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 Shyam Benegal has been making highly-acclaimed films since the early seventies. In those days he had to struggle to find a footing since his themes were completely different from those of Bollywood. Over the years, he has continued to make movies with serious themes but found wide acceptance too. In an interaction with Express staff, moderated by Consulting Editor Shailaja Bajpai, Benegal spoke about recent trends in film making, film makers he admires, and how the village, the theme of many of his early films, has fallen off the map.

Shailaja Bajpai: I would request Mr Benegal to comment on his personal grouse about the period where he changed really his approach to cinema

Shyam Benegal: Well, when I started making films i.e. fiction films in the early 1970s, it took me a very long time really because most young people today make their very first feature films by the time they are in their mid 20s or early 30s. But when I made my first feature film in my late 30s, it had taken me 13 years of taking my script around to various producers, hoping that they would pick up the subjects on which I could make a film. Now that was a long journey and difficult simply because I was wanting to make films that were different from what was the prevailing form of films. And the prevailing form is what I now called as the traditional Indian cinema and I was very impatient with that kind of cinema at that time. I had to qualify because my views have changed somewhat because if something like entertainment, which the people of the entire country seem to enjoy most. When you are young, you can take a very strong position and say that you disagree with this kind of form, but there must be some reason why people enjoy certain films, which if you look at them at their face value you might say they are naive but they are not as naive as they seem. And all that you discover much later. But at that time it was important for me to say that I was not going to make films of that nature and I had to make a film that would clearly be my own expression in the cinema and also creatively speaking. I used to think that the traditional form of the Indian cinema was in many ways was simply a pedestrian paint. And anything you had, say you had a number of ideas but once you made a film, it exactly looked like the one made before. Everything came from the same kind of sausage machine, so you get identical sausages at the end of the day. Now that is a position I don’t agree with and later changed my stand also because I believe that there were tremendous possibilities in the traditional format of filmmaking. But of course, when I started making films, I had a different perception. I felt it was very important to make films that were socially engaged, your concern should be the concern of the environment and the community in which you live and it should reflect in the ideas you decide to deal with. Now those ideas have not really changed for me since then because I continue to believe that films have a role and have to be in many ways forms of expressions, which have some social engagement. Now that is not to say that films must essentially have a message to carry but be in some ways a kind of response to the world around, that is an important aspect of cinema. Whatever kind of films you make, be it a documentary or a fiction film, you ought to have to have a connection of that kind. In the last couple of years I have discovered that the cinema has become particularly interesting sort of space in which people have all kinds of political views can come in and use that as platform for making themselves seen and heard. Films like Jodha Akbar, what happened to that or one other film where you had the fact that somebody used a traditional idiom suddenly becomes a bone of contention in a song and the film gets banned. So when you say there has to be some engagement, you have to be apparently very careful because we are such a diverse community and one part of the country may not necessarily find some kind of sympathetic response whereas the same expression might have different meanings. But you don’t worry about these things when you start making a film, because if you worry about them from the beginning then you are really engaging yourself in self-censorship. And self-censorship is the worst kind of thing to start off with when it comes to any kind of creative functioning.

Shailaja Bajpai: And what is your take on the corporatisation of Indian cinema.

Shyam Benegal: Corporatisation has happened in the last few years and there are good things and there are bad things attached to it. Now good thing is that opportunities have opened up for filmmakers like never before, as filmmaking has always been a difficult profession and it meant a great deal of struggle for a lot of people who wanted to make films. Today all that to some extent has disappeared and young people can come and make films if they have interesting subjects, that has started to happen, which is a good part of it. And the bad part of it... I would not exactly call it the bad part of it. But by corporatisation what has happened is that the corporate production companies have started looking at the business bottom line of the projects the film means that you access the film as a product, as a commodity. And to access it as a commodity even before you’ve made it, you put certain things into the film, which make it financially viable and financially successful. Now, that is a kind of thing, which most creative people do not like. They would say “O my God! I were to make a film which I thought would make a wonderful picture, a film which is artistic in nature and has some social value. There would be some kind of insight into life itself, which is the ambition of any creative person. But when it comes to filmmaking, it starts with the fact that whether it has some value as a product and when assessment is based on that a certain preconditions come into the process. And the preconditions usually are that what makes a film valuable, in the sense that it will do well in the market place. It means that you have to be particular about the star talent that goes into it to make it commercially viable. So there is a tremendous pressure because you have to balance the cost that goes into it. You can make films that cost less money or more money and so on. But there is an optimum cost for any film. Some subjects, for instance, you like it or not, you cannot make it on small budgets say an epic or a film that involves historical reconstruction. Now in the said cases you know that you can’t do it in a limited budget. And if you are spending so much money you need to make sure that it has got all the ingredients, which are likely to make it successful even before you start making the film. For a simple reason, like, for instance, you announce a film with Shah Rukh khan, one of the biggest stars we have, automatically it means that you will be able to raise a fair amount of money and then you really don’t have to worry because there is Shah Rukh Khan in the film, which would mark its success. There are a few stars like that who have proved themselves time after time and film after film. Now, for instance, there is Akshay Kumar whose all film have been hugely successful. So he is considered as a brilliantly bankable huge star. Now all that is being looked at today in a very different way, than it used to be in the past.