"Oye Boy Charlie", Kartik Vijay, and the Emil Kusturica connection

"Matru ki Bijli ka Mandola" is being described as a absurdist mad-cap movie, and the next song trailer, "Oye Boy Charlie", to be released fits in with that description:

Notes:
1. A couple of in-jokes: "Charlie" and "Dolly"
2. Shankar Mahadevan sings for Vishal for the first time (another example of a music composer singing for Vishal)
3. The brass band named "Kusturi-ca Brass Band", referring to the Serbian director Emil Kusturica (who is also known for his zany comedies and his brass bands, which has inspired songs such as "Emosional Atyachar")
4. The song's mukhDaa has a resemblance to the Mukesh song "Tauba Yeh Matwaali Chaal" from "Patthar Ke Sanam"?

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The Kusturica connection is also hinted at in this Mint interview with the film's cinematographer, Kartik Vijay, who also says: "The story is about a capitalist who turns into a socialist when he starts to drink"

Abhishek Chaubey: "Inside the Mind of Vishal Bhardwaj" (OPEN Magazine)

Abhishek Chaubey knows a thing or two about what makes Vishal tick, having assisted him and having directed a film under his production. OPEN magazine has an interview with Chaubey on his mentor.

(Link courtesy Ajay Bhat)

Baradwaj on Bhardwaj

With "7 Khoon Maaf" around the corner, ace film critic Baradwaj Rangan explores Vishal Bhardwaj's fascination with and ability to render interesting female characters in a piece for Caravan Magazine aptly titled "Blood Sisters".

Warning: the essay contains spoilers about most of the films mentioned.

"A Shah among actors" - Vishal on Naseeruddin Shah

Personally, I feel Naseer should quit the movies now. His heart is in theatre — on stage — and I can see that. When he’s on the sets, it’s like dealing with a temperamental child. He’s impatient because he’s a spontaneous actor — retakes are not his thing at all.

Naseeruddin Shah turns 60 soon. To mark the occasion, Vishal Bhardwaj writes a heart-felt appreciation of one of India's greatest actors. The link is here.

Jyoti Jalaile (Athithi Tum Kab Jaaoge)

In The Blue Umbrella is a prayer scene in the little Himachal village where the story is set. A bhajan begins, but is in a very familiar tune, which turns out to be "you are my soniyaa" ("Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham"). The setting of a prayer song to a popular Hindi film tune is a common feature in many Indian towns (Punekars can summon memories of the aural assaults during the Ganesh Festival).

A similar thing has happened to "biiDii jalaile" ("Omkara"). The soundtrack of "Athiti Tum Kab Jaaoge" has a song called "jyoti jalaile" which runs on the same lines as the original, and is even sung by Sukhwinder Singh (music is either by Pritam or Amit Mishra - hopefully not the leggie, who still has some cricket left in him).

Vishal has some old associations with the makers of this movie. "Athithi..." is produced by Amita Pathak, the daughter of Omkara producer Kumar Mangat. In addition, the lady made a disastrous debut in her father's production "Haal-e-Dil", which had a smorgasbord of music directors including Vishal. The twin versions of the excellent title track (by Raahat Fateh Ali Khan and Rekha B) sank without too much attention as a result of the film doing very badly.

And there's your dose of Vishal trivia for the day.

Vishal on writing and casting

Nice interview with Vishal (from this article in The Times of India):

I was at the airport and a couple with their little boy recognised me and started talking to me. The boy asked me “Uncle, what is the name of your movie?” and the father immediately said, “I will tell you later. Not now.” I said, “Why will you tell him later? It’s not a maa-behan ki gaali.” And I told the boy that the name was Kaminey. That kid laughed aloud.

Plus more on his other films.

(H/T: Mohit Kataria on the Gulzar Fans group)

How to ask Vishal Bhardwaj a question

Why, you stand up abruptly and shout out in garbled English before he can get away!

Last week, I attended a seminar on Cinema and Literature jointly organised by the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and the Film Writers Association. Here's the precursor post about that.

Which brings us back to the titular figure of this post. The last time I'd seen Vishal, he was much less celebrated as a film-maker and chose to remain silent. Here, he began with expressing his trepidation at speaking in front of legends such as Mani Kaul and Prof. U.R.Ananthamurthy, and didn't even want to look in the direction of his 'gardener' Gulzar. He then proceeded to shake off his nervousness with a couple of 'shers' and spoke of how Maqbool came about. He began by describing the days before Maachis in the land where 'mediocrity is worshipped', and how he tried gaining producers' attention by trying to pass of his original songs as copies of Pakistani songs (incredulous laughter sweeps the auditorium).

Heeding Gulzar's prophesy that Vishal would be a film-maker someday, he decided to try his hand at making films, partly with a view to employing himself as a music director (since his career seemed to be ending!). After Makdee (a story that was partly inspired from childhood memories of Enid Blyton), he wanted to make a film on the underworld ("because I like guns, crimes, and chases"), but felt most films ended in a gangwar, and lacked depth. Plus, what do you do that Ram Gopal Varma hadn't? Serendipitously, Anurag Kashyap had pointed him to Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and Alaap Mazgaonkar (who plays 'Mughal-e-Azam' in Makdee) had given him a book of stories containing Macbeth. Until then, he subscribed to the common view that 'literature' was high-brow and had no pulp or entertainment to offer. But here was a drama that gripped him.

He then read the full Macbeth ("Shakespeare language ek taraf, English duusri taraf") cover to cover. He and Abbas Tyrewala began to write, not encumbered by convention of what was allowed and what wasn't ("we were blessed with ignorance"). Making the witches into cops or turning Lady Macbeth into Abbaji's mistress happened. Naseeruddin Shah loved the script and gave him the confidence this would work, volunteering to play one of the cops instead of Abbaji as originally intended.

There was also a reference to an earlier FWA seminar where Javed Akhtar said: "In Maqbool, Shakespeare failed you; in Omkara, you failed Shakespeare" (according to this account, JA and others had torn into Omkara). Vishal ended by quoting Prof. U.R.Ananthamurthy's speech on the 1st day where the Jnanpith awardee talked about the difference in adapting just the 'structure' as opposed to 'texture'. Vishal said he had been paying more attention to structure than texture (though this blogger finds texture and ambience to be Vishal's key strength) and now had the confidence to write his own originals.

After reciting a parting couplet, he sat down. Govind Nihalani, chairing the session, said Vishal was off to catch a flight, so may be we had time for just one question. No one stirred (most sessions had gone question-less, a pity), so he was about to wish Vishal goodbye, when I decided to shoot my hand up.

There were many things to ask (that after disregarding Yasho's suggestion to yell "Kaminey!" out loud) but I settled for one on Vishal's other main writing source. "Could you tell us a little about your work with Ruskin Bond, and we've heard you're working with him again". Nihalani was about to brush me off for being a tad too late, but Vishal was kind enough to answer. He spoke of how he liked the story for The Blue Umbrella, but couldn't see how it would make a film of more than 30 minutes. He then hit upon the idea of the red umbrella, met Ruskin Bond who seemed to like the idea, and made the film. And yes, he was working on a few ideas with Bond (he mentioned a couple of names, but sadly, I couldn't quite figure them out - did he say "A Season of Ghosts"?).

And that was that.

A Times of India interview on the sidelines.

Update: 5 Apr 2009
Ajay Bhramatmaj has a transcript of Vishal's speech here (the previous link is in Devanaagarii, here's a Roman script version).

Vishal wins National Award #3

Vishal Bhardwaj won a Special Jury Award for his film "Omkara" in the 54th annual National Awards announced today. The awards are running about 2 years late, which explains why a 2006 film is being feted now.

This takes his personal tally to three, the list being:
1999 - Best Music Direction - "Godmother"
2005 - Best Children's Film - "The Blue Umbrella"
2007 - Special Jury Award - "Omkara"

Konkona Sen Sharma also won Best Supporting Actress for the same film. These awards keep intact Vishal's record of having at least one National Award associated with each movie he's directed so far. Recall that Pankaj Kapur won Best Supporting Actor for Vishal's "Maqbool", while Shweta Prasad won Best Child Actor for his debut "Makdee".