Anusha Rizvi, director of Peepli [Live], and Mahmood Farooqui, co-director and casting director of the film, were at the Express for an Idea Exchange. In this session moderated by Shubhra Gupta, The Indian Express film critic, they speak of the idea of the film and what it was to work with Aamir Khan
Shubhra Gupta: Would you begin by telling us something about yourselves?
Farooqui: I did history at St Stephen’s College in Delhi and went to Oxford and Cambridge. I worked for a year at NDTV. I used to do theatre before that, I also did some film work. Then I stumbled upon Dastaangoi, an art of story-telling in Urdu which is now extinct. I revived it. In between, I wrote for newspapers. Then, Peepli [Live], and my book that came out recently, The Besieged: Voices from Delhi-1857.
More at link http://bit.ly/d3LGlf
I forgot to mention that title of this post is based on half of Aseem Chhabra's comment on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteTheir leaving the film is based on filmsy ground and infact Mahmood is lying when he said Mehangayi dayan was removed from audio for remix. Both are part of offering as a norm if you have less number of songs. Moreover Anusha Rizvi accompanied Aamir for Manmohan Singh's screen. Only during UK premiere I didn't see Rizvi. Even after Oscar nomination Aamir congratulated her and gave her due. I think it is husband who has problem because he has been sidelined. He should be happy that his wife is getting all the accolades.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anusha and Amole had problems with Aamir. I think these are idealistic people who have little touch with commercial reality. BUT they are not bad or dishonest people. I think Anusha and Mahmmod's main issue is with honestly portraying what they wanted to, and according to them somewhere that was compromised. The talk about not getting the villagers paid or given a contract is true - they were finally paid after much hullabaloo at the lime of music launch.
ReplyDeleteIf Anusha was agreed and Mahmood contributed then why not make him co-director? His talent is undeniable - the man is a literary giant of modern times - read William Dalrymple to see what people think of him. If they want to acknowledge the help of a lot of people, why not allow them to do that? Above all they had issues with Aamir and production house selling film as a black comedy, when it is supposedly a tragic statement of the situation today. This hurt the film as it took a big fall after a decent opening. Tere Bin Laden opened and did OK with no powerhouse support.
What they say in public is a fraction of the "under the surface" buzz about how unhappy they were. BUT they are deluded if they think this film would do well in the interiors. You cannot show poor people a mirror into their own lives and expect them to want to see that.
I think they having grouse the way it was promoted is genuine (But here they are cribbing on small things). But contentwise it was never tampered. It is a fact that rural people might like Dabangg or wanted or action movie but not Peepli Live or any issue based movie.
ReplyDeleteps - Even with crash aftre first week, Peepli did more than Tere Bin Laden lifetime business after first week! Tere Bin Laden is a real funny movie. Peepli Live without Aamir brand would have than 10% business.How much was Antardwand business? A national award movie. Udaan a far superior movie did 3 crore.
Khanabadosh - they do not care how much money the movie made, BECAUSE their remuneration was fixed few lakhs! So the publicity got the money to the producers. In such instances the creative talent wants to see what they had imagined come to fruition, and according to them it did not. The tampering talk is also "underground" chatter. You just have to follow the Delhi journos on Twitter to know the immense buzz about that at the time of release.
ReplyDeleteOn the question of money - if someone is rejuvenating a nearly lost theatrical tradition (via Dastangoi) and translating obscure Mutiny time papers from Urdu into English, you can be sure that they are not doing things for money but for some personal sense of achievement. In that case why should they be happy about any compromises in their work? Again - to understand the level of Mahmood Farooqi one needs to read Dalrymple and then Farooqi's own work, which I hear got published a while back. Even though he was going to write his own scholarly work on the Mutiny papers, he shared it all with Dalrymple and that forms the backbone of the Lost Moghul.
You could be very good in what you do but that doesn't translate that you are good in social interactions or honesty with others. That goes for Mahmood and Aamir too!
ReplyDeleteThis was 2-3 week prior to Movie release
Audio Launch after 7 minute 25 sec
This is a false statement by Mahmood
“We moved out when the Mehengayi Dayan song was removed from the album. The production house felt the song was not good enough; it should not be in the CD as it would bore people. Instead, there was a dhinchak redone thing.”
TSeries
Retail CD
CD page cannot be found........
ReplyDeleteDoes a film like Peepli need a remix of songs? That is an agenda being driven by the record label for money, and the couple do not seem to care for that commodity much, sp. when it is not coming to them.
The fact remains that they were not allowed to acknowledge the people who they think were important in the making AND that the artists were paid rather late in the day after a fuss was created.
retail cd
ReplyDeleteI don't think many people would want to buy a CD with just 4 songs. And what it has got to do with movie? Only genuine grievance I can think is marketing of movie. Other are just flimsy or sour grapes kind. Around the release Anuska said that the promotion is like pushing the movie down the throat kind. And I think she is right there. But If I wear Aamir or UTV shoes, I want to recover my money and probably earn little more for opportunity cost. WE can debate endlessly but there is no correct way out of this.
ReplyDeleteAccording to her promotion was pushy, and misrepresented the genre. She wanted this to raise consciousness, start a debate on the topic, instead all people did was praise the film superficially and shower attention on the producer for being a savior of small films.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I have been saying all along - these are not the kind of people who seem to care overmuch much about money; and success of the film did not enable them for future ventures in anyway - so what did they gain? Just a label of success for which most people are already crediting Aamir, and they did not even get to make what they wanted to make, nor to acknowledge everyone they needed to.
If you look at award speeches - the debutants have the longest list of people to thank, the older and more famous people get the more they take things for granted and become arrogant about success.
I have bought CDs with very few songs - I do not think adding a remix adds value. I hate when they do that and basically ruin the album.
About Mehngaai Daayen - this is what I read on Twitter:
ReplyDeleteshubhragupta shubhra gupta
@gobbledyspook apparently the song was re-instated on their insistence @ibuHatela @chhabs
3 hours ago
I read somewhere, one of the guys has original CD and has that song (or Milliblog review). Even if song was not there initially, and put later on, I don't see the point of coming out so late and saying that since the song was not there at first place I quit. But if you see BollywoodHungama link of audio release, I don't believe that is the case.
ReplyDeleteHere is Aamir's in response
"Lals please dont bother yourself with this interview. I assure you I am not at all affected. I believe I am a positive person and this is not the first time someone has commented about me in a negative manner after working with me. If you remember many years back RGV had said some very nasty things about me. In any case what anyone feels about another person is their prerogative. As far as I am concerned she has made a good film and that is all I am concerned with. I know my responsibilities as a producer and I make sure I shoulder them "
Aamir nicely skirts the Amole issue! And takes the high ground. Good for him, but it is not like he lost anything from this deal, he got money, and link-up to an unusual film that he funded. His reputation with coworkers is not something he seems to care much about - so there are and will always be such talks after any association ends.
ReplyDeletehttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Anusha-wants-to-stay-away-from-Peepli/articleshow/6768405.cms
ReplyDeleteWith all the controversy, I think this should officially kill the movie for Oscars nominations as it is director who is acknowledged at Oscars.
I think best film award is picked up by the producers. Will have to check.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Foreign_Language_Film
ReplyDelete"Unlike other Academy Awards, the Best Foreign Language Film Award is not presented to a specific individual. It is accepted by the winning film's director, but is considered an award for the submitting country as a whole."
'Peepli (Live)' filmmakers hold mirror up to India's troubles
ReplyDeleteOf political and seemingly political films
Interesting pieces, Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNot very surprised with the interviews/ quotes/ unquotes here and Mehmood continues to dither....
ReplyDeleteBut this time I am happy, since bollywood would be real dumbing down for him and the last place one would like him to finally anchor. Hope he set sail back to the literary world and then who knows he may well turn out to be another vikram seth or amitav ghosh for his alma mater...
Agree there - Mahmood seems highly unsuited to the shallow world of BW.
ReplyDeleteBTW - another funny thing in this saga, two pictures of "Anusha" from a film festival:
LINK
LINK
Those links are funny and wish the parties concerned are made aware on this..
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting to note their reactions separately !!
Someone should dig deeper to find if this is intentional disguise or the error of mistaking someone for someone purely fortuitous here?
:-) I suspect it was an inadvertant mistake made at the end of the festival folks. But if made public this can only inflame the situation brewing between the director and producer.
ReplyDeleteAnusha Not Excited About 'Peepli Live' Going to Oscars
ReplyDeleteIn a way she is right about the Oscars and critical acclaim as a film maker! Satyajit Ray's films never won an Oscar, but they were awarded multiple times at prestigious film festivals. But today this may seem heretical and sour grapes talk to people. Very uncompromising stance.
ReplyDeleteWell she is right the movie might have been promoted wrong but then if promoted right, only fraction of people would have seen it. She is worried that her movie didn't generate the same discussion she expected. But then who is investing wants his/her return also.
ReplyDeleteAamir himself always said it is a satire and shows rural urban divide (Not a farmer suicide movie). But then all the smaller teasers were ironical viewpoints. For normal non-interpreting junta that is a comedy but a more serious audience will gauge that it is a satire.
My only problem with Anuska is that the promotion was done over long period. If she thought it was not done right she should have quit earlier voicing her opinion. If she quits well after movie release then she is just acting sour grapes IMO.
@ KB - i think she didnt want to create trouble for movie as she hoped film will give rise to discussion . its another matter than film really came out as comedy and more on media than farmer suicide.
ReplyDeleteFor how many times Aamir has had problems with his directors and we cannot label all of them as something .
"I would rather have 50 people watch Peepli Live without all this promotion than 200 people watch it with the hype," said Anusha.
ReplyDeleteRead more at: Peepli Live director miffed with Aamir
That is where the problem. She should have been upfront how the movie should be presented. If she had said that at start no one would have picked the movie to produce. That would have been sad but that is the truth in this consumeristic world.
ps - Disclaimer - Before all this fight I have said, it is a decent movie which is sincere but you can not emotionally connect with it on topic. Personally I though the movie setup was very authentic (where do you see Khaprel chhat with puwaal on it) but screen play is not fluid.
Even though i liked Peepli Live but a major section of the audience didnt even like the movie.
ReplyDeleteAre we making more fuss out of the movie then it deserves?
That is, was the movie great enough in the first place to be so ideally promoted and discussed(as was/is expected by the makers)?
I dont think just because its a "different" movie it should not be promoted etc.
Taking a look at some of the most talked about movies in recent times(TZP,CDI,RDB etc), they were very well publicized(atleast large section of audience was aware about them),on the other had we have loads of Udaans and Antardwandss.
In the end the movie has to earn it(discussion,accolades etc) on its own merit.
Now if Anuska says that the way movie was promoted let to pushing away her Target Audience(which is usually non-existent for similar movies), then its different case.
"Director Anusha Rizvi repeated that it was the strength of her film 'Peepli Live' that worked with the audience and not the involvement of Bollywood star Aamir Khan. This was also the view shared by Kashyap and Mirani, though not of the rest of the gathering. "
ReplyDeletehttp://sify.com/news/Bollywood-stars-are-usually-useless-sons-nephews-adman-news-National-kk0p4jighda.html
:)Some people live in make believe world. How many movies of Anurag have done 30 crore business?
hahaha KB someone should show Rizvi graph of movie that it went downhill after first weekend and did 50%+ in first weekend only .
ReplyDeleteIt's Aamir vs Anusha Rizvi
ReplyDeletehttp://www.indianexpress.com/news/aamir-clueless-about-anusha-not-promoting-peepli-live-at-oscars/707438/
ReplyDeleteStill going on! Maybe it is time for Anusha and Aamir to agree to disagree and move on.
ReplyDelete'Peepli took guts, blood & sacrifice'
ReplyDeleteNow its reached a point where its not even worth discussing(Peepli wasnt a masterpiece itself), nor is it funny/masala etc.
ReplyDeleteAnything from now is going into realms of absurdity, though they know only sometime more is left before the movie is erased from people's memories though with the Oscar thing, one thing or the other will still be coming out.
Haha, they wanted to bring the masses back with Peepli!
ReplyDeleteThis is pure lunacy,deep core masses usually dont even watch KANK/MNIK/DCH/RDB kind cinema which huge stars make and read this what he was expecting from a unknown/niche movie like Peepli.
"We just wish that the distribution had not concentrated so much on the metros and also tried to reach the B and C centers,I feel that people in the North Indian states feel left out by the cinema that is being produced in Mumbai. The masses are no longer coming to the cinema and the cinema is no longer being produced for the masses. And I think "Peepli Live" could have addressed that a little better than it did. We may call all those 70s' Amitabh Bachchan films trashy, but at least the poor were watching them. They were for the poor and the hero was also poor. We no longer have that. And it's ironical because 70% of India is still poor and we have no film for them!"
Does Peepli provide even 25% entertainment compared to those so called Trashy Amitabh Movies of 70's or even Wanted etc, dont think so.
2 words - Ignorance/Delusion.
I would say its better they work on the creative aspect of their next movie if they have really dissociated from the movie.
Otherwise Peepli/Aamir and ofcourse they do and will keep getting more importance and publicity than this whole mess deserves in the first place.
My last comment on the topic, after 3 Idiots Circus i am trying not to become Idiots again by these cinematic clowns :)
It seems that they have a perception that their movie could generate discussion among village folks after veiwing. A noble perception but far from reality.
ReplyDeletei think they still have journalistic mentality i.e too idealistic far away from truth
ReplyDeleteNeo - after the Niira Radia tapegate I doubt anyone thinks journalists are idealistic!
ReplyDeletePeepli Live is now online at Netflix.
ReplyDelete