A Short Conversation With Shibani Bathija
Unlike Oz, I didn’t come prepared for an interview, so my notes and thoughts are all based on what I typed when I returned home later that night and transcribed in what is turning into a short lunch break, so please forgive the long sentences and repetitions. I also hope that I haven’t completely misrepresented anything Shibani said as everything is coming from memory….
First, a word about Shibani herself. I adore her. She is intelligent, well spoken, well aware of the luck that she has had in her career path, and not at all jaded by her successes. Most of all, her passion for movies is evident when she begins to talk about them. Before anything else, she is a fan, not someone who entered the industry to satisfy her own ego or for the cache that working in the industry carries. She has worked hard and had her first three scripts find success that most other writers take years to find, but is realistic about the fact that even though she has worked hard, she is still a working writer. I also appreciate the fact that she listens to the criticisms of her work (and agrees with many of them) as she knows her career is just beginning and she is still learning her craft. She is unassuming, polite, and I can’t help but love someone who can reference Frost and Byron in conversation.
That said, I had the chance to have a short conversation with her, and was able to ask her about Kajol’s character (Zooni) in Fanaa. I was interested in how such a character portrayed as a strong, independent woman could fall for someone who is a bad-boy like the character of Rehan (Aamir Khan’s character). Now as a woman, I can understand the attraction, but I had read many reviews that stated this was a flaw in the movie, which was the starting point of our conversation. Shibani pointed out that Aamir’s character was originally meant to be a strong, quiet type person, based on Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, who speaks in quite tones and one liners, and in no place in the original script did he touch her except once, the point was to create a character who was more mysterious, introspective and quiet. It was the director who director changed the character into a “roadside rogue” (her words, and ones that will now become part of my vocabulary, I love this term). She then pointed out that only Aamir Khan could have played the role and have it come out as well as it did, he is the only actor she can think of who has the acting ability to make the character as nuanced and subtle and subdued as he was given the changes to the character from original script to screen.
I was aware from a previous interview that I read that she wrote the part of Zooni for Kajol, as they know each other. I don’t remember the original question I asked, but it was from the perspective that many people believe that writers write characters based on events or characteristics of people they know, but the best writers that I know create characters completely from scratch, so how did Kajol influence the character as it was being written and what parts of Kajol show up in the character, especially since they are friends. Her answer was that the role wasn’t tailored to or influenced by Kajol per say, but that she believes that Kajol has many aspects to her as an actor that haven’t been displayed or brought out in other movies and wanted to really show what Kajol could accomplish as an actor, how versatile and strong she is. The character was written to be independent and self-sufficient woman, with qualities that Kajol hasn’t had the chance to display in her other films, it was really written not so much to give Kajol a star vehicle but to allow her to show what she was capable of as an actor.
Sumeet asked in a comment earlier how I felt about the “implausibilitys” in Fanaa. I liked the film, and as mentioned earlier can forgive many implausibilitys in a love story if the story is a good romance. Now, what constitutes a good romance is up to the viewer, and a hopeless romantic I can forgive much more than most – something for which I am slammed for by my friends on a regular basis. I am also the first person to get pissed when a love story is so outlandish that it is totally outrageous, or when a love story is inserted in a movie for no other reason that some producer decided that it needed to be there in order to “add” something to the plot. So, I liked Fanaa as a film, was never put off by the love story between Zooni and Rehan, but would also not add them to any list of great romantic cinema couples.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
- you missed telling the readers how you two share the love for the Spanish director and are eagerly waiting for his latest movie that’s Spain’s entry for the Oscar Foreign film category.
And by showing Kajol blind – she was able to show her acting skills? Seriously – does an actor have to play a disable role to show their acting skills? How imaginative our writers are(!)
rani has definitely been catapulted since a crap called ‘black’. no doubt she was good in the movie, but it really makes me wonder.. what if black was made by vishal bhardwaj, and had naseer and konkona instead? would it have remained on the “critical acclaim” shelf or actually had a legit shot at awards? sure, awards are a joke (as i’ve said earlier) but it could’ve done some good for konkona earlier in her career. case in point, shiny post hazaaron khwaishen..
“Shibani pointed out that Aamir’s character was originally meant to be a strong, quiet type person”
“It was the director who director changed the character into a “roadside rogue” “.
T! Did you think she was conviniently playing the Blame Game without anyone realising it? From all the points mention by You and Oz, i like to give her the benifit of doubt. Accepted she has to be in good-books of BIG Producers like YashRaj and Dharma Productions. If i read between the lines, she sounds highly creative, highly motivated and well read Person. Thanks T! But, we will disagree on this.. I jsut didnt find Fanaa a watchable movie, leave apart a good movie.
T1 one last question( I know i have asking you a lot many) : Would you have enjoyed Fanaa as much as you did had it not been for Aamir Khan and Kajol? If no, then where does that put Shibani as a writer?
brilliant last question Sumeet ….
bang on !!
Ad yes HG sadly that’s what the writers can think of these days. Earlier it was make up utaro toh ‘method acting’.
Now it is ‘gaali do / physically challenged bano’ toh method acting ….
I haven’t watched Fanaa, so won’t comment. But I did watch KANK.
Besides the fact that it was directed like it was a slick commercial, my main issue with it was the screenplay.
The very short list of issues — the characters were one-dimensional (SRK and RM were constantly whining, completely self-pitying and refused to accept any responsibility – characters need more depth than that!), the story had too much melodrama and finally, it was just too long.
From this interview, she does seem well read. And any time a writer succeeds, I feel happy for the person. But it is truly disappointing that this is where the standard is set.
Hi t!, this comment is not about the movie, but about your writing. Considering that you did not have any prepared notes, and have written from memory, you have written well…Nice article…
@ Oz – The director is Pedro Almodovar, one of my favourite filmmakers. I thought of including that part of our conversation in this post, but cut it out because I thought it was too much information! That said, I will post about this in the next day or so….
@ Honhaar and Kartik– This is a similar argument that the American Academy Awards favor actors and actresses who portray mentally ill characters, and that actors seek out these roles because they find them challenging. I don’t pay much attention to the awards, so I don’t have an opinion, but I figured I would throw this out for discussion…
@ Sumeet – I don’t think she was shifting blame at all. A writer writes a script, and any further participation in the process once the director holds the script is up to the director. She gave many examples during her Q&A about how Aamir’s character changed (one point was that in the original script he wasn’t jumping out of helicopters or being “Superman”). Knowing some writers here in LA, I have seen how a script can be changed through the process; in the end it is the director’s vision based on the writer’s script. I addressed a variation of this in one of my posts on the film festival.
You bring up an interesting point regarding my liking of Fanaa. I enjoyed this movie, but I am finding from my conversations with Oz and from reading this site that I think my standards for liking Indian films are much different that most South Asians. As an American who only discovered Bollywood in the last few years, I don’t have the breadth of knowledge or exposure as most of you, so I don’t have the references to draw on when watching the films. Indian films are among the most beautiful in the world and appeal to me viscerally in ways that Hollywood movies don’t. I am willing to forgive a lot for the chance to watch something beautiful for three hours, to see a story that isn’t the same story that Hollywood churns out, even if it is a variation of a story that I have seen many other times. I actually wrote a small post on my own blog about this, I think I will rework it and post it here.
That said, I hate most Hollywood product and will be the first to rip apart 95% of what that industry puts out. But, my expectations from an Indian movie and an American movie are different, partly because I don’t expect Hollywood to make visually beautiful tearjerkers, and I don’t expect India to turn out cinematically innovative films, and I expect that when Hollywood makes a beautiful film, or when Bollywood make an innovative film, the mainstream movie audience will generally ignore it…
About your last question, OUCH! I don’t think I would have enjoyed Fanaa if the casting had been different. But, is that because the script sucked and the actors and director were able to pull something out of it to make an enjoyable movie, or because the actors were involved with the script and the writer and were able to help maintain her vision, even with the directorial changes? Or?
@ Shripriya – I haven’t had the chance to see KANK, but as you also make films, I would LOVE to hear some of your recommendations of films I should be familiar with!
@ VC – Thanks!
“I don’t expect Hollywood to make visually beautiful tearjerkers, and I don’t expect India to turn out cinematically innovative films, and I expect that when Hollywood makes a beautiful film, or when Bollywood make an innovative film, the mainstream movie audience will generally ignore it…”
Brilliant!!!! Fantastic point that was. I have to agree with you about this in totality.
“As an American who only discovered Bollywood in the last few years, I don
Three bad scripts in a row: Fanaa, KANK, Kidnap. What can one say?