Being Vidhu V Chopra: He's back

It’s close to midnight and finishing touches are being put on what may be one of the biggest film premiers in recent times. The film is Eklavya and with it Vidhu Vinod Chopra returns as director after a seven-year gap.

The voluble filmmaker is visibly excited about his lavishly mounted film with a multi star-cast - just a statement of the clout Chopra wears today.

Anuradha SenGupta: With just a day before the premier of Eklavya, this place is looking like something else. Isn’t this an unusually grander scale for a film premier?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Frankly, even I’m not very familiar with Indian film premiers. I’m doing what I believe this deserves.

Anuradha SenGupta: Is it partly because there is a sense of celebration for you? Perhaps since you are returning as a director with this film?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: The celebration is because we believe we have made a very good film, not really for me returning as a director after seven years.

Anuradha SenGupta: You have been saying that Eklavya is your best film till date. You said something similar when you made 1942 A love Story, isn’t it?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: 1942 A love Story was perhaps the best musical that I have done. I never said it was the best film, but its music was certainly the best. Though I faced a lot of problem from the film bodies during its making. I faced huge problem while shooting the second half of the film. I stand by its music, which is wonderful. But when it comes to Eklavya, I stand by the whole movie and it is certainly my best film so far.

Anuradha SenGupta: Can you really be that objective as the person who has made this film? Can you have this sort of outer body experience where you step out and say, “Yes, this is the best film that I have made till today.”

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I had finished this film much before Lage Raho Munnabhai. This film was ready in the month of May last year. I waited till the release of Lago Raho… and then decided to come out with Eklavya.

Anuradha SenGupta: What was the reason behind this step?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Lage Raho Munnabhai was a difficult film from marketing perspective. We had Mahatma Gandhi in the film and we didn’t want people to know about it beforehand.

When it came to Eklavya, for almost six-months, we were working on making proper skies for the film. The actual print got ready only few days before the release of the film, which I saw without subtitles. I have seen it a couple of times. Apart from it being my best work, it is perhaps also the best work of Mr Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Bomani Irani, Vidya Balan and almost the entire star cast.

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All of them have done so well, that it can be said it is one of their best performances till date.

Anuradha SenGupta:In the present generation of filmmakers, is there a fascination to work with Amitabh Bachchan? Did you ever say to yourself, “I can bring out the best in him?”

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Mr Bachchan is a great actor. I discovered him when I made this film. He is almost like a kid. In fact I became a kid while shooting with him. We were really like two kids shooting for this film. We were screaming at each other and having fun while making this film.

I may be wrong in saying so, and Bachchan can kick my ass if I am wrong, I feel that because he fell sick some time back—somewhere in his mind, he feels that he doesn’t have too much time.

He is such an excellent actor. One tends to push things for tomorrow, thinking that “I will do this tomorrow, next month or next year may be.”

And here you realise, this is the last stage of your life, or perhaps it’s the last month that you have. What do you do then? You stop thinking and you do it today, what you were pushing for tomorrow.

I think somewhere, Amitabh perhaps went into that mode where he said, “You know what? I am a great actor and I need to act. Everything else is rubbish.”

Somewhere, perhaps because I’m undiplomatic and I’m not as “civilized”, I probed that in him. There are a couple of things that have been set like commandments for a filmmaker: “Thou shall entertain without selling your soul; “make a movie as if it was your last, because it easily could be you last.” These are a few critical things.

Eklavya is ready and if I were to die next week, I would go happily with no qualms.

Anuradha SenGupta:What I find really refreshing about the Hindi film industry, based on my limited interactions with the people in this fraternity, is that modesty and humility seems to be the language that is generally couched upon. I love the fact that you have let it go.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: It may be because I have come from a small town in Srinagar. I am a villager basically. I didn’t grow up to hide my feelings or to say one thing while I mean another. We have so little time on this earth that we must save every moment by just being ourselves.

Anuradha SenGupta:Eklavya is all of two-hours duration. How did you manage that? I must congratulate you.

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Vidhu Vinod Chopra: The film is five minutes less than two hours. I cannot myself see Hindi films that are more than two-hours. You leave home, go to the theatre and by the time you go back to the house you have already spent almost five hours. That’s too much. I think a film should ideally last two-hours.

Anuradha SenGupta:“Thou shall entertain without selling your soul,” isn’t that walking a tight rope?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Its not like that for me.

Anuradha SenGupta:You have also done a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde thing as a producer and a director. I think that a producer and a director really have to be almost like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, isn’t it?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: You have a very wrong notion of a producer and a director or may be you have a very right notion of a producer in your head. The job of a producer is to make money. But my job, when I produce is not to make money. I want to make a movie and the best way that it can be made. Whether it be Lage Raho Munnabhai, Parineeta or Eklavya—I am not a producer by desire.

I am a producer, because no body will produce Lage Raho Munnabhai, because nobody would produce Eklavya except me. You tell one tell producer in this country who will spend so many crores on a film that lasts less than two-hours. Do you think anybody will do it? He will find it crazy.

When Bachchan realised in Devigarh that the film is worth Rs 105 crore, his jaw dropped. I told him, I don’t need more than two-hours to tell my story.

You and me are talking and beyond a point we will get bored of each other. Imagine if you were to talk for three days? We will just die of boredom.

Anuradha SenGupta:There is this one man— Abhijat Joshi —whose name comes up in almost each of your recent movies. Who is this man?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: He is the guy who has worked with me for the past 15-20 years. He was a professor earlier and now he is a part of our team. A lot of people have started noticing him after Lage Rao Munnabhai. It’s teamwork, really.

A lot of people started noticing Joshi after Lage Raho Munnabhai. He is as much a part of the team as Raj Kumar Hirani is. He is one of us and he knows how to write well.

Anuradha SenGupta:When does a team of creative people becomes a camp? Film industry today is known for its various camps and allegiances that people pay to them.

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Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Let me tell you, this morning I offered a film to Shah Rukh Khan and the only reason I offered Shah Rukh is because I don’t believe in camps. I only believe in the camp of good cinema, from Parinda to Parineeta to Lage Raho Munnabhai. I think anybody who believes in camp is a small man with a big ego.

Anuradha SenGupta:Do you have to actively work to prevent from being seen as a camp?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Let me tell you clearly. There are good people, and then there are not so good people. For me I will any day work with people who I believe are good. Till the time, this team of good people, like Abhijat Joshi, Raju Hirani works together, its great. The moment they start looking at themselves like a camp, it becomes destruction of creative talent.

Anuradha SenGupta:You mentioned some of the films that you produced in the last 5-6 years and they have all been on a winning streak. Do you think you have finally struck a balance?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I have always been an entertainment oriented director. My first film at the film school was a film called Murder at Money Hill which actually was dedicated to a Bombay film financer.

Anuradha SenGupta:The time you went to FTII, it was not about celebrating popular cinema. In fact some of your contemporaries are one of the finest editors we have had—your former wife Renu Saluja, Sudhir Mishra, Ketan Mehta, Kundan Shah. Are you saying that your philosophy about cinema is different from theirs?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I would like to correct a couple of things. Sudhir Mishra is not my colleague, but he was my assistant. I trained him for eight years like I trained Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Secondly, I react to the so-called art “boring” cinema, a little differently. I never wore a Khadi Kurta and I never carried that typical bag. In reaction, I used to wear a silk scarf in Devanand style.

Just because you talk softly, you don’t become a genius. And I am not running anybody down. I am just saying that I react like that.

I grew up watching Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan and V Shantaram. I loved Navrang as much as I did Mother India. Mughal-e-Azam is the finest film that I have seen till date, so is Guru Dutt’s Kagaz Ke Phool. These are the movies that inspire me. That’s how I am.

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Anuradha SenGupta: I have heard and read about how you went to FTII over the chance of going abroad to study at Cambridge. Then there is that mad passion, and fanaticism that you have for films. But tell, where it all started for you?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: My elderly half-brother, not many people know was a filmmaker by the name Ramanand Sagar. He came to Kashmir to make this film called Arzoo when I was a little kid. When I saw them making a movie, somewhere I felt neglected and rejected. My first instinct to make a movie was based on a negative emotion.

But that slowly developed into a kind of passion. I watched Teesri Manzil some five times. I still remember how much I was fascinated looking at the title emerging out of a car headlight in its promos. I used to be fascinated by these things. And then in a small town like Srinagar, where I you go to DAV school, and later to S P College, what do you think would fascinate you? Movies, but of course.

Anuradha SenGupta: Did you have going to a cinema hall part of your growing up?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Yes, there was. There was a cinema hall called Pellonium near to my house where I used to go and see movies. And you know what? You are the first person who asked me this question. You just made me realise that indeed cinema has been a part of my growing up.

Anuradha SenGupta: So three-days of talking between you and me wouldn’t be all that boring, isn’t it?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: No way, I will die out of boredom.

Anuradha SenGupta: Were you a kinder producer because you have been a director?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: No, I am a very unique producer. I am somebody who produces movies not for money. I produce movies that nobody else will produce. I will never produce Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan starrer, where they will all do wonderful dance and be the biggest hits of all times.

And then I will have the most successful director Sanjay Leela Bhansali come up to me and say please would you produce a film for me? I won’t.

But if it’s a good script and where I can recover the cost, whether it has Bachchan or not I will make it. I am not in the strict sense of the word, a “producer”.

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Anuradha SenGupta: Did you miss being a director all these years?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: No, not at all. I was writing all these films, including my own. Let me tell that even as a producer I never go on my sets. Raj Kumar Hirani signs all the checks, the money is in the bank and I stay out of it.

I choose to stay in the background completely. I make that film happen, that’s all.

Anuradha SenGupta: Have you missed being in the limelight as a director all these years?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Not at all. I am a creator, lets look at bigger words here. I wrote three films, produced three films and released them. I have been busy enough.

Anuradha SenGupta: What are you moving on to now? There is news of a Hollywood project as well. Tell us about it?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: There is Munnabhai Chale America, Talisman and yes, I do have a Hollywood project. It is called 64 Square Feet. It’s still in development. I need at least six-months to finalise the script.

Anuradha SenGupta: When you have such consistent success, everybody wants a little bit of reaction isn’t it?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I have never had this kind of temptation in my system. Finally, you are only going to wear one pair of clothes, drive one car, have one nice dinner. Money becomes immaterial at that stage. People who do not have intellectual strength need money, because that is where they derive power from. People, who have power within, don’t need money to drive power from.

Anuradha SenGupta:Tell us about this grand gesture of a gift that you made to Mr Bachchan. What was that all about?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Bachchan is a good man and he has worked free for me all these years. He never thought he would get paid. When he has contributed to a film and it becomes a success, it is my dharma to pay him.

Anuradha SenGupta:What about all the cynical people out there who say that it is a way of circumventing income tax?

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I am going to pay five percent TDS—tax deducted at source for the gift while he is going to pay the rest of the tax. How can anybody save tax by that way? Good ness, honesty and all these things are dead. So anybody who is still holding on to these values is looked with suspicion.

Anuradha SenGupta:Please tell us about what was written in the Maximum City about you? You come across as this really cool guy.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I haven’t read it, frankly. We are talking here with these cameras on. Had we been talking with these cameras hidden somewhere, I would have been slightly annoyed.

Anuradha SenGupta:So, did you feel betrayed by all this. You probably could have been more candid.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra: I can still be candid. But please tell me that this is what I;m going to do.