Sheila is just a ringtone

Would there be hundreds of micro-theatres across each city,with one-person entrepreneurs projecting movies,to be watched for an entry fee which would be a fraction of what a multiplex would charge? Would each Friday movie see a simultaneous release on thousands of horribly expensive multiplex screens,lakhs of cheaper micro-screens,personal devices,and thousands of digital TV channels? Would pirates be in trouble,left with no option but to join content creators? What kind of films would they produce? Or would still choose to walk the wild side,producing easier,inexpensive and unregulated entertainment,like porn? Would porn explode? (It already has,but then we are nice Indians. How would we know?) Would today’s multiplex chains have spread to the farthest corners of India,and the word ‘combo’ become valid in all Indian languages?

Okay,I admit it excites the technology freak in me,but it still doesn’t quite shake the planet for the storyteller and songwriter in me. Because I know that people would still watch stories,whether made by storytellers like my colleagues and me,or made by us collaborating with thousands of viewers at the same time over unimaginably high bandwidth. In whichever ways they do,people will watch stories for the same reasons they watch them now,and people will tell stories for the same reasons they tell them now.

What I find myself wondering about are other things.

Would the stories come in 50 more types and genres than they do now,since the fragmented audience certainly would? Would we,as industry and audience,finally give diversity a chance,and make each other’s lives richer? Would thousands of filmmakers be producing their own little movies and broadcasting them for a few bucks to anybody willing to watch their products of self-expression? Would self-expression be as we know it today,or would big entertainment conglomerates decide the subjects and stories according to the demographics they choose to put up screens for,and simply commission writers to do the needful? If that happens,would such “spreadsheet” movies work or would they fail? (Something like this was tried on the paan-stained equivalents of spreadsheets during the ’80s — it came to be known as “the formula”— it’s dying a slow and very painful death now.)

Would Indian screenwriters get a modest share of industry profits like their counterparts worldwide do today? Or would they still be working hard to send their children to the best medium-grade schools they can afford,making sure that whatever they become,they don’t become writers? And if that’s how it will remain,will the film industry of 2020 still moan about the lack of writers and stories with the same hysterical conviction?

Would we be able to enjoy on a whim a movie in any Indian language with instant subtitles? Would the movies help us have a better appreciation of our diversity? Would films from other parts of India show in Manipur,and Manipuri films across India? Would the poor have access to the big screen,or would they have to settle for their cellphones?

Would the annual brawl for sending Indian entries to the Oscars still happen? Or would it have become a joke of the past with the Academy of Motion Pictures Art and Sciences opening India and China branches,since everybody else from Hollywood would already have,together with agents,publicist and tabloids? Would the self-inflicted torture of hankering after the great Indian crossover movie have abated? After all,it took even the stoic Japanese decades to crack the American heartland’s car market,and highly culture-specific offerings like popular films may take more time to get there.

Would 2020’s stars be even bigger? Or smaller,with the public familiar with each wart on their skin,and intimate details of their lives? Or would each be an individual galaxy,each with his own revenue model that can reach across the world? Would actresses be given subtle hints to retire just when they reach the peak of their talent,craft and confidence because they are in their thirties?

Would the uniquely South Asian art form called the “Indian film”,the one which blends storytelling,singing,dancing and a hundred other crafts to magically make millions laugh and cry,still be around? Or would it suddenly evolve,a new species nurtured lovingly by intelligent minds of the great film families,blooming into something beautiful,closer to what it used to be in the ’50s and the ’60s but sharper,and again find its rightful place among the world’s greatest storytelling traditions on celluloid? Would celluloid still exist?

My heart is racing with excitement,but there is also a tiny fear,like a grenade with its pin pulled out. What if Gulzarsaab’s incomparable line from that song in Masoom prove prophetic for the flawlessly digital and uber-glamorous entertainment industry of 2020? Bahut khoobsurat hai har baat lekin,agar dil bhi hota toh kya baat hoti.

Maybe a ringtone from 2020 will tell us — a crazy 10-second piece about a time when there used to be these longish things called film songs,and ringtones used to be made from them,instead of the other way around.

Looking forward to it,with adventure in my mind,and a grenade in my heart.

& The Last Decade

Image Breaker
To get star power to fill theatres is as old as the movies. To harness the power of the star to fill in a character has been one of the major highlights of the last decade in Bollywood. Just how hard it can be— to throw off the image trap and emerge unvarnished on the screen — is evident in the numbers: you can count the star-performer on,maybe,the middle finger of a hand.

The star as the actor
But a transformative act cannot be quantified. It requires the active collaboration of a star willing and able to step out of their comfort zone and a brave producer willing and able to take a risk. It may never stack up the numbers,but what it can do in terms of rippling outwards in ever widening circles and affecting the future,is unimaginable.

A Priyanka Chopra turning into Sweety in Kaminey ensured that the star will always need to step up the ante. She went overboard in What’s Your Rashee,a horribly overblown pastiche. But she hasn’t let the failure of that film stop her from doing another which requires her to stretch further. Whether she is good,bad or indifferent in Saat Khoon Maaf is irrelevant at this point: what is important is that here’s a star who’s sloughing off her skin,somewhat,to appear before us in unfamiliar ways.

The Original One
An Aamir Khan starts with wearing a dhoti and a tan in Lagaan,moves on to a nifty soul patch on the chin in Dil Chahta Hai,and graduates to a clipped-convict hair cut in Ghajini. You cannot,at any point,exclaim in disbelief,oh my god,is that really Aamir? Because that’s who he is,undeniably,and that’s what sells the tickets. But those little shifts have gone a long way in raising the expectations from an Aamir film. So grateful are we that he is not doing the same-old same-old that we forgive him all his transgressions,even when he tries acting 20 at 45.

We ask what he will do the next time. And the time

after that.

— Shubhra Gupta