Sanjay Leela Bhansali is “absolutely fine,” says official statement after heart attack rumours

Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali is “absolutely fine,” his team confirmed, putting to rest speculation about his health that surfaced earlier in the day. Reports had claimed that the director was hospitalised in Mumbai after allegedly suffering a heart attack on his 63rd birthday. The claims circulated widely on social media before being addressed by an official statement from his production banner, Bhansali Productions. “Mr. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is doing absolutely fine. He has gone in for a routine medical check-up and there is no cause for concern. We sincerely appreciate the love, care, and concern shown by everyone. Thank you for your continued support and warm wishes,” the statement read. The clarification comes after unverified posts suggested that the filmmaker had been rushed to a hospital following discomfort. However, his team has categorically denied the reports, confirming that the visit was part of a regular health check. Speaking of the professional front, Bhansali i...

Tod Browning: the film-maker who brought the carnival to Hollywood

A new retrospective offers another chance to appreciate the daring and often deranged films made by a director who was once the centre of a moral panic

When a kid threatens to run away and join the circus, perhaps upon being forced to eat broccoli or go to bed, they’re fantasizing about more than just independence. The traveling carnival offered an alternative way of life that appealed specifically to those uninvested in the politenesses of the grownup world. No one can make a carny shower, wear a tie or go to church. This liberation from the strictures of civilized society was a must for an ethically spotty line of work reliant on a mix of trickery, hucksterism, prurience and morbid fascination, a low art form that attracted a certain kind of scuzzy personality. The tents of the sideshow provided a home to thieves, oddballs, creeps, chiselers, dope fiends, conmen, women of ill repute, leches, lushes and any other species of degenerate in need of a paycheck. If vaudevillians were the rock stars of the pre-cinema era, then circus folk were van-dweller punks cutting a swath of blithe misbehavior from gig to gig.

Just before the turn of the 20th century, at the ripe age of 16, a bricklayer’s son named Charles Albert Browning Jr decided that these were his people and abandoned his well-heeled family to join their grubby ranks. He would spend 10 years cutting his teeth as a barker, song-and-dance man, clown and contortionist before rechristening himself Tod, the German word for “death”, conferring a ghastly gravitas. Three years later, he’d take leave of the stage with sights set on the burgeoning silent film industry, but he’d carry the lurid spirit of the big top with him through the rest of an illustrious, disreputable career.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/9qY4SBx
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Miracle Club review – Maggie Smith can’t save this rocky road trip to Lourdes

BREAKING: Interstellar back in cinemas due to public demand; Dune: Part Two to also re-release on March 14 in IMAX

‘I lost a friend of almost 40 years’: Nancy Meyers pays tribute to Diane Keaton