New
Delhi: After
running into controversies, lead actress Vidya Balan and producer Ekta Kapoor
of 'The Dirty Picture' talk about the film. Speaking exclusively to Rajdeep
Sardesai, the duo said that the film is not inspired by Silk Smitha, but a
recreation of that era.
Here's
the transcript of the discussion:
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Is a controversy necessary to
make a hit film? Joining us now is the actor of the film ‘Dirty Picture' Vidya
Balan and the producer of the film Ekta Kapoor. Let me start with the
controversy and start with you Ekta on that. The brother of Silk Smitha has now
gone to court, saying that you have portrait rather unflattering portal of his
sister and didn't you even take the permission of the family before deciding to
make a film on Silk Smitha.
Ekta
Kapoor:Well first thing first the word unflattering, is the operative
word and the not the right one. Secondly it's a recreation of an era and
probably it's a lot of character put together to create this one woman. There
was the phenomenon in the eighties, in the underbelly of the south industry
where in a lot of women came up and became these superstars, through their
sexuality and their oomph and they were given names like Silk Smitha, Nylon
Nalini and its one of them.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: So you don't want to be honest
enough and say this film is inspired by Silk Smitha, why not say.
Ekta
Kapoor: I am not
saying, I am inspired by an era it is not inspired by Silk Smitha's life.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Ok it is not inspired by Silk
Smitha's life. But Vidya through all the promotionals, through every efforts is
been made to push the line, that this film is linked to Silk Smitha. Its almost
as if you think and the producer thinks that the way this film is going to
attract eyeballs, because for a generation, Silk Smitha was the person they
recognise.
Vidya
Balan:No I think, you know this misconception probably came into being
because the character of our film, the heroin of our film is called Silk. Like
she said because we are talking about an era where the dancing stars reigned
supreme and Silk Smitha was a front runner. You know after that she's found a
lot of fakes like the Nylon Nalini's, and the Polyester Padmini's. So when we
are talking about a dancing star we definitely used the name Silk, but didn't
really base it on her life.
Ekta
Kapoor:Absolutely
Vidya
Balan:Rajat Arora has not just on these dancing star, but I think has
found inspiration from the lives of many actress over time.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: But why cant be more honest,
there would be on Hollywood, like look this film is inspired by Silk Smitha.
Why not say that upfront, you take advantage of the fact, there is the Silk
Smitha connection in the film. Apparently you have the word Silk runs through
as pseudo-name for you. Why not say upfront that we are inspired by Silk
Smitha. We think that she is the kind of character we would like to portrait in
cinema.
Ekta
Kapoor: No, But
why be inspired by the person, we aren't. Why should we take on, the pressure
of trying to create somebody's life when we are creating the era and different
people and different lives with that one character.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Okay you know that one way to
look at it, that you are looking at an era. But is that the problem with a
fiction that way. In a way for example you obviously haven't met Silk Smitha in
life.
Vidya
Balan: Right
Rajdeep
Sardesai: You didn't encounter her and
yet you been asked to play the role. Similar to someone of that era , so how do
you than get down to play that role you get down to dress today in 80s costume.
Vidya
Balan: 80s ya
Rajdeep
Sardesai: But it is much more than just
dressing up, isn't it?
Vidya
Balan: Yes, yes
it absolutely is. I did watch for example songs from the eighties from South
Indian film to see what these dancing girls were really expected to do or what
they ended up of doing. So my character, there should have little bit to do
with all of them may be, in the body language things like that there are
elements, there are borrowed. But otherwise it is purely based only on the
script, because I think Rajat Arora has done all that he could give it me on a
platter, the writer.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: But the point I am making is to
sell a film like this do you need, for example the kind of promotionals you
have done. There is that titillating, edgy
element
that you have done, you virtually have gone as far as perhaps anyone has so far
in Bollywood in terms of the promotionals. It is out there in you face the
sexuality has to be shown, is that necessary again?
Vidya
Balan: No, I
think its purely for titillation, I think she is a sex symbol. So you know I
can't play a sex symbol being clothed from top to bottom or being Chuee Muee
about it. So I have to be true what I am doing, if I am playing tomorrow I am
playing as a saint I can't be dressed in a bikini its as simple as that
.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: But you know, again I come back
to Ekta as you said it
fictionalized,
its about an era.
Ekta
Kapoor:Absolutely
Rajdeep
Sardesai: The character name Silk after
Smitha, it set in the 80s, it being released around Silk Smitha's birthday. Are
you trying to take the advantage of the fact that there is the vast audience
that has curiosity about Silk Smitha?
Ekta
Kapoor: I would
like rephrase that there are vast audience that wouldn't know about Silk
Smitha, about the whole era, the whole generation. On the other hand, I want to
represent or should I say represent the era through one character who
synonymous with it, that's it. Not anything more not anything less and I want.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Its interesting you're saying
that because again with ‘Once upon a time in Mumbai' there was a similar
controversy most people felt, this was the film inspired by Haji Mastan,
loosely inspired by Dawood, why not say
Ekta
Kapoor:But , but when you go actual story Dawood never worked for Haji
Mastan. So there goes the fiction part. So how can I take on the onus when I am
not, I would accept it when it is true, if not why should I.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Ok, that a interesting way to
put it but you know Vidya as an actor you're portraying, as some would say, a
real life person, as I said, a person whose family perhaps you've never met,
how do you get under the skin of a role like that. Some one, whom you have to
imagine, could have been a particular type of person.
Vidya
Balan: But again
its not real for me because its not a real life character. I didn't have to do
any kind of ground work in understanding Silk Smitha or purely her work. Mine
characterization is purely based on the script.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Ok, its purely based on the
script you know the manner in a sense you have packaged your films Ekta its
interesting . We spoke about ‘Once Upon a Time In Mumbai', there's ‘Love Sex
aur Dhokha', which is linked to MMS controversies you are trying to be
contemporary.
Ekta
Kapoor: Absolutely
Rajdeep
Sardesai: But you are inspired by real
life events. Would that be fair to say?
Ekta
Kapoor: Absolutely.
Why shouldn't we I mean if take the story of ‘Once Upon a Time In Mumbai' and
base it on ‘Once Upon a Time In America', Its actually I mean, if I mean not
politically correct it's probably Osama's story. You know I mean we all create
our own waterloos and sometimes the menta-body relationship comes under scanner
and I think it's a human story. I think by, it's a myopic way of look at it by
saying that it's this person's story.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Ok, you know friends of mine
colleagues of mine from Kerala have had the skid fascination for the Silk
Smitha generation for that they were wondering why it called the ‘The Dirty Picture'.
Why suggest the kind of cinema should be seen as the ‘The Dirty Picture'.
Ekta
Kapoor:There's a reason.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: There's a reason?
Ekta
Kapoor: Ya
actually
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Go ahead.
Ekta
Kapoor: The movie
shows you the dirty picture, we objectify women at that time it happened a lot
more. A male dominated industry is expected to have women to do the item number
and leave. The big dialogues has to be given to a man, at no point the women is
the hero of the film. And comes these women, they set up this industry; it's a
fractured form of feminism. They do their own bit, they don't think what people
think of them, they are happy doing this and this is ‘The Dirty Picture'.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: And this is ‘The Dirty Picture'
and for you, Vidya, as some one who is a sociology student, a feminist.
Vidya
Balan: Yes
Rajdeep
Sardesai: Did you then identify with the
entire period, perhaps where women were being objectified and used by film
makers, almost overtly?
Vidya
Balan: But I
think there was a certain celebration of a body which can be seen as again, a
kind of feminism.
Ekta
Kapoor: Absolutely
Vidya
Balan:Also it was an unapologetic
Ekta
Kapoor: Life
Vidya
Balan: Also it
was an unapologetic life
Rajdeep
Sardesai: A tragic life also at one
level.
Vidya
Balan: Ya but I
think tragedy, tragedy in everyone's life. Some one or the other's. I don't
think that's really the focus of what this film is all about.
Ekta
Kapoor: See to
justify a woman is to then put her out and say that she needs justification,
which she doesn't. She lived her life; some agree with it, some don't. we've
put it out the way it is, now its up to people's perception. It's a brave film.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: It's a brave film, fair enough,
but its also a film that some would say would have been even braver if you
would have said that we've been inspired by Silk Smitha. That would be one
view. In al your promotionals, in the entire way in which the film has been
projected, you are trying to recreate the magic of Silk Smitha without
admitting it. Some would say that's the way Bollywood wants to be.
Ekta
Kapoor: Some
would say that by using the magic of Silk Smitha we've achieved our goal.
Vidya
Balan: Also I
think, I am as far removed from Silk Smitha as anyone can be, you know, in
terms of facially, they would have probably cast a duskier actress or some one
who more conventionally fits in to that casting, if they were really making it
based on Silk Smitha. So I am going back to my earlier grounds.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: And yet I saw you, remarkably
doing a promotional, a dance for the film, where you were out there in a
manner, as I said, pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries. Is that
something that you want to do constantly with your cinema, whether its an ‘Ishqiya'
earlier, whether its ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai', whether its ‘Paa', through all
your films you want to push the boundaries?
Vidya
Balan: Yes I
think I've been doing that. I think even today, as I sit in front of you in
this eighties gear, its only because, you know, I'm promoting the film in a way
that makes the association very obvious. Otherwise, I could be here talking
about anything else, but clearly at this point I really have no qualms about
saying it is all about the film.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: You're here as an eighties
character, not about Silk Smitha. Having said that, Ekta, what is it that made
you zero in on Vidya? You could have chosen perhaps, someone as she says,
somebody else.
Ekta
Kapoor: See, like
I said, if the point was to make a film about a woman, if we just wanted to
make a skin-flick, just about a woman who is really sexual or something, it
would be really easy to cast. But we wanted an actor who gets into the skin of
the character. You see this woman, what's exciting about her is her bravado.
She's actually gone ahead, not thinking about what people thought about her, in
an industry where you're supposed to succumb; you've used your sexuality to
reach somewhere. And then later on, it all adds up because one day it all
catches up when you start thinking. So I needed an actor who understands the
various phases of this woman's life; who gets into the skin of the character
and who actually portrays the child-like element and the maturity.
Rajdeep
Sardesai: So how did you get into the
skin, I won't say Silk Smitha, of that generation of actresses, of Silk? How
did get under the skin of someone you hadn't seen or known?
Vidya Balan:I
think the challenge I faced in this film was that it really required no other
kind of preparation except to be completely uninhibited in the head. You know,
to be playing a sex symbol who's completely unapologetic about her sexuality;
who literally celebrates it; who wears it on her sleeve. How was I going to do
it without really thinking about it. That was my only challenge and I think I
worked on it mentally before I went on shoot. I probably read the script a few
times, discussed it with Milan and something happened.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Maybe
someone in your parents generation had seen the film, otherwise. Have seen Silk
Smitha films.
Vidya Balan: Oh no, not really.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Did
you meet people who had seen Silk Smitha films to try and understand the
character in the film?
Vidya Balan: Like I told you, I actually
googled some of the songs of that generation to see what kind of, because it
was very high on gesticulation, and all sorts of suggestive actions. So I
wanted to understand that. We find it quite ridiculous at this point and time,
but they've done it and they've done it and how. So that's what I fell back on.
Not on anyone's perception of her or of anyone else.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Alright,
I'm going to ask you one final question to both of you. Starting with the
producer first because you've got to make the money out of the film. How
important is it to have a controversy or to try in some ways to ensure that art
in its small ways is imitating life?
Ekta Kapoor:See
when I heard the script for the first time, I wanted to make this film. It had
all the minuses; it was a heroine oriented film. Everyone told me to make a
male oriented film after ‘Once Upon a Time', giving the women the dialogues and
having three men in it was quite a challenge. I didn't think of the commerce at
that time, I know it sounds very not true, but it is true. I thought that it
was a film that I had to make at this stage of my life.
Rajdeep Sardesai: It's
a film that you had to make at this point in your life. Is this a film which
you had to act in at this stage of your life?
Vidya Balan: I think so. I enjoy playing
different people on-screen and it couldn't have gotten as dramatically
different for me as this one has, so I just grabbed it with both hands.
Rajdeep Sardesai: And
have you thought of translating it into Malayalam, into Tamil? Is that going to
happen? Or is that too much of a risk?
Ekta Kapoor: No I think it would but more
than a risk I think I would do it seeing the success of the Hindi version and
how people accept this bold woman.
Rajdeep Sardesai: This
bold woman, so you're pushing the boundaries, Vidya Balan, that's what you want
to do with your cinema right? You want to bee seen and identified as an actor
who is ready to experiment?
Vidya Balan: Yes and interestingly these
kinds of films today are very commercially viable. So you're not catering to a
niche anymore. That's very hopeful for me.
Rajdeep Sardesai: That's
very hopeful for you, well all the best for your film. You've made a brave film
and maybe that's the way Indian cinema should go. Ekta Kapoor, Vidya Balan a
pleasure to have you. Thanks very much.
