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Mr. Good, Bad, Ugly

Photo: R. Ragu

Intense but whacky: Ram Gopal Varma.

Critics should never interview filmmakers. And, Ram Gopal Varma was in town to promote ‘Phoonk’ at Sathyam Cinemas, the place he used to religiously visit every evening to catch a movie when he worked on the script for his first film R 16;Shiva.’

‘Phoonk’ releasing this month, is supposed to be his scariest film till date. I decide not to talk to him about ‘Phoonk.’ As a critic, I prefer the film talking to me directly.

I introduce myself as someone who has said nasty things about his films “You are among the many,” he laughs, taking his seat at Ecstacy over a cup of coffee. Just the ice-breaker I needed. Varma is only as good as his screenplays, I had observed in my review of ‘Contract.’ And here he was bragging about how he spent only four days in writing ‘Phoonk’ and how ‘Kaun’ was written two days before shoot.

“I am teeming with ideas. They may be good, bad or ugly but I am in a rush to make films. I wrote ‘Shiva’ in 20 minutes and ‘Satya’ never had a script,” he explains.

“Either, you can endlessly discuss an idea and the story can go in hundred different ways, or, you take a decision based on your temperament. One fine day, I decided to give up my engineering and started a video library. And then, I gave it up and became a director and then I packed my bags and came to Bombay. That’s my temperament.”

But people repeatedly expect him to click, film after film. “The audience is not an animal that you can study its behaviour and characteristics and then feed it. I do various things. It’s my personality that comes across in my films.”

Varma is like Quentin Tarantino in a maddening rush. They even have similar video-store origins. But he clarifies: “I stopped watching films after I started the video library... It wasn’t for education. A video library guy will never watch films like a bar owner will never drink.”

But like Tarantino, isn’t his cinema derived from cinema too?

“I would say yes and no. My first film ‘Shiva’ was pretty much derived from my personal experiences... From the college atmosphere to characters but yes, my taking style has been derived from cinema. Every film has a scene I’ve taken from another movie.”

Like Tarantino famously said: “I steal from every movie.” Varma laughs. “I saw his recent movies... like ‘Death-Proof.’ That’s pretty much what I like. I can be as mad as that too.” He sounds a little hurt when he says people talk down at him as “Ramu, their pet boy.” But isn’t that because he’s given them the room to talk about his work giving them films — good, bad and ugly — when he should be doing a great deal of homework that the masters of cinema are known to do.

“No, No, I love it. I hate to be compared to people like Mani Ratnam and Bhansali. I remember Revathy would say, ‘In Mani Sir’s film this worked and this didn’t’ but when my film flops, she would send me a message saying she will kick me… I love that. I want to be in the position so that I get more freedom. I can talk about the psychology of an underworld character and Isha Koppikar’s thighs with equal intensity. So I might not be taken as seriously as them but I’ll have more fun in life.”

“I saw this incredible visual the other day. It was dark and I was going for a walk and I saw a ghostly kind of an image late in the evening. About 12-15 couples scattered around the stretch in almost identical poses — holding each other. I didn’t understand and then, suddenly, I realised it was parting time. So though they were different people, they were doing the same thing... Now, I’ve explained this shot to you because we are talking face to face. But when I put it on film, it may seem artificial at first.”

We get the point. Cinema doesn’t need to communicate. Expressions will do. “I had a rowdy friend who used to wear dirty chappals who liked this really good-looking girl. One day he came in Nike shoes because he wanted to impress her. Suddenly one day, he choked and said she deserves someone better. The emotion with which he said it served as the benchmark and the Nike shoes became the yellow shirt Munnabhai wears in ‘Rangeela.’ I think in a rush. On the basis of the first excitement, I make a decision. It is the same whackiness and eccentricity that is also responsible for whatever good work I may have done in the past 20 years. It’s a myth that I am callous. I am very intense. In fact, I have never been more serious all my life like when I made ‘Aag.’ I was not careless, I seriously did the wrong thing.”

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