Hirani’s filmy gyaan
Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani, who is busy with the postproduction process of his upcoming biopic on actor Sanjay Dutt, says biopics are more interesting when presented in a fictional format. Hirani spoke at a ‘#FilmsForChange’ initiative, organised by Good Pitch India and the Indian Documentary Foundation. He was there along with Nandita Das, Naseeruddin Shah, Rahul Dholakia and Javed Jaffery.
While Hirani is making a film on Sanjay’s life now, the BBC had made a documentary on the controversial actor’s life back in 1996. It was titled To Hell and Back. Asked whether he ever thought of making a documentary on Sanjay’s life instead of doing it in a fictionalised format, Hirani said, “Certain subjects will be more engaging if they are done in a fiction format and certain subjects would probably be more interesting in a documentary format. PK was the only film which I started with reverse where I wanted to talk about God and religion, but in the journey of making that film, I realised that I am ending up talking very little about it. There is so much to talk about God and religion that you cannot actually say enough in a fictional format. In a fictional format, it is expected that you have to sugarcoat your story, entertain the audience and still manage to say what you want to say. So, at some stage, I do want to make a documentary. There are still unsaid or undiscussed issues that I haven’t been able to show in PK, so I want to do a documentary where you can say what you want to say. But in a film like Sanju, I think it’s more engaging as a fictional film where you see another actor doing it.”
“If you would simply pick up a mike (microphone) and say, ‘Okay, there is a man who did drugs, who had a gun and did other things then’, it’s boring. I feel biopics are more interesting when you see it in a fictional format. Otherwise, it gets boring. Subjects where you want to say something else like as I said, if I want to talk about God, then I will probably go for documentary but not a biopic,” he added. —IANS