Kashyap-Ranbir & Anushka In Bombay Velvet

Picture Rohit Shetty, who leads the mainstream club today. And picture Anurag Kashyap, whose forte is dark, cynical and violent realism.

For mainstream cinema czars like Shetty, the audience that pays hard-earned money to watch their films is supreme. For the rebels like Kashyap, it is the "intellectuals," the critics and the festival hosannas (and awards if any) that are the Gods.

Kashyap began his film career writing the 1998 "Satya" for another maverick, Ram Gopal Varma. Encouraged by the success of this violent and dark underworld saga, Kashyap launched his debut film, "Paanch," still unreleased because the censors could not pass its gratuitous violence. His first release, "Black Friday" (2007), on the Mumbai bomb blasts, earned critical acclaim and festival plaudits and made Kashyap a semi-brand of sorts. Next came two calamities, "Hanuman Returns," the animation sequel to "Hanuman"; and "No Smoking."

Kashyap continued writing films, of course, usually of the dark kind. As filmmaker, films like the 2009 "Dev.D" and "Gulaal" earned him brownie points with the audience of that kind of cinema. He went one better with his films as producer, "Aamir" (earlier to these), "Udaan" and "Shaitan," which introduced directors Rajkumar Gupta, Vikramaditya Motwane and Bejoy Nambiar, all groomed in a different kind of cinema.

Some weeks ago, Kashyap released "Gangs of Wasseypur Part I," which thanks to its threadbare budget, made money in a few metro multiplexes. A "success" party was thrown July 5 and Kashyap joked that he never imagined "GOW Part I" to make the kind of money it did. Though many of his films have been claimed to be "successes" or even "hits," "GOW" was the only film that actually made money in week one and (it is said) a slim profit. And "GOW Part II" is slated to release Aug. 8.

Kashyap would rather do what he believes in, thank you, even if the bulk of the viewers avoid his films, and their outrageous aspects like sickening violence and expletives prevent them from being liked by family audiences. The noir cinema czar's movies may be liked or loathed, but we cannot ignore the man himself. Kashyap talks quickly, taking rapid breaths, as if so much has to said and crammed in the fraction of the time available. Excerpts from a rapid-fire 'phoner:

Q: You are a darling of the media and a festival favorite, even as family audiences abhor your cinema because of the abuses, the violence, the darkness …

A: Pehli baat to yeh hai that I am not making cinema for children or teenagers. But the interesting part is that among adult members of a family, everyone watches my films separately! So why can't they watch it together? It is because of this andar ki sharam (a sense of embarrassment)! This is hypocrisy and I firmly believe that such fake values should be assaulted and eliminated. My films have violence and expletives because that's what is all around us. What is wrong in presenting stories that are real, about real people and that depict the reality around us?

Q: Certain sequences in "Dev.D" in particular showed promise, if we say so, of your becoming a very good mainstream director. What do you say?

A: I don't think I can make mainstream entertainers. I do not think I would like to make that kind of cinema. I can't see my hero suddenly bursting into a song.

Q: What, then, explains the huge quantum of music — a primary ingredient of mainstream cinema — that we see in your films?

A: Oh, I love music and I want lots of it in my films. I think my films without music would be meaningless! But as I said, I cannot use music in the conventional way as it is not in sync with my sensibilities.

Q: In your short career, you have already mentored music directors Amit Trivedi and Sneha Khanwalkar, who was really noticed only with "GOW Part I."

A: They are talented people and I only gave them my films. I don't consider myself as their mentor.

Q: The music of both the parts of "GOW" has been a talking-point, with Khanwalkar acting as a music curator to research and present music from the region the film is based in and using them as songs.

A: You cannot say that Sneha is just a curator. She researches the region of a film for months picking up poetry and lyrics, music, sounds and even artists. She offered a choice to me and I selected what was appropriate for my film's needs. After that, we worked on the songs, and in most cases, we reworked and re-composed them.

Q: You have succeeded where your mentor Ram Gopal Varma failed when making "Rakht Charitra," a biopic, in two parts. Is "GOW" a biopic of one of the lead characters and a true story? And why did you want to make it this way?

A: I wanted to tell the entire story and not cut or shorten it in any fashion. One long film would not have been appreciated. My film is a mirror of incidents that have been happened in the regions shown in the film. What happens in these parts of India is much worse than the violence in that film that people are criticizing.

Q: Most of your cast is non-starry. But you are working with Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha too, and you have already worked with Bipasha Basu and John Abraham. How do you choose your actors, including the newbies, and when do you opt for stars?

A: My cast has to fit the characters. We always have auditions for the roles, especially with newcomers. When my budgets are modest, which is most of the time, I prefer casting new or relatively lesser-known faces, as in "Gangs of Wasseypur" or "Shaitan," because I shoot mainly on real locations, and crowds can be a problem. When a lot of the shoots are on sets, I am okay with stars. Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh are now doing my co-production "Lootera," which is complete. Ranbir and Anushka are in "Bombay Velvet," which I am directing.

Q: How do you decide which film will be directed by you, and which you will only produce?

A: I am always fired by the subject that I want to make. But the availability of time dictates what I direct, as also the passion of the person who has brought the script to me. When I decided to produce "Udaan," I was hoping and wishing that Vikramaditya Motwane would ask me to direct it, because I had time and I wanted to direct it. But he wanted to direct it too! (Laughs)

Q: Tigmanshu Dhulia got rave reviews as the main villain in "GOW," and you have acted in over half-a-dozen films, notably "Luck By Chance" and Dhulia's own "Shagird." Do directors always make good actors?

A: Yes, and Tigmanshu is superb. He is a trained NSD actor too. But I am not a good actor at all.

Q: What else are you now making?

A: I have written (the Rani Mukerji film) "Aiyya," which will release later this year. After this, I will direct "Doga," a film based on an indigenous comic-strip superhero, with Kunal Kapoor in the lead.