One of the most exciting contemporary Indian filmmakers, Dibakar Banerjee in a no holds barred conversation on art,life,economics, new films and more. Caution: This isn’t about romancing the arts.
Why are you so sceptical about who your audience is and how they receive your films?
No, not at all! The fact that I don’t know my audience, why do you associate scepticism with it? It’s an honest admission, that doesn’t mean that I’m sceptical about it. I’m saying I don’t know what my audience is.
No, but at a literary meet, you spoke about the reception to Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, how some perceive it as only a comedy….
I just gave you an example, that doesn’t mean that thousands of other people haven’t come to me and said, oh they loved the film and have got each and every detail of it. But if I say I’m creating an audience, that is such a pompous statement to make. What do you mean that I’m creating an audience? It means nothing. I’m making a film and some people are watching it. And that’s about it; I don’t know who my audience is. I just hope to God that I’m making a film and somebody sees it, really. It’s got no scepticism at all.
You have made 4 very interesting films, very different in terms of content, and yet you think you haven’t created an audience base. Atleast that’s a lot of critics and a lot people say that you have…
I hope so, but when you ask me do I know the audience really well, I don’t. The person who sees Khosla ka Ghosla will not see Shanghai. The person who sees Shanghai will not see Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. There is a war going on the net between LSD groupies and Shanghai groupies, you know about that, right?
Hmm… recently Jaideep Sahni said that as a writer of Khosla, he felt that it was a very tragic film, full of irony but it worked because the audience could laugh with it. And then he took the example of Hori Mahato in Peepli Live, where he is continuously digging in and then he dies in that spot and then the audience laughs “aye dekh apna khud khodke mar gaya”, so probably the audience is not getting the deeply sinister black humour in these films but the films have still worked because of the humour, the perceived comic elements. The 100 crore club is a lot about belly laughter. So is comedy the road to success?
No! (laughs) Well, look at the biggest hits in the world, they aren’t comedies, including God Father and Jaws. I don’t think you can call Titanic a comedy at all (laughs). I don’t think Jaideep meant that, I know him very well. It’s one thing whether the audience is getting the cynicism and another whether comedy is the key to success. Sometimes the audiences get what you are saying and there are sometimes the audiences don’t get what you are saying. Sometimes the audience is laughing with the film, sometimes the audience is laughing at the film and sometimes the audience is laughing because it is embarrassed. It’s an embarrassed giggle because the audience has been stripped naked and when you are stripped naked, one way of saving face is an embarrassed giggle. So these are the 3-4 different kinds of laughters that ring out in the dark in a theatre when the film is playing and you need to know one from the other. That’s what you need to know mostly.
What’s your primary motive to make a film? Is it because you want to tell your story?
I don’t know. I think my primary motive to make films is fear of death.
You want to leave a body of work for the future…
Ya because if I die, what happens? Can you imagine when you are dead, do you know you’re dead? When you are dead, is there any awareness that I was alive once? I mean its lights out, right? So we try to keep certain lights on, hoping… I don’t know… God knows.
What do you make of filmmaker Q’s theory of being a film jockey? I mean I’m asking this question because even today when I see a Michael Haneke make Amour, I’m terribly excited about the power of the moving image. When I see Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, I’m deeply disturbed. So when he says that there are that many stories that have been already told and all the techniques have been exhausted, so he’s merely peddling with images…
Q is talking about the way he brings about his craft and his craft has got to be his craft as different from others. And to be himself, he has got to be not others, right? And to be not others, he has to actively prefer his own way of being, than other people’s way of being. That’s what he’s saying. He didn’t say that the other things were invalid or wrong, he said he has chosen this way over that way so that he can be himself. But you will quote this verbatim, right? (laughs)
Absolutely. But I want you elaborate on this idea further. How hopeful are you of the potency of the film medium?
That was his opinion!
I am talking about your hopes about the medium.
I never really thought about it. It’s like asking a carpenter how hopeful he is of the trees. I mean film making is my trade. I make films and I want to die making films, that’s about it!
Do you think it’s the middle-class who is the main consumer of cinema?
The kind of cinema I make and the kind of cinema many other urban elite directors like Q, me , Vishal, Anurag and all these people make, yes the urban middle classes are the main audience because today, the audience is defined by the city, the place where the film is released and where the director comes from. And there’s a collusion between— not an overt collusion— the studio producers and the media that prints about those films. So the directors, the makers, the actors who populate those films with the audiences, there’s a collusion; a class collusion. Lucky will not be seen by Bunty or Shanghai will not be seen by the truck drivers, I mean I’ve accepted that, I’m a part of that.
In case of Shanghai, the trade figures were released quite prematurely and this has become quite a norm, it seems, in the film industry. The film releases on a Friday and there’s a success party on a Sunday and that sort of kills a lot of films that could do really well. So what do you make of this?
(Pauses) You see, it happens everywhere. So why single out films?
Because I am talking to a filmmaker…
No… I’m a filmmaker but I don’t make films about films, I make films about life, so I’m a liver of life first. So when you see everywhere, the big, the blunt, the bossy, the blustery thing wins. And it wins because the big, blustery, bossy thing is bossing about and blustering the media because the media survives on the advertising money and other such funds that the big, bossy, blustery things bring about onto the media. It’s only natural that the media will to a large extent do what the big, blustery bossy things want it to do. To cry as if you are surprised about it is to be really naïve and the question is not why this happens, the question is why are they believed? Where are people’s brains? You expect me to have a logical, intelligent conversation with you on an elevator and at the same time you are telling me that you actually believe what the newspapers print. Forget films, film is nothing, film doesn’t constitute anything about any important stuff of life. Do we really read what’s happening in the country? And do you really believe what’s printed is what has happened? Not prompted? So that’s it. To ask this question is to accept that I am naïve and I want to be naïve and I will perpetuate that naivety by asking naïve questions.
But when the audience doesn’t even have access to information, what does one do? I mean a lot of information cannot even trickle down?
Why the f#$k does the audience need to know how many crores a film has made?
But I’m not talking just about films, it could be news as well. It could be extremities in Assam, it could be Kashmir…
You know the map of India, you know that Assam exists and you know there was a lot of unrest there 5 years back and now you logicalize and say that last 5years has seen nothing about Assam in the newspaper. Has everything gone quiet? Has everything gone ok? Let’s find out. Where’s the internet? There are still some newspapers and publications which print the truth. Seek them out!
How many people have access to the internet in India?
Well, I’m starting with the people who have access to internet, baby. Even if they access the internet, that will be a big change! Coming back to films; why does the audience need to know how much does a film make? The audience should talk about whether they liked the film or not?
These are very difficult times when films get rejected by critics on a Friday night…
That I agree with you. I think criticisms should come out on a Monday morning. I have said this to every editor I have met, that film write ups should come out on a Monday morning. I completely agree with you on this. If I was the President of India, I would change that. Criticisms should come out on a Monday- good, bad, ugly everything.
Primarily it’s an urban audience who watches your film and a lot of single theatres have shut down. It’s the multiplex era probably and a 100 crore film like Rowdy Rathore does well in the city and it’s the urban middle class again who is patronising such films. So what do you make of that? What do you make of the change in audience preference? Do you think it is always been the case?
It’s always been the case. Rowdy Rathore was a Bollywood blockbuster with a big Bollywood star, so even I would like to go and see if I can, if I have the time. That doesn’t stop the alternative films to survive because alternative films always survived on scraps. The scraps are always left over in the big boys’ league. In fact it’s better now, than what it was 10 years ago. I’m not complaining. It’s because films like Rowdy Rathore make money that studios have the money to fund filmmakers like me. I hope Rowdy Rathore makes 500 crores. I will have that much of a multiplier for my budget.
Tell us something about the Yash Raj deal. Was that a kneejerk reaction to the raw deal that Shanghai got?
Not at all. I don’t know if you know, Shanghai was made at a budget of 12 crores and the theatrical and the satellite and everything comes to about 30 crores. If you remember, critically it has been my biggest success, across board. I wasn’t expecting that at all.
Why was that?
I just had a feeling that perhaps the film will suddenly unsettle a lot of people, because it was again, a direct hit, an assault at what we the Indian middle class think to be true and it’s not true. Coming back to Yash Raj, I’m again making the same kind of films and I’m making what I want to make. I’ve worked with UTV, I’ve worked with PVR, I’ve worked with Balaji, who’s left? And I like working with all of them. It’s an education process.
So what’s the deal with Yash Raj like? You are directing the first 2 films?
Kanu (Behl) is directing the first film which I’m producing and the other 2 films I’m producing and directing and it’s a co-production with Yash Raj.
Yash Raj, even if it makes a film on terrorism it’s an Ek Tha Tiger or New York. So what about creative differences with Aditya Chopra?
When Adi and I met, our first premise was that Adi does not have the time to get into other people’s films. Adi is a studio head and as a studio head he’s trying to expand and work out profitable and laudable collaborations with very different production houses. One of them is DBP, not me, my company and that is why we have come together. And DBP and YRF could produce a film by Dibakar Banerjee or Kanu Behl or someone else that it feels like. It’s got nothing to do with any creative voice, it’s a business collaboration which is based on widening your aesthetic base purely as a business strategic decision.
For every Dibakar Banerjee who gets studio backing and makes his kind of cinema, there are many other films like B.A.Pass, Gattu, Miss Lovely that fail to get proper mainstream releases. What would you suggest? What’s the way to negotiate through?
Make another film.
And not get it released?
No… beg, borrow, steal, and make another film. It may get released. Do you know that Khosla almost did not get released? I’m not here because I’m doing something special. I’m here by luck. Khosla Ka Ghosla wasn’t released for almost 2 years. Then something happened, UTV had a change of mind and it just got picked up. The film was the same, it hadn’t changed in 2 years. UTV picked up the film and it got released and it did well like many other films which did well. So it’s pure luck that I’m here. You just have to go and make another film. Do you know I was planning another film? There was a time when we knew for certain that Khosla will never get released and I was getting fledgling offers at a much lower price for another film by another producer and I was about to sign that film on. Just that time, it got released.
And the film you were planning, did that become Oye Lucky Lucky Oye?
No… no.
Do you revisit your films?
No, not at all
Shanghai was a very dark film, but do you think its ending was slightly rushed?
I’ll know about it 2- 3 years later. I have barely begun to get the handle on Oye Lucy Lucky Oye , I haven’t even seen LSD. I have barely begun to get a handle on what was right and what was wrong in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye.
What was wrong?
It was 20 minutes too long. I know exactly where to cut. That’s when you know.
Tell me something about your influences in terms of filmmakers? Kundan Shah’s black humour?
Of course. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron was a seminal film. I saw it in the hall when I was 9 years old, then I watched it again on video. In Indian films, the films that have viscerally hit me were Ketan Mehta’s early films like Bhavni Bhavai, Mirch Masala, Holi; and Shyam Benegal’s Junoon, Manthan, Kalyug and some selected Satyajit Ray films when I was a kid. Now I like all Ray films because I study them, what affected me back then from 8-10 to about 14 were Pather Panchali,Devi, Pratidwandi. I mean in Pratidwandi you see a very different Ray, completely charged with that anger of the early 70’s and nobody comments about that change. He was not static, he was moving, so it just hit me.
Then I grew up with The Bandit Queen, Maqbool, Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi, Parinda, and many such films.
What about films outside of India?
Outside of India, Scorsese and Kubrick, two of the leading lights. After that William Friedkin (The French Connection) , Bertolucci- huge influence,Matteo Garrone who directed Gomorrah , Bong Joon-ho the guy who directed Memories of Murder. There are many…
Tell me something about Bombay Talkies (a series of shorts, the others being directed by Anurag Kashyap,Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar).
I just finished shooting with Nawaz (Nawazuddin Siddique). It’s based on a Satyajit Ray short story, Patalbabu Filmstar (about a struggling actor who finally lands a film role but the character requires him to speak just one word). I had a lovely time shooting. It started with a Satyajit Ray but it’s based in and around Bombay. I’ve shot it in the world around me, I’ve shot it in my house, in my society, I’ve shot it on the roads, I’ve shot it in the chawls. It’s made at a micro budget, parts of it were shot with a crew of 12 or 13 people. It’s going down back to the basics, completely forgetting the hubris about filmmaking. All the directors are coming out of the woodwork and doing great work.
You are also planning to film Bomkesh (a popular sleuth in Bengali literature)…
Well, at some point of time, yes. The research is already on.
So what’s next?
I don’t know, just figuring out between 2 and 3 different ideas because I am very busy producing Kanu’s film and finishing this short film and then I’ll know.
Who are your all-time favourite authors?
In English, there are too many but John Updike comes close. I really like him, if I were gay I would have fallen in love with him and it’s such a limited answer, there are so many names. In Bangla there are so many works I like. Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay is a big favourite. Of course, Sunil, Samaresh Bosu, Sanjeeb Chattopadhyay . I learnt Bengali from Sishur Sahitya, Kishore Sahitya.Everything from Shibram Chakrabarty to Premendra Mitra to Narayan Gangopadhyay and Satyajit Ray. Satyajit Ray told me and taught me how language can be used like currency. I mean the books that he wrote, the language that Topshe uses to describe the world told me that Bangla can be written in such a way that also that exactly replicates the patois of the urban middle class Calcutta Bengali, it brought the world alive, because I had never seen Calcutta.
After the Delhi rape incident happened, a lot of people are talking about the impact of Hindi Cinema on the masses and how it commodifies women, completely dehumanises her specially in terms of camera angles , item number and all of that. What do you make of it?
Any art form that is essentially informed by the male gaze will objectify a woman. To argue otherwise will be naïve. However that’s not the end, that’s not all, the picture doesn’t finish there. I can see an item number and, let us say, have got excited by the view of a naked woman and for a while I have enjoyed it. It has never moved me to rape and it has never led me to violate women. I’m not only talking about me, I know many people who while enjoying something will not be moved to rape or violation. To discuss patriarchy and male gaze is one thing, but to mix it with the issue of absolute blatant random violence being inflicted on someone who cannot protect herself; these 2 issues have to be separated, otherwise every time we will get involved in a chain that never ends. Of course you need to eradicate patriarchy, of course you need to demolish the male gaze but can you really eradicate patriarchy without eradicating feudalism? So now you have totally gone into a different zone. How long will you argue that issue out? You have to argue with the restricted issue to begin with, to even start solving bigger issues. You have to start discussion on restricted issues of why can someone be driven to such kind of violence against a child and against a woman? Why?
To lay it on films and objectification is to answer it partly and thereby saying that I have answered the whole. I’m not saying that a part answer is wrong but to say that the part answer is the whole answer is blatantly wrong. We really need to ask a lot more questions. Perhaps a convenient question and a convenient answer helps us alleviate our feeling of guilt, but the fact is to really take care of the guilt and to atone for it, we need to ask at least 20 more questions which are lying outside the realm of films and then only we can begin to understand the problem, that’s what I believe.
