We changed Sholay's climax because of CBFC: Ramesh Sippy

Filmmaker Ramesh Sippy was not happy with the way his magnum opus "Sholay" ended as he had to re-shoot the climax after the censor board objected to the violence in the original scene.

Taking part in a debate on the use of cuss words and onscreen violence in cinema, Sippy agreed that filmmakers have a responsibility while portraying violence in films but said he was not happy to re-shoot the ending of his 1975 film.

"Many of us are not aware of the fact that Sholay's climax was actually suggested by CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) because they found it too violent to show it onscreen. I had to re-shoot the whole scene and made it the way they wanted it to be. But as a filmmaker, I was not satisfied with the end," the 66-year-old Sippy said.

"I had to call Sanjeev Kumar again who was in Russia for a film festival. We had to re-shoot the whole scene in Bangalore," he added.

The final scene of the movie shows Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) being taken in custody by police after Thakur (Kumar) beats him black and blue.

Sippy said he was not "creatively satisfied" as every other film had the same ending where a cop showed up at the last minute.

"When we filmmakers present something beautiful, we show it in the best light but when it comes to the show the other side of the life then why they knock it down. We are not teachers, we are the entertainers," he said on the sidelines of Centenary Film Festival here.

Along with Sippy, the discussion was also attended by director-producer Vishal Bhardwaj. 

Bhardwaj, almost all of whose films have bagged A-certificate, said violent scenes should be stylised to lessen their impact.

"Although I got A-certificate for 'Kaminey', but my climax was not chopped off by the CBFC. When we shot the sequence, we introduced a song penned by Gulzaar Saab. The song mellowed down the violence," he said.

Bhardwaj feels that people have problem with cuss words in his films because they are used by mainstream actors.

"People have problem with cuss words used in 'Omkara' and 'Kaminey' because the protagonists in these films were mainstream actors. Had it been used by some actors from NSD, they would have never raised objection to it. I used those words in my film because these were the terms used in their colloquial language," he said.

Both the filmmakers wanted CBFC to spare them from issuing disclaimers in every smoking and drinking scenes in a film. "We hope that we get rid of issuing disclaimer while there is a smoking scene because they are really irritating and hamper our craft," Bhardwaj said.