Scripts – The Drought Continues In Bollywood
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Folks,
Been a while while I posted and there will be gaps, as I continue my shift from SF to Mumbai (in part), hence the “brick and mortar” interactions, rediscovery of my hometown, and the push to continue with my debut film, make for a much more interesting use of my time, as opposed to getting on the computer and blogging. However, today is one such instance where the computer does get precedence.
While I did not attend it (waste of my time and money), the recently concluded FICCI FRAMES, brought to light something that I have believed has continued….THE DOWNWARD SLIDE IN BOLLYWOOD- I.E. SCRIPTS.
We had a “wise and intelligent” old man of Indian cinema, saying in FICCI, as reported by the media, something to the effect of “It is ok If I copy as long as I make profits for myself and the industry.”
WAY TO GO!!
That pretty much sums up the sad state of affairs, we are mired in. Surely in a nation of a billion plus, with each person representing a potetial story, is this the best we can do?
When I look around, all I see are, copies of US, Phillipino, European, Korean, etc, or modern day remakes of remakes, or remakes of product releasing in the same week (three Bhagat Singhs shows the pea brain business sense at work).
Laugh, celebrate, criticize or whatever it is you want to do with Slumdog. At least the script was refreshing and congrats go to Vikas Swarup for writing something, that is topical, and yet a compelling story.
Recently a very close friend of mine (hence someone I can go at with a no holds barred banter and he to me), joined the Whistling Woods (WW) film school, as a teacher in their Scriptwriting Program. He is someone I respect immensely and is definitely qualified to be doing what he is doing and in fact regret missing his invitation to attend the week long scriptwriting workshop coming up next week at WW, since the corporate day job in the US (also an integral part of who I am) beckoned. To him I had the following questions with respect to the state of scriprwriting in Mumbai
(a) Why have we lost the ability to write something original?
(b) Given that we are so animated and interesting in our lives and conversation, why is our comedy scriptwriting so tragic?
(c) We are wonderful in telling stories, I honestly believe, that each of us is a story, yet why do our “laugh at commercial cinema, ” type, “middle of the roads” make such uninteresting or cliched stories?
(d) Why are we having such an obsession to have the “Syd Field” type of workshops in India, when the fact is that the world has since moved on (again no disrespect to SF- he is a gem, but just as happens in all walks of life, things and ideas become old and antiguated and we must move on)?
(e) We have some self appointed gurus of scriptwriting in Bollywood, or at least they are often quoted in the media. My question is – why are they the gurus? They have not written anything of significance, some don’t even have a scriptwrtiting education or training (nothing wrong with that, but being a guru, one would expect some sort of real world or academic credentials) and in fact when they have written something, it has been a commercial dud (and yes I do emphasize commercial cause I am talking about the BUSINESS of scripting, not the ART of it), so who appointed these folks and what are we going to do, to ensure the quality of things to come, in the hands of these self appointed studs?
My friend at WW, did promise me with answers to these and I believe him. But he also agreed that my questions were genuine.
What was ironical is that we have a history of literature and writing. Past and present. This appeals to all generations. As kids we have read and been entertained by this literature, as teenagers and adults, the real life of our surroundings have provided us with laugh, tragedy, intensity, mystery and intrigue……how come it is not seen on the wider canvass and when reaching out to masses!!
Or should we become a nation of “dvd writers,” or take pride in “how we can copy and still make profits?”
Cause again you may like him or lump him, the fact of the matter is that Mr Yash Chopra has written some fine films, so now it is time for the current lot to take that base and move forward. Will they? Let’s see what the future holds!
Sincerely,
Vivek “they may as well have the Indian Writers Association office in a dvd library store” Kumar
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
best of lucks for ur debut film.
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How fabulous!! Good luck on your debut film! We need more writers like yourself.
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i fully agree.I mean the first thing that i look for in a film nowadays is a interesting and unique script, the absence of which causes more than half the battle to be lost.
Also, given our recent exposure to international cinema,it wont be hard for us Indian audience to make out a rip off, which would eventually lead to comparisons with the original and eventual criticism.
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The original script is the major problem and rare piece in our film industry. Dumbness of stars to stuck with their image and producers with money left director with few action scenes, one item songs and romantic /rape scene inserted in the movie. Then, they justify it on the basis of market demands.They are not cinema makers but greedy inverstors in hyped Nautankee films. They do not want to make 1 good movie in 3 years but feel great by making 3 bad movies in single year.Hunting of ‘dvd writers’ is much necessary in our own film industry.We have so much of literature and cultural background but no dvd writer had ever read book other than Filmfare.The questions raised by you are genuine and must be slapped in the faces of inspired / copied gentleman. Tell them omkara was adapted one,that is example of inspiration. Vivek,you have raised authentic questuions here…Let us see,what will happen to original script dream in future
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There are way too many reasons for the lack of good film scripts in India. Most of them relating to the society…
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1) Scriptwriting isn’t considered a viable option for a career so a lot of people are scared to jump into it. You know, no one is a great writer to begin with. So moments of self doubt are only natural. Parents discourage too. To fight that you need strength and resilience which everyone does not possess.
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2) Now imagine a guy who fights all this and writes a script… he shows it to his friends who love it… due to the poor judgment of our public… the boy gets egoistic about his writing… he ignores a few genuine comments coz’ he thinks that junta is the king and if they’ve liked it then his script is great… It takes even greater strength and resilience to fight this kind of behavior. And if it isn’t fought then they are stuck with mediocrity for the rest of their lives.
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3) Now it’s not as if genuine scriptwriters are non existent here, we do have an odd raju hirani, or an anurag kashyap here… but that’s coz these guys are mentally strong… not just creatively strong. Also, unlike the west, screenplays of Indian films are not freely available on the net.. so if a guy wants to do some self study he has to rely on the american screenplays…
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4) Lastly, if you are mentally strong you will get there with hard work and persistence… Also important is to not be jealous of your competition’s success but learn from it. Envy is abundant in a lot of indian screenwriters… it’s only natural, but it’s something that has to be consciously fought.
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