After running into controversies, lead actress Vidya Balan and producer Ekta Kapoor of ‘The Dirty Picture’ talk about the film. Speaking exclusively to Rajdeep Sardesai, the duo said that the film is not inspired by Silk Smitha, but a recreation of that era.
Here’s the transcript of the discussion:
Rajdeep Sardesai: Is a controversy necessary to make a hit film? Joining us now is the actor of the film ‘Dirty Picture’ Vidya Balan and the producer of the film Ekta Kapoor. Let me start with the controversy and start with you Ekta on that. The brother of Silk Smitha has now gone to court, saying that you have portrait rather unflattering portal of his sister and didn’t you even take the permission of the family before deciding to make a film on Silk Smitha.
Ekta Kapoor:Well first thing first the word unflattering, is the operative word and the not the right one. Secondly it’s a recreation of an era and probably it’s a lot of character put together to create this one woman. There was the phenomenon in the eighties, in the underbelly of the south industry where in a lot of women came up and became these superstars, through their sexuality and their oomph and they were given names like Silk Smitha, Nylon Nalini and its one of them.
Rajdeep Sardesai: So you don’t want to be honest enough and say this film is inspired by Silk Smitha, why not say.
Ekta Kapoor: I am not saying, I am inspired by an era it is not inspired by Silk Smitha’s life.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Ok it is not inspired by Silk Smitha’s life. But Vidya through all the promotionals, through every efforts is been made to push the line, that this film is linked to Silk Smitha. Its almost as if you think and the producer thinks that the way this film is going to attract eyeballs, because for a generation, Silk Smitha was the person they recognise.
Vidya Balan:No I think, you know this misconception probably came into being because the character of our film, the heroin of our film is called Silk. Like she said because we are talking about an era where the dancing stars reigned supreme and Silk Smitha was a front runner. You know after that she’s found a lot of fakes like the Nylon Nalini’s, and the Polyester Padmini’s. So when we are talking about a dancing star we definitely used the name Silk, but didn’t really base it on her life.
Ekta Kapoor:Absolutely
Vidya Balan:Rajat Arora has not just on these dancing star, but I think has found inspiration from the lives of many actress over time.
Rajdeep Sardesai: But why cant be more honest, there would be on Hollywood, like look this film is inspired by Silk Smitha. Why not say that upfront, you take advantage of the fact, there is the Silk Smitha connection in the film. Apparently you have the word Silk runs through as pseudo-name for you. Why not say upfront that we are inspired by Silk Smitha. We think that she is the kind of character we would like to portrait in cinema.
Ekta Kapoor: No, But why be inspired by the person, we aren’t. Why should we take on, the pressure of trying to create somebody’s life when we are creating the era and different people and different lives with that one character.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Okay you know that one way to look at it, that you are looking at an era. But is that the problem with a fiction that way. In a way for example you obviously haven’t met Silk Smitha in life.
Vidya Balan: Right
Rajdeep Sardesai: You didn’t encounter her and yet you been asked to play the role. Similar to someone of that era , so how do you than get down to play that role you get down to dress today in 80s costume.
Vidya Balan: 80s ya
Rajdeep Sardesai: But it is much more than just dressing up, isn’t it?
Vidya Balan: Yes, yes it absolutely is. I did watch for example songs from the eighties from South Indian film to see what these dancing girls were really expected to do or what they ended up of doing. So my character, there should have little bit to do with all of them may be, in the body language things like that there are elements, there are borrowed. But otherwise it is purely based only on the script, because I think Rajat Arora has done all that he could give it me on a platter, the writer.
Rajdeep Sardesai: But the point I am making is to sell a film like this do you need, for example the kind of promotionals you have done. There is that titillating, edgy element that you have done, you virtually have gone as far as perhaps anyone has so far in Bollywood in terms of the promotionals. It is out there in you face the sexuality has to be shown, is that necessary again?
Vidya Balan: No, I think its purely for titillation, I think she is a sex symbol. So you know I can’t play a sex symbol being clothed from top to bottom or being Chuee Muee about it. So I have to be true what I am doing, if I am playing tomorrow I am playing as a saint I can’t be dressed in a bikini its as simple as that.
Rajdeep Sardesai: But you know, again I come back to Ekta as you said it fictionalized, its about an era.
Ekta Kapoor:Absolutely
Rajdeep Sardesai: The character name Silk after Smitha, it set in the 80s, it being released around Silk Smitha’s birthday. Are you trying to take the advantage of the fact that there is the vast audience that has curiosity about Silk Smitha?
Ekta Kapoor: I would like rephrase that there are vast audience that wouldn’t know about Silk Smitha, about the whole era, the whole generation. On the other hand, I want to represent or should I say represent the era through one character who synonymous with it, that’s it. Not anything more not anything less and I want.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Its interesting you’re saying that because again with ‘Once upon a time in Mumbai’ there was a similar controversy most people felt, this was the film inspired by Haji Mastan, loosely inspired by Dawood, why not say
Ekta Kapoor:But, but when you go actual story Dawood never worked for Haji Mastan. So there goes the fiction part. So how can I take on the onus when I am not, I would accept it when it is true, if not why should I.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Ok, that a interesting way to put it but you know Vidya as an actor you’re portraying, as some would say, a real life person, as I said, a person whose family perhaps you’ve never met, how do you get under the skin of a role like that. Some one, whom you have to imagine, could have been a particular type of person.
Vidya Balan: But again its not real for me because its not a real life character. I didn’t have to do any kind of ground work in understanding Silk Smitha or purely her work. Mine characterization is purely based on the script.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Ok, its purely based on the script you know the manner in a sense you have packaged your films Ekta its interesting. We spoke about ‘Once Upon a Time In Mumbai’, there’s ‘Love Sex aur Dhokha’, which is linked to MMS controversies you are trying to be contemporary.
Ekta Kapoor: Absolutely
Rajdeep Sardesai: But you are inspired by real life events. Would that be fair to say?
Ekta Kapoor: Absolutely. Why shouldn’t we I mean if take the story of ‘Once Upon a Time In Mumbai’ and base it on ‘Once Upon a Time In America’, Its actually I mean, if I mean not politically correct it’s probably Osama’s story. You know I mean we all create our own waterloos and sometimes the menta-body relationship comes under scanner and I think it’s a human story. I think by, it’s a myopic way of look at it by saying that it’s this person’s story.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Ok, you know friends of mine colleagues of mine from Kerala have had the skid fascination for the Silk Smitha generation for that they were wondering why it called the ‘The Dirty Picture’. Why suggest the kind of cinema should be seen as the ‘The Dirty Picture’.
Ekta Kapoor:There’s a reason.
Rajdeep Sardesai: There’s a reason?
Ekta Kapoor: Ya actually
Rajdeep Sardesai: Go ahead.
Ekta Kapoor: The movie shows you the dirty picture, we objectify women at that time it happened a lot more. A male dominated industry is expected to have women to do the item number and leave. The big dialogues has to be given to a man, at no point the women is the hero of the film. And comes these women, they set up this industry; it’s a fractured form of feminism. They do their own bit, they don’t think what people think of them, they are happy doing this and this is ‘The Dirty Picture’.
Rajdeep Sardesai: And this is ‘The Dirty Picture’ and for you, Vidya, as some one who is a sociology student, a feminist.
Vidya Balan: Yes
Rajdeep Sardesai: Did you then identify with the entire period, perhaps where women were being objectified and used by film makers, almost overtly?
Vidya Balan: But I think there was a certain celebration of a body which can be seen as again, a kind of feminism.
Ekta Kapoor: Absolutely
Vidya Balan:Also it was an unapologetic
Ekta Kapoor: Life
Vidya Balan: Also it was an unapologetic life
Rajdeep Sardesai: A tragic life also at one level.
Vidya Balan: Ya but I think tragedy, tragedy in everyone’s life. Some one or the other’s. I don’t think that’s really the focus of what this film is all about.
Ekta Kapoor: See to justify a woman is to then put her out and say that she needs justification, which she doesn’t. She lived her life; some agree with it, some don’t. we’ve put it out the way it is, now its up to people’s perception. It’s a brave film.
Rajdeep Sardesai: It’s a brave film, fair enough, but its also a film that some would say would have been even braver if you would have said that we’ve been inspired by Silk Smitha. That would be one view. In al your promotionals, in the entire way in which the film has been projected, you are trying to recreate the magic of Silk Smitha without admitting it. Some would say that’s the way Bollywood wants to be.
Ekta Kapoor: Some would say that by using the magic of Silk Smitha we’ve achieved our goal.
Vidya Balan: Also I think, I am as far removed from Silk Smitha as anyone can be, you know, in terms of facially, they would have probably cast a duskier actress or some one who more conventionally fits in to that casting, if they were really making it based on Silk Smitha. So I am going back to my earlier grounds.
Rajdeep Sardesai: And yet I saw you, remarkably doing a promotional, a dance for the film, where you were out there in a manner, as I said, pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries. Is that something that you want to do constantly with your cinema, whether its an ‘Ishqiya’ earlier, whether its ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’, whether its ‘Paa’, through all your films you want to push the boundaries?
Vidya Balan: Yes I think I’ve been doing that. I think even today, as I sit in front of you in this eighties gear, its only because, you know, I’m promoting the film in a way that makes the association very obvious. Otherwise, I could be here talking about anything else, but clearly at this point I really have no qualms about saying it is all about the film.
Rajdeep Sardesai: You’re here as an eighties character, not about Silk Smitha. Having said that, Ekta, what is it that made you zero in on Vidya? You could have chosen perhaps, someone as she says, somebody else.
Ekta Kapoor: See, like I said, if the point was to make a film about a woman, if we just wanted to make a skin-flick, just about a woman who is really sexual or something, it would be really easy to cast. But we wanted an actor who gets into the skin of the character. You see this woman, what’s exciting about her is her bravado. She’s actually gone ahead, not thinking about what people thought about her, in an industry where you’re supposed to succumb; you’ve used your sexuality to reach somewhere. And then later on, it all adds up because one day it all catches up when you start thinking. So I needed an actor who understands the various phases of this woman’s life; who gets into the skin of the character and who actually portrays the child-like element and the maturity.
Rajdeep Sardesai: So how did you get into the skin, I won’t say Silk Smitha, of that generation of actresses, of Silk? How did get under the skin of someone you hadn’t seen or known?
Vidya Balan:I think the challenge I faced in this film was that it really required no other kind of preparation except to be completely uninhibited in the head. You know, to be playing a sex symbol who’s completely unapologetic about her sexuality; who literally celebrates it; who wears it on her sleeve. How was I going to do it without really thinking about it. That was my only challenge and I think I worked on it mentally before I went on shoot. I probably read the script a few times, discussed it with Milan and something happened.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Maybe someone in your parents generation had seen the film, otherwise. Have seen Silk Smitha films.
Vidya Balan: Oh no, not really.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Did you meet people who had seen Silk Smitha films to try and understand the character in the film?
Vidya Balan: Like I told you, I actually googled some of the songs of that generation to see what kind of, because it was very high on gesticulation, and all sorts of suggestive actions. So I wanted to understand that. We find it quite ridiculous at this point and time, but they’ve done it and they’ve done it and how. So that’s what I fell back on. Not on anyone’s perception of her or of anyone else.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Alright, I’m going to ask you one final question to both of you. Starting with the producer first because you’ve got to make the money out of the film. How important is it to have a controversy or to try in some ways to ensure that art in its small ways is imitating life?
Ekta Kapoor:See when I heard the script for the first time, I wanted to make this film. It had all the minuses; it was a heroine oriented film. Everyone told me to make a male oriented film after ‘Once Upon a Time’, giving the women the dialogues and having three men in it was quite a challenge. I didn’t think of the commerce at that time, I know it sounds very not true, but it is true. I thought that it was a film that I had to make at this stage of my life.
Rajdeep Sardesai: It’s a film that you had to make at this point in your life. Is this a film which you had to act in at this stage of your life?
Vidya Balan: I think so. I enjoy playing different people on-screen and it couldn’t have gotten as dramatically different for me as this one has, so I just grabbed it with both hands.
Rajdeep Sardesai: And have you thought of translating it into Malayalam, into Tamil? Is that going to happen? Or is that too much of a risk?
Ekta Kapoor: No I think it would but more than a risk I think I would do it seeing the success of the Hindi version and how people accept this bold woman.
Rajdeep Sardesai: This bold woman, so you’re pushing the boundaries, Vidya Balan, that’s what you want to do with your cinema right? You want to bee seen and identified as an actor who is ready to experiment?
Vidya Balan: Yes and interestingly these kinds of films today are very commercially viable. So you’re not catering to a niche anymore. That’s very hopeful for me.
Rajdeep Sardesai: That’s very hopeful for you, well all the best for your film. You’ve made a brave film and maybe that’s the way Indian cinema should go. Ekta Kapoor, Vidya Balan a pleasure to have you. Thanks very much.
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