In a recent interview on the Red Mike YouTube channel, filmmaker Tigmanshu Dhulia criticised the state of the Hindi film industry. He mentioned that those in charge haven’t experienced the real India, leading to stagnation. The filmmaker also pointed out that mainstream actors sometimes lack language skills necessary for improvisation and it’s often the reason behind their subpar performances.
“Our mainstream actors are incapable of improvising. They speak English all day at home, they get scripts in Roman, they can’t improvise, and that’s why they’re all terrible,” he said, adding that he has been able to extract performances out of “pathhars (rocks)” as well.
He then talked about the ‘big tragedy of Indian cinema’ and explained why it’s declining. “After the Partition, people from all over came to Mumbai. Lahore had a film industry, Bengal still has a film industry. In Maharashtra alone, there were studios in Kolhapur and Pune. Bimal Roy came to Mumbai, Hrishikesh Mukherjee came to Mumbai, the Anand brothers and Prithviraj Kapoor came from Punjab… They brought their stories and culture with them. Then, they had children, and their children got married and settled down in Mumbai,” he said.
He added, “These people were from Mumbai. They never saw the rest of India. They only time they’d go to Kashmir was probably to watch papa’s shooting. They travelled to London and New York. These children made films from their understanding of films; there should be a hero, songs, etc. The lack of evolution that we speak of, the emergence of formula films, stems from this.”
Tigmanshu said that there were changes in the early 2000s when a new group of filmmakers, including himself, arrived in Mumbai from smaller cities. However, he also held his own community accountable for succumbing to ‘greed’ over time. He also said that compared to two decades ago, the audiences have become more ‘bewakoof’ (foolish).
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