BOLLYWOOD MAGIC WORLD EVENT FORUM

If director Aziz Mirza were in the acting race for a stereotyped film role, he would make for a stock grandfather.

Sitting in his plush Khar office, smoking his customary bidi, this overtly mild-mannered snow-haired 61-year-old is given to punctuating his sentences with a patronising, ‘‘bachche’’ (son).

He does spew on all cylinders though as conversations revolve around the state of film criticism or Yes Boss’s name taken in the same breath as Billy Wilder’s The Apartment or any of his films linked to a Hollywood classic. “I don’t lift. I try to encapsulate the feel of a novel or another film into my story, which all ‘greats’ of cinema have done in the past.”

What was the ‘inspiration’ behind Chalte Chalte?

A script I had written about 16 years ago, which was a more intense analysis of a relationship. That was the starting point for Chalte Chalte, though I hope to make a film on the original script some day too.

Aziz Mirza with Rani Mukharjee and Shah Rukh Khan
From what we’ve heard, it sounds a lot like Saathiya.

If things had gone our way we would have wrapped up Chalte Chalte at least one and half years ago, much before Saathiya.

If the story sounds similar, it is because all boy-meet-girl stories will — Raja Hindustani, Talaq, Rajesh Khanna films…

You “quit films when it got too commercial and joined the transport business.” But Bollywood is as commercial as ever before. How do you reconcile to the present state?

I never said that, but yes, I am a maturer professional now. I believe one can make a film one wants to and yet remain audience friendly — to attempt a wider viewership. Zaada high funda banne se koi faida nahin hai (There is no point getting extremely high brow).

It is perplexing that otherwise known to be professional, you do not work with a pre-written script.

Just because I don’t have a written script on the sets doesn’t mean I don’t know where the film is going. I shot the climax of Chalte Chalte first, which means I had the structure figured out.

On location, the movement from point x to point y, keeping the key lines in mind, must hinge on what happens on the sets.

Shah Rukh suggests improvisations, some click, some don't, but the flow is best maintained when the director doesn't stick to a strict regimen. At the end of the day, the scene has to work.

What went wrong with your well-hyped Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani?

The film was a bold attempt and the press should have guided audiences to a movie that was breaking into a new genre of filmmaking.

Unfortunately that didn’t happen and I was seen to be anti-press. I got tremendous response from journalists like Mark Tully, Rahul Singh, even (CPI politician) Sitaram Yechury who wrote an eight-page article on the film. Unfortunately they were not film critics.

You are blaming the press for the film’s no-show?

No. The film had its flaws. But critics cannot criticise for the sake of criticising. They must attempt to understand the heart of a film, what it is trying to say…

Is the hero in Chalte Chalte an extension of your ‘young, ambitious man of the ’90s’ from Yes Boss, Raju..., Phir Bhi Dil…?

Definitely not. He is not ambitious. He is someone dealing with a relationship and the parameters don’t tread beyond that. It deals with how people react to circumstances, how they get hurt, get irrational…. The bottom line here is deep love.

The shoot for Chalte Chalte turned out to be quite odd, yet eventful — a Salman fracas on the sets, Aishwarya sacked, Shah Rukh’s injury, your wife hospitalised. Tell us more.

Ultimately in life, such occurrences don’t matter. What is important is that we shot the film well and have moved on. Why rake up issues and discuss them?

Are you planing to work with Shah Rukh in all your films?

I’d love to! Zindagi ka kya pata (life’s unpredictable). As you grow older, you become more dependent on the people who’ve been around you for years.

They know who you are and what you want. In that vein, I am more dependent on my son these days. And I am getting more dependent on Shah Rukh as days pass by.

What happened to Jai Surya that you had planned with Nana Patekar after Yes Boss?

That was a great subject but somehow it didn’t work out. I am still interested in working on the film.

http://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/movies/2003/june/55548.htm