Talking Cinema

Candidates for jobs get asked questions. You have been asked some no doubt. Actors and directors get asked questions by journalists all the time. They range from the mundane to the sublime. But there is a difference.Not everyone can do a great job of bringing out the best in an interview. The film journalist too can choose to focus on the superficial questions about the flings and lifestyle stories or explore the body of work being created by the actor or director. Very few choose to explore the actor’s or director’s view of cinema as a craft that they create.Bhawana Somaaya has been writing about cinema since 1978. She was the editor of Screen magazine for seven years. She has authored several books on cinema including three books on Bachchan: Amitabh Bachchan: The Legend (1999);Bachchanalia (2009) and Amitabh Lexicon (2011). I came across her twelfth book Talking Cinema.Talking Cinema is a compilation of interviews with Bollywood’s best known names – actors and directors. The first section explores how the actors prepare for the roles. The next section attempts to explore some of the memorable characters of Hindi cinema. Jaya Bachchan talks about her character in Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa; Kirron Kher on Khamosh Paani, Tabu speaks about her character in The Namesake to name a few. The third section explores how a director constructs a film. Shekhar Kapoor, Gulzar, Vishal Bharadwaj, Karan Johar, Govind Nihalani all talk about their approach. The last section is about what Bhawana describes as “The Specialists”. Shyam Benegal speaks about how he portrays women in his films, Yash Chopra on love, Bachchan (yes, again) on playing a cop in several of his movies, Rekha on her eighteen portrayals of courtesans that she has done in her career that spans more than a hundred films.The first section was the best read. It had interviews with Kamal Haasan, Waheeda Rehman, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Shabana Azmi, Rani Mukherji, Shahrukh Khan and (of course) Bachchan Junior and Senior. How do they seek to differentiate their own persona from the characters they play? When they play a character that portrays values that are odds with their own, do they cringe? Do they shrug and say it is only a role after all or do they agonize and struggle with their own conscience?Shabana Azmi describes how she struggled with her role in Arth. In her own words:

Just the one interview of Shabana Azmi in this book made it worth reading. Of course, some actors seem to view their roles as something they effortlessly slide in and out of. It is just a way of earning a living, nothing beyond. They do not inhabit the world of the character they portray.What does Gulzar view as his most romantic composition?

Bhawana’s Bachchan obsession shows up in this book too and there is an overdose of it. Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan (in three different chapters), Jaya Bachchan and even two interviews of Rekha (if you stretch the logic). No there is no interview with Aishwarya Rai though.Most of the interviews have been done a while back – some almost ten or twelve years back. It is interesting to know what these people were like at that point of time. What was Karan Johar’s view of the world when he had just Kuch Kuch Hota Hai under his belt? What did Madhuri think of Hindi cinema when Devdas happened in 2002. She took a break from films and came back with Aaja Nachle in 2007. Madhuri has explored a career in television. That is where I felt disappointed with the book. It was like reading someone’s yearbook in school. It is entertaining but incomplete.————Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriRead about Amitabh Bachchan –  the Brand