Unmasking 'great' directors of Bollywood

Here's a quickie again. I have decided that I'd do more quickies. Writing long posts is a big bore for me. It's excruciating for the reader too! Quickies are more acerbic, just like comments in other blogs.

I have found out an interesting feature about the abusive filmmakers on CNN-IBN. Here I'm embedding the video for you.

You may ask if this is relevant to the objective of my blog. It really is. This story reveals the ugly side of the 'great' directors we worship. We admire his/her terrific knowledge about cinema/ shot composition etc. But can we adore them the same way when we know how insane and abusive they are to their crew members? You may tell me that it's not my duty to sneak into the personal life of an individual. But is this really a *personal affair*? Do the directors we are referring to respect anyone's *personal affairs*? Just as because you are giving them money, you can do just anything? No, it's not a personal attack from my side. Only if I were to get into his/ her private affairs, then you could easily term it as my filthy attempt to animadvert someone personally. Doesn't it feel bad when we watch something good on the cost of someone being abused, verbally or physically?

The most overrated director ever, in my opinion, is Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He churns out mediocre stuff like none else. He is famous for throwing mobile phones at his ADs. He is also famed for not paying his set constructors. There's a lot of other stuff about him in the above link.
The director of, ahem ahem, Eklavya, the-person-who-invented-cinema-and-made-Sir-David-Lean-proud a la Vidhu Vinod Chopra is a bird of the same feather. Why not? After he is the person who gave break to SLB? He bit the hands of his actress (sorry, I am not sexist. But couldn't help) Neha during the shoot of a pathetic film called Kareeb. What the.............!?

There's a lot more incidents of directors persecuting crew members/ actors. Most don't consider crew members as human beings. The directors have bought them as servants like medieval ages. Right?

The excuse they take help of is: "the directors are under tremendous pressure by producers/ distributors." or "To bring out the best out of my cast/crew." So your abuse is justified? Bravo! The question is: Are the crew members too not under pressure by YOU? If any abusive director is reading my blog (That's a daydream
. I know no one is reading my blog), please answer to this question.

There are one or two glorious exceptions. Though I have heard Farah Khan to be a tyrant on the sets there's something about her. I have to admit that I find her comment on so-called 'art cinema as 'boring, dull, senseless etc.' very annoying. What's more, sometimes she calls them 'Bengali Art Cinema.' That apart, there's one quality in her which distinguishes her from other directors. She is the only one in Bollywood, as far as I've seen, who really acknowledges her crew. I was surprised to see in her debut film Main Hoon Naa (I liked the film a lot for some reasons) that everyone from set designers to hair dressers turned up in front of camera in a song. That was a refreshing change. In Om Shanti Om again, she brings every spot boy together with Shahrukh Khan in the same frame. Now that's admirable.

Till now, I don't really find Karan Johar movies as 'totally outstanding or global benchmarks,' there seems to be a 'human' quality in him. The way he behaves is certainly very genial. I've heard that he is quite pleasant with his crew.

Now that's something good.

It's better to see a bad film made by crew-friendly persons than to watch a lost (truly, "LOST") film by Sir David Lean by hand-biting directors.

There's a lot of other directors/ filmmakers whose 'such' actions are no longer unknown. If possible, I'll put up an article about the importance of crew in 'world cinema' sometime in future.

Now watch the video.

Tell me what do you think of these persons.