Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal handed away at the moment in Mumbai on the age of 90. Filmfare spoke to actor Manoj Bajpayee who labored with Shyam Benegal in Zubeidaa. Recalling, Benegal’s inventive aptitude and his imaginative and prescient as a storyteller, Bajpayee spoke straight from the guts. Excerpts…
For the reason that time I landed in Bombay within the ’90s I’d make common journeys to Shyam Benegal’s workplace in Tardeo. On a number of events, I mustered the braveness to ask him to forged me as properly. Lastly, he forged me in Zubeidaa (2001) and I used to be shocked that he selected to forged me within the position of a prince. I keep in mind, whereas taking pictures for the movie, I questioned him on his selection of fashionable actors and he defined to me, Zubeidaa got here from a movie background and was married to royalty, so it wanted a way of historical past to be married with fashionable tradition. I used to be aghast that he selected me to be the prince and infrequently questioned him about it. However he was satisfied together with his selection.
I keep in mind being intimidated; whereas doing intimate sequences with my co-stars in Zubeidaa and Shyam ji would inform me, overlook your small city or village morality, assume just like the prince would. It helped me shed my inhibitions. I noticed that he was additionally open to discussing and advised me, don’t be slowed down solely by movies, maintain an open thoughts, by no means cease studying.
On the peak of business cinema and the Amitabh Bachchan wave, Shyam babu made tour de power cinema, which some individuals known as as parallel cinema. He spawned a brand new technology of filmmakers due to his personal distinctive voice and filmmaking. From Ankur (1974) to Nishant (1975) and Bhumika (1977), Junoon (1978) to Mammo (1994), have a look at his legacy and the way he retained his unique voice and spirit.
He would by no means get offended or say something when different filmmakers or actors would deride his cinema or look down upon it. He was true to his imaginative and prescient. A real doyen of cinema as a medium of artwork. He redefined it in a time when it was robust to be making movies apart from business movies.
