The big picture of Shyam Benegal

He has always believed in original ideas and original content since the time of his advertising days. When he switched to full-time filmmaking, it was like an extension of him. Shyam Benegal brought a totally new genre of cinema to the industry with films such as Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975) Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977). He feels that today new-age filmmakers such as Vishal Bharadwaj and Anurag Basu are doing the same turnaround for the industry by bringing in fresh and original ideas.

“You must have a story to tell people. It’s very good to see our young filmmakers experimenting with ideas which were not tried before. Not only in mainstream Hindi cinema, but even in South India there is some really brilliant filmmaking happening,” says Benegal who was recently at the launch of ‘The Connoisseur’s Club’ at a music store, which offers viewers access to a plethora of Indian and International evergreen must-have films.

Filmmaker Akira Kurosawa has always inspired him and to an extent encouraged him to take the plunge from advertising to filmmaking. “Advertising is very limiting. There is no sense of ownership to whatever you create. The bottom line is that in adverting no matter how creative you are, you are selling a product at the end of the day. All of your creativity is for the brand you are selling and not for yourself,” he remarks. “That is the reason you have seen so many advertising professionals today who have taken to filmmaking at the maturity of their advertising career,” he adds.

Bengal has also tried his hand at making fiction and non-fiction television serials such as Yatra, Katha Saagar and Bharat Ek Khoj in the 1980s which gained much popularity that time. But he feels that today’s TV content in India has gone way off-track.

“Today there are a lot of reality shows happening. Reality shows are not bad but the intelligent viewer already understands that most of the shows are staged. We can certainly have some quality original content in TV as well,” he says.