Whose movies are they anyway?
Ramesh Sharma’s 1986 film, New Delhi Times, is often cited as the best Hindi film on media and the dubious linkages between politics, business, crime and corruption. The story of an honest journalist, Vikas Pande (Shashi Kapoor) who finds himself in an ethical quandary for having been used unawares by the shady political establishment, New Delhi Times won three national awards, for the best debut film, actor and cinematographer. However, it proved too hot to handle in its times by the distributors and Doordarshan for its portrayal of political assassination and instigation of riots, leading to several disruptions to its screenings.
Its recent official reappearance online, almost four decades down the line, has also proven to be contentious because of the voluntary censorship of content by the platform shemaroome.com, that too without having taken the filmmaker into confidence. Another official print on the YouTube channel called Kapoors of Bollywood has since been taken down.
The self-censorship can be interpreted as a sign of the film’s continued pertinence in speaking truth to power. The touchiness highlights the fact that little has changed since the 1980s when it comes to locating threat perception in our popular culture. Most weirdly, some changes appear to have been done to supposedly bring it on par with the current finesse in image-making and HD quality visuals, but make it lose out cloddishly on its narrative integrity and soul.
While the original was 121 minutes long, the new version streaming online has a run time of 114 minutes. “It shows an absence of moral compass. It’s unfair to me,” says Sharma of the arbitrary deletion of seven to eight minutes of the film and the random, inexplicable meddling with the technical and artistic aspects in the guise of remastering.
He has unlikely company in Aanand L Rai, whose 2013 hit Raanjhanaa also found itself getting maimed recently at the hands of producer-distributor Eros International with everyone’s favourite new toy, artificial intelligence. For the re-release of the film’s Tamil-dubbed version, Ambikapathy, Eros altered the climax, using AI to generate an alternative happy ending where the hero Kundan (Dhanush) survives, drawing criticism from both the director as well as Dhanush.
Rai called it “unauthorised” for not taking him into confidence. In fact, not just the two, none of the creative team was involved in this decision-making. Calling it reckless and disrespectful in an Instagram post, Rai wrote: “To cloak a film’s emotional legacy in a synthetic cape without consent is not a creative act. It’s an abject betrayal of everything we built.”
Dhanush felt that the alteration had set a bad precedent by “stripping the film of its very soul”. Such a problematic use of AI wouldn’t just threaten the integrity of storytelling in the present and the future but will be a danger to the past, the “legacy of cinema” as well.
Eros, on the other hand, contends it’s legally on the right side and that its attempt was not to denigrate the original but to use the new technology to offer a fresh experience to a new audience, and that it’d be similarly reintroducing other classics as well.
Sharma says that the cuts and changes in his film have been of all kinds, from the word CM deleted in a television discussion on a political development to the erasure of some scenes that may not have been crucial but were impactful and resonated with the storyline. Like the closeup of a cat killed to threaten Vikas and his lawyer wife Nisha (Sharmila Tagore). While the first might have been out of political concerns, the second perhaps, could be out of misguided political correctness and sensitivity of the animal rights group. What’s more, the entire film has been force-fitted into a new aspect ratio.
It's unfair on everyone involved. But most so on cinematographer Subrata Mitra. Sharma remembers him for being meticulous in setting up the shots, in his use of filters. The cropped images in the new version are an abomination when it comes to Mitra's craft.
However, beyond the issues of censorship, politics, technology and sheer callousness, these two examples raise the vital question of the lopsidedness in the ownership of a cinematic creation. While, the makers—the director, writer, actors, technicians—appear to have no say in something that they themselves conceived and created, the copyright-owning producers/distributors are merrily meddling away on their own. Why should commercial rights lend them an upper hand creatively? What moral rights do artists have to prevent their work from being mutilated? Do they have protection under copyright law, especially in the rapidly-evolving digital landscape?
“Once we have made it, we have no say in our work. We are at the mercy of the rights owners,” says Sharma. All they get is the one-time payment. According to him, the contracts are ironed out much better abroad. A Wes Anderson can be strong and categorical. Francis Ford Coppola can be firm in not allowing colour edit on a scene in The Godfather just because the studio found it too dark. “There’s a professional eco-system in place that respects the technicians. Here, many producers may not have even seen their own films. They only mint money out of leasing them for streaming on YouTube,” says Sharma.
Perhaps it’s time for the creative community to take a leaf out of Javed Akhtar’s book. He lobbied for the Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012 for rights to royalties from the commercial use of their work for the lyricists and composers beyond the fiefdom of the music companies and the producers.
In retrospect, Sharma feels that bad, pirated prints of his film are more loyal to his vision than the remastered official one.
Read all columns by Namrata Joshi
NAMRATA JOSHI
Consulting Editor
Follow her on X @Namrata_Joshi