Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Kamal Haasan a Meena Iyer, pubblicata oggi da The Times of India. I prefer to be like Steven Spielberg: Kamal Haasan:
'Is Vishwaroop (Hindi) (Vishwaroopam in Tamil) - written, produced and directed by you - your most ambitious project?
I’m borrowing a line from writer-filmmaker Ingmar Bergman here. He said, ‘Every time I do a film, I think this is the last film.’ It could be. We don’t really know. Hypothetically, what would I do if this were my last film? I don’t know if I will be allowed to make another film. Anything unforeseen can happen. So every film that I make, I just put everything I have in it. You see, for the audience it may not be the last film that they are seeing. But for an actor, every film he does, should be done in that spirit, because that’s the only way to approach your work. I will not kill myself over a film. I adopt a very motherly attitude to every film of mine. I want to feed it, nurture it, and give it all the emotion I have. (...) Believe me, if you live, eat, breathe movies like the way I do, then you tend to obsess over your movies. An actor, filmmaker can either be just an actor (...) or he can be right there with the rest of the crew leading from the front. Makers like Steven Spielberg etch every line that goes into making their film. I prefer to be like Spielberg, this keeps me happy and busy. (...)
You were very prolific at one point. Of late you have cut down on assignments as an actor.
That’s because we have no good producers here. A man having money and respect doesn’t qualify as a producer. Production is a technique. It needs a talent, just like acting does. (...) Producing a movie is as important and as much a hands on job as direction. When I say that out of 200 films that I have done, I’ve only 100 perfect producers, it doesn’t mean that as an actor, I wasn’t served my breakfast on time, or that I got my tea in a plastic cup. I’m talking about producers who have done evil to the film. Those who’ve harmed the aesthetics of the film.
So the attitude of callous producers seems to have left a bitter taste in your mouth?
I can’t generalize. For every bad producer that I met, I have also met a good one. However, the dismissive producers and their talks disturb me. I have heard guys saying - ‘these guys are fussing too much over the script.’ Or others suggesting - ‘Sir, take two nice girls, go to a foreign location and shoot the film.’ It’s almost like they are suggesting that I have a picnic. It’s also been suggested that there should be more women on set because it’s fun. This is the wrong attitude. (...)
Will we see Rajinikanth and you in a project again?
If you have Rajini and me on board, the sky is the limit to how much you can sell a film for. But there is also a limit to how much you can pay the two of us as actors. When you finish giving him and me our remunerations, I don’t think there will be much of a budget left to make the movie with'.
