Sunita and I have a nice synergy: Ashutosh Gowariker

With a string of memorable films like Swades, Lagaan and Jodhaa Akbar behind him, filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker has recreated and reimagined a different canvas each time - sometimes taking the audience into the lap of a gilded era in history or making them revisit old world values. His deep and profound interest in history and geography reflects in the well-researched and eloquently documented world he creates with his own inimitable twist. From being a small screen actor to an avant-garde filmmaker - it's been quite a journey for the movie mogul.
Not many know that Ashutosh started his career as an actor, making his debut in 1984 in director Ketan Mehta's movie, Holi. After that, he acted in several television serials like Circus and C.I.D. (1998) and films like Chamatkar (1992), and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1993).
The 1993 movie, Pehla Nasha marked Gowariker's directorial debut. In 2001, Gowariker wrote and directed the epochal Lagaan and the rest is history. He also became a voting member for the Oscar in 2005.
He's of the firm belief that films must entertain but also leave something behind with the audience. Calling him the young living legend of the Indian film industry won't be an exaggeration. In a refreshing tête-à-tête, at his private den, he talks about straddling the worlds of acting and cinema, the importance of his film's commercial success and his much-awaited historical work - Mohenjo Daro.
He also talks about his non-filmi roots, steering clear of campism in Bollywood, key learnings in the film business over the years, the importance of awards and sharing his work and life with wife Sunita. Over to him...

What's the root of your artistic expression?
The root cause I would say - is my parents! They exposed me to all the forms of the entertainment business, be it movies and theatre, the performing arts like hindustani classical concerts and academic excursions like art exhibitions and museums. I never had an ambition or a even an aspiration as a child to get into the movie business. But in retrospect I feel that all these experiences became my foundation. My father introduced me to books that gave me an exposure to Marathi and English literature. Hindi literature came in much later for me. So all of these experiences and learnings have somewhere helped me. I was not typically a good history student, as you may believe me to be, contrary to my movies. But history does interest me now. In school, my favourite subject was geography, so maybe, I had some sort of connection.
However, I had no connection to movies. My father was a police officer for many many years and then he decided to get into business and that could only be done by quitting his job and so he got into export business of chemicals. My mom has been doing the toughest job in the world and that is - taking care of the house and bringing us up (my younger sister Ashlesha and I).
I often hear friends saying after seeing a bad movie, or reading a bad book, that it's been a waste of time. I do not feel that, because for me, even that bad experience is teaching me something - like, what not to do, which helps a lot. So I have now become like a sponge - I absorb everything, whatever that comes my way.
When I became an actor I would observe the directors that I worked under and make mental notes of what I would do if the scene had to be handled in a particular way. So I learnt while on the job - I am a Director by Observation.
What gives me satisfaction in creativity? When the work that has been created has a recall value. For me what's important is that after you have seen a movie - when you go back home, does that image come back to you? Or something that you observe, do those thoughts come back to you? Do they provoke any thought process in you? I feel that's very important in my film-making process. The movie should stay with you, it should come back to you, you should always be able to revisit it, discover new things when you see it again. That's why I take a lot of time to make movies, because my research takes me a couple of years, depending on the kind of film. So for Swades, it took me two years, for Jodhaa Akbar it took three years, and similarly for Mohenjo Daro.

How much is a film's commercial success important to you?
Very important! I feel that the main intention of making any movie should be to reach a maximum audience. That ensures appreciation and box office recoveries. Especially in my movies, the cost of production is so high that it is very important that the returns are there. At least, your co-producer or the person who is putting in the money gets his money back.
On a creative level, for the entire team, the commercial success is very very important because you know you have slogged, you have worked on a movie for more than a year.
Appreciation comes in two ways - you get good reviews and you have a section of the audience that really loves your film. But that necessarily might not translate into numbers. You may get an award for it, which is like getting a pat on the back.
Real success is to get box office success as well as a pat on the back! That's a very unusual combination to have. There are a very few films which enjoy both box office success and critical acclaim.
But I would say, my last two films did not work so well. It is also the kind of subjects you choose to tell a story, stories which you choose that you know when you are doing them that this is going to be commercially successful. For example, if you make a good love story and it's done appealing with the right cast and music, it will work, but if you are making a biopic, which is not a very popular genre then you are already into a risky space. My last film which was about Surjya Sen, who led the Chittagong Uprising of 1930 - the film did not appeal to the audience. I felt very strongly that I must tell this untold story and fortunately, I got the money to make it because the team believed in it - Ajay and Sanjeev Bijli of PVR said yes, then Abhishek said yes, Deepika said yes, and hence the film got made. Otherwise, if it is just the commercial success then they would not have said yes to a movie like this. So sometimes you get the audience's appreciation, sometimes you don't, but that does not demean the film. I am still proud of the film, whether it is Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey or What's your Raashee?.

You are known to make long movies and the cost of production goes high, Is it fair today when Hollywood says you make 45 mins movies to capture the audiences as lot of people are watching movies on the net. Also, they do not have the time to go and sit in a theatre. What's your take on that ?
The length of a movie is very much governed by the genre you choose. If you choose a drama then you will land up needing more screen time. For example, Gone with the Wind. Lagaan is a drama - it is also a sports film, but primarily it is a drama. Jodhaa Akbar is romance but it is also a drama. So you need screen time to create those different worlds! But let's say you are making a thriller, then you have to tell the story within two hours. If you take any of Mr. Hitchcock's films, none of them are three-hour-long because most of them are murder mysteries, and hence clock well under 90-120mins. The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings - they are all three-hour-long films, and that too without songs. However, this time with Mohenjo Daro, I am keeping it tight.

Do critics matter and how much?
Yes Critics matter. For me, there are two kinds of criticisms - one is the reviewer and the second is the critic. A reviewer watches a film, he is in a certain state of mind and within 20mins, he writes his review.
A critic is someone, who sees the movie, studies it and is in no hurry to write the review. He/she studies it, analyses it and comes up with a critique in say after a week or a span of 10 days. He's mulled over it.
A critic is not swayed by the box office success or failure of the film and he treats it like a work of art. A reviewer goes by his instinct and his/her mood that day.
I accept both.
The review has to come out on Friday. The critic take his own time, maybe on a Sunday and says, 'you know I saw that movie, I don't know why it's not garnering so much of box office collection? It's a good movie.'
So I'm saying that both matter and I accept both. It is a state of mind. I still know so many people who saw Swades when it came out and they hated it. And the same people have re-reviewed the film after a year and said, 'I don't know what the frame of mind was I in when I saw the movie.'

How have you dealt with campism in Bollywood over the years?
I have never seen campism. I feel a camp is one that groups together and does not allow another group of people to make movies. I would qualify a camp as that.
We don't have those camps. We have groups of like-minded people who feel like we've done a movie, we've enjoyed its success and let's make another one. That particular group has grown in their own world of cinema, doing their thing.

Do awards matter much to you? Awards ceremonies are always criticised for lacking veracity and consistency.
Awards or Festivals - anything that celebrates cinema - should be upheld!
Now every award or festival is governed by six to seven like-minded people who come together and decide what is good for their awards or festival. Based on their choices they give the awards. Every Jury is different and hence their choices will be different. You may win an award in one award ceremony and you may not win for the same in another award ceremony.
When I make a movie which does not win an award or even a nomination, I don't treat it as being ignored or being unsuccessful. I just feel that this particular jury didn't feel the film fit for those categories. It doesn't demean the movie because I feel that the movie has been made and one is proud of it already.
The other advantage of awards is for the crew - technicians! When a film becomes successful, the actor and the actress get more movies and advertising and make a lot of money. But the crew's recognition comes with the award, which is very important for them.

You and Sunita work in tandem - something most spouses are not known to do. How do you manage that?
We do have our share of fights, lot of fights. When I say fights, it's like what I want is 100 elephants and she is going to give me 50 so I'm going to have a fight for it. So when I fight for 50 more, it starts with me trying to convince artistically, then it moves to requesting, then pleading and finally cajoling. It goes through several different layers to get that done. So we have a nice synergy. Of course there are a lot of things she has rejected also. Ultimately it is she who knows how to make that that film in the allocated and pre-decided budget. What I like about her, is that she has tremendous respect for the money that is being spent. It is a sense of responsibility that we have taken this money from the co-producer to put into a movie, then we have to make sure that that money gets spent well in the right place, it should be seen on screen. She takes care of all those important decisions.

What is the inspiration for Mohenjo-Daro?
One of the questions that always interests me about different worlds is - how that world must have been or how people lived during the British Raj? What was a village made of at that time? What is the co-relation between the villagers and the raja-maharajas and the British. So that interest made me come up with Lagaan.
Then, how would a Hindu princess live with a Mughal emperor? And she's been forced into it. We know that the emperor allowed her to keep her religion, and also build a temple for her - so what happened here? That interested me. So it helped me imagine the story on what must have happened.
Similarly, I have always wondered how the Indus Valley Civilization was? Who were the people? What must have been that world been? This was the most advanced at that time compared to other civilisations like the Egyptian and Mesopotamian. How was it like ? Our school paragraphs only talk about their drainage system. What were their manners and morals? Likes? Dislikes? Ambitions? What kind of homes they lived in? And what was the life they led? It's something very intriguing. And to discover that I wrote a story. Once again, I have imagined responsibly.

How are you so calm despite it being a mega-scale project?
Be it a zardozi artist or a carpet maker - they need to go on with the same speed, knit by knit, thread by thread, with patience and perseverance to complete that carpet within three months. For me it's the same thing. Because when you create something like this then you have to be at it, bring in all the crew members and their expertise, get in all their suggestions how they want to do. How the cinematographer wants to light up a scene or how a costume designer wants to dress the characters. Bringing all the different inputs and creating a an environment, where everyone is collaborating creatively needs time. So you go into the rhythm and keep building… working at it like a zardozi artist!