Anurag & I… Jab Imtiaz Spoke
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Imtiaz Ali, the man who gifted us Jab We Met and Socha Na Tha, is in Calcutta to shoot a small schedule of his next film that is Saif Ali Khan’s first home production and stars Saif alongside Deepika Padukone. I caught up with the man and having done the Q&A for The Telegraph, we got chatting about other things. Anurag Kashyap, his friend, came up soon enough and I asked him what I always wanted to ask him how two such close friends make such different cinema. Here is Imtiaz’s side of the story…
POV: Anurag and I have this distinct ability of looking at the same thing in very different ways. So if this bottle is kept on the table and we both look at it, very different things will come to our mind. Each point of view will lead to a story and he will be very surprised with my point of view and I will be very surprised with his point of view. That’s what keeps us entertained in each other’s company. That we don’t think alike. In our personal lives we think a lot alike but when it comes to stories, he thinks very differently from me. I enjoy his point of view. I contribute to it as a bouncing board and provide him a different insight and he definitely does the same for me.
Movies as inspiration: I do watch movies but I am not a movie buff. I watch movies like all people watch movies. Because of Anurag, because of his amazing DVD collection and because he has been my friend and neighbour for the longest time, I keep borrowing from him and watch some foreign films. Sometimes he says why don’t you watch this and why don’t you watch that… He watches thousands of films every year… But I am not inspired by movies to make movies. It is not my game. I do not know enough about cinema. I am interested in life as I see it myself. I just start thinking from a point. I think a girl is waiting at a bus stop and her bus comes… What if she doesn’t take the bus? What can happen? That extends itself and extends itself and it finally grips you. I do it any case but now that I am a film director I try to make a film out of it.
Collaboration: We exchange notes. I don’t watch romantic films. Don’t enjoy them. But I like to watch the kind of films Anurag makes. So Anurag’s films, especially Black Friday, I was quite involved with. I worked with him on the script also. I watched the edits. Any ideas of ours which threatens to go the film way, Anurag and I narrate to each other. There are other friends but he is always there. And I am always there for him. There are many many ideas we sound each other off… Only two or three have been made into movies but all are discussed.
Anurag, if you are reading this, how about your side of the story and can you share some of these ideas which were discussed but were not made into movies…
The Telegraph interview of Imtiaz Ali…
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080904/jsp/entertainment/story_9783675.jsp
Tags: "jab we met", Anurag, Anurag Kashyap, Black Friday, Imtiaz Ali
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
Hey Pratim
This is interesting
Mazza aayega,
If Anurag join this thread
Mast!!!
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A little snippet of a conversation here. IA was involved with the script of Black Friday. In what capcacity? They make films as different as chalk and cheese….
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well i m here and he says it all, he has the pulse of people and i don’t know what i have.. nevertheless we love doing what we do and love each others work as well..
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All the Best to you guys
@ Anurag
Why not Poster competition for “Gulal”?
(I’m very much Interested)
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ayyain yeh tho bada toing hua Pratimda..
“I don’t watch romantic films. Don’t enjoy them”
Arent Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met romntic movies..now this would be very interesting…if he doesnt like romantic movies, what then drives him to make them? Imtiaz if you are reading this..thoda gyaan do sirjee
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@Imtiaz
I like your little set in “Jab We Met”(car & Train)
(when Shahid and Kareena catching the train, driving Taxi)
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@OM, I believe Imtiaz doesn’t look at his films as romantic films… He looks at them as journeys taken and people met on those journeys… Some people are left behind and some people come along for the rest of the journey called life…
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a bit short but was enjoyable to read nonetheless….
Imitiaz Ali doesn’t like romantic films is weird, don’t know exactly what to say to that
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Interesting thought Pratim da
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That was a nice afternoon Quickie!
Thanks PratimDa.
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Pratim…Can you post the telegraph link also so that we can look at the entire interview?
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Imtiaz Ali not liking romantic films — ummmm — not very surprising i guess. But Pratim would u not classify his films as romantic?
Also a thought -may be In Imtiaz’s Next film -there could be a cameo by Anuraag ala Black Friday. What say?
partha
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Both Anurag & Imtiaz has one thing in common “Passion For Cinema”
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ya Rony..kya bola hain..how cliched..be more creative yaara!!
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“I am interested in life as I see it myself. I just start thinking from a point. I think a girl is waiting at a bus stop and her bus comes… What if she doesn’t take the bus? What can happen? That extends itself and extends itself and it finally grips you. I do it any case but now that I am a film director I try to make a film out of it.”
That’s Interesting.
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@ANAND
here is the telegraph link
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080904/jsp/entertainment/story_9783675.jsp
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Pratim,
Dont I envy the job.
It is indeed wonderful to get a peep behind those brains. On a lighter note, wondering what would happen if ever AK and IA came together a la Abbas-Matan Duo..:)..
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Nice read, thank you Pratimda. Sameer (15).. I too found that exact quote to be the most interesting. I think that’s WHY Imtiaz’s films resonate so well with so many people.. IMHO that’s how films SHOULD be made… take-offs from observations about life and all it’s “what if’s…”
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Rusted rick..Many thanks for the link.
Pratim..excellent interview..so much of depth in the questions but not once did the interview sound like ‘look at my knowledge of cinema’(both the question and the answer). Yet it was not a superficial ’stardust’ kind of an interview. Good job.
Interestingly, the portion on Anurag is missing..did you edit it out or did telegraph edit it out?
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Complementary outlooks always gel well. And that is AK and IA…Kudos to both…Hey Anurag, be in touch…
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Anand thanks for those nice words… The Anurag portion is not there in The Telegraph interview and that’s precisely why it’s a PFC exclusive…
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Are mama,
Bhalo guglita diyecho kintu!
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A wonderful read!!! Keep posting such stuff… was fun.
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Hi Pratim
It was a long time back when I just think about you and also when I visit PFC. This one is very innovative piece and hope that Anurag definitely reply his take on films.
How is the life? please sms me your latest article son PFC as I’m not the regular visitor of the same. I’ll SMS my new mobile number. Ok.
God Bless you.
nihar
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Read in the latest Filmfare issue that AK is contemplating to direct Imtiaz-like-movies, because his daughter does not like dad’s dark movies…AK, is it true ? :-)
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