Adorable delulu of being Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Fans of Ram Gopal Varmarsquos film Rangeela 1995 will instantly recall this hilarious moviedirector character Steven Kapur Gulshan Grover whose competition isnrsquot local but with Hollywood I asked Varma long ago if that delulu director was a joke on Vidhu Vinod Chopra that the character actually looked like or Shekhar Kapur who he was named after Varma laughedmdashboth filmmakers insisted it was themWhich tells me Chopra of course has a sense of humour about himself He also did eventually make a film in Hollywood titled Broken Horses 2015Which sadly seemed more dated than his own pathbreaking Parinda 1989 that it was a selfremake of Parinda in turn you could argue was inspired by Elia Kazanrsquos On the Waterfront 1954 My favourite Chopra film remains the murder mystery Khamosh 1985 Back in 1979 he picked up an Oscar nomination for his shortdocumentary An Encounter With FacesThatrsquos a lifespan in films fit for a nourishingly indepth nostalgic masterclass that I readily agreed to host recently at the India Film Project IFP a cinema carnival in MumbaiAlso went through Choprarsquos book of interviews Unscripted by his screenwriter Abhijat Joshi commissioned by Chopra himself published by PenguinOver the past couple of decades Chopra 72 has been best known for films hersquos produced chiefly Rajkumar Hiranirsquos two Munnabhais 3 Idiots PK Pradeep Sarkarrsquos ParineetaAlso attracting fine talents all along Given he says he learnt from Akira Kurosawa ldquoFilmmaking is a cooperative workforce based on individual human talentrdquoHe did make a comeback as director with the commercially successful 12th Fail 2023 About his film before that Shikara 2020 Chopra told the audience at the masterclass ldquoJames Cameron at the time shooting Avatar walked up to me to say Shikara reminds him of his favourite film ever Dr ZhivagordquoAt the event Chopra said he wished to tease the motion poster of his next release Zero Se Restart Restart was the catchwordtagline for 12th Fail Even if the film is a sequel thatrsquos a crazy turnaround time I thought to be ready with a release alreadyThe motion poster essentially with Chopra himself on it and a background score opened for the audience Donrsquot know what they made of it I couldnrsquot tell much from the trailer hersquod played for me earlier eitherIs it a BTS behind the scenesmakingof videofeature for 12th Fail He flatly said no introducing me to the filmrsquos young director Jaskunwar Kohli Fully excited onstage Chopra played that poster againBy which time he had already left his chair with the mic pacing up and down the stage eventually descending from it walking straight into the crowds looking them in the eyes answering questions such as How do you write charactersldquoYou have to see yourself in themmdash12th Fail is me Rancho 3 Idiots is me Munnabhai is mehelliprdquo A wit remarked to me later he hoped Circuit wasnrsquot him tooBut the crowds were deliriously lapping this up At some point he promised ldquoIrsquoll book this hall and have you all back I can do it Irsquom successfulrdquoSelflove is intrinsic to showbiz I donrsquot say it I see it Maybe the boisterousness comes from the mythmaking that movies inherently involve What good are you gonna be in it if you donrsquot believe and unabashedly promote your own purposemythsThis seminarcissism also gets sufficiently admired Politicians startup founders lately find the same love back from their constituents As blokes in showbiz particularly stars always haveAlso you also donrsquot mess with Chopra I know hersquos chased down a film critic with a knife on the road once Therersquos a story everybodyrsquos heard about him biting the wrist of his female lead Shabana Raza screen name Neha on the sets of Kareeb 1998That was a directorial instruction Raza is married to actor Manoj Bajpayee who confirmed this anecdoteMidway through this supposed masterclass I told Chopra on stage ldquoI donrsquot wanna get between you and the audiencerdquo booking him for a proper chat for another day that hersquoll hopefully honourmdashsimultaneously saving the date for firstdayfirstshow of his forthcoming theatrical release on December 13Yup went What is Zero Se Restart with Chopra credited as ldquoconsulting editor and directorrdquo starring himself as hero Itrsquos not his life story Just him directing a filmThe Zero I guess implies four directors passed up the script that he then had to direct himself which hersquos been doing all along anyway noThe conflict relates to finding four locations and working around them while his assistants label him ldquogeniusrdquo delivering a ldquomasterstrokerdquomdashone of them from ldquoHollywood areardquo says ldquoDonrsquot know how anyone in Hollywood could shoot thisrdquoActually I love BTS footage especially directorrsquos commentarycut etcmdashyou miss that from the DVD era Sitting alone in a dark hall big screen over a prepostinterval 115 minutesrsquo feature I just wondered aloud ldquoWhat am I doing in a frickinrsquo theatrerdquoBefore the movie ends with Chopra winning the lsquoIIFA awardrsquo it flips to how Chopra was unsure about his moviemaking decisions still confidently making such decisive movesWhile showing me the trailer of Zero Se Restart Chopra mentioned to me that Hollywood star Joseph GordonLevitt had called it Federico Fellinirsquos 8frac12Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper