On the filmmaker’s 60th birthday, we take a deep dive into his words and wisdom
Some would say filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s work speaks louder than his words. He made his directorial debut in 1996 with Khamoshi: The Musical and has since enraptured us with larger-than-life visuals, stories that linger and songs that imprint themselves upon our memory. An imagination that has become grander with every film, Bhansali’s world is one in which ostentation is the norm, where emotions run high and every detail is dramatic.
“I’m enjoying it (life) to the fullest through my characters,” Bhansali said in an interview, and we don’t doubt it. In his interviews with Film Companion, the filmmaker with a soft spot for dal chawal gives us insight into a mind that thinks in frames and melodies. Here are some of our favourite quotable quotes from Sanjay Leela Bhansali:
“I could be a very middle-class person in my behaviour but when I make a film, I make it like a king.”
“I’m still very jealous of K. Asif saab and say, “When will I ever be able to make a film of that calibre and that nuance and that lyricism of being completely connected to the supreme?” Kamal Amrohi was connected to another energy, another level of creative angels. Those creative angels when they invoke, they stand by it for ten years, twelve years and nothing changes, nothing goes away.”
“If two people just get together and skip into the horizon, I get bored of it. … There should be pain when there is love.”
“I express myself more effortlessly, easily and with more control through a visual, a scene, a sequence or a film. I don't find the need to talk in words. My communication, for me, to the world through words is redundant.”
“I like people with wit and sense of humour – they’re very important.”
“I enjoy people a lot, of course. But then again, I get consumed by what I want to do. I want to listen to music in my car and go into some other world or watch a great painting or maybe an old classic that you discover and rediscover. So life is beautiful in that sense.”
“As a filmmaker, no moment should be a lie.”
“All my nuances of filmmaking come from my understanding of Lata Mangeshkar’s music. There are chapters and chapters written, hidden, unfolding secretly every time I go through [her songs].”
“The value of a frame is sacrosanct for me.”
“Box office matters not for the money but for the number of people who come and see the film. Your work of art of incomplete if it is not seen.”
“Finally find god somewhere, waiting for you there, and says, “Well done.” When I say god, it could be Raj Kapoor, Shantaram and the great Guru Dutt.”
“When I’m enjoying life, I’m enjoying it to the fullest through my characters. Not through my own personal living.”
“You have to express fully. A flower blossoms completely, there are thorns that come with it also. Some things are acceptable, some things will hurt, some things will have fragrance and then you will perish at the end of it. So while it is blossoming, while it’s growing, you must do it to your fullest. Bloom away.”
“If there was a marriage between Guru Dutt and Meena Kumari, their daughter would be my heroines.”
“I’m a very simple person. My favourite city is film city. My favourite food is dal chawal. My favourite pass time is watching news and that’s it.”
