Filmmakers write own scripts

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Indian filmmakers and writers make for some of the finest storytellers on the global stage. The former have for years drawn from the ideas of the latter and transformed the pages of their novels into fine scripts that finally make it to the matinee screens. Today we don’t see a Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay or Vijay Anand taking up the onus of making a movie out of a contemporary novel or piece of literature.

Habib Faisal, director of Ishaqzaade, believes it is a matter of choice. And that re-working someone else’s idea can never bring the same satisfaction as working on one’s own. “I am someone who works more by instinct than design. I enjoy working on ideas that are conceived by me and executed by me,” he says. He admits this may not always be the easiest way to work. “A script written by a new writer will always be received with much scepticism. If you take a classic book to a producer, for example the works of Tendulkar or Premchand, one would not want to change a thing so you know what to expect as the end result. But a scriptwriter on the other hand, will always invite ‘improvisations’ from the makers of film,” he adds.
That is probably how the trend came about in the first place, as veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal points out. He has himself made several movies that were adaptations — like Junoon, Mandi and Kondura to name a few. “Back in the days when the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) would fund movies, those who walked in with fresh scripts were given second preference as compared to those who walked in wanting to adapt a classic. That way, one was sure that the money being put into the project was towards a legitimate script and successful storyline,” he says.
One reason why books are not making it as scripts is due to authors’ desperate attempts to sell it to Bollywood, believes Benegal. “Some books these days read like scripts. It’s almost as if they were cut out to be made into a Bollywood flick,” says Sidharth Bhatia, author of Cinema Modern: The Navketan Story — an attitude that is a put-off for most filmmakers. Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone (that got translated into Three Idiots) and Two States (that will soon turn into a movie under Karan Johar and Sajid Nadiadwala’s co-production) is the exception in recent times. “It’s a one-off case because the book has been hugely successful and is something most Indian can relate to,” adds Bhatia.