When the historical biographical British
period film, ‘Elizabeth’ hit the big
screen in Hollywood, people started
recognising Shekhar Kapur on the international
stage. However, in India he had already made
his mark with hits like ‘Masoom’ and ‘Me India’.
But it was not an easy going journey for the
director who is now the festival director of the
International Film Festival of India in Goa. With
an eye for developing cinema in the world that
is working with technology, Shekhar hopes
Indian filmmakers too can take advantage of
technology with big budgets.
Speaking about his first film and its
success, he says, “When ‘Masoom’ was
released, for the first four days, the theatre
were empty. They started to cut down the
theatres. For the sixth day, the theatres were
full and then the film ran for three years.
Today, 35 years after the release of ‘Masoom’,
people are still watching and they're still
singing the songs. So much so that people
have asked me to make a sequel to ‘Masoom’,
which I'm doing now. It's called 'Masoom,
The Next Generation'. The cast is Naseeruddin
Shah, Shabana Azmi, Manoj Bajpayee and my
daughter Kaveri. It is not a sequel to the same
storyline but in a different genre. These are
stories that a middle class can connect to and
issues which are still relevant.”
He further adds, "I made ‘Bandit Queen’,
and people said it would not work. It became
a huge hit and then it was banned. The
High Court banned it, then the Supreme
Court looked at it. Once it released, it was
unstoppable. There were people coming from
villages in carts and buses to see the film.
Within my own industry, people said, there's a
naked woman in the film, and that's why it's
doing well. I got the distributor to have
women-only shows and they
were so crowded. They wanted
to see that for themselves, not
with other men. Ultimately,
I just made a movie from
my own belief system, my
own heart."
Is commercial Indian
cinema the stereotype
through which even now the
world sees Indian filmmaking?
“Commercial world
cinema is a
stereotype. If you see Marvel or Disney films,
they are stereotyped as movies for children.
They make films according to their culture and
we make according to our culture, we have
a bigger audience but they have a lot more
money which helps them in marketing better
than us. Unless Indian cinema and filmmakers
are not given more encouragement
technology and budget, then Disney will take
over our industry. Disney is not us. We can't
afford the Disneyfication. I'm
told to make a superhero
film like Marvel. All
our heroes itself are
superheroes like Rajinikath.
Our superheroes do
everything,” explains
Shekhar.
From
‘Bandit
Queen’ in 1994 to ‘Elizabeth,’ a historical
biographical period film in Hollywood in 1998,
Shekhar challenged himself to prove his game
in Hollywood. "After ‘Bandit Queen’, the West
came to me. I thought to myself, ‘Shekhar, let’s
go play with the big guys. We should go there
and show that we won’. It was not easy. For 3-4
years, I was living on my friends’ couch and
then slept on the floor. I finished my money
and then emptied my back account. Then, I
was offered ‘Elizabeth’ which I first refused.
Then, I looked at my bank account and
accepted the film," says Shekhar.
With an eye on technology, Shekhar's
film in 1987 'Mr India' was one of the first
films in Indian cinema to experiment with
the use of Visual effects (VFX) to turn the
lead actor, Anil Kapoor invisible in the film.
Now in 2024, the main character in the
opening film, ‘Better Man’ is a CGI monkey.
The producer of the film, Paul Curry, have
said that a lot more such characters will
come to the screen. Shekhar shares his
thought, "The opening film was focused
on the lead role played by a CGI monkey.
By the time the film ended, people were
crying for the monkey. It was so effectively
done and really well done."