Showing posts with label Anup Singh interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anup Singh interview. Show all posts
My memories were joyful, and Irrfan and I had so much fun together as well. I rewrote much of what I had written-Anup Singh
8:17 AM
![Singh remembers in his book how memories of Irrfan kept cropping up after he passed on. He writes, “And I want this torrent of memories to stop. Yet I am relieved when they don’t. The horror in his eyes during the shoot of Qissa: The Tale of a Lonely Ghost [2014], our first film together, when I spring a scene on him in which he has to dance. During the shoot of The Song of Scorpions [2017], our second film together, he holds up a scorpion by its tail and caresses its head. At the film’s premiere at Locarno, hesitant but, finally, with a cigarette in his mouth, he joins me and Golshifteh Farahani, the Iranian actor and the female protagonist of the film, in the blue, storm-rippled Lake Como”](https://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2022/feb/irrfan-galery-a_e.jpg)
In a new book, director Anup Singh brings the late actor to life, with vignettes of how the gifted star brought to screen his unique presence
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; February 13, 2022)
“The strange thing is that I never really thought I would be writing a book about Irrfan,” director Anup Singh tells us during a telephonic interview. “But when someone close to you passes away, you are haunted by the memories, and painful ones at that.”
Singh is speaking of actor Irrfan Khan, who passed away in April 2020, after having struggled with a neuroendocrine tumour for three years. Cherished in India and internationally for his calm yet powerful performances in The Namesake, Piku, Paan Singh Tomar and The Lunchbox, he was an actor for all generations. When he died, many including his fans felt a personal loss.
Singh, who first met the actor in the ’90s, and has worked with him in Qissa (2013) and Songs Of Scorpions (2017), found a friend in Khan. “It’s his curiosity that led him along, as a man and actor,” says Singh, who is the author of Irrfan, Dialogues With The Wind (Copper Coin), a book he says he wrote to honour his friend, and remember him some more.
Excerpts from the interview.
How did the book become an idea you didn’t give up on?
Irrfan had passed away, and the days kept passing, with a storm of memories. This was painful. I wanted to not remember, and silence it all. Let’s say, I was going for a walk, and there was a cloud in the sky, and its tail was moving away from it. I would feel that if Irrfan saw this, he would embody it in his body. If I went for a drive, and there was a gentle curve in the road, I would feel that Irrfan would appreciate it. We were going to work on a movie that was about dance, and I used to feel that may be Irrfan would use this curve in his body when we spoke about dance. I was unable to get over and past him.
That’s a lovely way to direct someone.
It was in the 1990s, when I first met him, and we were doing something for television. I was in front of the front of the camera, working out a movement I wanted him to do. And I was humming. Then suddenly, I heard someone singing. It was Irrfan, watching me. When he did the shot, he was still singing the melody. He then told me, “Anup saab, now every time we work together, you have to give me a melody.” That was how we connected for the first time as actor-director.
This was a running thread, and I realised that I couldn’t run away from my memories. He was appearing [before me] all the time, there was no escape. Perhaps, there was a reason for this. Maybe he was saying that I had left something incomplete. So first, I wrote down the dance movie we were supposed to work on. As I did that, there was a calm that came over me. While I was writing the script, I kept a notebook, and whenever a memory came to me, I jotted it. I also used to sometimes share this on social media. On reading this, one of my friends called me and said, “My suggestion to you is, write more, remember more.”
As an actor, and man, he found a place in both the discerning or the aloof movie watcher’s heart. How did that happen, you think?
He had an immense curiosity about everything. For example, if he saw a pebble, he would study it for hours, and hypothesize as to what gave the pebble its colour, where had it travelled to take on the shape it had now, and how many other hands had held it. What went with that was also an insecurity—his acting was full of pauses and hesitation, and that is something we all related to without understanding it, really. All this translated on to screen, and he became a part of us.
How would you like the book to be received?
When I read it the first time, I realised it was full of grief. And that was not right. My memories were joyful, and we had so much fun together as well. I rewrote much of what I had written, and tried to bring to life the lilt that Irrfan carried within him. I got into rhythm. I hope that when the reader finishes the book, if only for a few days, he is able to live with Irrfan’s lilt.
For once, his timing was wrong-Anup Singh remembers Irrfan Khan
8:10 AM
Director Anup Singh remembers the much-beloved star who died on Wednesday
MUMBAI MIRROR (April 30, 2020)
Irrfan and I — we could chat non-stop or sit in silence for hours. While shooting, we communicated wordlessly, often through a simple glance, a shake of the head, a small gesture of the hand or we would play some music for each other to try and get a sense of what we needed in a scene. Let me try and share with you as to how we came to this kind of intimate communication and what that really tells us about this very special human being - Irrfan Khan.When we were shooting Qissa in Punjab and then The Song Of Scorpions in the immense Thar desert of Rajasthan, Irrfan would often disappear during breaks, between shots or at lunch. When we were ready to shoot, everyone on the film set knew where to find him. We just had to look up at the sky. And wherever there was a kite dancing, we knew that’s where Irrfan was. He was obsessed with kite flying. When he arrived to shoot The Song Of Scorpions, he carried about twenty kites of all colours with him. “What’s with you and kites?” I asked him once.
“You can control it, with skill you can control it quite a bit and let it play and dance with all kinds of wind. But there’s always some gust of wind that will send it crashing to the earth. How you get it to rise again takes more than skill. Flying a kite teaches me that every little shift in the wind is important. Isn’t that what acting is, really?”
Early, during the shooting of Qissa, I chanced upon him humming and singing softly. It was a strange song, because he was improvising the rhythms and the tune with the film’s dialogue. I sat there listening to him and understood slowly what he was doing. By humming, singing the dialogue, he was finding its tone, its inflection, its melody. That which plays under the drama, that which is the real story of a character—his or her inner spirit, often hidden even from the person articulating the dialogue. But, always there, just under the surface, relating us to the deepest recesses of what it means to be a human being.
And, of course, that’s what made so many filmmakers all over the world want to work with him. It was a joy to work with him. There was no mask that he hid behind. He refused to fake his feelings or his thoughts. Those who have worked with him know that once you won his trust, he would be there for you—open, with child-like curiosity and an intense desire to travel into the creative unknown with you.
While shooting Qissa, I once walked off the set because of a problem with one of the producers. Later that night, Irrfan came into my room with his music system. He set it up himself and then played the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for me for hours. It was only early in the morning that he left when he finally saw me smiling.
He was just as giving with his co-actors. With Tillotama Shome, for instance, during the same shoot, he would never give her advice but if he saw that she was nervous, he would point to a bird or crack a small joke.
Those of us who knew him, watched him on the screen, were bequeathed a legacy whether we realise it or not. What we do with that legacy will define us.
An artist of his passion leaves behind something ineffable and yet more powerful than a thousand suns. He leaves behind the truth of feelings. Love, anger, joy, compassion. He has left us intimations of depths of feeling.
This was his covenant with us, and the sum of all his performances gives us the measure of our humanity. We’re pledged to honour it.
—The writer is a Geneva-based filmmaker who directed Irrfan Khan in films such as Qissa and The Song Of Scorpions
I have written a third film with Irrfan Khan in mind-Anup Singh
7:24 AM
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 14, 2017)
After working together in the critically acclaimed 2015 drama Qissa,
Irrfan Khan reunited with Anup Singh for The Song of Scorpions in which
he plays a camel trader who falls in love with a tribal woman played by
Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani. The film will be making its world
premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and has been invited to ring in
the festival’s 70th anniversary on August 9 at the Piazza Grande, one of
the finest open-air venues in the world. Both Irrfan and Golshifteh
will be attending the premiereA jubilant Anup informed Mirror that the role of the leading man demanded both fragility and ruthlessness as is characteristic of a person truly and passionately in love. “After his electric performance in my last film Qissa, I knew Irrfan was the only actor who would be able to live the heightened emotions of this character with authenticity, intelligence and flair and give us all a new and stunning insight into love,” he asserted, admitting that though they finished shooting it in 2016, the film is still not ready. “We are racing to give it its finishing touches a few weeks away from the world premiere. After Locarno we would like to travel with it to some chosen film festivals before we release it in India.”
Speaking to Mirror (July 11) earlier, Irrfan was all praise for Anup describing him as “an extremely talented director” and a “greater visual artist”. “He has crafted a heart-warming tale of love interspersed with some beautiful music, which I was immediately drawn to it,” he informed.
The film will also mark a comeback of sorts for veteran actress Waheeda Rehman, whose last Hindi film outing was Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s 2009 Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor-starrer Delhi-6. “Waheedaji is in New York at the moment and was overjoyed to hear the news when I spoke to her on the phone today. She gave us her blessings and is keen to travel with the film to the next festival,” Anup shared.
After Qissa and The Song of Scorpions is he planning a third film with Irrfan to complete a hattrick? “I have written a new script with him in mind and I’m waiting for a calm moment when I can sit down without any distractions and talk to him about it,” he signed off.
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