My audience was always watching my films illegally: Anurag
With the kind of cinematic sensibilities he possesses — dark, deep and deranged — it doesn’t take much for Anurag Kashyap to stand out from his contemporaries. Take, for instance, his films Black Friday (2007), Dev D (2009), Gulaal (2009), Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016) — the filmmaker has always explored a world that’s not too easy to relate to. In a candid conversation, the filmmaker talks about experimenting with the horror genre, collaborating with fellow filmmakers and more.
You’ve made some really dark films in the past. In what sense was Ghost Stories a different experience?
Ghost Stories gave me an opportunity to make horror that I always wanted to make. It was hard for me to explain to anyone how I look at horror, because the kind of horror that I really like are [films such as] The Witch (2015), Hereditary (2018), the more psychological ones. I love the genre now and after this anthology, I have a reference point that this is how I want to approach things.
Do you feel restricted when you’re teaming up with three different filmmakers? Is it tough to reach a consensus?
It’s not tough. I actually don’t think of it and look at it very differently in this sense. They’re very generous, there’s no pressure… nobody says that I have to adapt to what the other person feels or think should be done. All of us (Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar) are very different from each other. We’re just ourselves and that reflects in our stories, too.
What’s the future of anthology films?
This is ongoing, continuous, and consistent. This will always happen. This is something we look forward to. It’s like an annual holiday you take. Now that Ghost Stories is out, we’ll soon meet and decide the next subject. There’s so much excitement to come together and do this.
With a spurt of OTT platforms, do you feel that web and theatre can coexist?
They will, conveniently, because you’re talking to a whole new generation. For me, even before OTT platforms were launched, I was always in the web space. My audience was always downloading my films illegally and watching them (laughs). A few years ago, Gangs of Wasseypur series was picked up and serialised in the US as a six-part series. That was my first connect with the web.
So, are you saying your films do better online than in cinemas?
I was always told that people watch my films. But at the box office, why do we just about break even? Why don’t we make humongous profits? Even films like Dev D – they’re quite a hit, but financially, they just crossed the budget and the investments, but don’t become like other massive blockbusters. That’s when I realised that I have an audience but it’s very working, educated audience that doesn’t line up on Fridays outside cinema. They want to watch movies at their own convenience, probably on holidays, weekends or late nights. So, OTT platforms have made my work available to them at their convenience. I still remember, after The Girl in Yellow Boots’ (2010) release on the web... the number of mails and messages I got on this film, I didn’t get them on its original release. And it’s not like twice or thrice the number; I’m talking 10 times the number. So, with that kind of visibility and accessibility, suddenly, my films got life back.