Anurag Kashyap: People with one singular achievement have a biopic being told about them

Anurag Kashyap is all set for his next ‘Mukkabaaz’. In this film, he is focusing on sports and politics in small-town India, with the story of a young boxer’s struggle to make it big. The filmmaker spoke about his film and also told that it is an honest sports film.


Talking more about ‘Mukkabaaz’ the filmmaker said, “I mean that we turn everything into a formula. Even our biopics are not honest. See the films that have come out … it has become a formula now. People with one singular achievement have a biopic being told about them. Or people whose life is not over yet … and all biopics are super nationalist and patriotic and end with the national anthem. And that pisses me off. They are born heroes, from the first frame to the last. I find them extremely manipulative and don’t like most of them.”


The director further spoke about patriotism and nationalism, “People have always bought patriotism. Most people across the world live very meaningless lives. When they feel patriotic, they think they have a purpose and that’s why patriotism is sold to them, because their other issues they cannot redress. Cinema in India is less of an art form and more of a business. So producers always say, put in a bit of this and that. You should hear when they say ‘we should put in the national anthem in the end’. It’s like putting in a bit of jeera (cumin) to a dish. That is what they reduce patriotism too. It pisses me off and that is what I have addressed in my film.”


Talking about the mix of sports and politics in his film, Anurag said, “Which sport doesn’t have politics? Why do you think politicians head every sports organisation? It is soft power.”


On working with Aanand L Rai the filmmaker said, “It just happened. I was looking for money, and we had a great script. Vineet Kumar Singh (the lead actor in Mukkabaaz) had gone in and put in so many years, but he had been a character actor. People loved the script so much, but they said take Vineet out of the equation. Let’s take the film to a big star and you take whatever money you want. They didn’t have a problem with Zoya because ‘heroine koi bhi ho’ (the female lead could be anyone). I didn’t want to take Vineet out of the equation, so we walked out of one place. Aanand Rai called me because he wanted me to do Manmarziyan, but I said I wanted to do this one first. So he said let’s do both together.”


Talking about his production house, Anurag said, “Phantom is doing bigger things now, and I want to do smaller things, so we have figured out a way for us to work together, all of us. And then we have two big films going on the floor in 2018. One is ‘Super 30’ and one is ‘1983’, so they are both massive films.”


When asked that his production house is supposed to give voice to indie voices, to smaller film-makers, but your films are now with big stars like Hrithik Roshan and Ranveer Singh, to which he replied, “Exactly that is my question. I don’t have an answer. That is my question to all of us. When we become a company and it has its own set of pressures and its own employees … My constant question is, how large do we become? Do we become so large that we start doing a certain kind of a thing and stop doing another kind of a thing. That’s something that we deal with on a daily basis. For me, our whole philosophy is that it’s a director-driven company. So if I want to do a certain thing, the onus is on me, within the company. Four people have different takes on what kind of film they want to make, and we each are doing that.”


He further added, “It is a cohesive company because I know how to budget the film, how to put it together, but I don’t understand finances. I depend on them for that. I am making this film with Aanand L Rai, but I don’t sit together on the contracts or the budgets. They sit in on that - I deal with neither Phantom nor Aanand - I go out and make my film, the way I want to make it.” Can the production’s change of focus indicate that there is no way beyond the movie star system? “No, I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in that at all.”