Naseeruddin Shah says ‘mainstream cinema has ruined taste of audience’
Naseeruddin Shah says ‘mainstream cinema has ruined taste of audience’
It’s a known fact in Indian Cinema that Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah is one among the trailblazing
artistes of Indian cinema. When he talks on something, it receives sharp notice by people connected to films. He always comments on various aspects of filmmaking and on an actor’s performance.
The senior actor, recently donned a director’s hat for the second time with the release of his short film “Man Woman” which the mainstream cinema of India hasn’t fully stuck to its responsibilities as a medium of art.
Interacting with a news agency he went on to articulate that our mainstream cinema has ruined the taste of the audience forever. Infact the veteran Filmmaker Satyajit Ray had mentioned about this thing in his book titled ‘Our films, their films’ which he scripted 50 years ago. He didn’t run down Indian films but merely compared the Indian filmmakers with international filmmakers.
The actor shared that Ray wished for our audience to be more “discerning”, and stressed upon the importance of the audience that questions a filmmaker. He went on to add that “Satyajit Ray said that we need audiences which get angry, we need audiences which are curious. It’s not correct to always pander to the softest sensibilities of the audience.
The actor is awaiting a positive change in the mainstream cinema as he further mentioned, “It’s been over 100 years for our cinema, and our mainstream cinema keeps making the same kind of films, many stories that you find in the mainstream films can be found in the Indian epics like Mahabharata which is one of the greatest epics written. Every mainstream film that you see in India has some or the other references from the Mahabharata’. Either that or Shakespeare.
Every cliche in Hindi mainstream cinemas has been heavily borrowed from Shakespeare.”
After making his directorial debut with the 2006 film Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota,
Notedly it was after 17 years that Naseeruddin Shah has once again gone behind the camera for the short film Man Woman, Man Woman. The film, featuring Naseer’s wife Ratna Pathak Shah and his son Vivaah Shah in the lead roles, is availabe on the YouTube channel of Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films.
News Edit K.V.Raman
