Where Sanjay Gupta gets his dark side

Those familiar with Korean director Park-Chan Wook8217;s blood-and-gore rushes of Old Boy will disagree, but Gupta has unabashedly maintained that Zinda is his baby. Recently, a Mumbai daily devoted an entire page to the visuals of both films to prove that Gupta has copied scenes from the Korean film, frame by frame. None of Gupta8217;s films have escaped comparison with foreign films8212;Kaante with Quentin Tarantino8217;s Reservoir Dogs, Musafir with Oliver Stone8217;s U-Turn.

The 37-year-old director8217;s unapologetic alibi: 8216;8216;Every recent Indian film is a copy. I8217;m the media8217;s punching bag because I have no qualms about admitting it. With the home video revolution, film-makers across the world are borrowing. The idea is to be identified with a particular kind of aesthetic. In my case, it8217;s the Tarantino-Darren Aronofsky school of film-making.8217;8217;

The making of Sanjay Gupta is an extension of the same rationale. The middle-class boy from Santacruz, Mumbai, gets an entry into Tinseltown in the early 8217;90s, when borrowing from Western action thrillers is at its peak. An enthusiastic Gupta, already fed on Hollywood action blockbusters, gets a job as assistant director to Raj Sippy, director of forgettable titles such as Thanedar, Loha, Boxer and Mr Bond. On the sets of Thanedar, a young Gupta makes fun of a stunt performed by its hero Sanjay Dutt because it is 8216;8216;too contrived8217;8217;. The star is intrigued, they start talking, and a friendship develops between the two, culminating about a decade later in White Feather Films, a collaboration that has produced films like Kaante, Plan, Musafir and Zinda.

All this while, Gupta is taken in by the DVD revolution and closely follows every cult director from all over the world. The idiom that emerges is defined less by original ideas, and more by structure, form and style. Even now, after three largely successful films, when Gupta talks about his favourite director, you almost want to tell him to give it a break.

His mini theatre at home has a collection of obscure independent films, cult classics, documentaries, European gems and action thrillers from all over the world. Taking me through some of the titles, Gupta says, 8216;8216;I was watching Old Boy with Sanju Dutt and both of us loved it. We got down to discussing it threadbare and decided to make something like it, and that8217;s how Zinda happened. But if you look closely, I8217;ve moved away from the Michael Bay-Tony Scott style of film-making to the David Fincher-Darren Aronofsky school, which is stylised, but controlled.8217;8217; The reference points in our conversation are endless. So why not give the inspiration credit? 8216;8216;You don8217;t officially spell it out, do you? Nobody does. Old Boy itself is adapted from Alexandre Dumas8217; novel The Count of Monte Cristo, so in film nothing is really exclusive,8217;8217; reasons Gupta.

Two hours with him, and you come away with a sense that he dissects even his own life in terms of a Fincher or Aronofsky film. Having separated from his wife, Gupta lives alone in his large suburban bungalow with two dogs and over a thousand DVDs. 8216;8216;The violence in Zinda is matter-of-fact. I8217;m gradually moving towards simplicity. That8217;s also what8217;s happening in my personal life. I8217;m beginning to exorcise my demons. I8217;m more in touch with myself now.8217;8217;

Gupta grew up in a broken home with his mother and chose not to confront the trauma until much later. He absorbed himself in the dramatics club of Mumbai8217;s Sydenham College while assisting Sippy, and continued watching dark, bloody films because 8216;8216;silly, happy, pretty films8217;8217; never excited him.

The kind of break he was in search of almost came with Kaante, which, despite labeling him 8216;wannabe Tarantino8217;, got him some laurels. Post the six-crooked-thugs-one-straight-cop story, Gupta became identified with stylised violence and the guy who gave Sanjay Dutt a new, slick avatar.

After Kaante, Musafir and Zinda Gupta calls them his trilogy, industry insiders are sceptical of his box office success. Zinda is already a flop. 8220;His only USP is that he repackages foreign films for the masses. But even in that sense, Zinda didn8217;t work because the overdose of violence wasn8217;t palatable to the masses,8221; says trade analyst Taran Adarsh. Others say Sanjay Dutt has been the only crowd-puller in his last three films. 8220;Before Kaante, he made a film called Hamesha with Saif Ali Khan, which was better than all his other works,8221; says Adarsh.

Gupta himself doesn8217;t hesitate to admit that Dutt is his calling card. A mention of Dutt gets an emotional response out of him8212;8216;8216;I8217;m nobody without him and I can8217;t think of making films without him. He8217;s my guardian angel.8217;8217;

Dutt8217;s career hasn8217;t fluctuated with the box office tides of Gupta8217;s films, but the star associates a sense of fun with Gupta and White Feather Films. The duo is known as the Karan Johar-Shah Rukh Khan alternative. 8216;8216;We initially wanted to call the banner 8216;Our Kind of Films8217;, but later decided on White Feather because in Europe a white feather symbolises purity and longevity. Working with Sanjay is like home. We have a comfort level that is difficult to achieve in the film industry,8217;8217; says Dutt.

Gupta is thinking bigger for his star. He says he8217;s determined to move towards simpler narratives and do away with editing tricks as much as possible. He8217;s watching less films and living life because 8220;that8217;s where the real stories are8221;. But old habits die hard. 8216;8216;I want to go deeper into the realm of psychological violence rather than blood and gore. Something like Alajendro Gonzalez Innaritu8217;s 21 Grams. I8217;d love to make that film, you know,8217;8217; he says.