At the awards,
the Bandit Queen Director also praised Village Rockstars, the best feature film winner, saying
he did not know films from Assam also went to Cannes Film Festival. He has
acted with Kamal Haasan in Viswaroopam. I had met him at the Chennai Airport
and got introduced to him by our Screen Editor Taraji. I was awestruck to see
the man who regaled me with Mr India and had me rushing to see Bandit Queen at
the Film Festival (as the talk was that it was an uncensored version).
Now I am sure by now Shekar Kapur has been saffronised by the anti-
Kangana lobby for this FTII posting. In TamilNadu, Periyar Statues get doused
in saffron paint and likewise the mainstream media and the Bollywood press
would have draped Shekar Kapur in saffron and made him to be another Yogi Adityanath.
Why so? Plenty. He put out a tweet on suicide of Sushant
Singh Rajput - “I
knew the pain you were going through. I knew the story of the people that let
you down so bad that you would weep on my shoulder. I wish I was around the
last 6 months. I wish you had reached out to me. What happened to you was their
Karma. Not yours. #SushantSinghRajput,” He told Rahman that the fault in not
getting big Bollywood films was because he got the Oscars. He praised Kangana for her acting
talent. He pointed out to director R Balki ,who felt that Alia Bhatt and Ranvir
Kapoor were the best actors, that “Best actors today
are coming from theatre. There’s new found respect for them. And confidence.
I’ve worked with Naseer, Shabana,Satish Kaushik, Seema Biswas and entire cast
of Bandit Queen, Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Heath Ledger Daniel Craig Eddy
Redmayne. All are from theatre,”. Kapur was to direct Paani with Sushant and
produced by Aditya Chopra and the project fell through as Chopra told the NCB
that it was creative differences.
The difference was about Sushant playing the lead. About the
casting decision of a Director he tweeted.
"Elizabeth was my first Hollywood film.
I had noticed an unknown girl called Cate Blanchett who I wanted to play
Elizabeth. My agent said Studio wanted a star and if I kept insisting on an
unknown actor, they will replace me. I said i had to go with my heart. The rest
is history," Blanchett got global
fame for portraying Elizabeth I in the Hollywood
drama, for which she won the BAFTA Award as Best Actress and earned her first
Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category.
Now the opinion
unbecoming of a Bollywood Director - Shekhar declared on Twitter, “Theatres are
not going to open for atleast a year. So all hype around first weeks business
of 100+ crores is dead. So the theatrical Star System is dead.” He added,
“Stars will have to go to existing OTT platform or stream films themselves
through their own apps. Technology is quite simple.” As the controversy was
raging he had deposed before the NCB , He wrote on Twitter, “Dear Sushant,
there was so much more you had to offer. Perhaps the world was not up to your
beliefs.. you should not have gone like this ...but then you were an old wise
soul in a restless young body. Often the heavens cannot handle that ..”
Shobaa De in The Week wrote as the Sushant
Singh suicide saga was unfolding – “Regardless of how
this saga pans out, it is great to know that the 74-year-old Kapur continues to
be combative—as he can well afford to be. With a net worth estimated at $25
million, he is in an enviable position to say and do as he please. He is also
one of the few people in Bollywood to take a stand when required, as he
famously did when a “trilogy” of his superhit directorial venture, Mr India, was grandly announced without informing him. He asked
an important and very valid question: “Where is the director’s ownership on
material he has created?” This did not go down well with the community, with
people like Javed Akhtar questioning his stand”.
We will have wait and see how he survives the spears that
would be send hurling towards him . Till then- Mugambo Khush hua.
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