I don’t understand the reply
From Mayank Shekhar’s interview with Shahrukh Khan in the MM today (link vanishes within 24 hours):
MS: The ’90s decade, when you began your career, was a turning point for Indian economy and its people, where the rich became richer, and the poor became relatively irrelevant. There is a suggestion that no movie-star or screen image has managed to enchant both rural and urban India at the same time. Do you regret that?SRK: I don’t understand the question.
MS:A film like Kal Ho Na Ho, though a commercial success, will not be identified with people in Purnea, a small town in Bihar. And in fact does not even open there.
SRK: You are overlooking an important point here. In the pre-’90s, the method of releasing films was very different from now. Then you began with eight prints of a film, which incidentally, you released only in the few very big cities. If the film did well there, like Hum Aapke Hai Kaun, you got the money and the guts to go deeper into the country. I don’t think people were so rude to say we should now allow poorer people to see the picture too. But that is the way the system moved.
… Yes, India resides in the villages, but not in their pockets. They don’t have what it takes to buy the product at the price we are willing to sell. From Dilip Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan or now, if you wish to use my name in third person, that’s been the case. Even as we talk of how Amitji played a normal man, you have to realise the normal guy he played in the film wasn’t a ‘ghati’ or someone from Bihar…
Presently, even as subjects are quite urban, there are some rural topics tackled too. You can’t discount an Omkara, or a Lagaan, or a Chahat, for whatever that was worth. But since the reality has shifted more to the cities, we assume that we don’t need to show people as ‘filmi’ anymore. Say, someone who yells, “Arre, ka hua Madan babu, aa gaya hai apna Omi, Omi bhaiya….” But you can still show Shah Rukh Khan taking Rani Mukherjee through the gaons of India in a truck. That is the level of earthiness that we’re at, and it was never so before.
You missed this paragraph, Uma:
“And..and..and…even though rural audiences don’t have money to watch films, they still watch our films repeatedly. Which is why our films are aimed at urban audiences and therefore, now my next film will be so filled with earthiness that all rural peepul will be out to see it again and again because India lives in its villages and not in their pockets. Jai Hind”
Comment by km — August 6, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Oh, km, thanks for that - explains it all, perfectly :))
Comment by Uma — August 9, 2006 @ 8:33 am
Uma, actually I didn’t even understand the question. I don’t see why a film has to appeal to both rural and urban audiences at the same time. Or even all age groups. Or all cultures. Or whatever. A film, like any other piece of art, product or whatever, will appeal to only a certain section of the audience.
n!
NB: saw the Shahrukh interview on NDTV video for around 10 min. I must say that he has quite a nice sense of humour though - very quirky and has that deadpan delivery to those ridiculous Rajeev Masand questions that was quite entertaining.
Comment by neela — August 10, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
Uma, actually I didn’t even understand the question.
me neither *grin* but i was too lazy to write a longer post :)
Comment by Uma — August 10, 2006 @ 4:46 pm