In Filmfolk trade accusations as much-hyped films continue to crash

By Ali Peter John

The times have never been as cruel as they are now. Talk to any producer, director, star, character artiste, music director, technician or unit hand, and he will invariably tell you about the dark and dreary days which lie ahead. There is no work and less money, and there is little hope of work or money coming in till a couple of films do well at the box-office and till the monsoons (the latest on the endless list of woes) come to an end.

A pall of gloom has spread all over, a kind of horrifying gloom that forces filmmakers, who once led easy life-styles, to take searing looks at their own conscience. During my rounds last week, I heard a leading producer say, “Hum producerone apne aap ko barbaad to kar hi diya, lekin saath saath distributoron ke ghar bhi bikwa diye” (We producers have not only destroyed ourselves but we have also forced the distributors to mortgage their houses because of the bad films we have made). This sudden awakening of the dormant conscience has affected every strata of the industry. Filmfolk have accepted the bitter truth that the badly or indifferently made films are the only reason why they’ve met with disaster at the box-office. Some like-minded filmmakers and writers are also meeting in various places to ascertain measures to fight the malady, before doomsday dawns on them. The directors are busy blaming the writers, the writers are busy returning the accusations in kind, and the producers, financiers and distributors are blaming the stars “who have no soul, who care a damn for others as long as they get their crores. But how long will it last?” (Pramod Chakravorty).

There is a general consensus among regular filmmakers, men like Pahlaj Nihalani, NN Sippy, Yash Chopra, JP Dutta and Vidhu Vinod Chopra that it is high time they put their heads together, cast their selfish motives aside and talked about working towards a common agenda with just one goal — “to keep the industry which is fast reaching a point of no return, alive and struggling to reach the status it had achieved in the 70s and 80s when there were more filmmakers than proposal makers, when there were dreamers who dreamt of making their ambitions come true and not just make money” (Yash Chopra).

Says Vijay Anand who is struggling (what a shame!) to make a film called Jaana Na Dil Se Door with Dev Anand heading the cast: “All that is happening could lead to sheer madness. No industry can flourish, no good film can be made under the prevailing pressures. How can we make good films when we are not interested in making good films and when we are surrounded by artistes and writers and music directors and technicians who are only interested in making money? I am making the film just because I want to make films, because I’m good at no other. But the pressures on us hangs like the sword of Damocles. How can any creative filmmaker make a good film under these circumstances? Things will have to change, and change before conditions get worse. Every industry goes through a crisis but the brains-trust must, will have to put their heads together, and fight unitedly to put the industry back on its feet. Our industry doesn’t have that spirit. We talk about unity but we don’t unite. We talk about saving the industry yet actively work towards destroying whatever is left of the industry. All this will have to change if the industry has to change.”

If the conditions were normal, there would have been a flurry of activities after Sushma Swaraj declared industry status for filmdom, but exactly the reverse seems to be happening ever since. There have been no shootings in the studios, not the way there used to. Just imagine one ad film being shot in the sprawling Film City on one day! Thanks to Sooraj Barjatya, Filmistan Studios is buzzing with activity due to the long shooting schedule of Hum Saath Saath Hai which has just started and which will go on till February 1999. The other studios are just lying idle. The bungalows which were also busy with shootings till some time ago are idle, deserted, forlorn. The last time a bungalow was used for shooting was when producer KP Singh and director Kundan Shah shot Hum To Mohabbat Karega with Bobby Deol and Karisma Kapoor and Rakesh Roshan started Kaho Na Pyaar Hai with his son Hritik and Kareena Kapoor. There were no other shootings in bungalows in Mumbai. A few stray shootings of Priyadarshan’s Hera Pheri (formerly titled Raftaar) and Govind Nihalani’s Takshak hardly speak much for an industry which once boasted of making 800 films a year.

There is no work, not the kind of work that was being done. The stars are busy doing shows or making the best of their enforced holidays. The character artistes and technicians are worried about their daily wages. And in the midst of all this mess, no one seems to give a damn about all the junior artistes, dancers, fighters and spot boys who live from day to day. They are facing desperate times what with their children’s schools and colleges reopening? Who will care for them? Who will care for this industry? Who?