Mughal-e-Azam is the culmination of a dream, of a man possessed to make this movie - K Asif. (He made only one other completed movie) He spared no costs to produce this period drama.
For instance, the grandeur of a set for the "Sheesh Mahal" (i.e. the palace of mirrors) appears for only a few seconds in the final print, meant a lots of peculiar challenges for the cameras and lighting, it cost a fortune, but K Asif still used it.
R D Mathur's cinematography is brilliant. He used 8 cameras simultaneously, for filming the battle scenes, which are surprisingly realistic for a 1950s Bollywood movie. The close-ups of the romantic scenes are also done very well.
Dilip Kumar and Madhubala's performances and their on-screen chemistry are great. Especially if you consider the fact that they had a break-up in real life, and Dilip Kumar appeared as a witness against Madhubala in a court case!
Performances by Prithviraj Kapoor and Durga Khote might appear a bit too dramatic and overdone.
The dialogues of this movie are very poetic and crisp. (I am not sure if translations and sub-titles could do proper justice to them)
Western audiences would find this film a bit long, and then it has that compulsory ingredient of any bollywood movie - the songs. (Which are good if you understand the language and the poetry)
This is not to say that film doesn't have its flaws - to show Akbar as a compassionate king and to have a "happy ending" Asif changed the popular legend by letting Anarkali escape through the false bottom of the wall that opens out into a tunnel unknown to Salim. This defies the internal logic of the tragic love story.
But then even Ben Hur had that car in the chariot race!
For instance, the grandeur of a set for the "Sheesh Mahal" (i.e. the palace of mirrors) appears for only a few seconds in the final print, meant a lots of peculiar challenges for the cameras and lighting, it cost a fortune, but K Asif still used it.
R D Mathur's cinematography is brilliant. He used 8 cameras simultaneously, for filming the battle scenes, which are surprisingly realistic for a 1950s Bollywood movie. The close-ups of the romantic scenes are also done very well.
Dilip Kumar and Madhubala's performances and their on-screen chemistry are great. Especially if you consider the fact that they had a break-up in real life, and Dilip Kumar appeared as a witness against Madhubala in a court case!
Performances by Prithviraj Kapoor and Durga Khote might appear a bit too dramatic and overdone.
The dialogues of this movie are very poetic and crisp. (I am not sure if translations and sub-titles could do proper justice to them)
Western audiences would find this film a bit long, and then it has that compulsory ingredient of any bollywood movie - the songs. (Which are good if you understand the language and the poetry)
This is not to say that film doesn't have its flaws - to show Akbar as a compassionate king and to have a "happy ending" Asif changed the popular legend by letting Anarkali escape through the false bottom of the wall that opens out into a tunnel unknown to Salim. This defies the internal logic of the tragic love story.
But then even Ben Hur had that car in the chariot race!