IIPM BBA College: Who directed Ek Tha Tiger, Khiladi 786,Son Of Sardar ? Who Cares? !

Monojit Lahiri probes the status of today’s B-town directors, rocking the fashionable Rs 100 crore club and discovers, shockingly, that most of them are invisible!

The redoubtable genius, stormy and controversial polish director Roman Polanski (Knife in the water, Rosemary’s Baby) had once categorically stated that “the director is always a superstar. The best films are best because of nobody, but the director. You speak of classics – Citizen Kane, 8 ½, Seven Samurai, Gold Rush and City Lights – it’s the director who is the star. He and he alone makes and creates the film.” Actually, Europe has always been the Camelot for directors. Comparatively, in Hollywood, they were – thanks to the feudal studio system – on a tight leash. The director was usually a hireling along with the writer, cameraman and wardrobe lady. He was apprenticed at the studio where he got his tutoring and he tunneled (as best as he could) through someone else’s choice of cast, script and editor, as effectively possible. Sure there were exceptions (Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford, Billy Wilder) but then, most of them were Producer-Director. The rule was simple. The Producer ran the show and the studio put its stamp upon it. Formulae were sacred. Directors were not, and eminently interchangeable at will!

In year 2013, doesn’t this diktat apply scarily to B-town as well? Does any mainstream director have the guts to say, ‘I think of myself not as a director, but a filmmaker; someone who strategically and creatively uses people and equipment to make a personal expression that will resonate with my audiences?’ Before anything, however, let’s get some facts straight and perspective in place. As SRK has repeatedly pointed out, stars in Bollywood dominate the minds and hearts of the Indian audience and their presence remains the single biggest magnet for the insane popularity and craze of the blockbusters. The truth is there for all to see. The late Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra may have propelled some of Amitabh Bachchan’s greatest box-office successes (Zanjeer, Namak Halal, Sharabi, Muqaddar ka Sikander, Amar, Akbar, Anthony; Coolie, Mard) but what has been their scorecard before and after the Big B connect happened? Farah Khan’s twin successes were also with SRK (Main Hoon Na & OSO) and flops with Akki (Tees Maar Khan). And so on and so forth…

Cut to the present scenario. The recent Ajay Devgn starrer, Son of Sardar was a hi-decibel, hi-profile offering chewing miles of publicity due to its public spat with Yash Raj Film’s (YRF) Jab Tak Hai Jaan (JTHJ), remember? Now, can you remember the name of the director? Okay, who is the director of Akki’s return to the Khiladi franchise, Khiladi 786? Next, the biggest, YRF’s Dhoom 3 is one of the most eagerly awaited release of 2013, both because of the dazzling and popular franchise value and the first-time-pairing of Aamir Khan (playing baddie!) and Kat Kaif. Guess who wields the megaphone? Do I see an entire ocean of blank faces? Chill. Not your fault, guys. The age and ritual of celebrating the director - Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar and Basu Chatterjee among others – is clearly over and it’s the star who categorically calls the shots in the mainstream universe. Get any one of the Khans, Hrithik, Ajay or Akshay or even Saif and chances are half your battles are over in terms of funds, audience connect or media exposure. Chuck in Katrina, Priyanka, Kareena or Deepika and the project, overnight, takes a life of its own! Which production house? Who’s directing? Who cares?! For your information, the director of Son of Sardar was Ashwini Dhar and the director of Khiladi 786, Ashish R. Mohan. For the Dhoom 3 project, the earlier helmsman Sanjay Ghadvi (now on a huge downer with two back-to-back bombs Ajab Ghazab Love and Kidnap) has given way to a Vijay Krishna Acharya, best known for a flop named Tashan. Clearly, the powers are that have clearly seen and read the writing on the wall and run with red-hot star-charisma rather than promoting the director. When you have Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar and Aamir–Katrina as your headliners, does anyone give a damn about anything else? Sure there are exceptions – Karan Johar, Rajkumar Hirani, Rohit Shetty, Sajid Khan, Aditya Chopra – but (quite honestly) they too depend mostly on star power. Don’t agree? Okay, check out their strike rate with non-stars…

The one area, however, where the director as a visionary and moving force works is the crossover / small films. Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Shoojit Sarkar, Sujoy Bose, Anurag Basu, Habib Faisal and gang have proved that they are the real stars and actors are their great, gifted collaborators helping them to flesh their vision with the appropriate passion and purpose. It is amply clear from Wasseypur and Shanghai, Vicky Donor and Ishaqzaade, Sahib, Bibi… and Paan Singh Tomar; who called the shots and whose shadow coloured the narrative. Critic Rauf Ahmed wraps up this discourse offering his learned observations. “There is a huge, mistaken belief that today’s movie-going audiences, unlike early times, are smart, sharp, knowledgeable and discriminating and will dismiss any film that is not focused and does not engage their attention. While it is true that this audience base has indeed powered several unknown non-glam directors and non-starry projects to win attention, awards and modest returns, for the larger part, clearly it is star power that has rocketed the big projects up, up and up! Undoubtedly, the director had a part to play in the success of the hits, but can you honestly think of JTHJ without SRK, Dabangg 2 without Salman, Rowdy Rathore sans Akshay, and Talaash without Aamir? And how many people know (or care to know) and remember the name of the extremely talented Reema Kagti as the person who helmed Talaash?” So, as SRK always reminds us, directors are wonderful and actors are great… However, in India and B-town, it is the stars who dazzle!