Naseeruddin Shah: 'Our mainstream cinema has ruined the taste of the audience forever'

Naseeruddin Shah returned to direction after 17 years for his short film called Man Woman Man Woman that stars Ratna Pathak Shah, Vivaan Shah, and Saba Azad in crucial roles. In an interview with IANS, reflecting upon mainstream Hindi cinema, Shah said, “Our mainstream cinema has ruined the taste of the audience forever. Filmmaker Satyajit Ray mentioned about this thing in his book titled ‘Our films, their films’ which he wrote 50 years ago. He wasn’t running down Indian films but he was merely comparing the Indian filmmakers with international filmmakers.”

He added, “Ray said that we need audiences which get angry, we need audiences which are curious. It’s not correct to always pander to the softest sensibilities of the audience.”

Awaiting a positive change

It’s been over 100 years for our cinema, and our mainstream cinema keeps making the same kind of films, many stories that you find in the mainstream films can be found in the Indian epics like Mahabharata which is one of the greatest epics written. Every mainstream film that you see in India has some or the other references from the Mahabharata’. Either that or Shakespeare. Every cliche in Hindi mainstream cinemas has been heavily borrowed from Shakespeare.

Also at an event recently, he took jibes at the distributors of the country and said, “The bitter truth is that those who work the hardest while making a film, their remuneration is the lowest. They stand in water till their waist and look after the broken electric wires. They carry reflectors. They carry bags on their shoulders and climb on the top and remain there throughout the day; nobody asks them for water or tea. Their payment is one-thousandth of those who sit on chairs under the fan while having sherbet and show attitude.”