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This is an archive article published on January 22, 2010

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In the last five years,there hasn’t been a single project that filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has undertaken without inviting cynicism.

In the last five years,there hasn’t been a single project that filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has undertaken without inviting cynicism. After Aag,in which dared to give Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay a makeover,and Nishabd,his Lolita-esque film about an 18-year-old girl romancing a man old enough to be her grandfather,RGV was written off by Bollywood watchers. Now,the tongues have started wagging again,blasting his latest effort,Rann,The New(s) Battle,as an exercise in media bashing.

RGV,however,pleads innocence. “I don’t know why people are reacting negatively to the film even before seeing it. It is unfair but it is an evil that I live with,” says the 47-year-old as he checks into the Taj Mahal hotel during a promotional tour with the film’s cast,Amitabh Bachchan,Gul Panag and Riteish Deshmukh.

Bachchan plays the idealistic head of a news channel. His rival channel,on the other hand,is willing to stoop shamelessly low in order to beat him at TRPs. This quintessential tussle of good and evil is complicated by journalists,marketing teams and corporate honchos with contrasting values and conflicting ideologies.

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“The film plays on the tension created when 24×7 news channels compete for superior editorial content while trying to achieve higher TRPs,” says Varma,who was himself caught in the eye of the storm when he visited the Taj Hotel in Mumbai following the 26/11 terrorist attacks in 2008. Varma says that he had started working on the storyline five years ago when the electronic media boom swept the country. “Whenever I turn on the television set,superficial news is flashed as breaking news,” he adds.

Rann,says the director,is a hard-hitting film in keeping with his gangster movies like Satya,Company and Contract. “I don’t see things in shades of grey. They need to reflect my opinion so you will never see me make a simple fairy tale love story,” he says. He makes it a point to watch news television daily. “It keeps me in good humour,” he says sarcastically. And he wonders why the rumour mills dismiss Rann for media bashing.

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