Javed Akhtar on
How To Write Bollywood.

By Ajay Pamneja.

The following are excerpts from the Javed Akhtar interview by Munni, a UK based writer, as part of the Clerkenwell Literary Festival.

On being asked what he felt about the term 'Bollywood', he replied "It used to feel like it being a derogatory term - a form of replication or a poorer imitation of Hollywood, but now that it has been accepted worldwide without those connotations, I do not feel that and have now accepted it as it represents another well recognised major film industry in the world." The major difference between the two film industries is that the films produced by one are like short stories whereas the films emanating from the other are like 'novels' and epics. I'll let the readers guess which ones he attributed the above traits to. This he believes is directly descended from the origins of cinema in the Indian sub-continent i.e the story-telling and that with its historical ingredients - 'the sagas' with all its singing and musical elements (which goes without saying...).

On being asked if the Bollywood cinema is very formulaic and stereotyped into one style, he very philosophically replied that 'showbiz' is all speculation, people's dreams and is a reflection of the society's moralities and it's accepted standards of conduct. Hence, it can be said that the Bollywood cinema has had its 'waves' of New Cinema, Parallel Cinema..., but that each section of the cinema is down to the individuals who make it. The success of the cinema cannot be 'formulized'.

On being asked, what are the main pillars of the Hindi Cinema, guess what he replied. Javed Akhtar said that the Songs are an integral part of the film but he admitted that he was not sure why it was so. Partly a historical factor from the days of origin of the Hindi cinema and partly due the fact that we have so many films with 'love angles' in them. But he admitted that he was not sure if we have so many songs in the films because of the love angles in them or is it because we have to have so many songs in our films that the love angles 'creep' into the films. Which is the cause and which the result, in unclear? The second important ingredient of the Bollywood film is the villian, He said that it is the villian in the film which decides what the character of the main 'hero' - the protagonist of the film should be like.

Tracing the history of the Hindi cinema to yesteryears, the original villians used to be the landowners - the 'zamindars', then came the capitalist mill owners, the 'seth' whoc was the accepted bad character in our society. Then the more urbane Smuggler or the 'don' of all the Gambling dens bacame the favorite villian. When these characters became acceptable in our societies, this caused a bit of confusion in the film industry on the choice of a perfect and a universal villian. Javed Saheb said that with the change of moralities and blurring of the lines between good and bad, it is more difficult to portray a 'bad' guy on the screen. The easiest and most accepeted villianous character in cinema nowadays is the 'Politician'. With changing morals, the 'hero' too has changed in our films. He is now the rebel, the 'vigilante', the 'revolutionary'. It was during the 'emergency' days of 1975 that the 'hero' became the 'villian' of the 30's films.

Since the society is more confused, it is important for the cinema to have that 'feel good' factor. Because of the capitalist/consumerism lapped society - lines are much blurred in what is acceptable and what is not. This is the reason for more and more of the 'Love' films produced in Bollywood, because there is no 'moral dilemma' in falling in love. This is the easy hideout/hideaway for the Bollywood producers to whom most other territories smack of disaster and failure.

Javed Saheb was made to reflect on the days of Zanjeer, Deewar & Sholay with the ever accepted Amitabh Bachchan. The scripts coming out of the Salim-Javed duo in those days produced this 'angry young man' character who was to dominate the film industry for a long time. Javed Saheb replied that there was no conscious effort on their part to design such characters, but it was merely a reflection of the times and that such scripts and characters 'excited' him to produce more of the same.

When asked for his opinion on the changes so far and the forthcoming trends in the cinema, Javed Saheb went into another very philosophical mode that it is always the younger producers/directors who break the mould and come up with some exciting/trend-setting films. It is because they do not have any 'past experiences' holding them back, everything to them is 'Brand New' even though it has been done before (brought a chuckle from the audience!). He believes that it is the changing times and the differing cultures which produce the variety n the cinema. A long chain of clichés in the film do not work. Hence the Bollywood, Continental and Hollywood's treatment of the same subject matter would produce very different results in the cinema.

On being asked about the genre in the Hindi cinema, he amused the audience with "we do wonders with the English language. We also have genre in Bollywood. A Social film or a Muslim Social film, then we have the Musical - ones with more than 9 songs in it, an Action film - one with more than 7 fight scenes in the film" and so on...

Reminiscing about the films he was involved with, Javed Saheb said the Amitabh starrer films came after the Shammi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna days and did defy the trends with fewer and fewer songs in them like Deewar and Zanjeer which only had 2-3 songs in them. "The characters and dialogues in our films were always good, it was the structure/plot which let a lot of the films down" he said and inevitably leading to that greatest epic of all - SHOLAY. Javed Saheb amused the audience by saying that he never understood why the dialogues in Sholay were so popular. He said that there was no tricks or finesse in the dialogues like 'Kitne aadmi the?" and "Ab tera kya hoga, Kaliya?" On the film and characters of Sholay, he added that this film grew 'organically' during the development of the screenplay and that it did not have such strong individual characters to start off with.

On being asked if it is the passion or the craft which makes a great script-writer, Javed Saheb said that it is the Passion at first. With time and experience you develop and sharpen the prowess for good writing and develop the craft, but time does take away the craft when you write as a routine and stop observing and seeing the changes around you. This will make you less creative. So never feel that you have achieved what you set out for as it is then that teh CREATIVITY stops. After being away from script-writing for more that 8 years, he said that he was now ready for another script for a Bollywood film.

The conversation was now steering towards 'Lagaan'. Javed Saheb was full of praise for the final results of this film. He commented that "... after 'Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?' which challenged the viewers with some fresh ideas/thoughts, Lagaan is the first film in ten years to have done the same again." Lagaan has contradicted many set beliefs in the industry about what not to do in a film and has succeeded. He said the Lagaan is a list of Don'ts with its 'period drama' setting, a dhoti-clad hero, a 'fully covered' simple village girl as the main female character, slow songs and a .... 'bhajan' and talking about the 'British times'. He said that not many people would have ventured onto such a project. "Lagaan has provided the perfect bridging for the rural characters from a different period to be accepted by the modern audience."

Talking about his move to become a lyricist from the original success as the script writer, he said that this transition began with 'Silsila' when Yash Chopra asked him to write the songs for his poet-character in the film. On being asked if he prefers to write songs or the scripts, he said that writing Lyrics is an expression of the thoughts in a simple and yet elegant language, but you do not feel fully involved in the film until you do the script for it as well. Lyrics, he said, need not be of such 'flowery' language that they become ambiguous and offer people a different meaning to the one which was intended. He said that the language in the songs should be 'transparent and aesthetic' for them to have the mass appeal. Talking about teh lyrics for Lagaan, he said that the Bhajan was the most difficult one to write has this is the one which needed all the trickery of the language to be left behind and show some true innocence and purity through the words which is more difficult to achieve.