 200 million[1]

Jeans is a 1998 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film written and directed by S. Shankar. It was produced by Ashok Amritraj and Murali Manohar, with Prashanth, Aishwarya Rai and Nassar in the lead roles, while Raju Sundaram, Raadhika Sarathkumar and Lakshmi play supporting role characters. The film features a soundtrack by A. R. Rahman, while Ashok Kumar and the duo B. Lenin and V. T. Vijayan handled the cinematography and editing respectively.

The film opened to Indian audiences on 24 April 1998 and was the most expensive film to be made in Indian cinema at that time. Owing to its success, it was later dubbed into the Hindi and Telugu language and released with the same title. The film was nominated by India as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1998.

Plot

Nachiappan (Nassar) is a restaurateur in Los Angeles, United States. His twin sons Vishwanathan and Ramamoorthy (both played by Prashanth), are medical students, who help him out in the evenings and alongside with the restaurant's chief cook, Juno (Senthil) who enjoys on weekends. One evening, Vishwanathan goes to the airport to check on the family's supply concession and sees that some fellow Indians – Madhumitha (Aishwarya Rai), her brother Madhesh (Raju Sundaram) and their grandmother Krishnaveny (Lakshmi) – have difficulty with an address. He pitches in to help and learns that they just flew in from India so that Krishnaveny can undergo a crucial surgery to remove her brain tumour.

Later at the hospital, Vishwanathan (who is an intern at the same hospital) visits Krishnaveny's room after the operation, and notices she has been operated on the wrong side of her brain. Vishwanathan appeals aggressively to the doctors and has the error corrected by another surgery and then spearheads an angry fight for compensation. The hospital compensates $2 million to avoid a court case. Viswanathan's drastic measures win the respect and love of Madhumitha and her family.

When Krishnaveny realises that Vishwanathan and Madhumitha had fallen in love, she extends the family's stay in the United States and takes a liking to Vishwanathan's good nature. However, Nachiappan objects to the budding romance and wants his sons to marry identical twins because he himself has an identical twin brother, Pechiappan (Nassar). They both had married for love in their youth, but are now estranged because Pechiappan's wife Sundaramba (Raadhika Sarathkumar) showed such tyrannical behaviour towards Nachiappan's wife Meiyaththa (Geetha), that the latter died delivering the twin boys.

Krishnaveny tries to solve the problem by telling Nachiappan that Madhumitha also has an identical twin, Vaishnavi. The story fabricated by Krishnaveny is that Vaishnavi has been brought up in an orthodox Brahmin household. At this point they ring in Madhumitha's alter ego, contrasting Madhumitha with a very demure, typically traditional Indian version. Nachiappan falls for the act and visits India along with his sons to meet Vaishnavi, unaware that Vaishnavi and Madhumitha are the same person. Meanwhile, Pechiappan arrives to a warm welcome by his brother, but later attempts suicide. Nachiappan then rescues him and comes to hear of his sad story and comes up with a plan. Accordingly, Nachiappan and Pechiappan switch places. Nachiappan goes to his brother's wife and impersonates her husband to convince and reunite with her through his sons' (Visu and Ramu) marriage plan talks; he succeeds. Pechiappan impersonates his brother towards his nephews. Vishwanathan then meanwhile, discovers that Vaishnavi is Madhumitha and she was impersonating Vaishnavi. Enraged, he immediately leaves Madhumitha's household along with his family, but Ramamoorthy persuades his father to have Madhumitha and Vishwanathan married. Though not knowing, it was not his father he talked critically about his uncle who was right there impersonating. That made him guilty. He decided to have Vishwanathan married to Madhumitha. When Nachiappan realises that Madhumitha does not have a twin, he goes and stops the wedding. There they figure out that the brothers impersonated each other as well to get along. Nachiappan's brother Pechiappan's wife (Sundaramba) persuades Nachiappan to have them married because Madhumitha did the same thing the brothers did. Eventually, Visu and Madhu get married followed by a grand dinosaur reception specially given by Madhesh.

Cast

Production

Development

The entire production of the film took about a year and a half to be completed and released. Jeans, unlike Shankar's other films, was the first to be shot outside of India for major portions of the film. The producers of the film were Ashok Amritraj, Michael Soloman and Murali Manohar, whom all made their Tamil film debuts with Jeans respectively.[2] Amritraj did not work on any Tamil film afterwards.[3] The film reunited Shankar with his award-winning technical crew from his previous film Indian, whilst the cast was finalised by him after he had finalised the story. Genes was the title selected but Shankar felt it would not appeal to the masses so he used the homonym, Jeans.[4]

The film's launch was held at the AVM Studios in Vadapalani, Chennai in December 1996. The Jeans invitation was printed, wrapped in Jeans cloth and was hand delivered by Shankar to his close colleagues and friends in Chennai, which included prominent actors in the Tamil filmdom.[5] The cast and crew of the film, wore their favourite pair of blue jeans as per request from the producers to the launch.[5]

Casting

The original actor considered for the dual roles of Vishwanathan and Ramamoorthy was Abbas, who rejected the project citing that his dates were booked for the full year of 1997. The second choice for the lead role, Ajith Kumar, also opted out due to call sheet problems.[5] The role eventually went to Prashanth, who sacrificed seven films in the process, and chose to work exclusively on the project during the period.[5] Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World 1994, was the original choice for the roles of Madhumitha and Vaishnavi and collaborated with Shankar after she had been unable to work with him in his previous venture Indian.[5] Rai's voice was dubbed by Savitha Reddy.[6] The supporting cast included Senthil, Nassar and Raju Sundaram, with the latter making his debut as an actor. Prominent supporting actresses Lakshmi and Geetha were signed up for the film, whilst Radhika agreed to appear in a guest appearance. Another supporting role was taken by S. Ve. Sekhar after playback singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam opted out of the role.[5]

The other substitution in the project involved the cinematographer. Despite reports that Shankar would again sign on Jeeva, whom he had worked with in Kadhalan, Gentleman and Indian, Santhosh Sivan was announced as the cinematographer for the film. Though between the time of the announcement and the finishing stages of the film, cinematographer Ashok Kumar was publicised as the official cinematographer for the film. In mid-1997, film organisation FEFSI struck and in the midst of this, the film's art director Thotta Tharani, a FEFSI supporter, refused to sacrifice his position in FEFSI and stopped working in Jeans.[5] Without much choice, Shankar signed a newcomer Bala to take over the set design and art work for the film. The film's art direction is credited with both Thotta Tharani and Bala. S. T. Venky was signed up to deal with the special-effects in the film, with Jeans. The film also was assisted in graphics effects created by Pentafour Company.[5]

Filming

The Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World seen in the film

The initial scenes of the Rajamani family's catering company was filmed in Las Vegas, whilst other scenes were shot in California at the Universal Studios, who usually do not grant permission for foreign films to conduct shooting there. However, with influence from the film's producer 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.[5] The filming in Los Angeles received much publicity as well as the filming at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Other Jeans shooting locations in the United States of America included the Valley of Fire, Manhattan Beach, Malibu Lake and many scenic spots throughout California. The song Columbus was picturised at the shores of Venice Beach, California with some foreign male and female dancers. Shankar also filmed in New Jersey and New York City at the World Trade Center when co-producer Michael Salomon and his wife, Luciana Paluzzi visited the sets of Jeans.[5]

After a 45-day schedule in the United States, Shankar and the team returned to India to film a couple of scenes in the climax. The team then visited several other countries to picturise the song Poovukkul, with featured scenes with seven prominent buildings in the world, dubbing Aishwarya Rai as the "eighth wonder of the world".[2] Shankar admitted that due to no real list being present, thought had been put into which wonders were selected.[7] The team made a thirty-day trip around the world stopping to can scenes at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Empire State Building, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Egyptian pyramids, the Roman Colosseum and the Eiffel Tower.[8] During the shooting in Paris, Diana, Princess of Wales had died and shooting was delayed as a result of her death.[5] Three weeks prior to the release of the film, on 1 April 1998 a screening was held labelled the Making of Jeans with prominent personalities invited, however the short film showed the real manufacture of jeans. The prank was claimed by Shankar and his crew who utilised an April Fools joke.[7]

Release

Jeans was released worldwide on 24 April 1998.[9] With 240 prints, the films holds the 1998 record for a Tamil film. Despite being the highest grosser of 1998, the film was an average on the basis of return on investment.[10][11][12] Upon release the film was subsequently dubbed into two languages, Telugu and Hindi. The film completed 100 days of screening in the theatres in the state of Tamil Nadu.[13][14][15]

Critical reception

Rajitha, a reviewer from Rediff, praised the characters of Prashanth, Aishwarya Rai and Nassar as "ever dependable", whilst singling out praise for Radhika whom she describes that " with her startling cameo, sweeps the acting honours". The reviewer praised the technical crew describing Venky's FX as a "virtual reality", Ashok Kumar's cinematography as "throughout and outstanding", Raju Sundaram's choreography as "memorable" and A. R. Rahman's score as "entirely hummable". Shankar's directorial attributes were described to be to a "perfect flow of narrative and a penchant for demanding and getting perfection out of every element of his cast and crew" and that the film was an "easy fit".[16] The Indian Express called the film a "hilarious comedy" and drew significant praise to the performance of Aishwarya Rai and the music of Rahman.[17] Indolink rated the film 3.5 stars and said, "Jeans is a great family entertainer with no violence or intimate scenes. But do bear in mind that the movie is almost 3 hours long (not that you feel the length). But do ensure that you watch it in a cinema with "dts" facility."[9] In contrast, Deccan Herald described the film as a "colossal waste", criticising Shankar's story and direction and the performances of Prashanth and Lakshmi.[18]

Accolades

Jeans was nominated by India as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1998,[19] but did not make the final shortlist.[20][21][22][23] The decision to submit the film met with heavy ridicule as it was seen as a "populist popcorn entertainer".[24] The film won four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards: Best Comedian (Senthil), Best Female Playback Singer (Nithyasree Mahadevan), Best Choreographer (Raju Sundaram) and Best Costume Designer (Kasi).[25] It also won a Filmfare Award for Best Music for A. R. Rahman,[26] and the National Film Award for Best Special Effects.[27]

Soundtrack

Untitled
Main article: Jeans (soundtrack)

The soundtrack of Jeans was composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu.[28] The audio launch took place in March 1998. To make the audio cassettes more "elegant and memorable", cassette store owners were told to wrap the cassettes in jeans clothing before giving them to customers.[11]

iTunes track list of the Tamil version[29]
No.TitleLyricsSinger(s)Length
1."Anbe Anbe"VairamuthuHariharan, Anuradha Sriram5:32
2."Columbus Columbus"VairamuthuA. R. Rahman4:52
3."Enakke Enakkaa"VairamuthuP. Unnikrishnan, Pallavi7:09
4."Kannuodu Kaanbadhalam"VairamuthuNithyasree Mahadevan5:09
5."Poovukkul"VairamuthuP. Unnikrishnan, Sujatha6:53
6."Varayo Thozhi"VairamuthuSonu Nigam, Harini5:48
iTunes track list of the Hindi version[30]
No.TitleSinger(s)Length
1."Ajooba"Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam6:57
2."Columbus"Sonu Nigam4:56
3."Kehne Ko Dadi"Sonu Nigam, Kavita Paudwal, Sangeeta5:51
4."Tauba Tauba"Hariharan, Anuradha Sriram5:31
5."Kehta Hai Mera Dil"Kavita Krishnamurthy5:12
6."Hai Rabba"Kavita Krishnamurthy, Udit Narayan7:15
Raaga.com track list of the Telugu version[31]
No.TitleSinger(s)Length
1."Columbus Columbus"A. R. Rahman 
2."Hayirabba Hayirabba"P. Unnikrishnan, S. P. Pallavi 
3."Kannulatho Choseve"Nithyasree Mahadevan 
4."Poovullo Daagunna"P. Unnikrishnan, Sujatha 
5."Priya Priya Champodde"Srinivas 
6."Raave Naa Chaliyaa"Sonu Nigam, Harini 

Possible sequel

In November 2013, Prashanth announced that he had registered the title Jeans 2 and was completing the pre-production works of a sequel to the 1998 film. The film was set to be directed and produced by Prashanth's father Thiagarajan, who revealed that production would begin in May 2014 and that they were trying to bring members of the original team back for the venture.[32][33] In January 2014, Ashok Amritraj stated that he was not involved in the sequel and questioned the viability of the project, citing that he did not believe that Prashanth and his father had the rights to make a sequel.[34] In February 2016, Prashanth reaffirmed that the sequel was in development.[35]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Around the world in a song". India Today. 6 April 1998. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  2. ^ a b Srinivasan, V. (21 March 1998). "Of Jeans and bottom lines". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  3. ^ "Social Media has created stars in very wierd [sic!] way". The Times of India. 7 July 2016. Archived from the original on 12 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  4. ^ Krishna, S. "Having watched the wonderful films in India, I was quite 'crazy' about films". Indolink.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Krishna, S. "Naanga Jeans Pant-u Dhaan Pottaakka, Neenga Baggy Pant-a Dhaan Paakka Maateenga". Indolink.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  6. ^ Roshne, B. (23 April 2016). "Ever Unseen But Never Unheard". The New Indian Express. Archived from the original on 7 September 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  7. ^ a b Rajitha (20 April 1998). "Wonder of wonders". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  8. ^ Suresh, M. G. (1 May 1998). "What makes baby-face Prasanth tick?". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ a b "Jeans: Movie Review". Indolink. Archived from the original on 21 June 2001. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  10. ^ "Best of 1998". Indolink.com. Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  11. ^ a b Krishna, S. "Naanga Jeans Pant-u Dhaan Pottaakka, Neenga Baggy Pant-a Dhaan Paakka Maateenga (2)". Indolink.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  12. ^ "Rajnikant to try new looks for 'Robot'". Zee News. Indo-Asian News Service. 17 May 2008. Archived from the original on 12 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  13. ^ Rajitha (17 August 1998). "The last laugh". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  14. ^ Ramanathan, K.; Kamath, V. "Sivaji's Global March". Businessworld. Archived from the original on 10 October 2008. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  15. ^ Deosthalee, Deepa (10 May 1999). "Love in Tokyo – Japanese yen for Rajni". Express India. Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  16. ^ Rajitha (15 May 1998). "An easy fit". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 1 November 2006. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  17. ^ "Double trouble". The Indian Express. 20 June 2004. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  18. ^ "Cinema – Reviews". Deccan Herald. 20 June 2004. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  19. ^ "45 Countries Submit Films for Oscar Consideration". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 19 November 1998. Archived from the original on 19 February 1999. Retrieved 20 October 2015. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ Chopra, A. "Waiting for the Oscar". India Today. Archived from the original on 18 August 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  21. ^ "Jeans is Indian nomination for Oscar award". The Indian Express. 1 November 1998. Archived from the original on 17 September 2013.
  22. ^ "Earth is India's entry to the Oscar awards". The Times Of India. 20 June 2004. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011.
  23. ^ "Jeans ko Oscar milega kya?". The Times of India. 20 June 2004. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  24. ^ "'Visaaranai' is India's official entry in the Foreign Language Film Oscar category". Scroll.in. 22 September 2016. Archived from the original on 23 September 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  25. ^ "Film awards announced". The Hindu. 18 July 2000. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012.
  26. ^ "Filmfare awards presented at a dazzling function". The Times of India. 25 April 1999. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012.
  27. ^ "46th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. p. 56. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  28. ^ "Jeans (1998)". Raaga.com. Archived from the original on 6 October 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  29. ^ "Jeans (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". iTunes Store. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  30. ^ "Jeans (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". iTunes Store. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  31. ^ "Jeans Songs". Raaga.com. Archived from the original on 22 September 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  32. ^ "Prashanth teams up with his dad". Deccan Chronicle. 23 November 2013. Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  33. ^ "Is Jeans 2 in the pipeline?". The Times of India. 19 November 2013. Archived from the original on 11 July 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  34. ^ Lakshmi, V. (10 January 2016). "I doubt the sequel to Jeans can go forward". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 11 July 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  35. ^ Subhakeerthana, S. (2 February 2016). "I spent my time introspecting on where I went wrong: Prashanth". Deccan Chronicle. Archived from the original on 12 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
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