Amitabh Bachchan in conversation with Imtiaz Ali, Rohit Shetty and Shoojit Sircar discussing Indian cinema Kal, Aaj aur Kal and much more. Team Box Office India was all ears
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BOI: What are your thoughts on the state of the Hindi film industry? Now, even high-content films are becoming blockbusters. What is your take on where we stand today?
Amitabh Bachchan (AB): It’s a very healthy time in our industry, where content is becoming more and more independent of ‘escapist cinema’, which is what we are usually associated with. For an industry that has always been growing, this bodes well for us.
There is always a feeling among distributors and others that “hamari dukaan band ho gayi”… yes distributors do suffer, when a film does not live up to the expectations of the price that they paid for it. But there have been instances of distributors being compensated too by producers, when there have been losses, or a compromise reached in their next purchase.
But the statistics show steady growth despite financial crises elsewhere in the world or even within the country. I have always believed that movies and the film industry in general, are recession-free. When you can’t buy white goods and you can’t buy cars or a house, you go and watch a movie.
Imtiaz Ali (IA): Sir, has the pattern always been like this or do you see a change?
AB: No, I have never noticed any appreciable change. I think creatively, any one of us can come up with an idea. It’s how you package it, how you sell it, how you make it big, and how people take to it that matters. There are so many stories of people going up or coming down, it’s all a part of the trade, all a part of our business.
IA: Do you think cinema has moved on?Image may be NSFW.
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AB: Oh yes! Incredibly! I only lament that I was not born in this day and age. Today, the talent you see among filmmakers, among artistes, is phenomenal. With their very first effort, they are perfect. We are still trying to learn how to give a close-up but they are so good and they are growing so well. And you three directors are wonderful examples of this.
Having said this, one can never ever ignore or forget the genius of and the contributions made by, some of the phenomenal iconic makers of the past.
IA: So would you pass up veteran filmmakers for us?
AB: (Laughs) No. I think the economics has always worked in favour of the ones who have been prominent. So if one has delivered many hits, his status goes up and you look up to him. You say, ‘I think he must have done something right and, due to this, people are always watching their work, whether Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra or Salim-Javed or Hrishikesh Mukherjee’, who, incidentally always walked the middle path and experienced success… not as big as the others but still successful and very popular. Hrishida’s Anand was big on popularity.
IA: Yes, we grew up on those films.
AB: Yes, huge popularity. And we have been growing all along. It is very heartening to see that, after every five or 10 years, someone new comes along and brings out something fresh. All three of you have done exactly that.
Shoojit Sircar (SS): Sir, there has always been a debate on our cinema andImage may be NSFW.
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world cinema since our cinema is very different. You have worked on The Great Gatsby, which has a great cast and a great set of technicians, and you have worked with us as well. Do you have any suggestions for us?
AB: Technologically, the filmmaking process is no different. There is a camera, an artiste and a script. It’s the preparation and the process of coming to the point of filming that is just immaculate. This could be happening for two reasons, because of the enormous amounts of funds they have in the West. The Great Gatsby had a budget of $ 150 million. That’s enormous. We can make 400 films on that budget!
They also concentrate on one film at a time. This is purely conjecture but I guess, if one of us had that kind of budget, we too could exert that kind of concentration and preparation. Somewhere, Baz Luhrman knew he had $ 150 million and the film he was making would earn $ 500 million. He was to make $ 100 million, so he didn’t mind spending four years of his life on one single project.
And their preparation period is so immaculate, it was hard to believe. I just had a one-minute role but it was alarming for me to be asked, four months before the actual shooting, to go there and do some readings, meet some people and meet the co-artistes. I couldn’t go because of my schedule and so they called me a week before. And for six days, we just sat and talked for this one scene which was just a minute long. All the other artistes, Leonardo (D’Caprio), Tobey Mcguire, they are all massive stars there but they came every day and we sat in Baz Luhrman’s drawing room, and just talked, just to get to know each other. And we read that one scene together, that 45-second scene, about ten times over.
And then you break and you move to the studio. He has this cottage inside Fox Studios and it’s decorated with posters, pictures of 1920s New York, and the kind of faces you would have seen back then, which are almost akin to the characters we were going to be playing. And he doesn’t entertain any other kind of talk. If you tell him, ‘You know, Australia is damn good in cricket,’ he will shut you up. He only wanted to hear about Gatsby, about the book, about the environment during the 1920s, that’s it.
You know, hamare yahan ek custom hota hai, jab naye naye kisi ke ghar jaate hain toh gift leke jaate hain. So I took along a small memento, he would accept it and set it aside and say, ‘Yeah, so where were we?’, and get back to the talk on the film. His detailing is impossible to match. Joel, who played the husband… in the book there is just a fleeting reference, just a second, that he was a member of a club called Skull & Bones, a very elitist club. So, in this restaurant scene, a speak easy joint, when I move over, he comes over and takes me aside and tells me, ‘You know, Amitabh, look at my jacket.’ The lining of his jacket has the emblem of the club which had a one-line mention in the book. So when you put someone in that kind of environment, it is impossible not to feel acclimatised with what you’re doing when you’re saying your lines.
The dance troupe, in the scene, was something just happening in the background. The camera pans across some musicians and some people dancing, but they took three months to prepare for that scene. They showed everyone what instruments they were going to play and what steps they would dance. And on the day of the shoot, he said, ‘Everybody just sit down.’ And we watched them perform about five times just so you wouldn’t get surprised when the cameras started to roll. This is the kind of preparation they do.
So, for Rohit’s (Shetty) recent film, if he were to practice similar preparations, he would probably send the entire team to live in Tamil Nadu for a year. Or, Shoojit, for your film, to research the whole history of Sri Lanka. Or for one of your films, Imtiaz, they would just get into that area. It’s remarkable!
Rohit Shetty (RS): If we had massive budgets like theirs, do you think it would have made a difference to the quality of our cinema?
AB: There are two things here. They are playing to an audience which is perhaps more educated. We have to cater to an audience which is very vastly different. We also have a very diverse audience here. Hindi cinema is more universal. It has to cater to all regions. We say, ‘Let’s put in something for the South, or something for the East, or West or North.’ We keep adding sentiments because we want to make it universal. Then the graph suddenly rises when Karan (Johar) and Shah Rukh (Khan) start making films that are slightly more overseas-centric… And look what happened, a whole new overseas territory opened up.
So, to answer your question about comparisons with the West, Shoojit, I feel we have not changed; they have changed in their attitude towards us. They were very cynical. In the ’70s, when I used to go abroad, they were most critical, almost treating our cinema as nothing serious, or perhaps to be laughed upon. They still joke, and this horrible word (Bollywood) that has been coined for our industry has come from there. And it’s got nothing to do with plagiarism or that the city’s name starts with the letter ‘B’.
IA: And, oddly enough, we use that word all the time, without knowing it was coined as an insult.
AB: I never use it because it’s used as an insult or a joke. It’s not used because our city starts with ‘B’; not any more though. And why should we rhyme our industry’s name with theirs? Sometimes, the media says, ‘But, sir, most of your movies are copied from theirs.’ Well if you get into that argument, there will be many things to talk about. Like about our Police Code, or our Parliamentary function, which as you know runs on the pattern of Westminister principles of the United Kingdom. Our Police Code dates back to the British era, when it was a Police State. We are now an Independent nation, but some of our Police laws are still pre independence time. We are an independent democratic nation, but some of those laws still persist.
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SS: Sir, from your experience in Hollywood, did you notice any actor-director relationship? There is resurgence of corporate culture here, focused groups, test screenings of films, etc. Sometimes, a director like me gets agitated about these things. I mean, corporate studios have set their own rules. And this actor-director relationship exists alongside. Did the whole corporate culture come into play when you worked with a director?
AB: Fortunately or unfortunately, I have never had occasion to be in direct contact with a producer. I feel I must listen to the story when a director comes to me with a story and I follow what he tells me. For me, he is the captain of the ship. I don’t know anything about marketing; I don’t know the financial aspect. So I just follow the director. Now, though everyone tells me I ought to know about these aspects.
The younger generation is equipped with knowledge about everything… how distribution works, how finances work, how to go about marketing, how to track collections, promotions… they are well-equipped and I envy them. Everyone is so financially savvy; I was never like that.