Dharmendra remembers the DOP of his Bollywood classic ‘Sholay’

Mumbai: Veteran actor Dharmendra is remembering, and paying homage to the cinematographer of his iconic film ‘Sholay’. On Sunday, the actor took to his Instagram, and shared a throwback picture of himself with the late Dwarka Divecha, the cinematographer on ‘Sholay’.

He also penned a note in the caption paying a tribute to the late artist, and urged his followers to rummage through the pages of the DOP’s biography.

He wrote, “Late Shri Dwarka Divecha, director of cinematography (‘Sholay’). He was always very loving and friendly with all of us. People behind the camera are hardly mentioned though they bring us on the Silver screen. Please read his biography”.

Dwarka Divecha was also an actor, and had shared the screen with Shammi Kapoor, Padmini in ‘Singapore’. He was also involved in creating the sets of ‘Sholay’, which is considered Hindi cinema’s first Western Spaghetti film. It starred an ensemble cast of Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Amjad Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, A. K. Hangal, Sachin and Hema Malini.

The film is one of the greatest movies in Hindi cinema courtesy its grandeur, performances, technical brilliance, action, music and direction. It was top of the British Film Institute’s 2002 poll of “Top 10 Indian Films” of all time. The film was written by the legendary screenwriting duo Salim-Javed, and went on to become one of longest running films of Indian cinema.

Earlier, Ramesh Sippy, the director of the iconic film ‘Sholay’, had shared an interesting anecdote when he saw the audience’s reaction to the film in the theatres when it released.

The director spoke with IANS, ahead of the film’s 50th anniversary, and spoke about the time he was invited by a cinema owner to witness the first-hand reaction of the audience while it was being projected to the audience.

He told IANS, “A cinema person called me. He said, ‘Come to my cinema’. It was City Light cinema. He said, ‘Can you see there? No one is coming here to have a cold drink’. There was an interval. No one came”.

“He said, ‘Do you know why? Because those who were inside the hall were super-attentive. They were behaving as if they have never seen anything like this’. I said, ‘Are you sure?’. He said, ‘Absolutely. I see it every day. They do not come in the interval’”, the director added.