His Jaan faces many Mr Bigs!

IT WAS a paradox of sorts that filmmaker JP Dutta, who feels that “stars don’t make a hit”, spent most of his time taking questions on Ash-Abhishek, the lead stars of his forthcoming movie, Umrao Jaan Ada after arriving in the city of the famed courtesan of Awadh for promoting his period flick on Tuesday.
The movie based on Dutta’s adaptation of Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s novel is set for release around May-June.

Mention Umrao Jaan and one instantly thinks of Muzaffar Ali’s treatment of Umrao Jaan and of Rekha’s classical portrayal of the life and times of Ameeran (later Umrao) the girl who was abducted from her home and found herself thrown in the kothas of Lucknow. Would the remake of the 80s hit live up to Muzaffar Ali’s magnum opus? Whether Ash who mesmerised cine-goers with her cameo appearance in the Kajra re song in Muzaffar Ali’s son Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli, be able to match the Dil Cheez Kya Hai Aap Meri Jaan Lijiye performance of Rekha?

JP Dutta was ready with the answer. “Of course. Otherwise why would I take her in the movie? There is a certain timelessness about Ash that is vital to the character of Umrao Jaan.”

And no, he didn’t “get inspired by Muzaffar Ali’s” Umrao Jaan. “In fact my father OP Dutta had attempted a movie on the courtesan’s life but he couldn’t complete it. I just completed my father’s unfinished work.” JP was aware that before Muzaffar Ali, Umrao Jaan’s life and times were depicted on celluloid twice earlier. “The film is based on my vision. A good literature is immortal. Everyone sees and interprets it differently. My Umrao Jaan is based on my interpretation.”

Point taken. But, while affirming his faith in Ash’s natural ability, Dutta forgot that Ash wasn’t his first choice. It was Priyanka Chopra who turned the offer down to work in Bluff Master. Meanwhile, Ash was offered to work in Bluff Master but she turned it down to work in this film. “I have maintained that stars don’t make a film hit. I make films I believe in, films that have a message,” he explained. So what is the message that his Umrao Jaan seeks to give? “It surely would serve to remind about Lucknow’s glorious past and inspire youths not to let the fascinating culture of the city die. The city is such a beautiful one. It surely should not be allowed to decay and degenerate,” Dutta told HT Lucknow Live.

The film, like most Dutta films, is a multistarrer with Ash, Abhishek Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Suniel Shetty, Puru Raaj Kumar, Divya Dutta, Himani Shivpuri, Ayesha Julka, Bikram Saluja and Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Dutta’s Umrao Jaan has screenplay and dialogues by OP Dutta with music by Anu Malik who, reports say, has given some brilliant ghazals for the film. Lyrics by Javed Akhtar and Choreography by Vaibhavi Merchant too are being praised. “Passion,” he said, was what drives him to make his movies.

“When I was making LoC, the film got a bit long. But, I insisted that I won’t edit certain portions simply because the film had stretched to four hours. I had talked to so many army persons and their families and I wanted all of them in the movie, irrespective of the length,” he said.

So isn’t he worried about box office considerations? “For me there are no hits and flops. There are only good and bad movies.” This is something that his three young assistant directors, one of them being his daughter Nidhi, also testify. “I want to learn the nuances of the trade before taking over the legacy from my father,’ says Nidhi. And Karishma and Shahana, daughters of film directors Kuku Kohli and Bijon Das Gupta, who also assisted Dutta in the film, feel that they would make films ‘Dutta style’ when they have learnt it all from the master himself. The master on his part simply smiles and gets ready for another interview.