Satya (film)
Encyclopedia
Satya is a 1998
1998 in film
-Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...

 Hindi
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 crime film
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...

 directed by Ram Gopal Varma
Ram Gopal Varma
Ram Gopal Varma is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer...

 with a screenplay by Anurag Kashyap
Anurag Kashyap (director)
Anurag Singh Kashyap is an Indian film director and screenwriter. As a director, he is known for Black Friday , a controversial and award-winning Hindi film about the 1993 Bombay bombings, followed by No Smoking , Dev D and Gulaal...

 and Saurabh Shukla
Saurabh Shukla
-Early life:Shukla's family left Gorakhpur for Delhi when he was two years old. After completing his schooling, he did his graduation from Khalsa College, Delhi...

. It stars J. D. Chakravarthy
J. D. Chakravarthy
J.D. Chakravarthy born Nagulapati Srinivasa Chakravarthy is an Indian film actor and director in Telugu Cinema and Bollywood. He has directed Hindi films like Darwaza Bandh Rakho, Durga and Darna Zaroori Hai . In Telugu Cinema, he got critical acclaim for his directorial abilities through the film...

, Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai , also credited as Manoj Bajpayee, is an Indian film actor, known for playing offbeat and unconventional roles. He first shot into fame with his breakthrough role in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 film Satya.-Early life:...

, Urmila Matondkar
Urmila Matondkar
Urmila Matondkar is an Indian film actress.Matondkar, who made her screen debut as a child artist in the 1980 film Kalyug, debuted as an adult in Narasimha...

 and Shefali Shah
Shefali Shah
- Biography :Shefali Shah was born in July 1974 and is the only child of Sudhakar Shetty and Shobha Shetty...

. The film tells the story of Satya, an immigrant who comes to Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 seeking his fortune but instead gets sucked into the Mumbai underworld
Indian mafia
The term Indian mafia refers to certain criminal organizations found in some of India's major cities. The "Indian Mafia" also refer to powerful families that have criminal aspects to it.- Mumbai underworld :...

.

Made on a shoestring budget of INR
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....

 2 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....

 (roughly $400,000), Satya became a surprise hit at the box office grossing INR 15.5 crore and becoming the 10th highest grossing Indian film
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...

 of 1998. The film went on to win six Filmfare Awards
Filmfare Awards
The Filmfare Awards are presented annually by The Times Group to honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in the Hindi language film industry of India. The Filmfare ceremony is one of the oldest and most prominent film events given for Hindi films in India. The awards were...

, including the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie
Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie
The Filmfare Awards are the oldest and most prominent film awards given for Hindi films in India. The yearly awards started in 1953. Movie awards were first given by popular vote...

, and three Star Screen Awards
Star Screen Awards
The Star Screen Awards is an annual awards ceremony in India honoring professional excellence in film. The nomination and award selection is done by a panel of distinguished professional from the industry itself.- History :...

. It is said that the movie shares lot of similarities with 1995 Kannada blockbuster movie Om
Om (Kannada film)
Om is an Indian Kannada film directed by Upendra , starring Shivarajkumar , and notable for its exposure of Bangalore's criminal underworld. The film was a commercial and critical success and aided the careers of the actors Prema and Shivarajkumar...

 which is a cult classic in Kannada.

Plot

Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 is in the midst of a turf war
Turf war
According to Wordnet the definition of a turf war is "a bitter struggle for territory or power or control or rights". For example: a turf war erupted between street gangs; the president's resignation was the result of a turf war with the board of directors. In larger companies Turf wars could...

 between many gangs, collectively referred to as the Mumbai underworld when Satya (J.D Chakravarthy), a man without a past, comes to the city looking for employment. While waiting tables at the local dance bar
Dance bar
The term dance bar is used in India to refer to bars in which adult entertainment in the form of dances by relatively well-covered women are performed for male patrons in exchange for cash. Though dance bars were banned in the Maharashtra state, in August 2005, with the passing of the Police Bill,...

, he gets involved in a scuffle with Jagga (Jeeva
Jeeva (Telugu actor)
Jeeva is an Indian film actor from Andhra Pradesh who is known for his bit parts in Hindi and Telugu cinema. He has been working in films since 1984 and is well known for his negative roles in various Ram Gopal Varma films, particularly Satya , Ab Tak Chhappan and Sarkar .-Telugu:#Bendu Apparao...

), bag man
Bag Man
A bag man , is a person designated to collect dirty money, e.g. in a protection racket. A bag man may also be known as a delivery boy or running man...

 for dreaded don
Crime boss
A crime boss or boss is a person in charge of a criminal organization. A boss typically has absolute or near-absolute control over his subordinates, is greatly feared by his subordinates for his ruthlessness and willingness to take lives in order to exert his influence, and profits come from the...

 Guru Narayan (Raju Mavani). Jagga takes his revenge by getting Satya arrested on false charges of pimping. In jail, Satya clashes with yet another member of Mumbai's mafia, underworld don Bhiku Mhatre (Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai , also credited as Manoj Bajpayee, is an Indian film actor, known for playing offbeat and unconventional roles. He first shot into fame with his breakthrough role in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 film Satya.-Early life:...

), who is in prison pending trial for the murder of a prominent film producer. Mhatre, pleased with Satya's bravado, extends a hand of friendship and arranges for his release as well as accommodation. With Mhatre's help, Satya avenges himself by gunning down Jagga in the very same dance bar and joins Mhatre's gang.

Before branching out on his own, Mhatre was part of a gang that included himself, Guru Narayan, Kallu Mama (Saurabh Shukla
Saurabh Shukla
-Early life:Shukla's family left Gorakhpur for Delhi when he was two years old. After completing his schooling, he did his graduation from Khalsa College, Delhi...

) and lawyer Chandrakant Mule (Makrand Deshpande
Makrand Deshpande
Makarand Deshpande is an Indian actor, writer, and director in Hindi and Marathi films and theatre. He is often seen in supporting and pivotal roles in various films like Jungle, Sarfarosh, Swades, Makdee, and Darna Zaroori Hai where he often plays drunkard, wayfarer roles. He has directed over 5...

). Bhau Thakurdas Jhawle (Govind Namdeo
Govind Namdeo
Govind Namdeo is an Indian film actor. Govind made his debut as a corrupt cop in David Dhawan's Shola Aur Shabnam . He has acted in numerous A grade movies...

), presently a corporator
Councillor
A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...

 in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation
Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai
The Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Palika is the civic body that governs the city of Mumbai and is India's richest municipal organisation. Its annual budget is even more than that of some of the small states of India. It is also known as Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai or the Brihanmumbai...

, was the gang leader. After Jhawle joined politics, the gang split into two with Kallu and Mule joining Mhatre and Narayan going his own way. While the gangs had carved out their own territories which were off limits to the rival gang, both still maintained a relationship with Jhawle. Jagga's assassination breaks the uneasy truce and Narayan reneges on his promise by attacking Mhatre's gang when they are out on business. Mhatre decides to kill Narayan but is forced to abandon his project at the last moment on orders from Jhawle; the murder right on the eve of the municipal elections would have triggered a gang war
Gang War
Gang War is a 1928 gangster film, best known for being the main feature attached to Steamboat Willie, the debut of Mickey Mouse in sound. The film starred Jack Pickford in his last major role, as "Clyde", a saxophone player whose love for a dancer named Flowers traps him in the middle of a gang war...

 and would be detrimental to Jhawle's political prospects. Meanwhile Satya, who has risen up the ranks and become a key decision-maker in the gang, has met and fallen in love with Vidya (Urmila Matondkar
Urmila Matondkar
Urmila Matondkar is an Indian film actress.Matondkar, who made her screen debut as a child artist in the 1980 film Kalyug, debuted as an adult in Narasimha...

), an aspiring playback singer
Playback singer
A playback singer is a singer whose singing is prerecorded for use in movies. Playback singers record songs for soundtracks, and actors or actresses lip-sync the songs for cameras, while the actual singer does not appear on screen.-South Asia:...

 who lives next door, but has not informed her of his underworld connections. At one point he even threatens a music director
Music director
A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...

 and gets him to sign her up for a project, with Vidya being unaware of the entire episode.

Satya tells Mhatre, fuming over Jhawle's orders to stay away from Narayan, to ignore him and they assassinate Narayan. Mhatre is now the unchallenged ruler of the underworld and Jhawle, knowing that he needs Mhatre's help to win the elections, patches up with him. This is when the city sees the appointment of a new police commissioner, Amodh Shukla (Paresh Rawal
Paresh Rawal
Paresh Rawal is an Indian actor of Gujarati background.Making his film debut in 1984, he mainly played supporting and villain roles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Since 2000 he has mostly played comic roles.- Family and early life :...

). Shukla and his force begin targeting Mhatre's gang through encounters. Satya, seeing the situation getting out of hand, convinces the gang that the commissioner has to be eliminated and gets him killed. The police respond by intensifying the crackdown. Jhawle wins the elections thanks to Mhatre's muscle power as well as public anger on the brutal methods adopted by the police in its fight against organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

. In the midst of this, Satya and Vidya decide to catch a movie. Inspector Khandilkar (Aditya Shrivastava
Aditya Shrivastava
Aditya Shrivastava is a noted Indian film and television character actor who has played important parts in films such as Satya , Gulaal, Paanch and Black Friday . He also plays the role as Senior Inspector Abhijeet in India's longest-running television police procedural C.I.D....

), on the basis of a tipoff that Satya is present in the cinema hall, surrounds the premises and orders that all doors be shut. Satya fires a gun, triggering a stampede which results in many fatalities, and escapes with Vidya. But the man who did not fear death now fears for Vidya's life. He decides to quit the underworld and reveals his decision to Mhatre, who decides to send them to Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

 where they would be safe.

Jhawle holds a party to celebrate his victory and invites Mhatre, Mule and Kallu to attend the same. During the party, he shoots Mhatre dead for having disobeyed his order and sends Kallu along with Mule to kill Satya. Satya, unaware of Mhatre's death, runs off to Vidya and lies to her one last time, but has to flee when the police arrive. Khandilkar spills the beans in front of Vidya. Kallu returns to his headquarters, kills Mule instead of Satya, and informs Satya about Mhatre's fate. Satya takes his revenge by murdering Jhawle during Anant Chaturdashi
Anant Chaturdashi
Anant Chaturdashi is Hindu religious observance is performed on the fourteenth day of the bright fortnight of Bhadrapad month of Hindu calendar. The principal deity of this observance is Lord Anant, that is Lord Vishnu while the subordinate deities are Shesh and Yamuna. This vowed religious...

 celebrations, but suffers a bullet wound in the process. Satya returns to Vidya's house to meet her but she refuses to open the door. He manages to break it open but Khandilkar, who has arrived to arrest him, shoots him multiple times. Satya collapses a few inches away from Vidya's feet, and breathes his last.

Development

Varma's views on the underworld do not conform to those depicted in mainstream films. According to him, unlike their portrayal in films like Deewar and his own Shiva
Shiva (film)
Shiva is a 1989 Telugu-language film. The 1989 Indian film starring Akkineni Nagarjuna and Amala which deals with violence and student politics inside the college campus. The film was written by Tanikella Bharani and directed by film-maker Ram Gopal Verma who made his debut with this film. The...

 "as men who rebel against injustice," gangsters are anything but. Instead, they are people with a violent streak. "I read a book called The Criminal History of Mankind where the author describes a criminal as child who refused to grow up. He doesn't abide by the laws of society. If he has physical strength, he uses it, if he doesn't, he becomes cynical and blames society all the time," Varma said in an interview to the Indian Express (1998). So in Satya he decided to treat killing as another nine-to-five business, with the gangster having a family and children. He too would have his fears, would feel pain, would be just as human as anyone else.

In late 2006, Anurag Kashyap, script writer of the film, wrote two posts on his blog that gave an incomplete behind-the-scenes account of the idea behind and making of Satya.
Every character in Satya was based on someone Varma had met or heard about; some belonged to the underworld, others didn't. "Everyone had a reference point." And the plot itself had multiple influences. One of them was a criminal Varma met in a court. The man was charged with multiple murders, but had found the time to fall in love with a lawyer when he was attending proceedings. The man told Varma how he committed his first murder. At the end of his encounter, Varma held on to three things: "it took him half an hour to brace himself before the killing, he had high fever for three days after he gunned down his first victim. And the fact that he is in love with somebody." These elements found their way into the film. In the film, Vidya does not know until the very end that Satya is a gangster. This aspect was inspired by the story of a man who used to live in the same building as one of Varma's friends. The man and the friend would sometimes bump into each other in the lift and exchange pleasantries. Later Varma came to know that the man had been arrested for a murder he had committed somewhere in Karnataka, and had been an absconder all this time. "[T]he thing about Bombay is that you may live for ten years as neighbor to somebody yet have no idea who he is," his friend had told him.
The character of Bhiku Mhatre (named, according to Kashyap, after someone who served coffee) was conceived as "an anti-social element [who] lives by his own rules and [who] would not abide by the social rules and systems," a law unto himself. Even his questions would sound like statements because his "pride wouldn't allow him to make anyone feel that he doesn't know about something." The scene where Bhiku grieves over Chander's death by abusing him is based on a real-life incident Varma heard of. "A gangster lives on power" and Chander gets himself killed by not listening to Bhiku, thus taking away Bhiku's power to save him. "Grief [coming] out as anger. I took that as the soul [of] Bheeku Matre's character."
Kallu Mama's character was based on an ex-gangster Varma met in a bar and whose behavior made him feel uneasy. But that feeling was absent the next time Varma met this person; he was very friendly. It was then that Varma realized that the man had created a false persona the first time around and "[had been] trying to play up to an image which he thought I had of him because he knew that I knew who he was." Kallu behaves in a similar manner in the film. He puts on a gangster act when a builder comes to see him temporarily hiding the fact that "he is a clown in the gang."

Chander's character was based on a man who "supposedly belong[ed] to Arun Gawli
Arun Gawli
Arun Gulab Gawli , known to his followers as "Daddy", is an alleged criminal turned politician from Mumbai, India. He is based at Dagdi Chawl in Byculla- Saat Rasta, Mumbai...

’s gang." Varma had heard a lot about him but found out, on actually meeting him, that he was very sweet-natured and used Gawli's name in every sentence—"Gawli did this, Gawli did that, Gawli bought me a house." His world revolved around Gawli, and he didn't have an identity of his own.

But it was Satya's character (who owes his name to a woman Varma knew in his college days) that troubled Varma the most as he was "unclear" about Satya's nature. Was he someone who had a"criminal streak in his head" or was he a normal person who turned to crime? This lack of clarity persisted even after the shooting had been wrapped up and contributed to the inconsistent behviour of the character. "Satya slashes someone in cold blood in one scene and in another scene shyly smiles at Bheeku Matre after killing Jaggu and when Bheeku Matre is having a fight with his wife, like a zombie Satya stares at them. Why did he do that?" Varma asks and answers that he did those things because "I told him 'do it'." This was the reason the character was overshadowed by the others.

Casting

Satya was shot on a limited budget with a cast of newcomers and relative unknowns. The absence of "stars" meant that they were available whenever Varma needed them.

J.D Chakravarthy had already worked with Varma on Shiva
Shiva (film)
Shiva is a 1989 Telugu-language film. The 1989 Indian film starring Akkineni Nagarjuna and Amala which deals with violence and student politics inside the college campus. The film was written by Tanikella Bharani and directed by film-maker Ram Gopal Verma who made his debut with this film. The...

, playing the role of J.D. in the film. When Varma approached him for the eponymous role in Satya, he was a bit reticent because he was working on another project. But then Varma told him that the film would be complete in two months (it took eighteen), and so Chakravarthy agreed. Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai , also credited as Manoj Bajpayee, is an Indian film actor, known for playing offbeat and unconventional roles. He first shot into fame with his breakthrough role in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 film Satya.-Early life:...

 had played a cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

 in Varma's previous film, Daud
Daud (film)
Daud is a 1997 Hindi Road movie thriller by Ram Gopal Varma, starring Sanjay Dutt and Urmila Matondkar, with music composed by A. R. Rahman...

 and Varma, who had been floored by his intensity in a particular shot, told him that there was "something interesting in [his] face." He decided then and there that Bajpai would play a part in his next film that was based on the underworld. And Bajpai became Bhiku Mhatre. Urmila Matondkar
Urmila Matondkar
Urmila Matondkar is an Indian film actress.Matondkar, who made her screen debut as a child artist in the 1980 film Kalyug, debuted as an adult in Narasimha...

 was the only member of the cast who was well known thanks to Rangeela
Rangeela (film)
Rangeela is a 1995 Hindi film directed by Ram Gopal Varma, and starring Aamir Khan, Jackie Shroff and Urmila Matondkar.Rangeela was music director A. R. Rahman's debut Hindi film with an original score, as the previous ones were dubbed from his Tamil scores...

. But she was not the first choice for Vidya's role. Varma had approached Mahima Chaudhry
Mahima Chaudhry
Mahima Chaudhary is an Indian actress and a former model who appears in Bollywood films. She made her acting debut in the 1997 film Pardes for which she won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut.-Early life:...

 for the part but, according to Rediff.com
Rediff.com
Rediff.com India is a news, information, entertainment, and shopping portal. It was founded in 1996 as "Rediff On The NeT" and is headquartered in Mumbai, India with offices in New Delhi and New York City, USA....

, she declined it when she heard that the film was about the underworld and hence Varma turned to Urmila. The Indian Express suggests, however, that Urmila replacing Mahima was a result of Varma's need for an established face, especially after Daud bombed at the box office.

Shefali Shah
Shefali Shah
- Biography :Shefali Shah was born in July 1974 and is the only child of Sudhakar Shetty and Shobha Shetty...

 had worked with Varma on Rangeela. But within two days, she had realized that hers was a bit part
Bit part
A bit part is a supporting acting role with at least one line of dialogue . In British television, bit parts are referred to as under sixes...

, and so she had walked out of the film. When Varma came back to her for Satya, she initially refused. But Varma apologized and even cut out a love scene from the film which Shefali had objections to. Finally, under pressure from both her husband as well as Bajpai, she agreed to play Pyaari Mhatre. Saurabh Shukla
Saurabh Shukla
-Early life:Shukla's family left Gorakhpur for Delhi when he was two years old. After completing his schooling, he did his graduation from Khalsa College, Delhi...

 had a double deal with Varma. He was originally brought in to assist Anurag Kashyap with the script and dialogues. But he managed to bag the part of Kallu Mama in the film. Varma had first noticed Makrand Deshpande
Makrand Deshpande
Makarand Deshpande is an Indian actor, writer, and director in Hindi and Marathi films and theatre. He is often seen in supporting and pivotal roles in various films like Jungle, Sarfarosh, Swades, Makdee, and Darna Zaroori Hai where he often plays drunkard, wayfarer roles. He has directed over 5...

 in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak
Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak
Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or QSQT is a 1988 Indian Bollywood film written by Nasir Hussain and directed by his son Mansoor Khan. The film starred Hussain's nephew, Aamir Khan, along with Juhi Chawla in their first major roles. Upon release, the film became a box office hit and shot its leading stars...

 and had been planning to work with him for a long time. Varma cast him in a film which was later shelved. So when Varma began Satya, he called on Deshpande to play the part of the unscrupulous lawyer Chandrakant Mule.

Character actor Govind Namdeo
Govind Namdeo
Govind Namdeo is an Indian film actor. Govind made his debut as a corrupt cop in David Dhawan's Shola Aur Shabnam . He has acted in numerous A grade movies...

 played the part of the corrupt and ruthless gangster-turned-politician Bhau Thakurdas Jhawle while Paresh Rawal
Paresh Rawal
Paresh Rawal is an Indian actor of Gujarati background.Making his film debut in 1984, he mainly played supporting and villain roles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Since 2000 he has mostly played comic roles.- Family and early life :...

 became Amodh Shukla, the Police Commissioner who adopted the mafia's own tactics of intimidation and cold blooded murder against them, to good effect, and paid a heavy price for the same. Aditya Shrivastava
Aditya Shrivastava
Aditya Shrivastava is a noted Indian film and television character actor who has played important parts in films such as Satya , Gulaal, Paanch and Black Friday . He also plays the role as Senior Inspector Abhijeet in India's longest-running television police procedural C.I.D....

 played the role of Shukla's protegé Inspector Khandilkar who executed Shukla's ideas on the ground, and later avenged his murder by killing Satya. He also provides the voice over at various points in the film, including the beginning. Snehal Dabi
Snehal Dabi
Snehal Dabi is an Indian actor who became known for playing the role of "Chander Krishnakant Khote," a fun-loving gangster-wannabe in Satya...

 played the part of Chander Krishnakant Khote, the oafish gangster wannabe who had never killed another man but bragged about having killed two, who was shot dead in an encounter by the police. Shabbir Masani
Shabbir Masani
Shabbir Masani is an Indian actor who played the role of Yeda in Satya and similar small and significant roles in Asoka, Company and Bhoot.-Filmography:*Satya as Yedaa*Company as David Khan*Asoka *Bhoot as Watchman...

 was Yedaa, the only member of Mhatre gang who survives in the end. Other minor characters included those of music director
Music director
A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...

 Ronu Sagar (Neeraj Vora
Neeraj Vora
Neeraj Vora is an Indian film director, writer, actor and composer who works in Bollywood.-Director:* Run Bhola Run * Shortkut - The Con Is On * Familywala * Phir Hera Pheri...

), Jagga's henchman Pakya (Sushant Singh
Sushant Singh
Sushant Singh is an Indian actor, born in 1971.-Biography:He hails from Bijnor District in Uttar Pradesh. He did his schooling from a residential public school in Nainital - Birla Vidya Mandir. He did his post graduation in English Literature from Kirori Mal College and was involved with the fine...

), and Bhiku Mhatre's hitmen
Hitman
A hitman is a person hired to kill another person.- Hitmen in organized crime :Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. Hitmen are hired people who kill people for money. Notable examples include Murder, Inc., Mafia hitmen and Richard Kuklinski.- Other cases involving hitmen...

 Vitthal Manjrekar (Sanjay Mishra
Sanjay Mishra (actor)
Sanjay Mishra is an Indian actor and comedian who is best known for his character of Apple Singh, an "icon" used by ESPN Star Sports during the 1999 Cricket World Cup and also for his comedic act in the film All The Best. He made his film debut in the 1995 Indian musical film Oh Darling! Yeh Hai...

) and Bappu (Rajesh Joshi
Rajesh Joshi (actor)
Rajesh Joshi was an Indian film and theater actor who is well known for his roles in films such as Rangeela and Sarfarosh . He met with a car accident on 11 January 1998 and died the next day. Satya was his last movie, the credits name him as "late". Joshi was the brother of actor Manoj...

).

Writing and filming

Varma had hired Kashyap to write the script but did not trust him with the dialogues; he wanted someone more mature (Kashyap was twenty three) to work on them. So he went to noted playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi...

, the man who had penned the script and dialogues for the cult classic Ardh Satya
Ardh Satya
Ardh Satya is a 1983 film directed by Govind Nihalani, his second offering after another angst-ridden movie Aakrosh . The screenplay of both movies was by Vijay Tendulkar, the noted Marathi playwright; this one was based on the short story, 'Surya', by D.A...

. But Tendulkar was unwell, and hence Saurabh Shukla, who also got to play Kallu Mama in the film, got the job. Kashyap and Shukla went to Varma's farmhouse in Hyderabad where they spent the next few days writing what "looked and sounded like a script," before returning to Mumbai.

The shooting began in Mumbai sometime in August 1997. On the third day the unit was shooting the scene where the character played by Sushant Singh
Sushant Singh
Sushant Singh is an Indian actor, born in 1971.-Biography:He hails from Bijnor District in Uttar Pradesh. He did his schooling from a residential public school in Nainital - Birla Vidya Mandir. He did his post graduation in English Literature from Kirori Mal College and was involved with the fine...

, Pakya, demands a hafta
Hafta
Hafta is the word for week in Hindi, Persian and Turkish languages.Hafta is also slang for the protection money collected periodically by gangsters and corrupt policemen. It is named so because the most common collection period is one week. The practice is highly prevalent in India and a refusal...

 from Satya. Varma had decided to cut the scene at the moment Satya slashes Pakya's cheek with his own knife. But Sushant improvised and screamed before Varma could yell "cut." Kashyap recalls Varma saying "now i know what my film is all about" before trashing their script. This incident, the improvisation, was responsible for the realistic performances of the characters in the film. Varma gave them the leeway and controlled the performances in the editing. Sushant's scream influenced the "style" of Satya.

But then music tycoon Gulshan Kumar
Gulshan Kumar
Gulshan Kumar was the founder of the T-Series music label , the best known in India, and an Indian Bollywood movie producer. T series is now run by his son Bhushan Kumar...

 was assassinated (August 12) and the changed circumstances required that a new script be written. Varma's original idea had an ending from a James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase is the best-known pseudonym of the British writer Rene Brabazon Raymond who also wrote under the names James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant, and Raymond Marshall. Chase is one of the best known thriller writers of all time...

 novel. In the final version of the film, "that ending remained..Howard Roark didn’t". While Varma was shooting for the film, his previous film Daud was released (August 22) which was a box office disaster. That forced him to make some changes to Satya. He added some songs to the film and replaced Mahima Chaudhry with a more "established" Urmila Matondkar. Everything else, however, remained the same.

The Ganpati immersion procession sequence and Bhau's murder sequence that form an important part of the film's climax were shot separately. On Anant Chaturdashi, a camera crew visited Chowpatty and recorded the procession. A particular wide shot where the camera zoomed into a Ganesha idol was recreated much later at Juhu beach with 500 junior artistes. The film was edited to "create an illusion as if there were thousands," a trick Varma had previously used in Gaayam
Gaayam
Gaayam is a 1993 Telugu movie directed by Ram Gopal Varma, which established Jagapathi Babu as a star. The film's lyrics were written by Sirivennela and its music was composed by Sri. It starred Jagapathi Babu, Revathi, Urmila and Kota Srinivasa Rao...

.

The realistic scene in the beginning of the film where Manjrekar and Bappu murder a film producer on a busy street in pouring rain was shot on a set. The entire street had been created inside the studio and the vehicles parked on the side of the street belonged to the film crew.

Cinematography

Gerard Hooper, who teaches cinematography at Drexel University, Philadelphia was the man behind the camera, and he was recommended to Varma by Kanan Ayar, the script writer for Daud. Mazhar Kamran later took over the job because Hooper could not allocate more than 40 days for the film.

The film's cinematography and use of locations played a major role in its success. Unlike most Hindi films
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

, much of Satya was shot outdoors. Hooper would roam around Mumbai filming the city even when no shoot was scheduled. "The rawness of Satya’s locales were stunning. Just see the difference an outsider gave to the film, as opposed to an Indian who takes Mumbai for granted and prefers to shoot on some set in Film City," Kashyap has noted. Varma gave a free hand to his cinematographers, according to Kamran, who could therefore allow the camera to move freely rather than shooting from fixed angles. This added a touch of realism to the film. "The harsh, rough and true-to-life quality of the cinematography contributed immensely to the credibility in the film’s story and played a crucial role in its commercial and critical success," states Kamran.

Crew

  • Ram Gopal Varma
    Ram Gopal Varma
    Ram Gopal Varma is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer...

     – Producer, Director
  • Gerard Hooper & Mazhar Kamran – Cinematography
  • H. Sridhar
    H. Sridhar
    H. Sridhar, was a sound engineer from India and known for his work with the Indian Musician A R Rahman.Sridhar was the Chief Audio Engineer at Media Artists. A mathematics graduate, with keen interest in electronics and formal music training, he started a professional sound engineering career in...

     – Audiography
    Audiography
    Audiography in the context of filmmaking is a term commonly used in India to mean the audio engineering performed by the sound department of a film or TV production; this includes sound recording, editing, mixing and sound design but excludes musical composition, songwriting and choreography.An...

  • Apurva Asrani
    Apurva Asrani
    Apurva Asrani is a filmmaker based in Mumbai, India. He has a multimedia body of work in film, television and theatre.- Career :...

     & Bhanodaya – Editing
  • Saurabh Shukla
    Saurabh Shukla
    -Early life:Shukla's family left Gorakhpur for Delhi when he was two years old. After completing his schooling, he did his graduation from Khalsa College, Delhi...

     & Anurag Kashyap
    Anurag Kashyap
    Anurag Singh Kashyap is an Indian film director and screenwriter. As a director, he is known for Black Friday , a controversial and award-winning Hindi film about the 1993 Bombay bombings, followed by No Smoking , Dev D and Gulaal...

     – Writing
  • Vishal Bhardwaj
    Vishal Bhardwaj
    Vishal Bhardwaj is an Indian film director, writer, screenwriter, music composer and playback singer.-Early life:Bhardwaj was born in Bijnor but raised in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh to Satya Bhardwaj, a homemaker, and Ram Bhardwaj, a popular poet and lyricist. His father was a government employee and...

     – Music
  • Gulzar – Lyrics
  • Sandeep Chowta
    Sandeep Chowta
    Sandeep Chowta is an Indian Bollywood and Tollywood music director and head of Columbia Records in India. He has also sung some of his songs.In 2003, he produced an anti substance abuse documentary, titled Dead End, that was entered into numerous film festivals and was government acclaimed...

     – Background Music
  • P. Som Shekar – Executive Producer

Release

Satya was primarily targeted at an urban audience and the countrywide release of the film, on 3 July 1998, was done on a commission basis to ensure that distributors didn't lose money on their investment. Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...

 and Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

 language (dubbed
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...

) versions were released in the respective regional markets. It was later dubbed into English for screenings at international film festivals; Vivek Oberoi
Vivek Oberoi
Vivek Oberoi is an Indian actor. He is the son of Bollywood actor Suresh Oberoi and Yashodhara Oberoi.- Early life :Vivek attended Mayo college in Ajmer. At an actors' workshop in London he was spotted by the director of New York University who took Vivek off to New York, where he completed his...

 dubbed for one of the characters.

The film did "record-breaking" business in Mumbai with first-week collections of 85 percent, for a total of INR 4-5 crores; it netted another INR 80-90 lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...

s in Delhi, and set new box office records in Andhra Pradesh. It also benefited from the entertainment tax
Entertainment tax
-In India:In India, movie tickets, large commercial shows and large private festival celebrations may incur an entertainment tax.Entertainment falls in List 2 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India and is exclusively reserved as a revenue source for the state governments...

 exemption granted by the Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

 government.

Varma had expected that the Indian censor board
Central Board of Film Certification
The Central Board of Film Certification is a Government of India regulatory body and censorship board of India controlled by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It reviews, rates and censors motion pictures, television shows, television ads, and promotional material...

 would "rip the film apart" due to the "excessive violence and liberal use of expletives" in the film. But he was "pleasantly surprised" when the board passed it without any cuts though with an A rating. While this did not have any effect on the film's theatrical release, it created a small problem when Star Plus
STAR Plus
STAR Plus is a Hindi language general entertainment television channel based in India. The channel is part of the STAR TV network's bouquet of channels...

 acquired the satellite telecast rights in 1998 by paying 1.35 crore rupees. The movie was set to be telecast at 9:30 pm IST
Indian Standard Time
Indian Standard Time is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments, although DST was used briefly during the Sino–Indian War of 1962 and the Indo–Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971...

 on a Saturday night (26 December), but had to be pushed back to 11:30 pm IST because, according to Indian laws in effect at the time, films having an A rating could not be telecast prior to 11:00 pm IST.

Reception

Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai
Manoj Bajpai , also credited as Manoj Bajpayee, is an Indian film actor, known for playing offbeat and unconventional roles. He first shot into fame with his breakthrough role in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 film Satya.-Early life:...

's performance as Bhiku Mhatre enjoyed universal acclaim and turned him into a star overnight. "It's overwhelming and also quite scary, because with a response like this, the audience also tells you that you can't afford to make mistakes," he said during a party held to celebrate the film's 100 day run.

Critical reception

Satya opened to positive reviews from film critics.

"It's an old-fashioned morality tale that, for a change, goes beyond the 'Bang Bang, you're dead' genre of local gangster movies. On the contrary, Satya is far more sophisticated and credible precisely because it attempts to penetrate and analyse the 'Whys' of criminality with a touch that's assured and insightful. It's far too intelligent and intense a film to break records at the box office—which is a pity. It deserves to do just that," Shobha De
Shobha De
Shobha Rajadhyaksha known as Shobhaa Dé , Previously Shobha Kilachand is an Indian columnist and novelist.-Early life:...

 wrote for the Sunday MiD DAY. "Mumbai has never looked as sinister—nor as seductive. Take a bow, Varma," she said.

"REJOICE. India's answer to Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

 is here. Indeed, someone has finally had the guts to go ahead and make a movie about and for our times. No diabetic sweetness, no pretentious pontificating, no foolish fantasy out here. Believe it or not, Ram Gopal Varma belts it out straight, like a prize-boxer delivering a knockout punch," Khalid Mohammed
Khalid Mohammed
Khalid Mohamed is an Indian journalist, editor, film critic, screenwriter and film director. He formerly worked for the Hindustan Times and was the lead editor for Filmfare magazine...

 wrote for Filmfare
Filmfare
Filmfare is an English-language tabloid-sized magazine about Indian cinema. Published by The Times Group, India's largest media services conglomerate, in Mumbai , it highlights the doings of the Bollywood film scene...

 and concluded that "Satya is a gritty, hellishly exciting film which stings and screams. No one will go away from it unprovoked or unmoved." It is one of the very few films to get a full 5-star rating from Mohammed.

"Picture the streets of Mumbai. Where the fine line between life and death gets more and more blurred with each passing day. The killing fields where gang wars, encounters, extortion and murder are a way of life. Where crime is just another nine-to-five job. Where criminals and cops fight for survival and supremacy, night and day—only there are no winners in this game. This is Satya, a stark, chilling, almost suffocating tale of Mumbai as it is—no frills, no gloss and absolutely not a moment's relief," wrote Deepa Deosthalee of the Indian Express. She also praised Chowta's background score and Hooper and Kamran's "stark cinematography" while concluding that Satya was "an unforgettable experience".

"I will remember 'Satya' as long as truth lives. I will remember 'Satya' as a film that threatened to tear my soul apart, trample my conscience. It is one film which will certainly shake up every young man about to take the first step into a dark and destructive land called nowhere. Ramu has done more than any modern social reformer has done. Generations to come will be grateful to him for having the guts to tell the truth as it is, the truth about the truth," Ali Peter John wrote for Screen Weekly.

Some critics thought that through Satya Varma was glorifying crime, violence and the underworld, causing him to add a cautionary message to the end credits of the film:
Varma has, on his part, clarified time and again that his films do not glorify crime. "I'm not glorifying the underworld. I want to portray stark reality, as Shekhar Kapur did in Bandit Queen
Bandit Queen
Bandit Queen is a 1994 Indian film based upon the life of Phoolan Devi. It was directed by Shekhar Kapur and starred Seema Biswas as the title character. It was produced by Bobby Bedi's Kaleidoscope Entertainment.The Music was Composed by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.- Plot :The film opens in the...

. I want to show the human side of the underworld, why a man picks up the gun," he said in an interview to Rediff.com even as the film was on the floors. "Everybody who took the gun died a miserable death at the end of the day in the film. So when people accuse me of glorifying violence, this is my answer," he reiterated in a 2004 interview to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

According to Indologist
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....

 Professor Philip Lutgendorf, Satya has too many parallels with Raj Kapoor
Raj Kapoor
Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...

's Shri 420
Shri 420
Shree 420 is a 1955 Bollywood film directed, produced by and starring Raj Kapoor.The film centers on Raj, a poor, but educated orphan who comes to Bombay with dreams of success...

 for them to be mere coincidence.

Awards

Satya won six Filmfare Awards
Filmfare Awards
The Filmfare Awards are presented annually by The Times Group to honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in the Hindi language film industry of India. The Filmfare ceremony is one of the oldest and most prominent film events given for Hindi films in India. The awards were...

 including all three Critics awards (Best Movie
Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie
The Filmfare Awards are the oldest and most prominent film awards given for Hindi films in India. The yearly awards started in 1953. Movie awards were first given by popular vote...

, Best Actor
Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor
The Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor is given by Filmfare as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films. The award is given by the chosen jury of critics assigned to the function, and is a derivation from a previous award known as the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance, which...

 and Best Actress
Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress
The Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress is given by Filmfare as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films. The award is given by the chosen jury of critics assigned to the function, and is a derivation from a previous award known as the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance,...

 awards, male and female, for Bajpai and Shah), Best Editing
Filmfare Best Editing Award
The Filmfare Best Editing Award is given by the Filmfare magazine as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films.-List:-External links:* *...

 (Apurva Asrani and Bhanodaya), Best Sound Recording (H. Sridhar
H. Sridhar
H. Sridhar, was a sound engineer from India and known for his work with the Indian Musician A R Rahman.Sridhar was the Chief Audio Engineer at Media Artists. A mathematics graduate, with keen interest in electronics and formal music training, he started a professional sound engineering career in...

) and Best Background Score
Filmfare Best Background Score
The Filmfare Best Background Score is given by the Filmfare magazine as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films.Although the awards started in 1953, the best sound category was not introduced until 1997.-Awards:...

 (Sandeep Chowta). It won three Star Screen Awards
Star Screen Awards
The Star Screen Awards is an annual awards ceremony in India honoring professional excellence in film. The nomination and award selection is done by a panel of distinguished professional from the industry itself.- History :...

 including Best Supporting Actor
Star Screen Award Best Supporting Actor
The Star Screen Award Best Supporting Actor is chosen by a panel of judges from the film industry of India. The winners are announced in January.The first award was given to Anupam Kher.-Winners:-See also:* Star Screen Awards* Filmfare Awards...

 (Bajpai), Best Supporting Actress
Star Screen Award Best Supporting Actress
The Star Screen Award Best Supporting Actress is chosen via a distinguished panel of judges from the film industry of India. The winners are announced in January....

 (Shah) and Best Screenplay
Star Screen Award for Best Screenplay
The winners of the Star Screen Awards for Best Screenplay are listed below:...

 (Kashyap and Shukla). Bajpai also bagged the Zee Cine Award
Zee Cine Award Best Actor in a Supporting Role- Male
The Zee Cine Award Best Actor in a Supporting Role- Male is chosen by a jury organized by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, and the winner is announced only at the ceremony.The winners are listed below:-- See also :* Zee Cine Awards* Bollywood...

 and the National Film Award
National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor
The National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor is an annual award that was first given in 1968. The actors to have won the most awards in this category include Nana Patekar, Atul Kulkarni, and Pankaj Kapoor, each have received two....

 for best actor in a supporting role.

In 2005, Indiatimes Movies included Satya in its list of 25 Must See Bollywood Movies.

Influence

Satya has been referred to as a modern masterpiece and "perhaps" one of the best films of the 1990s. Film critic Rajeev Masand has labeled it (along with its sequel Company
Company (film)
Company is a 2002 Indian film directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Jaideep Sahni, starring Ajay Devgan, Mohanlal, Manisha Koirala, Vivek Oberoi,and Antara Mali. It is a fictional exposé of the Mumbai underworld, loosely based on the Indian mafia organization D-Company, known to be run by...

) one of the "most influential movies of the past ten years." The film marked the introduction of a new genre of film making, a variation of film noir that has been called Mumbai noir, of which he is the acknowledged master.

British director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...

 has cited Satya as an inspiration for his 2008 Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British epic romantic drama adventure film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup...

. Satyas "slick, often mesmerizing" portrayal of the Mumbai underworld
Indian mafia
The term Indian mafia refers to certain criminal organizations found in some of India's major cities. The "Indian Mafia" also refer to powerful families that have criminal aspects to it.- Mumbai underworld :...

, which included gritty and realistic "brutality and urban violence," directly influenced the portrayal of the Mumbai underworld in Slumdog Millionaire.

Satya has spawned countless imitations in Bollywood, some by Varma himself, but all are considered largely inferior.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film features music composed by Vishal Bhardwaj
Vishal Bhardwaj
Vishal Bhardwaj is an Indian film director, writer, screenwriter, music composer and playback singer.-Early life:Bhardwaj was born in Bijnor but raised in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh to Satya Bhardwaj, a homemaker, and Ram Bhardwaj, a popular poet and lyricist. His father was a government employee and...

 and lyrics written by Gulzar
Gulzar (lyricist)
Sampooran Singh Kalra , known popularly by his pen name Gulzar , is an Indian poet, lyricist and director. He primarily writes in Hindi-Urdu and has also written in Punjabi and several dialects of Hindi such as Braj Bhasha, Khariboli, Haryanvi and Marwari.Gulzar was awarded the Padma Bhushan in...

. Sandeep Chowta
Sandeep Chowta
Sandeep Chowta is an Indian Bollywood and Tollywood music director and head of Columbia Records in India. He has also sung some of his songs.In 2003, he produced an anti substance abuse documentary, titled Dead End, that was entered into numerous film festivals and was government acclaimed...

 created the background score for the film, as in most other Varma films.

Satya was the second hit soundtrack produced by the Gulzar-Bhardwaj collaboration, the previous one being Maachis
Maachis
Maachis is a 1996 Indian Hindi film directed by Gulzar and produced by R. V. Pandit. The title of the film is used as a metaphor that conveys that the youth of any nation are matchsticks that could get ignited due to the deficiencies in the political and policing systems...

. Planet Bollywood, giving it a 9.0 rating, said that while the music sounded and felt like that of Maachis it was "almost as good." The Music Magazine called Bhardwaj's score for Satya "a trifle short of outstanding". But it was Chowta's haunting background score that created waves and overshadowed the original score. The Hindu, commenting on the dying art of film scoring, mentioned Satya when it noted "interestingly (and hopefully) Indian films
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...

 are just making a start with original soundtracks: Sandeep Chowta's background score for Ram Gopal Varma's 'Satya'". And when Rediff.com announced that the background score had arrived in Hindi cinema, it said Satya had "set the standards for background score" and that the film's throbbing score "took the audience inside the mind of its characters. Every time a bullet was shot or there were close-ups of actors, one could hear the haunting score, which had a hallucinatory effect on the audience."

In an interview to Screen Weekly, Sandeep Chowta had this to say about background scores-

When asked why his score overshadowed the film's music, Chowta said that in spite of Bhardwaj's songs being "nice", they did not fit into the film.

In November 1998, the background score of the film was released as a separate album, Satya: The Sound
#composed by Sandeep Chowta
Sandeep Chowta
Sandeep Chowta is an Indian Bollywood and Tollywood music director and head of Columbia Records in India. He has also sung some of his songs.In 2003, he produced an anti substance abuse documentary, titled Dead End, that was entered into numerous film festivals and was government acclaimed...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK