Mumbai: Rajkumar Hirani, whose next is a biopic on his 'Munnabhai' star Sanjay
Dutt, believes the actor's life story would translate better in the
fiction format.
Actor Ranbir Kapoor plays the lead role in the movie.
When
asked if the Dutt biopic could've been turned into a documentary,
Hirani said, "In a film like 'Sanju', I think it's more engaging as a
fictional film where you see another
actor doing it. Otherwise, I can just say, 'Ok here's a man who did
drugs, did this' it's boring," he said at 'Films For Change' campaign
launch of 'Good Pitch India' hosted by The Indian Documentary
Foundation.
"I feel biopics are more interesting if you see them in a fictional format, otherwise they get boring," he added.
Hirani said the medium of documentary suits certain subjects better and he experienced this with his film "PK".
"Certain
subjects will be more engaging if they are done in a fictional format.
Certain subjects will probably say more in a documentary format. In
'PK', I wanted to talk about God and religion. But in the journey of
making the film, I realised that I ended up talking very little about
it.
"There is so much to talk about God and religion that a film
format isn't enough to say. In a fiction format, you are expected to
tell your story, entertain them and still manage
to say what you want to. At some stage, I do want to make a
documentary."
Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah, who was also present at the event, said
in order to make a documentary on Dutt, people also need to have proper footage.
"In order to make a documentary on Sanjay you need to have footage of when he was born, when he went to school etc,"
Also present at the event were Javed Jaffrey, filmmakers like
Nandita Das and Rahul Dholakia. They both made "Parzania" and "Firaaq"
on Gujurat riots.
When asked if they can make those films today
in an environment where people are very touchy, Dholakia said, "I'll
make it as a documentary because you can't make it as a
feature film. It was tough then, very tough releasing the film,
censoring it back in 2005-2006... So till today we face problems because
of that.
"Considering the way everyone is so sensitive to
everything, it's almost impossible to tell something and have people
take it the right way... Today a 'Padmaavat' faces problems,
where's the question of 'Parzania'," he said.
PTI
