Thoughts on Cinema

17/01/2025

SATYA- the true story by Anurag Kashyap

There never was a bound script..i did not write the whole film..nobody did..there is a whole lot of myth surrounding the film..it happened..like every other great film..like sholay happened..no individual created Satya..passion did..most of which came from ramu..his being open to moments, ideas, to instincts, created it..it was a different time..it was a different Ramu..

How it began..Ramu was making Daud..there was a new actor he was working with..it was manoj bajpai..i was there when he took that shot of Paresh going crazy and Manoj appearing from behind the door..Ramu fell in love with the shot..he fell in love with the actor..he fell in love with his intensity..he wanted to make an underworld film with him..he wanted to put Howard Roark in the underworld..thats how Satya started..

I met him..Manoj introduced him to me..i was supposed to be writing a film for Mahesh Bhatt which never got made..it was called GIRVI..Ramu asked me “have i read fountainhead..i had..i was an ayn rand fanatic then..i was twenty three..i said “yeah”..he said lets put him in the underworld..i said “wow”..he also had an ending in mind which he remembered from some James Hadley Chase novel..that ending remained..Howard Roark didn’t..

i started working on it ..he asked me how much money i wanted..i didn’t give a f**k about money..then..so i said “whatever’..we began work..whatever we wrote was not ther in the final film..anyways..after we started work Ramu left for Newzealand to shoot songs for DAUD..he disappeared from my life for two months..i thought this is not going nto happen..it was november 1996..February i got a call from him.. no mobile phones at that time..i had a pager..he paged me..he was serious..we made a one line order..Ramu has always worked with an one line order..never a script..this time he wanted a script..i still remember that first one line order..the opening scene was to be shot under the Milan subway..it never happened..

after the one line order was locked in..he wanted it to be written..he didn’t trust me with dialogues..he thought i was too young for it..he met vijay tendulkar for it..Ramu has been a fan of his since ardhasatya..

Vijay tendulkar wasn’t well..he wanted someone more mature..those days alot of people were talking about how Saurabh Shukla had done dialogues for ISS RAAT KI SUBAH NAHIN..saurabh has always brushed it off as just rumour..i had heard that too..but i knew him as a sometime playwrite from Delhi..i spoke about him to Ramu..Ramu offered him a double deal..to play Kallu Mama and write dialogues along with me .. he was to be the boss in that department..we were sent to Hyderabad..on his farmhouse..Ramu’s..At the Mumbai airport saurabh arrived late..he had the tickets..we missed the flight..we took the next one..

we worked more than a week ..we wrote something that looked and sounded like a script..we went back..we started shooting..we began in Goregaon with the chase sequence..the beginning chase..Gerard Hooper was the cameraman..i think i am jumping ahead..lets go back to naming the characters and casting..

but later..have a shoot in the morning..imagine doing this in the middle of my shoot..probably because i met Ramu today..later..

Saurabh and me wrote a draft..he was simultaneously writing a play called KAAL..after we finished we came back to bombay..another thing i forgot to tell you..when saurabh met Ramu for the first time and Ramu narrated him what he had in mind..Saurabh spontanously came up with that scene where bhiku comes back home drunk and shefali slaps him and he slaps her back..Ramu was so goddamned impressed with him..

When we were thinking how do we name our characters..Ramu called his boy to make coffee for us..he said “Bhiku teen coffee”..and i said nice name..Satya was named after a woman called Satya..Someone Ramu knew back in college days..He just wanted her to know that he still rememberred her..Ramu was an engineering student..in some naxalite area in Andhra..then, when ever he got into trouble, he would strike a brucelee pose and make a eeyah sound to defend or protect himself..atleast thats what he told me..slowly all characters fell into place..

Ramu’s screenplay writer of Daud had been to Boston University Film Course..Gerard Hooper taught Cinematography there..he still teaches there..his two students made “THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT”..the writers name was KANNAN..kannan recommended Gerry..as he was fondly called..

We started shooting somewhere in August 1997..three days of shooting..third day we were shooting..it was that sequence where Sushant Singh came to collect hafta from satya and satya refuses and slashes him..the way sushant reacted..he improvised or i didn’t know what..Ramu reacted in a way i never saw him reacting..he said now i know what my film is all about and he trashed the script me and Saurabh wrote..he f**king trashed it..he also cancelled shooting the next day and guess what.. Gulshan Kumar was shot dead..Ramu stopped shooting..Underworld equations had changed..script needed to go through a change.. somedays after that was Daud’s release..i remember..because it rained so much that day that noone could reach the premiere venue on time..anyways..Daud bombed..i still f**king loved it..I thought Neeraj Vora rocked in that film..

so Ramu threw our script in the bin and we started rewriting script..Ramu always treated me like a kid..he was fond of me but never took me seriously..i was the kid in the gang..only other kid was Apoorva Asrani..the editor..Bhiku Mhatre’s laughter was never written into the film..he just laughed one day when we were shooting at his fictitious house in bandra..we loved it so much that it became his character..The first day we shot with the lawyer Mule..Makrand deshpande ,who played the character overacted so nmuch,the scene was never kept in that film..it was the scene where chandar appears in court..just before “goli maar”song..Mule was shown sleeping in the court..his Yawn was louder than Shakti kapoor..it just did not work.. at that time goli maar was not even ther in the film..the whole party sequence was shot on “Mera piya ghar aaya oh Raamji”..later the songs came into the film..Goli maar song had a different version..it went“gham ke neeche bam laga ke gham uda de”..sung to the same tune..Gulzaar sahab wroteb “goli Maar”..we all including Ramu and Vishal prefeered the GHAM version..but who would tell it to Gulzar sahab..i was known to be blunt, so they chose me to tell it to Gulzar sahab..next meeting with him ..they took me along ..and i said “sir gum work nahin karta” and he said,”Gum nahin gham,Pehle bolna seekho” andi was out of discussion..everyone agreed to Goli maar and thank god they did..what a song..

Rest later..a lot is coming back..all too random and all suddenly..need to sleep.

31/08/2024

Arjun Reddy was rejected by everybody. Some producers dozed off to sleep during the narration. They used to say 2 things. 1. This can’t be your first story. You have to come with a conventional story to convince producers. 2. You are in wrong place and you have to go to Bombay. I feel that it’s one ball. You have to hit either six or four. Defence, One’s and Two’s will not do. It’s as good as getting bowled. You don’t have net practice also.

-- Sandeep Reddy Vanga

30/08/2024

The opening sequence of the movie set the ball rolling for the film. It gave them a strong idea about what to expect in the latter part of the movie. With that opening sequence, I needn't worry about the attention of audiences till the interval episode. I watched DVDs of Alfred Hitchcock's TV series before making Magadheera. What intrigued me is that he reveals the entire plot in the beginning and still be able to maintain the suspense by showing how the protagonist does it. It became an eye opener for me. That is the reason why I revealed the story of the movie right on the muhurat of the day. Opening the film with flashback scene is influenced by Alfred Hitchcock.

-- S.S. Rajamouli on Magadheera

29/01/2024

Very often the people I portray can’t help but be in that way of life. Yes, they’re bad, they’re doing bad things. And we condemn those aspects of them. But they’re also human beings. And I find that often the people passing moral judgment on them may ultimately be worse. I know that here in England there were film-makers and crit­ics who felt I was morally irresponsible to make a film like GoodFellas. Well, I’ll make more of them if I can. Remember what happens at the end of the movie, where you see Nicky and his brother beaten and buried. That’s all based on fact – I saw the pictures of the real bodies when they dug up the grave. Now it’s shot in a certain way, very straight. And I happen to like those people. Nicky is horrible. He’s a terrible man. But there’s something that happens for me in watching them get beaten with the bats and then put into the hole. Ultimately it’s a tragedy. It’s the frailty of being human. I want to push audiences’ emotional empathy with cer­tain types of characters who are normally con­sidered villains.

- Martin Scorsese

25/11/2023

Breaking Down the Jurassic Park Screenplay by K.M. Weiland

JURASSIC PARK & THREE-ACT STRUCTURE

Jurassic Park is a beloved film, but what if the appeal wasn’t just the awe-inspiring dinosaurs or that stirring John Williams score? One of the unsung heroes of Spielberg’s masterpiece can be found in the structure of the film itself. According to K.M. Weiland, David Koepp’s screenplay adaptation of Michael Crichton’s book is brilliantly structured and has an ideal balance between plot and character. In this full-length interview, K.M. Weiland lays out the form and function of the three-act structure and how Jurassic Park checks all the boxes.

EIGHT PARTS OF THE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE

As Weiland explains, the three-act structure can be subdivided into eight major story beats. The first is the hook, designed to grab the audience’s attention, giving them sufficient reason to remain invested in the story. In Jurassic Park, this is the opening scene where the mysterious cargo is delivered to the park…with deadly consequences.

Then comes the inciting event, the call to adventure that will carry the remainder of the story. For Allen and Ellie, this is when John Hammond interrupts their archeological dig with a request to visit and assess his park.

Next is the first plot point, the point of no return, when the character finally sets off on their quest. When they arrive on Isla Nublar, our protagonists behold a sight they could have never imagined — dinosaurs in the flesh.

The first pinch point is the first of many obstacles along the way, usually dedicated to establishing the antagonistic force. In Jurassic Park, this occurs as the incoming storm interrupts the tour, separating Allan and Ellie.

The second plot point, otherwise known as the midpoint, comes halfway through the story and usually resets the entire story in some way. The storm has cut the power, the jeeps are stranded, and a T-Rex breaks out. Jurassic Park’s midpoint is a fantastic example of how to shift a story completely.

Following this is the second pinch point, where stakes are raised, and the third act is foreshadowed. Dennis Nedry, a minor antagonist, has crippled Hammond’s ability to make the park secure. And Nedry’s death significantly diminishes their chances of success.

As K.M. Weiland explains, the third plot point is a false victory followed by a major low point. Ellie is able to restore power to Jurassic Park, but Muldoon and Arnold are killed, and the raptors now enter the fray.

Lastly is the climax, the culmination of the entire story. This might be an extended sequence filled with action or emotional conflict, but it all leads to what Weiland describes as the climactic moment — when success or failure brings the story to its conclusion.

When you lay out the three-act structure of Jurassic Park like this, it is clear that there is a constant progression of events; the stakes are established and then raised, all building to what ends as a thrilling cinematic experience.

K.M. Weiland Interview — writer and story expert K.M. Weiland breaks down Jurassic Park and how it masterfully executes the three-act structure.What is the T...

25/11/2023

Ivan the Terrible and His Son by Ilya Repin / Child of God (2023) by Prudhvi and Sumanth

Plz do watch Child of God, if you haven't, it's available on YouTube

And thanks a lot for the immense love you have shown by messages and writing about the movie on social media. It means a lot. ❤️

22/11/2023

Amitabh Bachchan is physically very weak in real life but he projects aggression amazingly well. When most heroes pick up a gun, they look as if they don’t really know how to handle it and the gun may go off accidentally. But when Amitabh picks up a gun, it seems that he really means business.

-- Salim Khan

22/11/2023

So many other actors have tried to ape Amitabh, but they’ve failed. Because they didn’t have the sophistication and the tehzeeb that Amitabh grew up with. As an actor, Amitabh’s anger was never ugly. Other actors mix anger with arrogance. But Amitabh’s anger was mixed with hurt and tears.

—Javed Akhtar

18/11/2023

Child of God (2023) | Dir. Prudhvi & Sumanth

My friend, if you find love, that's it. You've chosen your death. There is no God and religion beyond love, love is enough.

It's a no-budget Telugu Indie film. Available on youtube, released under 'Pay as your Wish'

13/11/2023

As far as the script is concerned, Deewaar is better than Sholay . . . That was the one script and screenplay where you didn’t have to delete anything after making, it was such a perfect script.

-- Yash Chopra

13/11/2023

‘I had the art of conception but not the art of projection’ —Salim Khan

One of Salim Khan’s abiding memories is from when he was four or five years old and had stolen a key-wound motorcycle from a toy cart. When he came home with it and his mother found out, she was livid and made him go back to the cart-owner to return the toy and apologize. When he did so, all his friends laughed. Many decades later, Salim Khan says he still hasn’t forgotten the cackle of their laughter. Nor has he forgotten the lessons an upright mother can impart on a child. This theme of honesty above all else would return to many of the films he wrote.

For a long time in his childhood, Javed dreamed of a white shroud—similar to the one his mother’s body was wrapped in after her death—which traumatized him. As is evident, these elements of his childhood—an idealized vision of the mother, an estranged father and a recurring nightmare—reappeared in his films.

-- From the book, "Written by Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema’s Greatest Screenwriters"

13/11/2023

In the late 1960s, when the duo first came together, writing brilliant scripts and asking for commensurate compensation. For them, credit was as important as—if not more than—the money. Their desire to be known as the writers of a film is probably best described by a story connected to the original Zanjeer. After a lot of back-and-forth between heroes and producers, Zanjeer was eventually sold to Prakash Mehra for Rs 55,000. The sale was on the condition that Salim–Javed would be duly credited in all publicity material of the film. This was of paramount importance to the two, because they had already worked on scripts for three hit films before this and had received little or no credit for them. As the release date neared, Salim–Javed eagerly waited to see their
names on a billboard for the first time but when the posters went up they were heartbroken. Prakash Mehra—caught up in the rigmarole of his first production—had forgotten all about his promise. What happened after this is indicative of the confidence and chutzpah that differentiated Salim–Javed from their peers.

Sometimes, this was as important as their talent in establishing them as the only superstar writers of the Hindi film industry. When they reminded Prakash Mehra of the deal, he was apologetic but helpless. The posters were already up and there was nothing he could do at that stage. He promised to rectify the oversight in the subsequent rounds of postering. With anybody else, the matter would have ended here but these two writers were on a different kind of mission. Salim–Javed hired a poster painter. They gave him a stencil that said ‘Written by Salim–Javed’, and instructed him to paint it on all the posters of Zanjeer that he could find. The painter may have been drunk or in a hurry to complete this mammoth task; what he ended up doing was print the line pretty much anywhere on the poster instead of at the bottom, where credits usually appeared. On the morning of the release, Bombay woke up to find all posters of Zanjeer—from Juhu to Opera House—stamped with the name ‘Salim–Javed’. Be it Amitabh’s nose, Pran’s beard, or Jaya’s face, Salim– Javed was, quite literally, unmissable on the posters of Zanjeer. Both Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar appear a little embarrassed when they recount this incident now. Embarrassed, but not apologetic.

-- From the book, "Written by Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema’s Greatest Screenwriters"