Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa dal regista Q a Sankhayan Ghosh, pubblicata da Film Companion il 23 gennaio 2021. Q & Ray:
'It's scary to talk to Q - you don't know when you might rub him the wrong way. Besides, is there anything he likes? (...) Or is there anyone who likes his films? Even though 'like' is hardly a word you use when you talk about Q, whose works are designed to make you uncomfortable. (...) This power to offend extends beyond Q's cinema, to his views, one of which is his utter dislike for Satyajit Ray. (...) Now in a twist stranger than meta-fiction, Q is playing Ray. In (...) Abhijaan, a film about the life and work of Soumitra Chatterjee, Ray's favourite leading man, (...) we see Q as Ray, letting his future Apu know that he is too tall to be in Aparajito. He is wearing white pajama-punjabi - something Ray would often wear, and Q never - holding a cigarette and striking that pose as a framed photograph of Tagore hangs in the background. Has there been a more seamless merging of icon and iconoclast? (...) Q (...) lives in Goa, where he's (...) part of the alternative scene. (...)
Your dislike for Ray is well-known. What's really interesting is that now you are playing Ray, in what must be the first time anybody is playing him on screen.
Well, the first person who told me about the resemblance was Rituparno Ghosh. And it was a very lively chat that we'd had after that, (...) about the resemblance and the general perceptions about image, since we were both image makers. He was also very interested in alternative image making, because, obviously, he is a precursor of all this. So while for instance I never liked Rituparno Ghosh's films, I am sure he didn't like mine. He was very clear at the beginning of the meeting that we are not going to talk about that. And then we proceeded to having a very nice chat.
I would've liked to be a fly on the wall during that chat.
It was a really insane chat because we were (...) hanging out in gay bars in Munich and stuff like that. It was a really cool chat. (...) Like everyone else, I grew up with Satyajit Ray and one of the key things I like about him is his calligraphy. I mean, as a designer I feel he did a lot of work that is far beyond his cinema. That's my perspective. My dislike or my problem is with his films. And he would have the same for mine. Because we are coming from totally different spaces in terms of filmmaking, or making visual narrative. (...) There was an occasion 4-5 years back when someone else had asked me to play Ray in a movie. That movie never got made. But I was in character for a month. And I took that quite seriously. These kind of opportunities are very interesting because you're thinking of image and what it could do. Alternative thoughts, or alternatives. They had some look tests and stuff. Few people who were also on that team got in the production team of the new film as well. And this was something that might have prompted them to think of me. (...)
Were you able to put your dislike aside while playing the character?
Yeah yeah, absolutely. Because then I am an actor (...) not Q the director. When I'm rapping I'm not Q the director. (...) Now I'm Satyajit Ray. An actor has a great advantage that they can hop characters like that. Performers have the best job actually and I'm always trying to, like an imposter, get in and do something - with music, with acting, whenever I can. For instance I've done a fairly major character in a Bejoy Nambiar film, (...) as a villain who was beating up Dulquer Salmaan. Because Bejoy knew I could do some shit like that. But no casting director will cast me, obviously, because they don't know me. Everyone assumes I have a certain kind of character based on a public persona, whatever that might be. (Laughs). And that's constantly being manipulated by me.
What was your approach to playing Ray? Did you pick up mannerisms and body language and style of smoking and things like that?
Totally. Because it was a period piece, a biopic, I had to. I got myself into that mode. Because otherwise we are extreme polar opposites in terms of how we speak, hold ourselves, and it was a different time. So people used to behave different physically. So that was great fun. I love that process, that I can be someone else.
What are the things you picked up from Ray's persona?
One of the major problems was cigarettes, because I don't smoke cigarettes. So I was continuously smoking and smokers are different people. They hold their hands very differently. When you smoke joints you don't do that. So that and the fact that I would be in those costumes for a long time and trying to be comfortable even in the jangia (underwear). (...)
What's the kind of material you looked into?
I didn't have to, thankfully, watch all his films. I had to watch films made on him. And whatever footage I could get. I surrounded myself with those images. That's the kind of route I took, not the emotional part. The thing was to place the sense of humour, because he had a keen sense of humour. (...)
Is this you trying to be more open? Would you have done it 10 years ago?
Yeah yeah. (...) I don't think the point is that. I am anti his films, and that time, and how that time influences us right now as Bengalis. And is limiting us severely. That's what I dislike. (...) Satyajit Ray (...) is a bourgeoise upper class filmmaker. My politics doesn't allow me to appreciate his films. (...)
Do you not find anything to appreciate in his films?
Films take up a long time. You have to give it 2-3 hours of your life. I would rather watch something made by somebody I like'.
