Weak stories mar movies’ fate at BO

In an era of market segmentation where films are made for "multiplexes", "NRI territory", "single screen" audience, Lage Raho Munnabhai has achieved the envious feat of success across audience of all ages and demography. Can the success be attributed to the generic "idea" behind the film, an interface between Munnabhai and Mahatma Gandhi?

"Whenever a film is good, critics credit it to the director's vision. Whenever it turns bad they blame it on the writers. A good script may be made into a bad film, but a bad script can never be made into a good film", stated Javed Akhtar at a Screenwriters Conference held at Film and Television Institute, Pune recently. It was an exercise of introspection as noted filmmakers and screenwriters converged at one forum to thrash out "why more than 85% of films fail to connect with its audience."

The script of a film is undisputedly the foundation of a film, and yet film is not a writer's medium, an interesting contradiction. What translates onto the screen is the director's vision of the script, the actor's interpretation of the character. The script gets redefined in its execution, the ravines that Sholay was shot in is as much of a character in the film as "Gabbar", much as Goa is in Dil Chahta Hai. Finally, "editing is the last re-write on a film", director Sudhir Mishra quotes late editor Renu Saluja.

A film should ideally be a partnership. But in practice, it is a lopsided one. "A production company paying Rs 5 crores to A.R.Rahman and Rs 1 crore to Kareena Kapoor are willing to pay only Rs 5 lakhs to the scriptwriter", says Anurag Kashyap, writer of films like Satya and Yuva, citing an example. While Shekhar Kapur believes that, "the hunger pangs in the stomach make creative juices flow in your brains", the fallout of screenwriters being grossly underpaid has been a spate of plagiarism. Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar pointed out, "A DVD librarian at Juhu is more aware about which filmmaker is remaking which movie."

"Why should Amitabh Bachchan play a Denzil Washington in Ek Ajnabee when he can get 10 writers to write a role for him", Rajan Khosa laments. The scenario was not always so. Vijay Tendulkar (Ardh Satya) managed to incorporate social and political themes into engaging narratives. Salim-Javed's writing (Deewar, Zanjeer, Sholay) connected to the popular discontent with State and metamorphosed it on screen into the "angry young man".

The need of the hour, Anjum Rajabali, (the writer of Pukar, Ghulam, Legend of Bhagat Singh), the force behind the screenwriter's movement, is to focus on developing the craft of screenwriting. Institutionalised courses were shockingly lacking until recently in a country with the largest film production. "Screenwriting isn't about some genius waiting to flower. One needs to know the rules well enough to break them", reinforces writer Abbas Tyrewala.

Salim-Javed hired boys to go and stencil their names on Zanjeer posters the night before release, on Amitabh Bachchan's nose, Pran's forehead or Jaya Bachchan's lips, to let the world know they were the writers of the film. As today's screenwriters endeavour to organise themselves into an association to safeguard their rights, the movement can only move forward.