In conversation with Vishal Bhardwaj
Extensive interview with reference to Kaminey; solid dope on VB's method of working with actors and his opinion on other stuff like music and editing...(Long!) Excerpts:
I was really inspired by Tarantino's films, Guy Ritchie. That was the space. In that I had to hunt up something original, do something that hasn't been done before.
"And also it must be said that the boys and girls of this generation are indeed a lot more intelligent, a lot more aware. And awareness comes from exposure, and they have so much more exposure now"
Our audience itself is so star-struck that they need references, it takes them time to place a star in a different context. And a combination like this unnerves them.
If you're in the moment and listening for your co-actor, instead of waiting for your own line… as a director, that is the false note that you have to try and capture. Sometimes things don't look internal enough, the crying looks too surfacial. So you have to keep bringing actors back to the moment, the truth, the reality."
Vishal shuns rehearsals entirely, feeling they decapitate all notions of spontaneity. "You become so rehearsed there's nothing left. So we read the script, and we go deeply into character study."
What is not seen on the screen should be explored, and we should all try to live those unseen moments. So that when we arrive at this moment, the moment that is in the script, we'll bring some sense of that backstory, feel some invisible energy. Then the actor is not just coming and performing those lines."
Borrowing from reality is something that fascinates the filmmaker, and he describes how it was awkward to meet the stammering men, but amazing to hear their life experiences.
The current film, he says, has had a lot of improvisation, largely because all of Kaminey has been shot using handheld cameras. "Nothing was fixed. None of the actors knew exactly which angles we were using so they all had to do the entire scenes all the way through. And we would do axis jumps! Right from the first scene! Paagalon ki tarah shoot kiya hai," he beams wide.
Bhardwaj is almost embarrassingly effusive in his praise for Hussain. "I think we have a really great rapport. As professionals, we have such an identical gelling when it comes to cinema.
What happens is that always before shooting, I make a mix of the song in my own voice, picturise it and then come back and dub. I don't use the original artists till much later, unless it's a sync song. This saves a lot of time and the song is still being made, and because it's my composition I can sing it quicker.
We talk of dynamic editing and cutting scenes to music, and Bhardwaj cuts in, strongly disagreeing. "When you're shooting it, the shot was not conceived to the music, so it starts going wrong. I hate to cut to music. I cut separately. You should not have the music to stimulate you to cut. You cut it the way it should be, emotionally. And then put the music.
Music should follow the edit, edit shouldn't follow the music.
"A film is only made on two tables, yaar. The writing table and the editing table. Everything else is chaos."
Current Indian filmmakers he is impressed by include Anurag Kashyap — the man is all praise for most of Dev D — and Dibakar Banerjee, the man behind Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, going as far as to mimic the young-Sardar scenes from the latter.
Consciously I never tried to say anything, but interestingly enough a message is born. A philosophical message.
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