With an unusual touch
At the DVD release ... creativity reaches a landmark. — Pic. by K. Pichumani
AP INTERNATIONAL would have little expected their DVD launch of Mani Ratnam's 11 films — seven helmed by him and four, his home productions — to be the trendsetter that it was, as far as album releases go.
The producer of the DVDs had sought the help of Jaishankar Subramaniam, of Landmark, to organise the release function and he in turn entrusted the task to good friend Gautam Padmanabhan.
Gautam's quiet but commendable organisational skills have always been a perfect foil for Dr. Navin Jayakumar's ease and spontaneity on the proscenium. The annual Landmark Quiz shows have proved it amply. But the two getting together to put up a launch of Mani Ratnam's body of work on DVD, at Landmark, in Nungambakkam recently, came as a surprise.
"Jai knows that I am hooked to Mani's films. I have watched each of them at least thrice — for story, technical expertise and the astuteness in the song and dance treatment ... " says Gautam.
Quizzing again
Gautam and Navin had just done an audio-visual presentation of the release of Vikas Swarup's "Q & A," a novel based on a quiz contest. It was not the usual event — first Vikas was quizzed by Navin and later he also had to field questions from the invitees.
The same would be adopted at the show at Landmark, Gautam decided. "The Retrospective lent itself to the format beautifully ... " says Gautam. So sequences from Ratnam's directorial ventures were segmented under categories ranging from romance and issues to characterisation and music and captioned under the heading `Mani Talks.'
Relevant clippings from his films were grouped and shown and after each, Mani Ratnam answered Jai's queries before tackling audience's posers — two from the crowd were given a chance to ask one question each after every AV round.
Then came the short and crisp quiz thrown open to all in the hall — the questions were based on Mani's repertoire.
Cheerful throughout
Contrary to what you had heard, Mani Ratnam was far from taciturn that evening. Cheerful and absolutely at home, the auteur had a whale of a time, with his repartees and remarks punctuated by chuckles and hearty laughter. "Yeah ... even I felt he enjoyed the show. I've met him a couple of times earlier too and found him to be articulate and inspiring," says Gautam. When P. C. Sreeram, who was on the dais for a while to share his thoughts regarding working with Ratnam, the director pitched in and said, "I depend most on my cinematographer ... and it's wonderful that P. C. is interested in cinema as a whole," he said. "I observe his story even more than Mani does," Sreeram added.
The release of DVDs of four films where Mani Ratnam was the producer alone — "Dumm Dumm Dumm," "Five Star," "Aasai" and "Naerukku Naer" — made you expect some interaction among the directors of the projects Azhagamperumal, Susi Ganesan and Vasanth, with Ratnam ...
"We wanted the cast and crew of Mani's films to participate in the event. The Madras Talkies office helped us out and Madhavan, Surya, P. C. Sreeram and Keerthana were able to make it. I also wanted Thotta Dharani there, but he was away ... " says Gautam.
At no point in the show did the audio-visual play truant. "It did ... but it was before the event," laughs Gautam.
After selecting the clippings and editing them, when we thought we had the final DVD ready, it just didn't work.
And only after the digitisation was over did we realise that the whole thing had gone without sound ... thankfully it was perfect when it had to be."
You asked for it
VERY CLEVERLY some of those who got a chance to ask a question each, garbed three or four in one. But Mani Ratnam was cleverer. He picked one poser from the four and chose to answer that alone. Some samples:
Why did you shift from romance to serious issues, terrorism for example?
"I was getting older ... " (chuckles)
Your titles are misleading ... "Kannaththil Muththamittaal" is one such ...
"Naming a film is like naming a child ... we do break our heads to give the right title ... sometimes it's very apt, like "Agni Nakshatram." But sometimes we could err ... "
Why don't our makers film novels ... why do they always write the stories themselves?
"Why not?" (laughs) "But seriously ... you know that "Roja" is based on Satyavan and Savitri and "Thalapathi" was the modern version of the Karnan-Duriyodhana story. In fact Rajini was called Surya in the film. We can take stories from books ... but writing for films is not taken very seriously here ... "
The importance of songs in films ...
"When you've decided to have songs, the best thing is to sit back and enjoy them ... I do. As for the question about whether I'm moving towards song-less films ... well, I'm trying to. (Pointing to P. C. Sreeram) He was able to do it in `Kurudhi Punal' ... "
Of Ilaiyaraja ...
"He's brilliant ... a true genius ... you have to see him during re-recordings, jotting down the notation with the musicians surrounding him. Personally I can't write a word when somebody's watching me ... I don't know how he does it, that too without a scratch anywhere ... ("Mozart is said to have written his music that way ... without scoring out even slightly," Navin adds.)
You take a gap of two years after a film ...
"I do. But I hope to begin working soon ... it's been quite a long sabbatical (laughs aloud)
MALATHI RANGARAJAN
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