|
Outside the circus ring: Kaizad Gustad On His Antics
SANGEETA A KUMAR
‘Boom is so completely hatke that it falls off the map’
Boom is complete. And Kaizad Gustad is back in the limelight. With a goatee but minus the dreadlocks. His razor-sharp candour is intact though. So is his sense of humour.
He may deny that the movies are the be-all and end-all of his existence. But his love for cinema peeps out through his words, winks through his monologue on the state of the Hindi film industry. Little has changed since Bombay Boys. He continues making his kind of movies, continues breaking the rules of showbiz.
For starters, Kaizad has bagged three film offers, two of which are international projects. The first, Mumbai Central, is about four crisscrossing stories set on a local train in Mumbai. The second is an Indo-Australian project called The Film. And the third, a Hollywood film, Jaisalmer. Ask him about them and he shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know which one will happen first. I’ve stopped making plans,” he quips in his characteristic I-care-less style.
Right now, his energies are focused on his second film. Boom, he says, is a movie about a bunch of villains trying to out-villain each other. “There are no emotional love stories, no melodrama and none of the characters are the sort you can empathise with. The message of the movie is: ‘Don’t get involved with supermodels or gangsters. Especially the former.’ Boom has the mind of a small indie film, with the values of a commercial Hindi film.”
The director claims Boom was born because he wanted to make a movie on the Indian fashion world. Marrying that strand of the story to a parallel one about the underworld proved to be the best route. Says the director, “Every filmmaker says his film is unique, different, or original. But they all end up looking the same. A movie becomes unique only when it has a voice of its own. And that is the director’s voice. I’m not a director on hire. I don’t follow any rules. So I don’t have obligations to anyone but myself.”
Boom, he says is over-the-top fiction. It took him a year to write the movie. “I’m a slow writer,” he smiles. “I take ages to rear my baby because I believe that the script is the core of a movie. Nothing can save a bad script from becoming a worse movie, not even the biggest of stars. Get the script right and the rest will follow.”
He laughs, “To say that Boom is zara hatke would be a joke. Boom is so completely hatke that it falls off the map. I don’t know what impact my film will have. But one thing I’m sure of is that no one will be indifferent to it. I expect the audience to either love it or hate it. The critics will, of course, hate it. Of that, I’m sure.”
‘The actors responded to the madness in the script’
The movie has whipped up interest before its release largely because of its star cast, one that comprises Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Gulshan Grover, Padma Lakshmi, Madhu Sapre, Katrina Kaif, Jaaved Jaffery, Zeenat Aman, Bo Derek, Seema Biswas…
The director grins, “Everyone asks me how I managed such a star cast. My answer is, I just asked them and they agreed. I think they responded to the madness of the project.”
And that included the Big B. Says the director, “I made him do things and wear stuff which I think he still shudders about. But then again, it was all about breaking the mould, not reinforcing the same image over and over again. According to me, Mr Bachchan has the best comic timing. Also, I think Jackie is a far better actor than anyone has given him credit for. He’s a consummate director’s actor. You won’t recognise him in Boom. .”
The experience of getting all the stars together, says Kaizad, was pretty much like a scene from the Hollywood film Pollock: “Ed Harris is cycling down a deserted road with a case of beer bottles balanced on the handlebars. He’s smoking with one hand and at the same time he’s trying to open a beer bottle and drink it. That’s how my film set looked. Just replace the deserted road with a crowded Crawford Market.”
‘I can't do ji-huzuri bullshit’
He argues, “People often question my method but not the madness. As director, I know what I want and I get it. My job is to get the work out of an actor. I push as hard as I can. I can’t stand laziness and most of all I can’t do ji-huzuri bullshit. I’m not here to win the Mr Popularity contest. Every actor is equal on my sets, whether it’s Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff or Bo Derek.
‘There’s too much pomposity in the Hindi film industry’
Although Kaizad has grown up on a staple diet of commercial Hindi films, he doesn’t think too highly of them today. “Hate is too strong a word,” he notes. “But I do have my apprehensions about commercial Hindi cinema. There’s a lot of pomposity out here. We’re just making movies here, not selling oil, or looking for a formula for world peace. I think the industry shouldn’t take itself so seriously.”
He adds, “I’m not interested in making friends within the industry or spending my life here. I don’t really care if the Hindi film industry has accepted me or not. It’s a narrow incestuous pool where all people do is backbite and gossip. Nobody wants anyone to succeed and that’s really sad.. I do my job and get out. I prefer being the outsider because it gives me a perspective when the circus comes to town. Ars Gratia Artis is my motto. Let the lion roar on his own terms.”
Then getting all-bright eyed, Gustad trills, “I want to make a movie called Bollywood, in which I follow all the stars around with a camcorder for six months. I think that would be far more interesting than any masala omelet we dish out. But the problem is, once the camera rolls, truth gets left behind and the fantasy is so candy floss that it gives you a toothache.”
The director says that when he wrote Bombay Boys in 1996, the issue of the NRI or an identity-crisis film in English was anathema to most Indian producers. But when it made money, almost all the movies on the Indian diaspora focused on similar issues.
Indian movies, of course, never wavered from the song-and-dance routine. “I’m tired of the usual love story, the identity-crisis movie,” he sighs. “I’m more interested in exploring a newer, faster, more evolving India. A contemporary India, which is way ahead of the way it’s interpreted abroad. Boom tries to take a broad, over-the-top look at an uncommon outlook. In many ways, Boom is a sequel to Bombay Boys, in its attitude.”
‘I made so much noise for Bombay Boys because I had to’
Talking of Bombay Boys, reminds one that he disappeared for five years from the showbiz radar after its release, till Boom brought him back. Ask him why and he tells you: “Since Bombay Boys I’ve been contemplating the meaning of life, traveling and living. Making films was never a career option for me. I make a film only if I'm absolutely compelled to do so. Every now and then, I’m kicked by an idea and it results in a movie. Otherwise, I have plenty to do.”
You believe that. Especially when, “54 countries, 36 jobs, 7 screenplays, 2 movies and a book,” is how Kaizad describes his journey through life.
He also claims he’s media shy.That he doesn’t like to flaunt himself. ///////Which is why not much has been seen of him post-Bombay Boys. Really? Somehow that wasn’t the impression one got when he pulled out all the stops while publicising Bombay Boys. Tell him that and he clarifies, “I made so much noise for Bombay Boys because I had to. There was no way out. I had to make the public sit up and notice me. Otherwise being put up on a hoarding is the least of my interests.”
‘A film should decide its own market regardless of is language’
Kaizad Gustad doesn’t subscribe to the commercial Hindi film lingo. Tell him that could limit his target audience and he argues, “I think a film should decide its own language regardless of its market. “The distributor forced me to dub Bombay Boys in Hindi. So I had three guys from abroad, who had never been to India, talking to each other in Hindi, telling each other how they didn’t know to speak Hindi! I think that kind of commercial exploitation is not worth it. It ruins the very fabric of the film. It would be foolish to expect supermodels to speak in Hindi just as it would be stupid to show Nagpada gangsters speak in English. I took great pains in Boom to ensure that the language was as close to the bone as possible. We all live in a multi-lingual planet and I feel that its language does not determine a film’s success. Today, to survive in Mumbai, you need to know at least three languages. Boom reflects that reality.”
Expanding Budgets have nothing to do with creativity
As for the winds of change that are said to be sweeping over the Hindi film industry,. Kaizad dismisses them: “Everyone seems to be talking about this change the industry is going through. Yet, if you scratch the surface, you’ll see the same old people in new clothes, or else, new people learning to wear old clothes because the new ones don’t fit either. The new guys don’t want to listen, the old guys don’t want to learn anything new.And believe me, expanding budgets mean nothing. They have nothing to do with creativity. You can make a brilliant movie in five crores or a crappy one in 50. So?”
So where does he see himself in such a scenario? “Film-makers like me, who want to make our own films, have our own voices and convictions are stranded in the middle, wondering which wave will capsize us first,” he replies.
This is not to say there is no work here that he doesn’t admire. He says he was completely bowled over by Company. “According to me, it’s the best movie India has made since Sholay. It blew me away completely. I think Ram Gopal Varma is brilliant.
I feel what the Hindi film industry needs today is a whole load of sincerity. There is no magic formula and there’s no fixed answer to what’s right or wrong. Look at China, Korea, Japan, or even Hong Kong. Their miniscule industries have left a larger imprint on the world stage than India has. It’s a shame. But then again, anyone can turn around and ask me what I know I’m only two films old.”
But he does have a formula for success, he chortles. “Make love three times a day. Dream in Cinemascope. Never gossip or criticise. Don’t waste time making rules;.break them. Don’t listen to anyone except yourself. Don’t regret and don’t look back.”
|
Login 
Register
FAQ
Search
hyeh:
(of cos... all non-BEI Hindi dvds should be treated with the same contempt !)