Forty years after making his first film, Shekhar Kapur is back with the romantic comedy What’s Love Got to Do With It? and a film on colonialism
Forty years after making his first film, Shekhar Kapur is back with the romantic comedy What’s Love Got To Do With It? and a film on colonialism
A rare Indian filmmaker with a truly global profile, Shekhar Kapur has brought out only seven narrative features in a career spanning 40 years. However, he has never been off the radar. his first film, innocent (1982), is alive in the collective memory of Hindi film fans. So is his hugely popular 1987 sophistication venture, Mr India,
his latest, What’s Love Got To Do With It?Set for a worldwide theatrical release next January 27, marks their first fiction feature since 2007. Elizabeth: The Golden Age, “I did two big series in between,” said the 76-year-old London-based director while shooting a television commercial in Faridabad. “I worked Damien [a follow-up to the classic 1970s horror film, The Omen] for fox and on the legacy [a series on a young William Shakespeare] For TNT,” he says.
from now on What’s Love Got To Do With It?
, photo credit: Robert Wiglaski
His two early successes were followed by numerous false starts and creative declines. Incomplete or incomplete projects accumulated. The string of canceled Mumbai films inspired him to go global. The trick paid off. “It may sound arrogant. I left the B-team and went to compete for a place in the A-team,” he says of his departure from Bollywood in the 1990s. “I wanted to test myself. was. I wanted to see if I was good enough to play in the higher leagues. it was. He provided his fourth film, Elizabeth (1998), a UK-funded production in which an Australian star plays a British monarch, a candid, radiant Bollywood style. It reaped the Kapoor major global dividend.
working with digital
What’s Love Got To Do With It?A romantic comedy written by Jemima Khan – which recently won the Best Comedy award at the Rome Film Festival – is produced by Working Title, an organization supported Elizabeth And its sequel. “The script came to me through the producers. We were going to make it earlier, but COVID arrived. So, we had to wait,” he says of his first digitally shot feature film.
Jemima Khan and Shekhar Kapur at Rome Film Festival What’s Love Got To Do With It? Received Best Comedy Award photo credit: Getty Images
The film unfolds between London and Lahore, where Kapoor was born two years before India gained independence. Has the transition from film to digital affected her aesthetic? “Digital has its advantages and disadvantages,” he replies. “You are not constrained by the cost of raw stock. Production is easier and cheaper.” But one of the challenges is to achieve the ‘filmy look’. “There’s so much depth to digital that there’s no focus,” he says, explaining that the ‘film look’ is an emotional way of telling a story. It has visible layers. “When we look at something, we constantly focus and refocus. When we look at something, everything else is out of focus. The film’s look is very much the same. as we see the world.”
What’s Love Got To Do With It?Kapoor’s first rom-com has been lit and shot by cinematographer Remy Edfersin, who has also lensed the duo. Elizabeth movies. It stars Shazad Latif, Lily James, Emma Thompson, Sajal Alli and Shabana Azmi (Kapoor’s 1970s co-star) in lead roles.
Shabana Azmi and Emma Thompson on the sets What’s Love Got To Do With It?
, photo credit: Robert Wiglaski
Inclusion and Filmmaker
Kapoor’s acting career – She debuted in her maternal uncle Dev Anand’s film Ishq Ishq Ishq (1974) After pursuing a career as a chartered accountant in London – despite a film each with Mani Kaul was uneventful ( sight), Govind Nihalani ( Vision) and Basu Chatterjee ( jina yahani) and starring Kamal Haasan Vishwaroopam 1 And 2, As an actor, he knew exactly what he wanted from his director. “I was screaming for it, but didn’t get it,” he says. But his on-screen experience influenced how he got to direct his actors.
“My job as a director is to help actors find themselves in the characters. I have an idea of how the camera should move, what the frame should be and how the actors should choreograph themselves, but I see what they do and let them go with it. That’s what I’ve done in every movie since innocent,” he says.
Shazad Latif and Lily James What’s Love Got To Do With It?
, photo credit: Robert Wiglaski
Addressing inclusion and diversity in cinema, the two major issues today, Kapoor says she believes filmmakers are responsible people. “Nobody needs to tell them what to do,” he says. “Take Mr India Song picturized on Sridevi in blue chiffon saree. To this day I still think it was wonderful. But if the film comes out now, people might say that it is an objectification of women. So, shall I do it today? I’m not sure.”
If someone had suggested that a black actor play Elizabeth, it would have made no sense, Kapoor said. “Cate Blanchett looked perfect for the role, so I cast her. Queen Elizabeth had brown eyes. Cate has blue eyes. Would I have changed her hair color too? How far is anyone taking these things?” could it?”
Bringing the Opium Wars to the Screen
Avoiding repetition is the defining quality of his art. “I’m wary of imitating myself,” says the veteran director. “If I copy myself, I don’t struggle. If you’ve climbed a mountain, you don’t return to the same mountain. You find a new mountain to climb, a new path to walk.” “
with innocent And Mr IndiaA world apart from matter and spirit, Kapoor expanded the boundaries of Hindi commercial cinema at the height of the Angry Young Man era. He could rest on his paddle and continue the same course. he did not. He created bandit queen (1994), instead. A raw, stark, unblemished look at India away from the adventure terrain of the comic-book ‘Invisible Man’ Mr IndiaThe film was a watershed not only for Kapoor but also for Indian independent cinema.
Clockwise from left: Pictures from Shekhar Kapur’s films bandit queen, innocent, four wings, Mr IndiaAnd Elizabeth.
“There was a show recently The robber queen I had not seen the film for 20 years. I had tears in my eyes. My assistants watched and wondered if the film had impressed me. I said no, it’s because I don’t know if I will ever be able to make a film like this again. bandit queen came from my heart.”
There were a lot of things that made the film possible,” he recalls. “I was doing it with a budget that didn’t kill anyone. it was less than $1 million [₹2 crore], Channel 4 told me that we just have to recover the money. So, I did what I felt comfortable with without worrying about the box office.”
The film, based on the life of bandit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi, fueled a combination of anger and frustration. “I grew up as a Punjabi boy whose all masculinity is placed on my shoulders,” he says. “I realized that the whole story happened 200 or more kilometers away from Delhi. It was constantly in the newspapers. There was no way I could not have been aware. In many ways, I was the villain of the film. I felt that I was responsible. I knew about it but did nothing. The anger and frustration inside me made this film.”
Another anger that Kapoor instilled in himself was against colonialism. He aired it in his 2002 war drama, four wings, “I had to remove scenes from the film because it was seen as anti-Western,” he says, four wings It was issued in a wrong way. “9/11 happened. I realized that after the Vietnam War, everyone knew that colonialism was a terrible thing. But no, colonialism is back in a big way. so now i’m making opium,” he added. The under-production drama series has been adapted from Amitabh Ghosh’s sea of poppies It looks at what the colonization did to China and India.
Shekhar Kapur during the shooting of a television commercial in Faridabad. photo credit: Sameer Sarkar
why south indian movies win
Kapoor believes that the rise of South Indian cinemas is not a new phenomenon. “It’s been happening for a long time,” he says. “These films are rooted in their cultures. There are no Mumbai movies. That’s what’s going wrong with Bollywood.” On the contrary, he cites the example of web shows created by people from small towns to Mumbai. jury [the 2020 show on Amazon Prime Video] As a matter: there is a lot of authenticity about it,” he says. He says Bollywood filmmakers should strive for it.
time to court the west
bandit queen Helped to reduce Western apathy towards subcontinental cinema. “When they saw the film, nobody in the West knew anything about Mumbai cinema,” he says. “They knew there was Bollywood, but they had not seen anything. OTT channels have since introduced subtitled non-English films to Western audiences. In this regard, Korea has done the former a huge favor. Heaven, squid game and other shows and movies. ,
He says it is now easier for Indian filmmakers to branch out, as the West is more aware and has better budgets and technology. “I often wonder why more Indian filmmakers haven’t tried to go international,” he says, “the size and diaspora of the Indian domestic market is a strength and a shortcoming. You can see it like Chinese or Korean films. Springboard. We have to get over the fear of failure. The world market is 10 times the size of the domestic market.”
The writer is a New Delhi based film critic.