I totally agree with Kangana Ranaut who got into a huff recently when Gangster, her debut film, was described as a small film. Whats a small film? And how is it different from a big film? The pundits who have arbitrarily designed this stupid divide rely on things like a films budget, locations, stars. So Gangster, one of last years most watched films, is described as a small film because its producers were commercially diligent, shot in Seoul, not New York or London, and cast three of todays most intelligent actors, Shiney, Kangana and Emran Hashmi, not some silly tantrum throwing stars. By that yardstick, Mother India was a small film because it had no big established hero and was made on a modest budget.
Actually theres nothing like a big film or a small film. Films are either good or bad. At the most you can divide them into two groups: commercial films and arthouse cinema. One addresses the masses. The other, connoisseurs of cinema. But if a distinction must be made, the only defining factor here can be the big idea. A big film is a film with a big idea. Zhang Yimous Hero was a big film, a spectacular film but it was made for only 5 million Hong Kong dollars. Hollywood was so embarrassed by the budget that before its US release, the studio got Quentin Tarantino to present it and its PR machinery to hype it as a 50 million US dollar film. Over the years, the hype has grown and the other day I saw it referred to as a 150 million dollar film!
The truth is only brain dead producers, talentless directors and pompous stars boast about the size of their films. Those who are short on ideas and talent need to define their films by what is spent on them. Exotic locales and puffed up budgets hide the lack of intelligent screenplay and real talent. Hype over rides excellence. Hard sell tries to cover up the absence of ability to create a watchable film.
If you look up the list of the most successful films, in Hollywood or Bollywood, you will find that 80 per cent of them were not big films in terms of budgets or stars. Amitabhs most memorable films, Anand and Abhimaan, were made on his way up, with directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee who never made big budget films. Guru Dutt never made big budget films. Nor did Bimal Roy. Nor did the only Indian who won the top Oscar in Hollywood without hiring a PR firm or spending a dime lobbying for it, Satyajit Ray. He wrote the first sci-fi movie, which was stolen by one of Hollywoods biggest directors and made into a 100 million dollar film. Rays budget for the film was Rs 18 lakh!
Real film makers dont budget big. They budget smart. What they chase is big ideas, not big spend. Film making, for them, is about creativity, talent, imagination, memorable screenplays. They dont depend on stars to make their films succeed. On the contrary, the success of their films creates stars. Anand made Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh the cult heroes they became. Not vice versa.
So its time to take a break from all this boy talk about big films. Movies, like sex, have nothing to do with size. Its about performance. Good films work. Bad films dont.
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