Talking Cinema iv
The
elusive Mani Ratnam post Yuvva was
disillusioned by the Hindi film industry, he felt disheartened by the critics
and for the first time let his guards down and spoke from the heart. AR Rhman
the only music composer featured in the book and forever inaccessible was
interviewed standing in the lawns at the music release of Swades. It was a surreal moment and Rahman was at his spiritual
best.
Amitabh
Bachchan features as a subject in Anurag Kashyap’s story in Bombay Talkies celebrating 100 years of
cinema because it’s difficult excluding an actor who has contributed 44
significant years of a centenary in cinema. Yet in the year 2000 filmmakers
were unsure in what roles to cast the 58 year old superstar. He was too
charismatic to play ordinary father roles and too loved to be accepted as a
villain so it took many trials and errors for the audience and the camera to
figure out how the mega star will play his next innings. Some filmmakers surprisingly
still perceived him as a cop even if director Govind Nihalan’s Dev was diametrically different from
Rajkumar Santoshi’s Anant Srivastav in Khakee.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s conceived him as a teacher in Black a role he had played in his long career.
These
conversations reflect an era and a mindset. This was the pre-corporate and pre-
artiste manager phase, when promotions did not determine content and
entertainment was not marketing! When actors were not brands, when pace of life
and work was leisurely and cinema was about emotions not about 100 crores..!
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