An Interview With Anurag Kashyap

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An Interview with Anurag KashyapBy IndianAuteurTm | Monday, October 26th, 2009

As the year gets over, the promised turnaround in cinema never happened.

The interview of the most famous perpetrator of the myth, director Anurag

Kashyap, assumes a new context six months down the line.

Indian Auteur:How did your vast reading of the Hindi pulp novels

help in developing your screenwriting style?

Anurag Kashyap: I would have to say that I am not consciously aware of any

such influence. As an afterthought, however, I would have to say that they

did help. I was a person who could not speak English till I was 17, and all

my reading was based only in Hindi. Thus, yes, I can now count reading of

those novels as one of my formative influences.

IA: After you came to Delhi, you became involved with the Jan Natya

Manch, an organization which performed street plays. Did that

influence your filmmaking in any way, since your films seeminherently devoid of theatre as such?

AK: Yes, there I agree with you. My films would not betray influences of

theatre, except Gulaal, which carries within it, indelible, and obvious

influences of the medium. For instance, I met Mr.Piyush Mishra while working

for Jan Natya Manch, and it was there that I first saw his recitals, and it was

there and then that I took a decision to use him in one of my films, which

eventually, turned out to be Gulaal.
http://www.indianauteur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/AK.jpg


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IA: You wrote that 2009 would be a turning point in Cinema, so what

exactly do you mean by this turning point? In what context, would

we see a change hitherto unseen?

AK: In the sense that independent films, made by people working outside thestudio system, produced by independent producers, would find themselves

being released at a popular scale. For instance, January 30 saw the release of

Luck By Chance, the subsequent week saw the release of Dev D., and then

there were films like Delhi 6, which though a failure, can be termed an

ambitious failure. Recent weeks have seen a simultaneous release of films

such as Barah Aana, Firaaq and as such. But apart from the fact that these

films are independently produced, which is clearly a matter of commerce,

what cinematic progress does a film like Barah Aana entail? There is

cinematic progress as well. One has to be clear that it is relative. In a countrylike India, a 4 or a 5 is a development, since our cinema is a 3. We cannot

think of being at 7 or 8 straightaway. The process of change would be

gradual.

IA: But isnt it a matter of presumption to believe that we are at a 3

when we were already at a 7 forty years ago?.

AK: Here, I would like to give you a suggestion in terms of how and which

films you watch. I would want to recommend an exercise based inpracticality. For a month or so, do not watch a film produced before 1980.

One must acknowledge the fact that the past is a dead and a buried entity. It

is unchangeable, and is not open to our jurisdiction of it. Besides, it tampers

with judgment. The generation of film lovers began watching films only when

they had already been told, as a gospel truth, that Wong Kar Wai is a God. Or

that Scorsese is a God. That takes away from objective judgment. Instead,

you should watch films from a present that remains within your control, and

that you can help to shape.

IA: By that token, then, you are also a filmmaker whose films are

beyond all objective and rational judgment in this nation now.

People have already been asked to believe, that Anurag Kashyap is

God. Also, if past is a dead and buried entity, would you be fine if no

one cared about your films in 2030?

AK: Absolutely. I will tell you a fact of life. To a filmmaker, any filmmaker,

opinions, dissertations, or analyses on his films matter only till the film is

current, or on the box-office. A person praising me for Black Friday is anirritant now, not something that I particularly enjoy.


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IA: Moving on, also to questions of commerce, is money, then, the

only element stopping us from becoming a film powerhouse?

AK: Yes, I believe we have sufficient talent. Ram Gopal Verma was a real

counter-culture figure. A Satya allowed someone like me to make my films. ADev D will allow me to produce five new incredible ideas. That is how we will

work. It will be, as I said, a gradual process. Why do you think we lack

something?

IA: We lack something because cinema for us has become a vehicle

for new ideas, new stories and new content. Where is the difference

in how a Aamir is approached, to how a A Wednesday was

approached? If you werent told, would you be able to tell a

Rajkumar Gupta film from a Neeraj Pandey film?

AK: I really dont think that is important in cinema. How can you tell that

Raging Bull is a Scorsese film?

IA: For he shoots within the ring, makes it a point to puncture his

fights with abrupt cuts of the audience, and alternates

uncomfortable tranquility with awkward violence. There is so much

to tell from which it is a Scorsese film.

AK: I personally do not think that Scorseses filmmaking is defined by a

formal distinct filmmaking style as such. For me, a Scorsese film is defined by

how he treats his characters and his self-destruction. Again, a point for

content, and not form. Scorseses style is not his own, it is borrowed from

films by Corman. And from Anger, Bunuel, and Huston. But one would still call

it Scorseses own style, wouldnt he? He took his references to a useful

place. Not necessarily. For instance, how is The Wrestler, an Aronofosky film,

when it is so devoid of his style? It doesnt seem like an Aronofsky film at all.

IA: But one can say that only because Aronofsky had a style in the

first place. Moving on, what is the importance of the image to you?

AK: An image is obviously important, since it is the visual that guides the film.

For me, the visual is in my mind, and that dictates how I shoot my film.

IA: Is there a specific to how you shoot a scene?

AK: Not really, as such. For me, it is all very instinctive. There is no careful

detailing behind the process. For instance, if I were to shoot a scene on that

table (points to a table), I would merely select the angles that come to me


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most instinctively, the only criteria being that they have to result in frames

which are visually appealing.

IA: Is there a method to the madness then?

AK: No, I do not like to storyboard at all. Mostly, my method of directing a

scene is to tell my actors what their basic actions within the scene are. And

then, I mostly call the steadicam operator, let the camera roll, and let the

actors move within the environment, as I follow them. For instance, in a

scene between Abhay and Mahie for Dev D., I merely followed Mahie around,

till she reached Abhay, thus allowing the camera to include both of them

within the frame. As the dialogue progressed, Abhay walked out of the frame,

and then, as a director, I am not concerned with what he is doing. Mahie, who

is left alone in the frame, leaves it too, and just as she does, Abhay enters it.So it is all very instinctive. Also, I sometimes like to keep my actors unaware

of the exact spot where the camera has been positioned, thus allowing them

to be completely at ease.

IA: What is your shooting ratio?

AK: It is 1:3, and I like to believe that I am one of the most economical users

of film stock.

IA: Which are your favourite lenses?

AK: I like using the Telephoto, 10 mm, and 75 mm, since they help me

capture my scene in exactly the way I want to.

IA: Why does our cinema give a feeling of there being something

amiss, even as filmmakers from world over evolve into new

innovators within the medium, expanding its possibilities?

AK: Like who?

IA: The sixth generation Chinese filmmakers, the Nuovo Argentinian

cinema, the Iranians, Raya Martin, and the New Malaysian Cinema.

Countries poorer than us, with less resources available at hand.

AK: That is because they do not have organized industries. One must

understand the fact that since Bollywood is an industry, peoples livelihood

depends on how the films work. It is not a similar situation to how it is in a lot

of the countries that you mentioned, where due to a lack of an industrializedsetup, the filmmakers can often approach various other agencies, unrelated


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to cinema, for funds, and thus, revel in their independence. Here, if you were

to approach a producer with a radical subject, you would not be entertained.

ABOUT HIS WORKS

IA: You talked in one of your previous interviews about a common

structure that your initial screenplays, like Auto-Shanker, Last Train

to Mahakali, and Paanch shared? What was it?

AK: I respect you for asking this question since I have never been asked this

before. In around 1994, I saw this film called Fun. It made a very innovative

and unconventional use of the usual technique used to discern between

present and past, wherein it made use of Black and White for present, and

the present sequences were in coloured. All the films that you asked about,were propelled by my being influenced by such a structure.

IA :How much did Black Friday borrow from the literary structure of

the book?

AK: Nothing at all. The book and the film are completely separate entities or

pieces of art. The names of the chapters in the book, and in the film are

completely different. So is the content of those chapters. I used the chapters

in the film, only to be able to mentally prepare the audience for an oncoming

change of track. So that when we wrote On the Run on the screen, the

audience were made aware that now we would watch the story of another

character, outside the settings of the preceding sequence, or sequences.

IA: Why did you choose to use the stark red filter in the

interrogation sequences?

AK: Primarily because I wanted to subjugate the visual impact of too much

blood on-screen. Also, because I didnt have the green filter with which I

originally planned to shoot it.

IA: Did the metaphors in No Smoking come after the things they

were meant to represent? First the idea came, and then the symbol

for it?

AK: Not really. I wrote the whole script in a very stream-of-consciousness

manner, in a very intuitive, and instinctive manner. It was only later when I

read the script, that I discovered that it had various subconscious

associations or references taken from a short story by Stephen King, Quitters

Inc. that I had read a long time ago. I only then changed the element of the


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thumb getting cut to the fingers, which represented a writers deprivation of

his liberty, getting cut.

IA: You have said that you want to bring two new writers on board

for your next film, Bombay Velvet, since you fear repetitiveness inyour own work?

AK: Repetitiveness in the sense, that I am obsessed with a certain things that

I want to avoid for Bombay Velvet. It is a film set in 60s, and as you all know,

in 60s, there was a lot of neon all around. And when I, as a filmmaker see

neon, I go berserk. I want to avoid doing that, or falling prey to my

temptations as a filmmaker, thus falling into the trap of excess when it is not

needed.

CLOSING SECTION

IA: With your history in school as the outsider, do you in hindsight

think, that you in any case never have been a part of a setup, and

that rallying against it was not an effort, but a natural course of

action for you?

AK: Yes, you may be right there, though I will say that I have never

consciously made an effort to be seen as the outsider or the rebel. Yes, in

hindsight though, I could never have been the insider. It would have killed me

as a person to be an insider.

IA: Which have been your favourite films in the past few years?

AK: Right now, I am in the phase of recommending this Swedish film Let the

Right One In to everyone. I noticed its high acclaim on lists as diverse as

Village Voice, to Sight & Sound, and my curiosity was piqued when I found

out that it was also a vampire film, a genre that I love. I got hold of a copy

and loved the film. Also Gomorrah, an Italian film on mafia.

IA: Finally, what do you think is the need for film criticism, and who

is your favourite film critic?

AK: I loved Pauline Kael reviews. In India, I read Indian Auteur, Upperstall and

critic like Bhardwaj Ranjan and sometimes Jai Arjun Singh. As for film

criticism, it is important to be able to simplify it, and also to review every

possible film that one can. Film criticism is important, but it is also important,

at some point to realize that it is not theory, or being caught in it that can


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change cinema, but actually going out into the field and making films that will

change things. Criticism does not change things, it is action which does.

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Tags: Anurag Kashyap, Dev D, Gulal, Indian Cinema, Osian Film Festival 2009

Posted By IndianAuteurTm | Monday, October 26th, 2009 | Filed under Film

Festivals, Interviews,News

4 Responses to An Interview with Anurag Kashyap

1. amlendu tiwari says:

November 13, 2009 at 10:50 am

Anurag kashyap is the most talented writer director our country has today

He has brought a new air to indian films ,more liberal ,more straight .He

should adapt

tesri kasam of fadishwar nath renu .regards


November 13, 2009 at 10:54 am

For anurag

Apni subho ke sooraj uga lena khud

Tum charago ki sanso se jina nahi

love

amlendu


January 7, 2010 at 12:21 pm
http://void%280%29/http://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=anurag-kashyaphttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=dev-dhttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=gulalhttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=indian-cinemahttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=osian-film-festival-2009http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=83http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=83http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=5http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=11http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-240http://passionforcinema.com/http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-241http://passionforcinema.com/http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-2995http://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=anurag-kashyaphttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=dev-dhttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=gulalhttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=indian-cinemahttp://www.indianauteur.com/?tag=osian-film-festival-2009http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=83http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=83http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=5http://www.indianauteur.com/?cat=11http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-240http://passionforcinema.com/http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-241http://passionforcinema.com/http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-2995http://void%280%29/


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My script Usman Beg Ka chokra is lying in Anurag Kashyaps office.I Pray if

he reads it and give his honest response.

4. amol says:

December 19, 2010 at 2:28 pm

enriching interview. what do u expect from actors? do u prefer trained actors

or what.?
http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-20070http://www.indianauteur.com/?p=502&cpage=1#comment-20070

An Interview With Anurag Kashyap

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