PART-2: THE REAL PLAYERS
While I am writing this, Vijay Tendulkar is lying dead in Pune, a great loss for Indian dramatic writing. An eccentric genius, Tendulkar was known for his rare insight into human nature, his courage of conviction and unconventional portrayal of characters. Ghasiram Kotwal (controversial for its portrayal of marathi hero Nana Phadanwis as a lecher) & Sakharam Binder (banned for obscenity) remained great pieces of fearless dramatic writing which shall inspire many a generations of writers to dare look beyond the obvious & cultural stereotypes. I offer my sincere condolences to the departed genius.
Coming back to the question I raised in my earlier post…
So you luckily clear your way up to the next level of hierarchy after realizing that the members of the club comprising of Ghosts from the Christmas Past are no longer the real players in the biz.
Then who are the real players? You search around and spot the filmmakers announcing almost one new film a week in the trade papers.
They have the moolah, the stars, and the proverbial reigns of the industry-wagon and thus you believe that they will surely have the guts to venture into the unknown, to try something really path-breaking.
Lucky enough for me that soon I got introduced to this suave, stylist, ‘Shiva’ among the filmmakers, a God Father for many a debutants, who was trying to introduce the notion of ‘factory-consistency’ to the art of film making.
Something fresh was happening there, at least hoards of struggling actors and technicians gathered for a glimpse of the man outside his office compound thought so. I was given a story idea about a haunted house built on a graveyard where a writer along with his doctor wife and a 5 year old son comes to stay. It was strange but the great man with 12 films on role at that time, had 7 of them based on ideas about the bhais (the underworld stories) and rest on bhoots (the horror ones).
Anyway I developed a draft which the great man approved in one go. He used to be very clear about what he wanted in his films. Then the great man struck one of his many multi-crore deals with some corporate honcho and in order to put the corporate money at some good use, he suddenly decided to raise the quality of all his productions which was by introducing or increasing sfx, gfx (special effects etc.) things in all his films… irrespective of their necessity in the script.
So, I was summoned back at the factory for another round of narration. This time the great man found the screenplay less exciting. In his typical laconic style he briefed me, “there should be a moment every 7 minute of the film which should shit scare the audience… something which should make them pee in their pants.” When I tried to reason him quoting the basic logic of the story and natural flow of the screenplay, comes a classic reply from the great man, “fuck the logic… fuck the screenplay… do as I told you to do…”
That turned to be my last meeting with him. The great man last heard is still trying to figure out, what the fuck does ‘content’ means in context to cinema.
My familiarity with some of the ghosts from the Christmas past paid and soon I got introduced to another big player, another factory owner, who had no pretensions of being a great or an ethical man. I found him a normal, down-to-earth, cool chap who should be in the Guinness Book for having the largest collection of pirated DVDs at home.
He had smartly placed on his desk, a colored print out of some reader’s comment at some filmi site on the net where the person has compared our DVD collector with Quintin Tarantino for his excellent rip off of Reservoir Dogs into probably his all time favorite Hindi flick. This way I thought, our DVD collector should be compared with Oliver Stone too for his rip off of U-Turn and with that great Korean director of Old Boy and so by the time he’ll end his career he must be hailed as the greatest director of the world… mind boggling career plan.
Anyway I met him to narrate an ‘original’ screenplay of mine. The man listened very patiently with a perpetual stressed out look on his face. I thought it must be because of my bad narration. But I hadn’t laughed this mad the way I laughed later, on the innocent reply the man gave after I finished narrating my script. He asked me, “Who’ll visualize it?”
I was jolted by his response initially and replied, “the director of course!” He continued, “ya… but…I don’t see any references to this script of yours! Why don’t you watch this film (he handed me over a DVD) and tell me what you think about it?”
But the million dollars worth learning experience was that expression of fear on the face of a young film maker on hearing an original screenplay. That meeting really taught me something valuable and that was, changes doesn’t happen over night… for centuries old mindsets to change- collective efforts should be done in right direction… no individual can induce even a dent in the system until he/she is backed by popular support, the lifeline of entertainment industry.
‘With huge money & huge mass support comes huge responsibility, Sir’, one young and happening film maker once told me to support his argument that a remake of a tried & tested subject is any day safer than a No Smoking (an unsuccessful experiment done by Anurag Kashyap) or a Dharam (Bharati Talwar’s critically acclaimed film which didn’t raked in much money at the B.O.).
I couldn’t agree less on that with that film maker. Who wants to experiment irresponsibly on other people’s money? But its business of entertainment my friend, you can’t blindly apply logic learned at MBA courses here. It’s not the money but the story which rules the roost here, money only follows. Huge responsibility means, responsibility to cater fresh stories with fresh approach which should cater to the entertainment needs of the contemporary society. If only they had time and patience to listen.
(To be continued.)
Vishal
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