Interview: Adoor Gopalakrishnan

How come all your films are centred on men? None of your films have a woman as the central character.
There are strong female presences like that of the grandmother in KATHAPURUSHAN.

Their presence always a benign, loving one-as mother, lover etc. exuding support and warmth. These characters do not have any conflict within them, or their inner conflicts are never a major narrative concern in your films.
What often happens is that the film germinates as the story of a man. And in our society, women in fact do not have an equal position. What we are trying to make ourselves believe is the opposite, which is not fair. You take a film event or a serious discussion on a subject of public concern. Where are all the women? Why are they all sitting in front of television watching those sob stories? I am specifically talking about the women in Kerala, where the level of female literacy is the highest in the country. I think the self-image of women in our society is weak, and everything-the serials and the films perpetrate that further. In our society they can't even walk freely on the road after sunset. So what kind of freedom are we talking about? It will be false to portray a fighting woman in our condition now. There may be exceptions though in the urban context. Maybe in the future, I may make a film with a woman at the centre. But is that a solution?

A film that starts from the point where SWAYAMVARAM ends...
Yes. SWAYAMVARAM ends with a heroine of the future. Actually in the film, she is stronger than Viswam, her man. Even in KODIYETTAM, Sankarankutty's mother-in-law as a single parent and his wife Santhamma are characters who are stronger willed than him.

The filmmaker can make films only by placing himself as the audience. You can't make films for an imaginary audience whose tastes you do not know. Neither is it possible to make films for different sections of audience having different tastes. We don't have all the answers, nor do we know their preferences. So you can only make films that you enjoy making and watching.

There is this deep fault lines that run through the families in your films, has it something to do with your own childhood or perceptions about family?
May be. The relationship between my father and mother was a strained one. Most of their life they lived separately. This must have left some scars in my psyche. For my friends had normal families. Secondly, one is not dealing with normal people in films. It is only when there is something out of the ordinary that it becomes dramatically potential.

In MUKHAMUKHAM, the failure of the father to live up to his son is more painful. It is the son who eagerly awaits his arrival. And his father is coming after almost a decade. But his father's return disappoints him. For, a father is always a hero to his child, even if he is an ordinary person. So, his failure is all the more heart rending. This prompts him to disown his father, at least in secrecy. In the school sequence, where his schoolmates are making fun of his father, he is ashamed and hides himself behind a tree. He is passive and does not venture to come forward and defend his father.

It is also a metaphor for the failure of the left movement, its failure to live upto people's expectations.
In the case of his son, it is even pre-ideological, for his expectations are not of the ideologically motivated, but of a period of hopes that goes beyond that.

Similar is the case with man-woman relationship and love in your films. It is something rare, always in the past and adolescence, something to be tenderly remembered, but rarely lived.
A closely knit, loving and caring nuclear family is there only in KATHAPURUSHAN. Even that is arrived at only at the end. Love is also a strong presence in it. Secondly in most of the films, my protagonist is middle aged. He is not an adolescent or a youth. In KODIYETTAM, when Sankarankutty marries, he is referred to as already past his marriageable age. In MATHILUKAL protagonist is in his forties. So are Unni in ELIPPATHAYAM and Sreedharan in MUKHAMUKHAM. Only in KATHAPURUSHAN and ANANTARAM is the protagonist a youth and in both the films, man-woman relationship is very much warm and cordial.

My films are more about the relationship between the individual and the society than about love and family relationships. They are valid as social documents, I think. They should serve as faithful documents of the history of a particular period, the time in which it is set. Hence I always make sure of the authenticity of the facts and materials I use. When I did MATHILUKAL, archival information about the period was difficult to get-I was able to find a Jail Administration Manual of the period, which I studied carefully to recreate the right ambience in the jail sequences.

How do you rate Indian films in the contemporary international film scene? Have we been able to carve a niche for ourselves like Iran or Korea? If not, why?
Basically India as a country does not interest other countries. There is no curiosity about India or Indian art. People hear only about disasters here. Even a country like Malaysia is better placed. Moreover, there is no promotion of any kind. For a country that produces such a huge number of films, shamefully there is no concerted effort to promote our better kind of products internationally. Very small countries like Iran which produce not even a small fraction of what we do, promote their cinema aggressively. They have the full machinery in operation -publications, retrospectives, promotional campaigns, festival focuses -what have you. We are a country that doesn't take pride in our culture or arts. The politicians even think that they would get more mileage by going along those crass commercial enterprises. That is the bane of our great nation.

If at all there is any reference about Indian cinema, it is invariably about commercial Hindi cinema, which unfortunately is taken for the Indian cinema. The case of regional films -which are marginalized within the country -is much worse. Sometime back they even decided to shove away those award winners in regional languages from the national network of Doordarshan as they did not garner as much advertisements as those Hindi commercial films did.

You have made a number of documentaries, many of which have received awards and acclaim. What does documentaries mean to you?
Most of my documentaries are about performing arts (Kathakali, Koodiyattam, Yakshagana, Krishnanattam). And I have thoroughly enjoyed doing them. They provided a great opportunity to learn about such arts. It is an enriching experience.

Some time back I did a film with my friend Viswanathan, who is a painter, about the river Ganges. Shooting it, we travelled from Gangasagar where the river joins the sea to the Himalayan heights from where it takes its source. I myself shot the film and also scored its sound track. It was a great experience. Nothing was pre-planned, so we had to shoot as we travelled. It was shot in 1985, but still the experience of the travel remains fresh. The film went on to win several major international awards and it became a precursor to several films on the Ganges.

It is interesting and indeed intriguing that you have never worked in the video format or for television. Even Satyajit Ray has made television productions. Why is it so?
Basically I am not into television. I give my films to television channels only for the monetary returns it brings in. Moreover, there is no other way to reach the non-malayalee audience. Through TV it becomes possible to take my films to them at least in the video format.

The TV audience is not a serious one. Basically it is a casual and lazy, drawing room audience whose expectations are different from that of a film audience inside a darkened auditorium. I think the people who come to watch my movies have already taken some pains-to decide on it, travel, buy tickets etc. In my works I give them a lot of respect, and I also expect it to be reciprocated.

I also don't fancy working for television during the intervals between films. Even when I am not doing films, I am thinking of it, worrying about it. Some corners of my mind are always at work, I believe. Instead of spending time cooking up stories, I find making documentaries much more exciting and rewarding. It is always an exercise of replenishment, as it opens new areas of knowledge and experience before me. For instance, when I do a documentary on koodiyattam, I do a lot of research on the art form. And that gives me new insights.

Also, at least for quite some time now I make documentaries only on subjects that interest me deeply, not always for the financial returns.

Which filmmakers influenced you the most?
As a student of cinema, all filmmakers, good and bad have influenced me. There is no single filmmaker that I like the most, for there are good films and bad films made by the same filmmaker. For example I like Tarkovsky, his films like STALKER and ANDREY RUBLEV but I did not like his SACRIFICE. I didn't enjoy it. Likewise, though I like filmmakers like Bergman and Kieslowsky, there are also some films of theirs that I did not enjoy much. Basically as a filmmaker, what one is trying to do is to show and say things in one's own way. But one has to be necessarily aware of what is happening in one's medium.

And it is not what we learned that we create. We should also learn to forget what we learned. Maybe what we learned would enrich the vocabulary but it can also be restrictive. What one says has to be necessarily in a language and idiom that is home grown. I prefer the European and Japanese films to the American.

How does a film take shape? What sparks it off an image, an incident, a character or a situation?
It could be anything. Sometimes a character, an incident, a newspaper report, but it is only a starting point.

For example ANANTARAM is based on a real life story I happened to learn about -about a doctor who adopted a child from the hospital. A friend told me about it. The story developed from this little information. It touches some chords inside you and then it grows from this spark. I started thinking about the child, about what would happen to him when he grows up etc.

In the case of KODIYETTAM, it started from a person in my village whom I knew from childhood. He is not as innocent as Sankarankutty, but there are certain similarities. In those days it was not uncommon to see many villagers like him, lazy, innocent and pure. Someone observed after watching KATHAPURUSHAN that everyone in the film cries at one time or the other. It is true. In those days people were capable of such natural outbursts like laughing and crying. My village some fifty years ago was like that. They were unspoilt and courteous to the core. So when tragedy strikes they cry out making no effort to hide anything. No matter if an outsider is present or not. Now we are not able to comprehend that. We have learned as part of our so-called sophistication that we should not show to the outside world whatever is happening to us inside. This is something we imbibed from the modern civilization, I think.

ELIPPATHAYAM started from a simple thought. Why is it that we do not react naturally to things around us? Because it causes inconveniences however minor or inconsequential that be. We rather try to wish inconvenient situations away. Take the familiar experience of eating out. Though we see people starving outside, we tend to forget that. This is a common experience. And we take the easiest way out try to ignore the existence of it. ELIPPATHAYAM is about it. It is an examination of the question why we don't react to what is happening around us, why we choose to wish them away. Actually it is not because we are cruel or unconcerned but we think we simply can't afford to take cognisance of it.

What is the process of writing a script?
After having finalized the theme, subject and a story, I go about writing a treatment. The treatment would outline the various incidents through which the plot progresses to the point of resolution. If that is satisfactory, I begin writing the script in a detailed manner. By the time of shooting, when the location etc. are fixed, I prepare a detailed shooting script, with all the details about shots, lenses to be used etc. But at the shooting location, I am still open to improvisations. You can improvise on it only if you have done your groundwork thoroughly. In my experience, what you finally shoot is invariably superior to what you had written earlier. It doesn't even end there, for you may not follow the same order while editing the film. There again you may have opportunities to make new associations. For example in ELIPPATHAYAM, there is a scene in which the rat is drowned in the pond. After that, the algae over the water close in, the ripples subside, and the surface becomes calm again. What we see is a reflective surface. This shot is cut to the mirror into which Unni is peering. Such connections may occur to us at the editing table while we try different juxtapositions.

Similarly there is this motif of counting throughout ANANTARAM. In the beginning we have a counting when Ajayan outwits everyone in staying under water. Then there is the instrument measuring blood pressure. In the end we again have it, the boy running up and down the steps counting odd and even numbers. It is all about perceptions and the infinite possibilities it opens up.

Do you improvise at the location?
When you go to the location, there are various factors like the time of the day, the lighting pattern, the trees, buildings etc. which may suggest changes in your shooting plan. You can never be rigid in these matters. Rigidity would mean a certain lack of life. But normally what remains practically unaltered is the dialogue. Usually it remains so till the end.

What do you do in between films? If there were finance, would you have done more films?
It is not the question of finance being available. May be such a situation was there in the beginning. Not nowadays.

Actually I don't get enough time to do my work. I have diverse interests. I like to read, write, travel around. Attend to social duties. There are a lot of things to do. One cant live from film to film. A film takes a long time -from the germination of the idea to its realization. And I can't think of another film before I forget the one I am involved in. By the time a film is finished, it is as if I have grown older by ten years.

And my job doesn't end with the making of the film. I have a lot to do afterwards, its promotion, marketing, distribution etc. For two to three years after a film, one is constantly busy screening it around; you are called upon to talk about it etc. So, it takes quiet some time to get the film out of your system.

Then my garden keeps me busy. And above all I like to just sit back and watch the birds and insects and the animals and also the humans apart from those drifting clouds and the plants in rain and in sun shine. And during the intervening period, I don't like to behave like a busy filmmaker. I like to go about like anyone else. Strangely, the general perception about a filmmaker when he is not doing a film is that he is idling and doing nothing.

Maybe that is the case with directors in the film industry, where they make films for the producers and don't have to bother about it afterwards.
Yes. They work in factory style. Once you know the technique, you can churn out any number of films. Even while they are shooting somebody else is editing their films. Because everything is predictable -the story, the editing pattern. It is a job anyone can do. It doesn't demand your personal presence.

But in my style of work, I make myself do practically everything about my film and it is exhausting. I am involved with apparently external concerns like poster designing and publicity. Then you have to handle the correspondence. None else can do it for you. This is also why my producers have never lost money. Not a single film of mine has failed to bring back the investment, with some marginal gains.

I think it is also the reason why so many filmmakers are not able make it. For, they often lack such stamina and are disheartened by casual criticism.
Yes. The success of the film depends on so many factors. Quality alone can't carry it through. You have to time the theatrical release of your film well and also get good support from the distribution and exhibition networks.

Nowadays there is such a resistance to good cinema that I am surprised that youngsters still manage to make their first films. The media is neither inclined nor supportive, and a decent release is also out of the question. Whatever meagre support it had earlier, is dwindling now. The blame has to be shared by the filmmakers as well. In the seventies, when film was cheap, many were emboldened to make films. Most of them were not worthwhile. Many simply lacked in technique and even content. And some of the critics who wrote about these films, when they went on to make films produced atrocious results. They made even greater compromises than the professionals who at least had their excuses. All this has contributed to the downward trend.

There has been a virtual revolution in the field of imaging technology. The very integrity of the image is under siege. Satellite television and imaging techniques have changed our visual experience in a radical manner. Under these circumstances, do you think cinema has become outdated?
Cinema itself was born into the midst of a technological revolution. As a medium of the modern age, it has been responding to the changes and itself has been undergoing transformations more frequently than any other art form.

During the last one hundred years, we have seen cinema changing its form and feel so rapidly as even the ardent followers have found it difficult to cope with. From silence to sound, Black and white to colour, it kept growing at a fast pace. Then came the television. To counter that, cinema developed wide screen, 70 mm, vistarama and so on. Meanwhile sound recording became more and more exacting. Cinema then made use of such technological possibilities to embellish and enrich the use of sound, and you had stereophonic and surround sound etc. At the moment film as a medium is itself on the verge of great changes. Until the early 60's film was shot using two cameras, one to record visuals and the other sound. Later the optical sound recorder was replaced by magnetic tape recorders. Now the sound recording equipments have become more sophisticated and lighter and they can reproduce sounds with greater fidelity and accuracy. What was happening in audio was also having its effect upon video. With the digitalisation of sound, image also became digital. Now the possibilities of converting video images into film images are being explored and perfected. Such a breakthrough is a blessing in a way; it frees you from cumbersome processes and saves a lot of time and anxiety. But there is also the problem of a technology that is becoming commonplace being used in a careless manner. The casual and careless use of video images is an instance of this sort.

I think digital imaging, the possibilities of special effects, graphics etc, in a way, liberates the filmmaker by allowing him to recreate dream like images. Liberated from the shackles of reality and its recording, filmmaking for the first time would be able to create virtual dreams.
This fascination with special effects was always there in the history of cinema. Even in the initial period, George Melies made films like 'Trip to the Moon' that used a lot of optical effects to produce fantastic images. Special effects are nothing new to cinema.

As a filmmaker, do these changes in technology and its effect upon the media and audience pose challenges before you? Do you find them threatening or liberating?
Both. There may be films made available online through the Internet, which people can download into their PCs. Even when there are such technological developments, ultimately, how many can afford to make use of them? A film theatre is entirely different. It is like going to the temple to pray even when you have God's images at home. It is like saying everything has its place. Everything has a place where it really belongs and cinema cannot be transplanted to the living room, the ambience there is different from a regular cinema hall.

But technology can bring the cost of production down, make things faster and take away a lot of uncertainties. It is in a way liberating. But it also creates its own problems. When you do things at such pace, you may not have enough time to think. You are called upon to act so quickly that you don't have the leisure to ruminate over it. The normal editing time of a film for me is three to four months. This allows the chance to grow and change in the process. There is enough time for the film to work on me. This is not available in the case of a film that I have to finish editing in a week. On the other hand, if I want to do things fast while my energies are high, a fast technology should be helpful.

Apart from production, another major area that has experienced revolutionary changes is that of distribution. With the advent and spread of satellite television, images and narratives travel faster and to all corners of the earth. And it has not been a two way process. This flooding of images and narratives also influence the tastes and expectations of the viewers. Does it affect a serious filmmaker like you?
First of all, it lowers the expectations of the viewers. That is the biggest problem. I would like to see it as a transitional problem. Only in our country do people watch television in this manner. In advanced countries where television has been there for long, only certain sections of people, like the aged, or children etc. watch it all the time. In our country, maybe because it is a new experience, all people watch it, and sometimes all the time. I am sure that they will outgrow it and come out of the bonsai experience of life that Television provides. While Television is smaller than life, movies are always larger than life. TV viewing has definitely affected the tastes of the viewers. For, television serials thrive on high drama; they have to produce tear-jerking scenes every eighteen minutes or so. But such melodrama is alien to life. In cinema, this happens over a period of one and a half hours. Even when films are shown on TV it is broken up into bits and pieces. You have ads in between. So, as an experience it doesn't compare with cinema. TV should in fact pep up one's appetite for cinema.

Television has also affected the composition of the film audience. Nowadays only certain sections of people go to the theatre to watch movies; family audiences are gradually withdrawing. This is quite a bad turn affecting the quality of films. And in keeping with the quality of the audience, Cinema has become a dingy place.

This changed nature of audience and their ever-changing tastes; does it affect you as a filmmaker?
The filmmaker can make films only by placing himself as the audience. You can't make films for an imaginary audience whose tastes you do not know. Neither is it possible to make films for different sections of audience having different tastes. We don't have all the answers, nor do we know their preferences. So you can only make films that you enjoy making and watching.

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